Do I have unreasonable expectations of SAHP role?

[Babysharkdodo123]

Currently on mat leave with 4 month old. 22 month old in nursery couple of days as no family around to help and wanted to keep routine.

Dog needed to go to vets this morning for routine boosters so I asked DH if he could take her as i would have to juggle both kids and dog. Appointment at 8.30am so before work. He said no "why couldn't I do it as he was at work earning the money" (for ref I only get SMP).

I then got asked what I was doing today (meeting friends new baby) which was met with "oh, I thought you could get through some of the laundry".

So AIBU that household maintenance ie dogs, drs appointments, cleaning, laundry, cooking, grocery shopping should be shared in non working hours? If I was at work and DCs in nursery then no one would be home to do all of these jobs so they'd have to be shared out. Just because I'm on mat leave I don't think it should be expected that I do everything and DH wakes up, leaves and earns money.

considering OP has the opportunity for down time during the day
When?

I think it's a bit different when you're on mat leave with a very young baby, possibly still recovering from the birth etc. That isn't exactly a SAHP role imo.

For an actual SAHP, I think it really just depends on what you've negotiated and agreed between you when the decision is made to have one person SAH. There are no rights and wrongs to it, just what you agree between both parties. The default arrangement is that everything needs to be shared 50/50 - earning, childcare, domestic tasks etc. Any deviation from that would need to be by mutual agreement as to what is fair from both perspectives.

Personally, I wouldn't have been willing to be sole breadwinner with DH as a SAHP unless he had been willing to take on the vast majority of the household stuff as well as childcare - I would have felt that he wasn't pulling his weight and I would have resented that. Having him at home to just do childcare would have felt really unfair to me. That isn't a judgement on anyone else, just a statement on how I would have felt.

I totally get that some people feel differently and think that a SAHP role is mainly about childcare and that everything else should be shared 50/50. I think that's totally fair enough as long as both partners are on the same page with it.

The problem only arises when one person - whether it is the WOHP or the SAHP - feels like they are doing more than their fair share, or at least that they are expected to do so. That way lies resentment and it will fester.

So personally, if you are planning to SAH post mat leave, I don't think you will find your answer to these questions on MN. The only effective way is to sit down with your DH and negotiate an arrangement that feels fair to both of you. If you can't get to that, then I guess the only option is to revert to the default position in which each of you are equally responsible for everything.

Having been on maternity leave twice meeting loads of mums I can honestly say I've never come across a single person who would claim they never had a one second to themselves all day.

Sitting on the sofa with a napping baby, a biscuit and a cup of tea isn't classed as down time to you?

Because most working people / people pursing gainful employment have interpersonal contacts with other adults during a regular workweek.
Whether that’s a short tea/coffee break, lunch with coworkers (or a friend), smoke breaks, team meetings, “water cooler talks” etc.

SAHM won’t have that unless they make the conscious choice to go out and meet other adults. Aka meeting a friend for coffee, mummy meet-ups etc.

and these interpersonal contacts are incredibly important for (most) people’s mental health.

I also believe that non-work related socialising is important for people that work (whether FT or PT) btw. It is simply my belief that it is much more important for the primary carers of small children / during maternity leave.

It depends on what you call downtime. It never happened for me, as my baby only napped when being walked in the pushchair, then would wake up and want feeding if I stopped to sit in a cafe.

Also, the sheet exhaustion means if you do get time sitting down, you can't really relax or enjoy it. As for the idea of running a hoover round the home, actually I had to preserve every bit of energy I could in order to be able to manage difficult essentials like getting out or shopping. Extras like hoovering were way down the priority list.

No. It’s perfectly lovely but what I and lots of mothers crave is to be alone, not touched, and not responsible for another human being: that’s downtime.

Of course the baby napping on you is one of the easier points of the day but that phase doesn’t last long at all, and coincides neatly with the needing to recover bit, so of course you should be sitting down. It’s also only relevant if your baby does that. My first only napped in the sling, outdoors, if I kept walking. My second would have happily kept me glued to the sofa but I had my first to look after and give attention to, and answering endless “do cats fly? Where is space?” questions with a baby napping on you, and no biscuit because then the preschooler wants one too, isn’t downtime.

Plus the off-the-charts step count phase as you do pram naps before they’re old enough to train into cot naps, then the off-the-charts step count phase once they start crawling, and the can’t-sit-down-during-naps (because weaning and food prep and clearing up and the laundry suddenly doubles) phase are all just around the corner. So even if you do consider a baby snoozing on you as equivalent to a pint after work with friends, it’s got a cut-off point.

So many of these posts smack of the typical MN perspective that absolutely nothing in the word could possibly be as difficult as looking after a baby / child - it’s all a bit smug and irritating. You can 100% look after children, manage a household, and have a social life if you’re a SAHP. And having a job that you have to work at 9-5 (likely longer) is hardly all that relaxing. OP booking the appointment for the vet intentionally for her husband to do before he goes to work is ridiculous. Book it for one of the days the toddler is in nursery. As a few PP have said, there is an astonishing level of entitlement in some of these posts.

I found being at home with my own brood of children much easier than being at work at looking after thirty if other people’s!

I loved all of my maternity leaves. Some people love it, others hate it-that’s fine.

@IActuallyDidItMyself , I just find it so odd that for generations women have looked after the children, done the housework the shopping and cooking and laundry and all of a sudden simply looking after the children is a full time job. Sometimes in difficult circumstances it might be but generally it really isn’t and they are being deeply unfair to their partners who do have full time jobs. Not a popular opinion on here but the truth as I see it.

Do what works for you. When I was on maternity I did everything, shopping, housework, washing, ironing etc - everything - and got up with the baby during the night apart from a Saturday night. The kids were usually in bed when my hubby arrived home from work. I was quite happy with that tbh and still had loads of free time to spend doing whatever. This changed when I went back to work however and then chores were split but if you’re not working and your kids aren’t poorly then I’d expect to do the lions share at home. Having said that, if my DH could fit something like taking the dog to the vets then he would! He never got on my back about things like laundry not done either.

YABU

Honestly you both sound ridiculous - do you even like each other?!

He shouldn't be an arse and can still do housework and cooking. And you should be able to pause the 'enriching' occasionally and done so laundry

Absolutely. And as I have said upthread, with fewer labour-saving appliances as well.
Of course, grandparents were more valued then (mine certainly were) as I had no internet to help me and I wasn't under the impression that I was a world expert when my baby was a month old and my mum and MIL (who had brought up seven kids between them) know nothing.

When I was on maternity leave, I was on maternity leave. I most definitely wasn’t a SAHM and my DH never considered me one either.

Things remained 50/50 except I did more childcare obviously.

Very possible to do with both also having some leisure time to themselves.

We are much more child centric now though. My mum and MIL used to put their babies in prams in the garden for hours, so they could get on with the housework in peace. Once children were old enough they were shooed out of the house to go play with the neighbours kids. Now everyone looks back with rose tinted glasses and says how wonderful the freedom was for those children. But the main reason they were shooed out was so mums could get in with the chores and children wouldn’t be under their feet.

Many mothers were depressed with the relentless of juggling childcare and housework, with very little input from dads. Valium was the most prescribed drug in the 70s, mothers little helper

I think he should have taken the dog to the vet, it's obviously going to be hard for you with a newborn.
But I think putting a wash on is on you. Really, how long does it take? 2 minutes, 5 if you need to separate the colours. Just stick a wash on and go for a coffee with your friend.

I fully agree! I love my job, but I love maternity leave way, way more. Two kids is far easier than 30! Plus, on maternity leave I could choose to stay in my jammies all day. Can’t do that at work. Sadly.

It's the hanging the washing up to dry that's difficult with a baby, toddler and dog to watch simultaneously!

One point that tends to get overlooked is that being in the house generates its own layers of housework. More toys get pulled out, more food and drink prepared. When I went back to work, the chores were shared more, but less needed doing to maintain the house in a functional state. Some chores like laundry are unchanged, but that's fairly bitesized and straightforwards to fit around caring for children anyway.

Getting out is important to mums' sanity and babies' development. It's not necessarily the baby sensory (or whatever) itself, but it's the variation of environment, change of company, and different stimulous that's good.

The balance is somewhere in the big grey zone between mother/ SAHP does everything, and all chores done in non-work time. Certainly some chores like cleaning splatted weetabix are best dealt with promptly. Parenting does involve a certain level of maintainence cleaning up. In childcare, there will be jobs like putting toys away and wiping tables down done as part of the job by the people providing the care. Some levels of deeper cleaning will be done beyond the working day.

DS1 kept nursery time while I was on mat leave with DS2 or work hours varied. Those were the days that I'd use for errands where it was simpler to be minus a toddler in the logistics, and do something more baby-focused. It turned out that DS has additional needs which did have an effect on housework generated, sleep levels and also a collection of allergies that complicated food shopping, increased cooking load, and got value out of the washing machine.

OP needs to keep up with a certain level of household tasks and errands, but also her DH needs to have some input too beyond his employed working hours and not treat OP as staff.

Are you actually serious?!

I agree with this actually. It's all about give and take and the practicalities of getting everything done that needs to be done while leaving enough time for both parents to relax a bit

I think people are missing the point entirely about the laundry. The OP never said she couldn't do the laundry or she expected her husband to do it. She said

I then got asked what I was doing today (meeting friends new baby) which was met with "oh, I thought you could get through some of the laundry"

Would you all be happy with your husband directing what housework you do when on maternity leave? Giving you instructions to not visit your friend but instead do the laundry? I certainly wouldn't be.

Your initial post makes it sound like you want to leave all chores etc for once he's home to share, which actually just puts pressure on you all to do everything from 6 pm onwards. But it sounds like you ARE doing chores, washing etc., you're just not scrubbing the floors with a baby strapped to you from 8-6.

I think that's reasonable. You're first responsibility is childcare. You're entitled to food and a pee and a cuppa, just like he is. Reasonably, that's gonna be when the kids are napping.

I'd expect you to try and keep stuff fairly tidy as you go, and then work as a team once he's home.

Has he ever had the kids by himself?

you are on mat leave not a sahp! That’s focused on looking after your baby not doing vet visits.

Meet friends new baby. Somewhere child friendly where babies can sit quietly and nap / toddler can have cake or can run around and play.

Vets. Adding a dog to the things you need to hold and make behave. Toddler has to sit there quietly for god knows how long. Baby also hoping will sleep. When you go in to see vetz possibly with an upset dog, drag two kids, both of whom with the potential to also get very upset.

So yeah, totally the same experience 🙄

@Katypp the way our garden is laid out is the lawn (and washing line) is down half a flight of concrete steps, so about a six foot drop. I wouldn’t like to negotiate that with a basket of washing together with a baby, toddler and dog.