AIBU for telling my friend that being a SAHP and working full time are both equally difficult?

[AnitaLovesIndianFood]

sorry, this is a long post

So my best friend won’t talk to me for days now.

Basically she had an argument with her DH about division of labour in the house. She said that she expects her husband to also do housework when he comes home from his 60 hour a week job as a GP. He says that he is too tired and needs to rest when he is home, but she says “I work 24 hours as a SAHP, so should you”.

She then vented to me and asked my opinion. I personally believe that being a SAHP isn’t as hard as people say it is. BEFORE people jump down my throat, this is my own personal opinion based on personal experience. Both my husband and I had our turns being stay at home parents with both of our children. When one of us was staying home, we made sure that the one working outside the house had to do minimal work in the house. Both of us agreed that having the ability to stay at home and watch our children grow up with a privilege rather than a burden. Again, that’s just our opinion.

Anyway, back to my friend. When she first had kids, she dictated to her husband that she was going to stay at home while he works, even though I remember him asking they could divide the home and work duties so that they both get equal time with the kids. She didn’t agree, and I remember her telling me that she finds a man who wants to be at home unattractive.

Fast forward to now. When she asked me if I think her husband is being unreasonable by not helping in the house when he comes home, I said that I agree with her husband. I’ve seen how hard my local GP works; countless 10 minute appointments one after the other, making potentially life changing decisions in each of them. I can only imagine how exhausted my friend’s husband is. Of course he needs to switch his mind off after such a mentally taxing work.

I then politely reminded her of how she chose this, she refused to accept an arrangement with her husband in which childcare is shared, so now she needs to live with her decision. I again asked her how she would feel if her husband was to reduce his hours to part-time, and she started working part time again so that they could both equally split the home duties.

She then refused to talk to me, said that I was disrespecting all stay at home parents and that I’m a disgrace to women. She said that as a mum myself I should appreciate how difficult being a SAHP is. She basically wanted me to agree that her role is more difficult than his, even though she happily accepts the lifestyle associated with being married to a high earner.

Now she won’t talk to me until I be a good friend and take her side. I don’t know what to do, I’m risking throwing away a friendship I’ve had my whole life, but I fundamentally do not agree with her and I’ve never been someone to just agree for the sake of harmony.

What would you do? What can I do to make her forgive me without compromising my stance?

Well being a SAHP is surely the same as being a nanny but with extra housework and more stressful emotionally. So it makes no sense to say that it’s easier than a job.

Mumsnet doesn’t really like SAHPs so I don’t think it’s fair to ask on here because most people are going to take your side.

I think YABU, I’ve been a SAHP, in a couple working part time, a single parent working part time and a single parent working full time now so I currently do it all. What I would say is that everything has its own difficulties but what I would find most difficult is being a SAHP with a partner who works and is then disengaged with home.
I get that someone working 60 hours is going to need down time etc, however if they took it to the extreme of relinquishing any responsibility at home I would struggle to respect them and that is the death call for any relationship. Equally I wouldn’t expect them to take on 50/50 of the household tasks overall but I would expect to work as a team when they were home.

I don't think it matters what's easier- what's matters is she's your friend and obviously having a hard time and she probably just wanted a vent to her best mate. Not to be told she made her bed now she has to lay in it.

I think you should apologise and try and move on.

Ps. I disagree that people who work should not have to do anything to maintain the household they live in. SAHP doesn't automatically mean sole housekeeper, cook, cleaner etc etc.

I think it’s irrelevant which is ‘easier’ - she may be the at home parent- doing childcare - in the day; that’s her day job in the team - but the evenings the kids are everyone’s responsibility. He doesn’t get to do nothing at home because he is working for the good of the team; so is she. She should be doing more of the home load but I don’t think he’s exempt from doing some things. She’s not his skivvy! I’ll be honest and say these threads always descend into hating on SAHM’s. It’s an unpopular line to tow but I always think these threads are full to the brim with bitterness/jealousy/personal projections. Really it’s irrelevant which is ‘easier’; it’s about what a level playing field looks like to your friend, in her marriage.

And the husband does help on weekends, the only thing he asks is that on weeknight he has a few hours to himself when he comes home

This kind of stuff really makes me annoyed. Don't have children if you don't want to help raise them!!

I can't imagine spending all day running around after toddlers - the playing, the fighting, the tantrums, the mess - for my DP to come home and tell me he needs a few hours to himself every evening. Which presumably means be wouldn't even see his children during the week if he's doing 60hrs so probably doesn't get home early.

I'm with your friend. Everything at home should still be shared in my view.

Heck no. She sounds lazy and entitled. She wants her husband to work almost twice the number of hours most people work so she can be bankrolled. She refuses to work even though he agreed he would support her return to work and yet she claims she has a difficult life? She doesn't know the meaning of difficult.

I’m married to a hospital doctor, I have joked being married to a medic is like being a financially secure single mother, you’re the only one doing the grunt work and frankly the responsibility for potentially messing up your kids solo is scary.

Im not a SAHP now but have been and think it was thoroughly depressing, dealing with adults is far less frustrating than dealing with a disgruntled toddler who has the arse because they have the wrong plate. Patients have to bloody behave themselves or security gets called. No such back up for a two year old having a tantrum.

Female GPS manage to come home and still be on hand for their families.

I agree with the people saying you don't seem to like or respect your friend much, so perhaps she is picking up on that with your tone. Sure, it's usually a phase and eventually the balance tips and being the SAHP is easier, but to expect someone to be the 24/7 carer, cook, housekeeper, etc. during the early years sucks. Just because he earns a lot, doesn't give him a pass to completely abdicate all responsibility when he's not at his job. If it were me, I would have listened to her and tried to find out why she is struggling so much right now as a SAHP but not be patronizing and tell her that I found being a SAHP a breeze. Because there were times for me and probably many other SAHP when I was overwhelmed and at the end of my rope by the time my partner came home. I might have suggested hiring more help a cleaner, gardener, paying to have laundry done, delivering groceries, etc.

Being at home with children all day every day isn’t easy.

However, working full time and also being a parent is significantly harder. Her husband needs to spend time with the kids when he comes home, otherwise when else will he get a chance?

I’ve done both and being a working parent is hard.

If I had an opportunity to be at home with my children I feel I could plan in time to do the majority of the housework tbh. Unless my child had additional support needs.

The exception to this is in the early days when you have a newborn. Those days are hard and not for housework!

Yes. mumsnet is glitchy on my phone and doesn’t always post comments unless I use the quote function, it was just the quickest way to reply after reading the OP. It isn’t really hard to scroll for an extra half a second.

I think that’s why it’s harder: “boring and unchallenging”, work isn’t like that at all.

Even if children have additional needs I still think it’s easier being a sahp than working assuming children are in school. I totally understand that when kids have additional needs sometimes the choice is taken away and parents cannot work as it just doesn’t work practically but in a theoretical situation of two identical situations and children I think it’s easier not to be working than working, if working you still have to do everything else and childcare for sn is non existent. I’m by no means saying that all parents of children with sn should be working and obviously some sn are more complex than others so that in itself is harder and if anything lots of parents would like to be working but can’t due to situation p. Obviously the money from working makes life slightly easier

FinallyFeb · Yesterday 15:03

*I found being a SAHM very easy, I got all house jobs done during the day so my DH and I could have the evenings and weekends to relax.

One year with two under two was totally mad but then it got a lot easier.

I do think some people get stressed and are busy whatever they do with their time so maybe your friend genuinely does find it hard.
Can I ask how ok earth you managed this? I find there's no time between feeding, toileting and naps to fit in anything expect maybe some reading if I'm lucky!*

I am not sure really, I guess I’m quite a routine person and my DC had routines so for example I’d spend the first half of my toddlers nap doing housework and the second chilling with the baby. My DC we’re excellent sleepers so this helped as I wasn’t exhausted.
I found it easier to go out so we’d be at various toddler groups or the crèche at my gym everyday. When we got back I did kids tea and stuck something in the oven for my DH and I and my young teenage DS who’d get back home around the time I’d get back from wherever I’d been.
I had a fairly large new build house that was easy to keep clean and a playroom off the kitchen was useful. My logic was to have a busy day and then have the evenings free rather than do jobs in the evenings.

Under normal circumstances DH works full time and I am part time. Two of our children have additional needs. Around three or four times a year I need to work much longer hours and am sometimes away from home. During this time DH tends to take TOIL or annual leave so he can drop his working hours to fit around 9-3. We will both tell you that the person who is working full time is not having an easier time at all.

I never understand why people suggest that being a sahp is like being a nanny.

Do some people genuinely feel that there is no difference between looking after their own kids and being paid to look after someone else's? I can't see the point of being a SAHP at all if that's how they feel.

It depends on the job. My job I would say is easier than being a sahp, but it's 40 hours a week, flexible, I can WFH etc. But other jobs (e.g. GP, teacher) would be harder! So YANBU in this case. If your friend really thought that being a SAHP was harder surely she would opt for both parents going part time to "give herself a break" (by going to work)?

People rarely compare like for like on threads like these.

Unless working away from home, women tend still to do the bulk of chores/childcare even if they work full-time. So of course a woman doing a full-time job and 70% of everything at home and carrying the mental load of balancing it all is going to find being a SAHP easier.

But that's not the deal most men get when they're working full-time, especially if there is a SAHP. They work a full-time job, yes, but then most do something between 0-30% of everything else and only rarely bear the majority of the mental load for sorting logistics and keeping things going.

Because child-centric activities are unbelievably dull. I structure my time with them, it’s enriching and just for them. I enjoy their company and quirks. But I have to balance all that with the utter tedium of taking on more of the domestic load. None of it is taxing, none of it uses much of my brain, and I find it boring. To the point once I’ve done bedtime, worked out and had dinner, I go to my study to write or work.

I don't feel there is a difference in the main. If you're a SAHP doing it properly, I don't see what difference there is.

The only real difference I can see is that of you're a nanny, you can ring in sick and as a SAHP you can't!

Wow. I honestly can't get my head around that. I always found being with my own dc really easy but other people's dc are much harder work!

I would hate to think of my dc as hard work, and I'd hate her to know that I felt that way about spending time with her.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves I suppose its how you view the role of the SAHP and how long you do it for (in my case nearly 10 years). It's not that I didn't enjoy it, because I did, but I gave so much of myself to it, it was almost like burn out towards the end. There's a 5 year gap between my kids and just as the eldest went to school, we had a baby.

I wouldn't have put anywhere near as much effort into looking after anyone else's children as I did into looking after my own. As someone else has said, I felt accountable to my children which is why I put so much into it.

Yes, but we all put lots into our relationships with our kids, whether we work or not. That isn't about being a SAHP, it's just about being a parent. We're all ultimately accountable to our kids.

I think you're confusing the emotional labour of being a parent (which all of us do) with the practical work of looking after small children for a certain number of hours each day. I can see why that might seem to merge into one and the same if you're a SAHP, but it isn't.

Have to agree, sure I find the weekends when at home with the kids quite exhausting but days I’ve been at work I’m just completely shattered, clinical role too, lots of patients to review, if a single thing gets missed it could potentially be catastrophic juggling with time pressures and the emotional work of communicating and helping people going through difficult stages of their lives, completely zapped after work and literally want to do nothing but shower and bed whereas don’t feel like that when hubby comes home from work and I’ve been at home with kids, even when they were babies