Should a sahm do dh ironing?

[crocly]

I have 2 small children and one due in October and I hate ironing.
I haven't ironed dh shirts in about a year since I told him I was not going to do it.
The ironing pile has grown over the past year and dh is complaining he has no clothes and he keeps asking for them to be ironed and nothings been ironed in a year.
It's all his T-shirts I don't iron my clothes and I don't iron the children's unless it's a particular item that needs it.
I am a sahm at the moment but I really don't like ironing and nor does he am I right to refuse as he wears it, he irons it or is this just part of my role as a sahm?

I never iron knitted cotton clothes. What fresh hell is this?

I'm a SAHM, he does his own ironing

I think his manly hands are too big.

Even if they were in school, maybe she is doing other tasks which we know there are many. Is the husband home at the weekend? He could do the ironing then!

If he needs them for work enabling you to be a SAHM then yes you should iron them. If they are for nights out then no.

Yes of course, silly me 😅😂 Also his time is precious.

You mean does he actually parent his own kids. When he's working he isn't available to parents. When he isn't working he should absolutely parent the children he created. Doing a 9-5 doesn't mean he gets to do fuck all.

Is it really so hard to look after your own children and keep a tidy functioning household, get a grip and just get on with it, or don’t choose to have more children than you can cope with.

Why did you have more time to get jobs done? What were your preschooler children doing while you were ironing? When I was a SAHM I did things with my children which they have benefited from.

I'm not a SAHM and I'm shite at ironing so this is speculation on my part.

Maybe I'd try and do work shirts/trousers if wearing them was a requirement of DHs job.

I wouldn't be doing t shirts or anything else worn at home though. T shirts dried on hangars generally have very few creases anyway. And I've never ironed a piece of school unform either!

Edit: just spotted @Wolfpa put it rather more succinctly!

This. I sort out the washing and drying, my husband does the ironing.

My schedule during lockdown was:
7-9am change/feed/look after toddler
9am-10am an hour of work to catch up on overnight emails and messages
10am-12.30pm time with toddler (getting them outside, making and eating lunch, hanging out washing, reading to them)
12.30-6pm working
6-8.30pm make and eat dinner, bath toddler, bedtime routine, put to bed, put washing away, quick tidy up of toys etc
8.30-10.30pm do the rest of my work
10.30-11.30pm shower, get ready for bed, deal with personal emails and messages

My child wasn't getting nearly enough attention from me and my work was the busiest it had ever been - I could have worked until 1am (and sometimes did) and still not been on top of it. I didn't have time to even look at an iron.

One of the first things I did was show my DH how to iron (he used to take it all home for his poor mum). He irons all his own shirts. I'm not a SAHM, but on maternity he still ironed all his own shirts. He'd still be required to iron all his own shirts if I was a SAHM. You're not his skivvy, you technically work full time watching the kids and presumably cleaning the house and doing all the mental load. Make him iron his own goddam shirts.

Not a SAHM and never have been but I totally agree that surely the point of having a parent at home is to be with your children, looking after them, giving them good interaction and experiences.

No one would hire a nanny who left the kids to their own devices while she did something else, why is it different for a SAHM?

DH was generally out of the house 9-10hours a day when I was a SAHM, part of which was travelling. For me it felt right that if he was spending that amount of time to bring in an income, it was only fair I was doing my best to look after DC and any other time I had was spent on housework while he was doing that. I got it all done without slogging myself to death, as well as easy repairs, cutting grass and gardening. He was a hands on Dad, so once home did his fair share with DC and it meant that we had a lot more quality time together.

I don't even have an iron.

Does that apply to him as well? I assume he had a part in creating the children.

I’ve never ironed my husband’s clothes and he has never ironed mine.

When I was a SAHM I could never iron while looking after my kids because they were running about all over the place. I did general housework, hanging washing out, dishes, meal prep etc when they napped and had no time left to iron then. Which meant I was ironing in the evenings when they were in bed asleep - any chores that happened in the evening when my husband was home were split, and rightly so. He might have been working all day, but so was I and we're both allowed downtime. So sometimes he ironed in the evenings, sometimes it was me. Groceries were also split turn about at the weekend. The only other real evening housework was cleaning up after dinner and drying down the bathroom after the kids bath. Everything else was done during nap times.

I agree with PP, the M in SAHM doesn't stand for Maid, it stands for Mum and the majority of my day was rightly spent with my children, not plonking them in front of a screen so I can do ironing.

I didn't rip the piss and do nothing, I did what I could during their nap times and ironing just didn't make the cut.

Anything that needed done in the evenings or weekends was rightly split between us as we both need downtime and family time and couple time, and while he might be providing financially, I was providing the environment we wanted to raise our children in and took a hit career wise, and therefore financially, to do so.

Not that it matters now as my kids are older now and need taxiing every evening and I'm back to working FT and don't iron anything as I've fuck all time now

This thread is just blowing my mind.

It's one thing to pose the original question (although ideally it wouldn't have to be asked).
But I feel as if I've stepped into Trad Wife Central with some of the answers, where some are saying if you're a SAHM or if you love your husband then you should do the ironing. Where's the nuance?

I'm actually quite rattled and kind of saddened that people believe this shit and are trying to impose it on others in this day and age. I must be really out of step.

Yes, it is interesting the women are expected to "run the household" and look after the children whereas men aren't even expected to iron their own clothes.

Nah, two little ones and another one on the way? Your hands are full enough as it is, I wouldn't be expecting you to do all the housework.

Different if you had school age children and were ironing your own clothes and the DC's, that would be petty to leave his out. But in your circumstances absolutely fine.

Some of this thread is really odd. Where is the OP anyway. Is she chained to the kitchen sink?

The way this question is framed is very interesting. The question seems to be asking if in some moral / ethical / social sense whether a woman in these circumstances is in the wrong to refuse to iron her husband’s shirts.
“am I right to refuse… “
”is it my role as a SAHM…”

It’s a transactional, “job-description” legalistic kind of question.

I’ve received some flak for simply asking
“Do you love him?”

Been accused of implying that if she does love him she should agree to do “all the shit jobs” etc.

Of course that’s not my point at all.

My question is simply an attempt to reframe the whole perspective to one of personal free choice rather than conformity to the opinion of society on what is or isn’t “my role”.

From my perspective choosing freely to act in a particular way - in this case undertaking a mundane / boring task- for the sake of love / duty / care isn’t “a bad thing”. Neither is declining to do it for any reason.

But the point is either course of action must be freely chosen.

Not imposed, neither by peer pressure, nor by societal approval.

What is ironing? I don't iron anything. Nobody should. Total waste of time.

If your DH wants his shirts ironed then he can do them. The end.