If your husband worked these hours how much help would you expect?

[Woister]

I am a SAHM. Dh works long hours. I basically do all the childcare and house work. In fairness when Dh is off he will take care of 85% of childcare ie take kids out swimming, bowling etc.

So the day before Dh got home a 8pm, then left the following day at 12pm to be home at 3 am. He will be leaving today at 12pm.

how much help would you expect from husband with these hours?

We both work full time. When we're at home with the kids on the weekend (and doing all the housework), we see this very much as our time off from work. Hanging out with the kids is not work - it's our relaxing time off work!

This post stood out to me more than all the others - you need to massively re-evaluate your expectations, remembering that he sorted his own uniform rather than you doing it so he has already contributed. He may not think or realise at the time to put another load on but he also hasn’t left you to do his so he is contributing when you have said he does zero housework but that’s not true.

Given the set up I would expect very little housework, but given your youngest is very small if you are struggling and as you are doing more of the load with the youngest then I would probably go for a cleaner once a week until school aged

Oh come on, most people are able to do that and lift a finger around the house.

I mean you've been on Mumsnet most of the day, so multitasking can't be outside of your capabilities.

Good for them but at no point have I said I don't lift a finger.

Dh and I have 3 dc, all two years apart. I was a SAHM when they were young, dh worked 70 hour weeks regularly. I didn't have any family support and it was hard to keep up with everything.

I never expected dh to start doing housework when he came home. He was working his arse off in a hugely demanding job so that we didn't need to put the dc into nursery, and I am hugely grateful that I got to spend those early years at home. He would spend as much time as possible with the dc when he was home which gave me a break.

As time went by, there were times when dh was home more than me, so he took over the childcare, housework and admin. It's called teamwork!
Why on earth is your dh doing his own laundry? Surely it makes sense to wash the family's clothes together?

No, it really isn’t. A normal functioning adult would not considering this being a 24/7 job.

Do they take a 9 month old to work? 🤔

You don't lift a finger though, outside of tidying up the mess made by you and the kids on your watch.

At least own it while you're on the internet all day, waiting for your partner to get home from work so he can continue to work inside the house as well.

She must have quite a lot of time on her hands after all. Funny that. When I’m at work there would not be a second to read and reply on MN. Not that we are allowed to have private phones during work hours anyway.

Well for 3 years she had no-one to take to work but she still didn't get a job, because she said it's always been her dream to have someone else earn her money for her 🤔

Correct. I parent our children and tidy up accordingly. I'm a stay at home mum not a stay at home maid.

We share the load equally when he is home. As it should be. He continues to work as do I. Yes, even though I can also be on mumsnet. Shocking.

I have done sahm and worked part time and the only people I hear saying that being a sahm is the hardest job in the world are people trying to justify their position.

agree with pp that spending time with your kids isn’t just a job - a lot of time I spent with my kids was fun! And same with DH at weekends. So whilst he should recognise that the bowl should go in the dw, you should also acknowledge that being with your kids is not just a job

if you are struggling to see the pleasure in parenting then perhaps you should go back pt

It's not shocking, it's laughable - the excuses I mean.

Your refusal to own this is embarrassing.

Let's hope whatever you've filled your partner's head with, won't catch up with you in the end if/when he comes to his senses.

Excellent post. I am now in a position to not have to work but I would be bored if I didn't so we both still work albeit together as self employed. There are days when I'm more free than others,like today but I still do all the housework when DH is WFH or out on tasks & there's less for me to contribute.In fact I do the majority of the household chores & cooking but I enjoy it & of course I'm better at both 😂

Sorry but I'm a bit shocked you'd expect him to start tackling laundry when you're a SAHM and two of your 3 kids are 7/8. 9 month olds usually nap for about 2hours in the middle of the day, or two 1hr chunks in the am/pm, mon to fri that gives 10hours time to chuck a few loads of laundry on.
And tbh even when they are awake you could strap them in the high chair for 3 min to shove washing in the machine!

Not sure if you’re being funny or genuine - but she’s parenting 3 preschoolers AND pregnant and you reckon she’s not doing enough because she’s not pulling a wage?? Fair enough if that is your position but I (and I imagine @nextdoornightmares) feel very smug that I’m married to a man who, in that scenario, would quite literally put my feet up for me when he got home to make sure I was resting. I only have the one child and while on mat leave DH used to swoop in and do bath and bed after work so I didn’t have to!

You dont have 3 kids or a baby, do you?

@Bunnycat101(ignore wrong quote) like many other things I think it varies!
SAHM to SEN kids Vs 2 under 2 Vs all school aged kids. All very different. Nobody can say, as a general rule what a 'hard job' is.

In the OP's case a 9 month old can be hard, but there's no excuse for her not working in the previous 3 years when she had school aged children.

Housework also expands to fill the available time.if you let it, the list of chores will never end.

Constant tidying for example a house will never be sparkling clean with young children'. But it's also a home not a show house. Also some people insist on cooking from scratch 100%, that's also a time suck. Personally I've optimised all my recipes etc for minimum supervision and cleanup, I'm very organised but not everyone is.

I don't think wading into the working va SAHM debate is useful but objectively, if SAHM is a 'job'. Like any other job. Some people will be crap at it, some people not. Not all SAHM are efficient or actually good with domestic work.

I'm not at all embarrassed and my partner is not some poor abused clueless man 😂

I have a very difficult ND child so I wasn’t basing on easy children but acknowledge kids with needs that require care is more than a full time job

op has not mentioned anything and her kids seem capable and willing to help with some minor chores

Really hard for 7 years is ver up for debate. For the last 3 years she had two kids in school and still stayed home. Hardly slogging away.

I think he should contribute to the household if there are jobs to do and you are doing them. So you both clock off at the same time. I also think you deserve equal leisure time. While I'm sure he works long hours he also has a lot of time not multi managing everything and you need headspace too. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask him to contribute to the day to day running of the household when he's around

I think in order to understand what I and others are saying, you'd have to read way way back in thread to the beginning o the conversation.

She's not doing any housework at all while her partner is out at work all day, (except to tidy the immediate mess created by her and the kids during the day).

Then she expects him to do exactly 50-50 when he gets home.

Apparently she can't or won't parent and do housework at the same time, although she can post all day on Mumsnet.

But as I say, you'd have to read way back to see how she treats him.

See how I treat him?? Like he's being abused by having expectations of him equally sharing the load in a household. Like an adult 😂

You have no clue why I was able to be on Mumsnet all day today. So why don't you go find somebody else to attempt to bully because you seem weirdly invested and angry about the relationship of strangers and how they BOTH choose to run their household. And your snidey comments and pathetic judgement won't change anything about how we do things.

@BellesAndGraces Eh? she has two school aged kids and a baby. Where's the extra coming from?

EFIT : sorry realised you were talking about someone else
Also what your DH does is irrelevant. An easy little 9-5 is different from high intensity shift work.