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?

Or he can clean the bathroom whilst she ‘sets up an activity for the kids instead….

I can honestly say none of my colleagues nor my students have ever taken their nappies and missed their potty, while I've made a drink; tried to eat something non-edible while I've used the loo; fallen over, while I've tried to make my lunch; made a beeline for the main road while I've taken the rubbish out. Most of them even have more than a 2 minute attention span. When my son was a toddler he tried them all. I love my kid more than anything else in the world, but when he was younger I worked 10 times harder at home and that was on a good day. Oh and I have these things called lunch breaks at work, when no-one asks me anything unless something untoward is happening, my toddler never got that concept....

I don't know what to tell you. Those of us who work find the weekend with the kids to be our leisure time. It's a bit embarrassing that you're comparing minding your kids with work...

Your insistence that anything child related a mother does is so laborious and so difficult but when the man does the same thing it’s so fun and easy is actually laughable.
Where is he moaning about the mental load when he does the kids lunch? Do you think he itemised it on his day like the OP has for breakfast?

If the OP wants to there’s no reason she can’t spend 2 hours playing the kids and building and painting a castle with them like the dad does in the afternoons.

I imagine the OP will probably not be happy with a few extra hours alone with the children though.

The fact you have to ask what is the difference shows a complete lack of theory of mind and thus this is a total waste of my time.

I’m not insisting anything, it’s the responses to the op that’s doing exactly that. Saying her work as a SAHP is quite easy and yet the expectations of her husband doing more than what it’s been said he does is too much to ask for. It can only be one or the other, either they are simple tasks so on his days off he should be easily able to do 50/50 share of everything, or her day to day tasks are hard work and his time off is precious and completely unreasonable to expect him to do as she does equally in this time. I haven’t said that the days he works he should be also doing 50/50 of the child rearing or housework.

It's a bit embarrassing that you're comparing minding your kids with work...

Im not sure of the poster you’re quoting’s circumstances @PicturePlace , but for us who are carers as well as parents to children with additional needs and other disabilities that pretty offensive. My kids are wonderful, but it is literally work to meet their needs day to day (and during the night). And many people with babies/toddlers can find work easier than childcare, it can be a very difficult stage to manage, it’s not ‘embarrassing’ to admit it.

But the op isn’t in that situation - she isn’t a carer to her children

being a carer is of course hard work but that’s not what this thread is about

Not much with those hours especially as you are a stay at home parent

Let me guess - you work so only see your kids a few hours a day? The fact that you spend more time at work than with your children probably means that the weekend with your kids is leisure time. It’s a bit embarrassing that you can’t imagine that spending 24/7 with your kids might not be all arts and crafts and fun activities …

That post wasn’t in relation to the op if you actually read what I was quoting, but she does have a baby herself and for some it can be hard work. Before my son had his diagnosis I had a baby who never slept, who became a toddler who also didn’t sleep and had very high needs. I wasn’t ’officially’ a carer during those times so to suggest a parent like myself finding looking after their child as hard work is ‘embarrassing’ is pretty shit. Others in that situation may read a post like that and feel like they’re doing something ‘wrong’. But fair enough, that is now digressing.

It is pretty shocking some of the opinions of women on this thread. Makes me wonder if its to justify not getting any help from their partners. If a man is single then he would have to come home to do housework and cooking, life admin etc. so why if he has a family, does he then get to do less?

Probably not, he’d probably have a cleaner and live on takeaways. He wouldn’t be supporting four other people either.

It’s some serious internalised misogyny to be honest, mixed in with typical MN middle class expectations of ‘high earning man vs stay at home
mum’. If the situation was the mum was a nurse and her husband a stay at home dad, complaining that on her days off she did just as much as the ops husband here, I would take a good bet that no one would be jumping in saying ‘she does enough as it is! She took the kids swimming so you can crack on with the housework! I can’t believe you’d expect her to sort a hair appointment or take them clothes shopping or any other menial task on top! Do you want her to go to work and accidentally kill a patient from being too tired washing everyone’s clothes bar her own uniform?’.

The fact that you can't explain the difference between putting out 1 dinner or 2 says it all. It's literally no harder.

I think it is to justify their own shitty relationships and opinions that somehow being a SAHM is workshy or immoral and should be punished by licking the soles of the DH’s shoes. I do wonder how common such opinions are though because I do not know anyone who holds the views of those posters IRL and pretty much every couple I know includes a hands on dad who does his fair share of child rearing and housework.

This 💯%

It follows the same pattern.

Its really simple. Making dinner for 3 kids is harder when you have a baby wanting your attention at the same time, needing breastfed or a nap. It is more mess to clean up and often a separate meal to what older kids will eat. But you wouldn't know because you have two kids.

It's not about what's easy or hard though. It's about two things.
a) The agreed division of tasks, which should result in both parents having equal leisure time.
That's what 50/50 means. Equal downtime not equal household chores.

OP hasn't stated that her husband has more free time than she does! Unless I've missed something, she doesn't say that her husband does anything other than eat, sleep and work. Oh and do his washing , and entertain the kids.

It would be a different situation if like many on here the husband has loads of time to go cycling/pubbing/golfing whatever and the wife can barely take a dump in peace.

b) The mental load - she complains that he doesn't see what needs doing! This is unfair. As a SAHM the mental load is very clearly her job. Remember she (unlike you) is a SAHM by choice, it was her dream. She has to accept that she's in charge of the household and has to delegate tasks.
Things like putting your own clothes in the laundry basket and putting dishes in the dishwasher are basic courtesy every adult should be doing that.
But him doing the whole family's laundry? Nope. That's not basic courtesy that's an entire task. If OP wants him to do it she should say so.

Yea i bet her kids get fed at the childminders or they "get a hot meal in school" so they dont bother making a proper dinner when they're home. Kids outside playing on the road. House a tip. Kids dont get any help with homework. Of course low standards are easy.

Such a shame that posters feel the need to villify others to justify their own choices.

They show their own stupidity.....
@Myusername19
For a start the kids can't simultaneously be at the childminder's and playing outside on the road, how daft 😂 if they were just going to do the latter just leave them at home , why pay for childcare

So do you think they didn't breastfeed 1 child and put dinner out for 1 child. The question is why is it harder breastfeeding 1 child and putting dinner out for 2 children, versus dinner for 1 child. But you can't answer that. Because it's not harder.

What you clearly are not getting is that the OP is a stay at home parent, not a stay at home housekeeper. What it means to be a stay at home parent is that whilst the breadwinner is at work, the task of childrearing and general bits of housework/admin comes down to them. It doesn’t mean that the working parent is some incompetent adult who cannot compute how to do laundry for their own children when they’re not at work, or how to see housework that needs doing without it being pointed out by the stay at home parent.

Many have said on this thread that housework and such are very easy little tasks, completely incomparable to going out and earning money. So why is it suddenly such a complex, highly planned thing in some sort of Sherlock-esque mind map that only the SAHP can possibly visualise mental load? It’s again this idea that men can’t see what needs to be done without being told, I’m shocked no one has mentioned ‘make a list’ yet.

Yea , funny that . 😂

You seem to think you're being witty when arguing against this strawman you've created, as if people are saying he shouldn't do housework because it's so hard and complicated. It's making you look a bit silly.