Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Resentful SAHM...

112 replies

BoneTiredandWired · 01/12/2024 18:41

I'm a SAHM for the moment. I have a 17 month old, and a 4 year old in Reception.
I do all the cooking
All the laundry
All the cleaning
Majority of the childcare.

DH... works! Earns actual money.
Does DIY
Sometimes does cute craft projects with the 4 year old.
Takes the eldest to school, and to a Sunday activity.
Quite often I have the kids on a weekend because he has to work for an afternoon.

Does that seem normal and fair? I think it is, but also I can feel so unappreciated and screamingly resentful. Guess this is all boringly normal :( and I'm just in a rut.

Studying part time is helping.

OP posts:
Dietingfool · 04/12/2024 10:53

It seems fair to me, and I’m sure he sometimes goes to work and realises it’s all on him, 4 people live off his earnings.

I do agree he could do more. And so could you. Maybe he does some stuff at home,maybe you get a part time job. Each help the other out, so the pressure is off?

BoneTiredandWired · 04/12/2024 13:26

TeaInBed321 · 04/12/2024 06:23

This

@TeaInBed321
Thanks for your input. Valuable to think about

OP posts:
MrsBennetsPoorNerves · 04/12/2024 13:36

What was the agreement when you decided to become a SAHP. I presume that you discussed how stuff would be split between you?

If I was the sole breadwinner in a family, I would expect the SAHP to pick up the vast majority of the domestic load, unless there were exceptional circumstances such as disability etc that made that impossible. And I wouldn't personally have ever agreed to supporting a partner to be a SAHP unless they were willing to take that on. I would expect the WOHP to spend time with the dc when not working though.

BoneTiredandWired · 04/12/2024 13:40

Ok

OP posts:
ShipToNoveltle · 04/12/2024 14:00

The way we worked it was that when Dh was home we were a team, both on duty at the beck and call of the children. We got things done then could sit down together. Dh had a lie in on a Saturday having worked 5 days straight, I had the same lie in on a Sunday. This meant Dh got one on one time with firstly one child (newborn) then both of them, we have a 3 year gap. Often he would take them out for breakfast known as The Boys' Club as we have sons and I am the only female in the house. They were a little gang and it was bliss to lie in the bath knowing there was no one else in the house.

If he was going anywhere, shops, tip tun, B&Q then he would take a child with him. This meant he got one on one time with each child doing the shitty jobs with a child. This has benefits when they are older that they start to understand what is involved in any DIY projects at home. Plus I had to do this before the children were in school with two of them and every half term and summer holiday.

I batch cooked as in massively, so a 6 portion chilli (food processor is your friend) which was chilli with rice but then served with nachos and sour cream, same with bolognaise first served with just pasta but then served as ziti. Everything had a dual purpose. I was able to batch cook as Dh was on hand with the children or helped me batch cook.

Look, I saw being a sahm and the house as my job, that job meant coming up with a schedule for laundry/housework and I had a 3 week menu plan with a 6 week swap out. Supermarket food was delivered but I had a list of things to buy in a spreadsheet for the meal plan so no thinking ahead. That removes some of the drudgery and mental load. Dh would make lunches and dinner on the weekends because he was here to do that. I did weekdays as the children ate earlier. We also used a slow cooker too.

Dh and I also tag teamed, if one of us needed a break the other happily gave it because it was reciprocal and neither of us took the piss, half an hour was half an hour. Dh was raised by an amazing sahm and a hands off Dad. He didn't want that for his own children. Even now we don't have phones in our hands when we talk to each other, we regularly ask is there anything I can do that would make your life easier? Dh was always on hand for the morning get ready for school routine.

This comes down to expectation and communication, that is why we phrased it as can I do anything, not can I help nor you never do this or that. It has always been positive, same as with children when you talk about the behaviour you want to see. Dh has always thanked me but then I thanked him for providing this life for us too, this house, my car, I am grateful and so is he for clean clothes, meals cooked etc.

BoneTiredandWired · 04/12/2024 14:55

@ShipToNoveltle Thanks so much for your post! You sound like you absolutely smashed it, and I want to see your spreadsheets/meal plans...

OP posts:
ShipToNoveltle · 04/12/2024 15:32

@BoneTiredandWired well the children are now 21 and 18 so meal planning is a little different but I can tell you how I did it, MN also has lots of these sorts of threads anyway with people listing their weekly meal plans.

Basically I wrote down what sides we would eat so salad, potato, rice and pasta then wrote every meal we would eat and put it under each heading. I had a delivery every Friday night so anything that had fresh salad/veg would be Friday, Saturday, Sunday ie chicken Kiev with baby potatoes (cooked in an Actifry) with a simple salad, then beef burgers in rolls with iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and red onion with wedges, roast beef/chicken dinner on Sunday with veg then I would grab a few fresh veg items Monday or Tuesday or Dh would on his way home from work. I did one fish dish a week luckily my children ate salmon and topped white fish or fishfinger sandwiches. It can be soup with bread, sometimes a simple cheese sandwich is great and filling especially when children are little. You make life easy when you freeze stuff too and just get that out, defrost it and warm it in a pan.

The work comes at the beginning with thinking about the food and the corresponding ingredients, it becomes easier once it is established and we would also have a take away maybe every 6 weeks or so. I didn't make children's menu meals, I made what we ate as adults with some tweaks, so yes to chicken tenders but we had them in wraps with lots of salad stuff.

As I said I saw the whole thing as my job and if I were to have a year review what would that look like? Not Dh reviewing me but my harshest critic; myself. That meant shoving a load of laundry on to wash at 7am because the laundry was pre-sorted, we had a central laundry basket system with whites, blacks/reds, lights etc. My Mum was incredibly organised so I learned from her and never double handle anything, ie if I have taken a black top off it goes into the black laundry basket, no digging though the laundry basket looking for like for like items to wash together and you are therefore handling that top more than once. 4 year olds can put items into a laundry basket, they can also help set the table, clear the table too as they do that in school.

Daisy12Maisie · 04/12/2024 20:00

I think it's all relative. I would have absolutely loved someone to pay the bills so I could get on with everything else rather than being a single parent and working stupid hrs and being permanently exhausted as well as everything else. So it doesn't sound difficult to me if you are doing everything but not working. Obviously different if the kids had additional needs.

Growlybear83 · 04/12/2024 20:06

That was exactly how things were for me when I was a stay at home mum, but I did the gardening and decorating too. My husband was supporting me financially for several years and was self employed and working very long hours. He spent time with our daughter if he got home when she was still awake and at the weekends. I never normally expected him to help out with housework and I think it was possibly the happiest seven years of my life.

BoneTiredandWired · 04/12/2024 20:20

@Daisy12Maisie
Yes, all relative. Also not a race to the bottom.

OP posts:
Daisy12Maisie · 04/12/2024 20:27

No not a race to the bottom but certain things suit different people.
My sister was a stay at home mum and she found it too hard so she went back to work teaching and put her daughter in nursery. Personally I would have thought full time teaching was really, really hard but she loves it. So what one person finds easy others don't.
So if it doesn't work for you then hopefully there are other options to tweak it. A school mum friend is a stay at home mum who does a lot but her husband makes the Sunday lunch so she at least doesn't have to cook on a Sunday. Each to their own and that might work for them.

MummyJ36 · 04/12/2024 20:29

Being a SAHP is not for everyone. I couldn’t do it OP! I actually only know one SAHP and if I’m being totally honest I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing for her. She is incredibly fixated on her kids lives without much adult perspective and I think she will really struggle once her kids get older and need more independence.

Everyone else I know works in some capacity, be it full time or part time. And there is a reason for that. We don’t have the “village” our parents generation did, where is was the norm for mothers not to work and there was a sense of community. It just isn’t that way now.

I do think it also exasperates gender roles in a way women are not used to / want to live like anymore. I bet before kids you didn’t do all the housework, cleaning and meal cooking? It is not unreasonable to want to redress this balance.

In the short term I would try to think of your Monday - Friday 9-5pm as working hours and then have a discussion with DH about how you share the household “work” outside of those hours, particularly on weekends.

In the longer term I’d look for a part time job. There is no shame in wanting to work and exist in an adult work for a couple of days a week.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page