stay at home parent = gets everything to do?

[Winstonsma]

totally happy* with my decision (nearly 5 years ago) to look after little one
and not return to work. Now have 3 little ones so life is busy.

it seems over time that not only is childcare, and meal provision, my area but now everything else in the world has crept into my job description, including (but not limited to):

gatekeeper of the fridge, and cupboards. DH will literally stand next to it and ask me whats in it

Maker of the dinner. No matter what (tummy bug, pregnancy sickness, my birthday - you name a date and i'll be cooking

Most of the cleaning, bins, maintenance

Buyer of all presents, even his relatives. near enough buy my own birthday gifts now

purchaser and writer of all cards

in charge of all child related decisions, even at weekends and all homework duty

cutter of nails, washer of hair, cleaner of teeth, administrator of calpol.

Head of vomit clean up

{always} designated driver

in charge of Christmas cheer (santa visits, where we go, what we do what we buy, elf on the shelf and advent calendar).

head of birthday parties

psychic visionary (who should apparently "just know" when he's about to run out of shaving cream, hair product or deodorant)

in charge of making all phonecalls, emails etc not related to OH job

now we are moving house I am sole co-ordinator, quote obtainer and liason for solicitors, estate agents, buyers, removal men, surveyors etc and sourcer of packing boxes - and supposed to be dismantling stuff now!

not quite sure how I let this happen :D I didn't mind/realise until he know comes in and is properly pissed off that the house isn't tidy... the little one is 4 months and the 2 year old is possessed!

anyone else?????????

*overall... on bad days I would skip back to my lovely job in a heartbeat! :D

It doesn't occur to him that after 3 pregnancies you might like to have a drink occasionally and not drive him home?

That is really quite shit.

It doesn't occur to him to wonder what you want about anything, Winstonsma. Your job is to be grateful you're not out earning and thus do what he says.

DH is SAHD, I work FT.

We tend to share clearing up in the evenings, though DH did concede that since I cook (for us two-DH cooks for the DC) he should really clear up.

Dh does all laundry except mine, though he is happy to do mine if I sort it and tell him what washing programme I want. He never irons, I do it.

We have got a cleaner. DH does floors, vacuuming inbetween times as needed. He also tidies up, being much tidier than me, and arranges home storage, maintenance, repairs, home improvement etc. We share home admin: I do most utility bills and home insurance, he does parking permits, car insurance, burglar alarm, mouse man.

I change and make beds. DH always drives, though there are specific reasons for that at the moment.

Essentially, we try and work it out so that we do the jobs we prefer. If we both hate something, we tend to do it together.

I have never gone anywhere near cards and presents for his family, nor he mine.

I'd much rather be a SAHD than a SAHM.

They seem to be given a much fairer allocation of tasks.

This is such depressing reading OP.

I do all of this except for the cooking (but I do the shopping and meal planning) and DIY.
I also do all the night waking.
And I did it all whilst working (currently on mat leave again).
It works for us as I like the control, but if it's not working for you you must change it.

Oh, same here.

In fact, worse off, as dh has been at home too for the last few months, and yet he still isn't doing anything. No planning for Christmas, not pitching in with the children, nothing. He does one school run a week, on average (literally just the single school run journey, no sorting out for school, making lunches etc, just dropping off), but no cleaning, tidying, cooking, homework, or anything at all with the children.

I lost the plot the other day when he asked if I could do a wash for him, and I (nicely) said he could put one on anytime. He snarked back that he 'can't do everything' which left me rather .

Tbh, it's another nail in the coffin - if he doesn't even have enough self respect to not have someone else doing every little thing for him when he's at home as much as I am, then I'm not sure I want to stay married to him. And if he can't muster up enough interest in his own children to think about Christmas presents, or remember when concerts etc are at school, then I don't think they'll be missing out if we do split up.

I'm not a SAHM but tend to work opposite to DH for childcare reasons. I get far more done when I'm at home than he does. I have told him that when he doesn't pull his weight it makes me consider my options and if it's worth it we're supposed to be in partnership - I won't put up with the shitwork to carry him due to lazyitis.

oh pandasrock that's really bad. if he's around surely he has to be doing something??? my oh out the house 12 hours a day so I tell myself that our situ isn't too bad...

re; splitting up I couldn't bear to give the kids up every other weekend. ad i'm sure my oh would hate to only see them every other weekend...And I really love my oh despite our current rut.

however, he has gone out and I'm here doing the Tesco shop. HAHA - dont worry I have two nights out next week* whoop!!

*baby doesn't take a bottle though so we'll see how long I can be gone :(

Hell no I didn't do everything as a SAHP. I would be absolutely eaten up with resentment if I were you OP. You're more of a domestic help/assistant than his partner or lover aren't you? I don't know how you have managed to retain any love for him at all.

I didn't do presents/cards for DH - still don't. He helps organise/research presents for the kids and gets excited about it, always has done. He has always done the bulk of our house move admin. He's my partner. My equal partner. I can't imagine it being any other way.

It's crap. If he wants to know what's in the fridge or cupboard tell him to look!
Re: the designated driver. It's often like this for me even when I worked for 3.5 years. I put my foot down every now n then so I can have a drink or 3.
I don't always iron.
Child stuff is ALL me whether I am working or not. He would be shit at parenting.
My partner is sickeningly selfish. He's on the Xbox most nights- and he is 43 grow up already.
In his defence he works hard and shares all his stuff. Just not his attention.

Absolutely not!! There is no way I would put up with that.

my OH is lovely by the way
Is he really? Part of what makes my DH lovely is that he shares the load. When our kids were little, he was working long hours and I was at home so I did do most of the household stuff, but he always got up with them 1 day on a weekend and took them out for a couple of hours so I could have a bath.
He cooked on a weekend.
He helped with night time routine.
He puts a load of washing on if he needs something or sees there is a load ready to go on.

You really need to speak up and tell him he needs to do more. If it doesn't occur to him that you shouldn't always have to be designated driver - tell him. As long as you continue to do everything, he has no reason to step up.

I appear to be the odd one out but I would expect to be doing all those things if I was a sahm, I do most of that anyway and work part time. When we moved house I worked full time and hub was part time but I sorted out all of that, and it wasn't a straight forward sale sadly.

really, sparklycat, you'd expect to always be chauffeur to drinking events? Cooking with a tummy bug ( apart from the inconsideration)?

When my husband was working away from home or out 12 hours a day like yours then out of practicality yes I did "everything" during the week as he physically wasn't there/couldn't. He was exhausted though. He always pulled his weight when he was home.

Now he is home a lot/works from home often and I think he cooks/loads dishwasher more than me etc.

If all the kids were at school I think it would be different but as they are home you are fully occupied with them. A nanny would only look after their stuff, woudln't be expected to do everything else on top!

Why did he say absolutely no to a dishwasher? What else are you doing while he stands and washes up and (more importantly!) what other jobs could be be doing instead of washing up?? If you have the space and the money for a dishwasher then why not? Or does it just give him an excuse wash up instead of doing other jobs?

DH works long hours so I am pretty much in charge, if you will, of everything else. I do buy presents for his family but only because I don't mind and because he does lots of things for me that I am rubbish at.

When the children were babies he would come home from a 12-15 hour day, send me to the couch with a glass of wine, cook dinner and tidy up the carnage in the house. He's not a saint, but he does get how hard looking after small children is. He just pitches in with what ever needs doing.

I also think he works hard but has it good too, I look after him well and in return I've always expected the same in return.

I also feel very strongly that whatever you are doing, you need the equipment to do it properly, just saying no to a dishwasher when you have 3 DC's is out of line IMO!

Another one with a lazy Dp. I am also in charge of all the same things (cleaning, cooking, laundry, looking after dd) plus dog walking. We don't have a car though.

The problem is I fucking work full time. But because I work from home dp and his mother seem to think I bash out a few words on the computer then spend 8 hours on facebook.

Mil has recently started taking care of DD for 6 hours per day so I can work but by the time I get the house in order I have only a few hours left. Dp makes jewelry and sells it from a stall so spends all his time in the kitchen fixing stuff then swans out to the market when he feels like it to set up his stall maybe 3 days per week. The money for rent, food, bills everything comes from my salary, dps money is just to buy his and his mothers cigarettes because I point blank refuse to pay for them.

Dp also seems to go out of his way to make life more difficult for me sometimes by leaving mess from the jewelry everywhere (wood dust mainly), leaves my desk full of crumbs, dirty plates, cups and tobacco from his roll ups (he smokes outside, but rolls the stinky fuckers inside). Oh and he will literally starve to death in the daytime unless you put food on a plate and hand it to him, but at night after I sleep he will go in the kitchen and attack all the jams, fruits, spreads and other things that are meant for the baby. Last night he finished off the last of the bread (3 fucking loaves in one day!) so that there was none for the baby this morning until I went to the shop.

Sorry to hijack your thread OP, just wanted to let you know you're not alone!

(3 fucking loaves in one day!) What is he putting in his stinky roll up's??

Well spotted StarryElf

I've just got that starry following agas prompt

WINSTONSMA that so sounds like my household when 3 sons were young .i take it your hubby a 1950s throwback like mine .you had the children so they are your responsibility attitude .you have my sympathy .my eldest sons partner is always ranting at me in a nice way that my son is useless around the house .she says he is a big spoiled mummy.s boy and god to my shame she is right .

Similar to retired female without childcare 24 x7.

I'm temporarily SAHP while DH works full time. We have a 7m old. I do all night wakings as we cosleep and breastfeed but DH gets up with DS when he wakes in the morning and I have an extra half hour or so uninterrupted in bed.

DH takes all the bins out, does most of the dishes, puts petrol in the car, hoovers, irons his shirts and does about 30% of the cooking. I in turn do the childcare while he's at work, organise the meals, do 70% of the cooking, all the laundry, all bedtimes and general emotional labour re present giving. Plus a fair amount of tidying and cleaning.

I have a half day each week to do whatever I like (ie bath, hobbies etc) where DH is solely responsible for DS and does cup feeds, puts him in the sling to sleep etc. In turn, he goes out to work/friend things in the evenings when they crop up.

All this has been negotiated in detail and it works for both of us. Oh and we share designated driver, in fact DH probably does that more often to make up for me missing out for 9 months while I was pregnant.

Before we had DS and we were both working, we wrote a list of all house jobs that we agreed needed doing and took it in turns to pick the ones we'd be responsible for until the whole list was ticked off. Fair's fair.

As a single parent I do all of this and work. It's life.

I don't have a dishwasher either ( old rental house). It's tough.