SAHM what do you do all day??

[Iwant2befree]

Ok so forgive the vile title , trying to get some traction and feedback on my post. For the record SAHM are absolutely the back bone of the family and IMO highly under appreciated!

I need some serious feedback please …. For context

I work FT , partner is in and out of seasonal work. They had an injury that prevents from doing their craft but otherwise fit and well. Work are providing a salary until they return.

afterschool childcare : has over time had various set ups when both working but effectively 9-5 childcare between school and childminder.

however now while partner at home full time.

• Partners sister take them 2 afternoons per week

Prior to partner being unfit to work I had afterschool and my sister. The afterschool closed and we find it’s leaves without childcare outside of my sister .

technically partner is at home and can do it BUT I’m getting a lot of resentment and push back. I have always paid for the childcare historically . Now that’s it’s landing on partner they are annoyed , stressed and feel like they are taking on all child raising responsibility because now they are not working the child chores are not split 50/50 .

i contribute financially and certainly the time outside of work I pull my weight. The “problem” is the hours that we both spend with the kids is not equal (because I am working in my job when they need collecting from school / dinner etc) I usually finish between 5-6pm

partner feels overwhelmed and bored with school pick ups 3 days per week , in the house outside of general jobs like bins / gardening , doesn’t focus on practical things such as hoovering / laundry etc.

I pay for a cleaner once a fortnight and don’t know what or how to ask if your at home could you look after one or 2 things without causing an argument.

it’s so draining , I don’t expect all housework to be done etc but their overall contribution is actually very small , but they will argue it’s not because he has much more “child” hours than I do !!

for reference I help in the morning lunches / getting ready etc. I can rarely drop / collect but do when I can .

What is reasonable to expect of
someone who is full time at home in terms of childcare / house tasks ?

thank you for any guidance I’m driving myself nuts!

I’m about to be a SAHM (baby due soon), and I wouldn’t expect my partner to do housework when he gets home from work!!! I’ll have chance to do that in the day time (not my first child, I know what to expect!!) and we’ll double team childcare when he’s home. I work pretty much full time now(36 hours) and can’t can’t wait to have time to be at home getting jobs done instead of cramming things in. I’ve just dropped a day at work and it feels such a luxury having a free day to get organised. His job is physically demanding and he earns more than me anyway, keeping a clean home etc is my share and I’m happy to do it! I was a single mum with my first child and didn’t get the option of staying home.

He's taking the piss. That's loads of time. I'd be expecting you to come home to a clean house, no laundry to do and dinner cooked.

Take the dc to school that go to school.
Home educate the ones not at school.
clean the house, do washing, rest / have a nap

Yeah I find that when I’m with the kids I’m with the kids - taking them out, playing, changing and feeding and the housework around their immediate mess eg cleaning up thrown food, tidying around them, immediate washing sort thing. It’s constant. I don’t ignore them for ages to clean the bathroom for example. I’ll look after them instead and take them out. If they nap or are quietly entertained for a moment I’ll put more washing away or start sorting dinner or maybe even have a bit of food myself (but this is like a minor break, less than dh will get on his work lunch break lol but he uses his to do life admin). Proper deep cleaning stuff we have a cleaner for. When dh is home from work for the day, we share things as equally as we can. It can be hard to quantify sometimes, but I rarely stop so DH knows and appreciates that. Depends on your relationship I think.

I’m going back 25 years and things / ideas change. When my 3 were young I was a SAHM from 2 weeks before son was born until the youngest was 6 months. I went back to work because I just couldn’t do the full time mum thing I needed to work.

but when I was at home I did everything except the heavy stuff ie cutting the grass . I did all the child care unless he offered which he did he loved being a dad, but I didn’t expect him to. At the weekend we did everything 50/50 working together so we could have free time together too.

the days he was at work he came home to a cooked meal the house as tidy as 3 children allowed. That’s not to say there weren’t days when he came home to me at the end of my tether and had to change and muck in. But on the whole for about 5 years I played the true step Ford wife 😂

Your partner sounds lazy. Maybe they are actually bored and unmotivated? They might feel better doing more! Or doing some studying? Or volunteering? I think there start point should actually be equalising your free time. Not equalising your childcare time or housework time.

Wait so they are at school and he has time then? The dream! So he can organise all the housework between that time. It would be good to sit down and discuss what needs to be done and how he can realistically achieve it. It seems like a typical sorry ‘man’ thing where he resents it and thinks doing a normal amount of housework is hard and he deserves a break, whereas a woman in the same situation can be like a mad flying chicken doing everything and yet she’s ‘just a SAHM‘ bleh

Having been a SAHM sometimes on my very worst days I made meals and cleared up after them and stuck a load of washing on.

When I was a SAHM, we treated it like a job with set working hours. For the hours my husband was working or commuting, I was SAHMing. If anything he was still getting the better end of the deal, as I was SAHMing the entire 8-6 he was out the house whereas he had an hours commute either way where he just sat there reading a book.

My main role was to look after my son and keep him entertained. Usually I'd take him out all morning to a class or a group and then spend the afternoon at home for him to nap and play at home. Cleaning and doing housework or other "mental load" type chores were done in any down time or around the childcare- nap time, if he was playing independently, cleaning the kitchen while he ate lunch etc. Some days I did loads of chores, some days I did none at all and some days the house was messier at the end of the day than the start.

Anything not done in those working hours was 50-50 both our responsibilities. And any childcare outside those hours was also joint responsibility, if he "had an hour to unwind when he got home from work", I'd get that hour back later. If he wanted a lie in at the weekend, I'd get one the other day. We didn't keep notes to the hour exactly, but the principle was there.

Absolutely this.

I'm a SAHM. My husband does nothing around the house.

This is a very good point. I bet a lot of the little jobs he's building up as being tedious long jobs. I have been guilty of this in the past and it genuinely does help to time yourself- you see it doesn't take a fraction of what you think

Exactly @Outnumberedmummy2022 you can either tidy for 1 hour on a Sunday or do a 10 minute a day tidy 6 days a week. That 10 minutes breezes by. Honestly, music, radio, podcasts, audio books, you can lose yourself in them whilst you sort and fold that laundry, again, and. again. I was a sahm before Youtube and smartphones, I am so grateful for the digital world of today providing on tap entertainment whenever you want it. He needs to give himself a kick up the arse.

Nothing?? I do most of the housework etc but my husband cooks and puts one of the kids to bed.

@IVFmumoftwo
No he works and I do the house / kids.

It's absolutely unbelievable that you're using your sister/his sister for childcare when their lazy ass father is at home and should be looking after them.

Your dh sounds like a lazy arsehole.

Im a sahm and dh earns the money, deals with all finances/bill paying and takes the bins out and I do everything else.

Ok so not a sahm but work part time and dh works long hours.
I do pretty most of the housework and family admin. I do school pick ups, drop offs, work, cleaning, shopping and cooking. I also get a lot of down time and time to meet friends.
Kids and dh do chores as well.
No one should be lazy.
Your dh is taking the piss. He has so much free time. Even if he did a couple of chores a day.

Nah. My husband will still help despite working. I just do most of it.

I am not a SAHM but I have not been working the last 6 weeks - in between jobs.

DP works full time. Both DC are at school.

I’ve been doing laundry, grocery shopping, meal planning, cooking, baking, deep cleaning, declutterring, doing jobs that we never got round to when working FT like painting shed, making jam, framing pictures. And stuff for me like exercise, haircuts, beauty appointments, dentist, shopping etc which would otherwise get clammed into weekends. Also have a couple of projects on go like sorting out unread emails and iCloud library of thousands of photos. I have also watched the odd Netflix show (though mostly in background whilst doing some of the above).

I taxi the kids about the their after school music and sports activities. I do homework and music practice with kids after school. I’m not bored but also not lazing around. Couldn’t do this for ever though, look forward to going back to work.

He has so much time to relax he can not possibly be complaining. When l was a SAHM l found once l got on top of the housework it was never too demanding if you dis some every day while when you're working it can all go to pot and then weekends are busy catching up.
So every morning after drop off l would do an hour. Pop on a wash/ clean up/ run around the bedrooms/ etc. Then l would either do the shopping, prep for dinner, do admin etc. So after two hours my time was my own so l would go for a walk, meet a friend, go to the dentist, go to the gym, read a book, garden, volunteer.. there is so much he could do.
Well rested then l would pick up kids, do homework, go to activities, cook dinner. Bit hectic but hey l was relaxed after my break so could face it.
Dh would always clean up after dinner and every Saturday he would do a big clean with me washing out the floors etc..and do the garden.
Your dh could be on to a good thing but he needs a routine so he sees how much free time he has.
Would writing out a timetable help as he could be spending hours pottering at the house rather than really flying it and getting it done quickly.

I don’t mean to speak for all men but neither of my significant partners have been of the cocklodger/ useless variety that you read about so often about on here. But that said neither of them would have been good SAHPs, they just don’t have the eye for what needs done, common sense brain to know what needs doing or ability to organize themselves and DC in the way that I do. Is that weaponized incompetence? Maybe.

@IVFmumoftwo Well my husband isn't home much so if I don't do it it won't get done.

I think it's absolutely fine to have a check of whether you're being unreasonable and clearly you're not, but ultimately you need to be having this conversation with him not Mumsnet. Different levels of involvement are appropriate for different families but the main thing is that neither of you feel over worked and under appreciated and the only way to achieve that is by talking to each other. I do know it's very easy to feel like a drudge at home but you doing everything is clearly not the answer!

The most effective way I had of raising this stuff when the kids were small and I was a sahm was by expressing to DH that I had married him because I thought we were a team and I wanted it to feel like 'us against the world' again rather than 'us against each other'. I think that focusing on that helped DH see that I valued our relationship and him but that I was drowning on my own.

I will say that we have always put any money into a shared pot from which we each get pocket money but family related costs came out of. I know this is not the only way to manage finances but I think it does make things much easier unless one of you is a spendthrift/gambler/what have you. Also takes the 'why should I pay...' aspects of things because you're both paying for everything.

Most men wouldn’t chose to be a sahp. They see it as the little women work, sure very complimentary when the little woman does it, oh you’re so valuable darling, but they’d rather gnaw off their foot than doing it themselves and like having the chores done for them. So I suspect your partner is like this and it’s coupled with being off work, he’s now expected to do what he sees as women’s work.
me, I’d read the fucker the riot act.