Am I unreasonable to want more help as a homeschooling stay-at-home mum?

[EducatorMum]

Hi all, I need to know if I’m being unreasonable.
background - I’m a sahm homeschooling our 3 children (11, 4, 2). My partner works from home (data) full time and is the only financial provide which I’m extremely grateful for to enable me to stay home with the children.
I used to be a primary school teacher but came off to be with the kids.
I naturally do all of the cleaning , laundry , housekeeping , childcare. I’m up every morning anytime between 6 and 7. I do all bath times and bed times alone as they don’t settle for him. At weekends, he stays in bed until 10/11 . He struggles to sleep at night so he argues he gets the same amount of sleep as me (I go to bed with the 4 year old). I generally don’t get a lie in or much of a break. Every evening after I’ve cooked and cleaned up he will head to his office usually around 7pm and have rest and alone time until he comes to bed around 11/12. I might get an hour if the youngest naps in the day but feel things are unfair. If I ever bring it up he makes out I’m ungrateful, that he’s working a job he hates and I can do whatever I want. Is this right? I don’t know how if this is the norm for others in sahm / homeschool positions ?

You do realise success/ happiness isn’t based on number of degrees or job right?

True, but I think she's making the point to all of the anti-home education brigade that home educated children can actually achieve high level qualifications.

I suppose successful home educating depends on your children to a large extent?
My children all attended state school.
For example, my eldest (August born coincidentally) did 10 GCSEs (obtaining mostly 8s and 9s) and 4 A-Levels (A star x 3, 1 A). Now at uni. My middle child also did 10 GCSEs (also mostly 8s and 9s) and is about to start his A-Levels.
I would say I am academically decent - I was a primary teacher for 22 years and now I tutor - but absolutely no way would my children have obtained anywhere near these results should we have made the decision to home educate. We would, in fact, have been doing them a huge disservice.

By "strangers who couldn't really care less", do you mean teachers? If so, that's a very strange way of looking at things.

I had a very rewarding teaching career, and I really did care about my pupils, as did my colleagues.

Hey I home educate I have some children with additional needs they honestly it is a lot. Some days Im more exhausted than others. Pacing yourself and also setting little rewards into your day. My husband struggles as well. Im praying you find a solution but also offering encouragement.

Very few home educators "teach a full suite of GCSE's." It doesn't really work like that. There are very good, accessible resources these days to help with the various styles of independent learning.

My circumstances were not quite the same as the OP, but my older DC all gained between 7 - 9 GCSEs and are now studying A levels at college. I'm not a teacher, just a parent who could capably access resources and provide a happy, supportive learning environment.

I do all bath times and bed times alone as they don’t settle for him.

That's something that can change right away. Right now, they're not used to him putting them to bed, but he needs to persevere with it. He can make it more fun and read some good books for bedtime stories. That'll give you more time to get things done and then relax in the evening, preferably together. You both need to get out regularly too, you can take turns to see friends/do a hobby once a week while your children are so young. Him vegging in his office every evening while you do all the chores isn't healthy.

Sorry, just to clarify - your youngest child is many years off GCSE now - so I am assuming she is 12 at most? And yet you are so confident that her "chosen career path" is the one she will stick to that you will limit her to 4 GCSEs - an incredibly restricted number, as even student who really struggle adaemically usually study for at least 6 or 7 - and you have told us this child is very bright!

Children change their minds about what they want to do all the time - just for example, at that age I wanted to be a horse vet (if there is even is such a thing) - I ended up reading English at Oxford and being absolutely shit at
science! I imagine at least 75% of readers have ended up doing something different from their chosen career at 12!

Please don't restrict your child like this - it's not fair. There is a reason both state and private schools in the UK (and I think it's similar in most countries, to be honest) encourage children to do 8-10 different subjects at GCSE. It's because people don't accurately know what they want do with their lives at 12, so it's beneficial and kind to encourage them to keep their options open.

Surely you can understand this?

This.

As a primary teacher, how can you provide multiple key stages to three children every day?

Are you providing plenty of socialisation for your 11 year old? As a primary school teacher surely you know that teachers do care for their class and also that school is much more than academics.

I'm pro-home ed, but agree with this.

I'm all for nurturing passion subjects, but equally realistic about keeping all the doors of opportunity open.

OP, I'm confused by your situation.

I don't want to sound judgemental about home education - it's true that, like all experienced teachers I have worked with lots of students who have been badly damaged by their parents attempts to H.E. , but equally I know it can work really well for some kids in some scenarios - for kids with some specific SEND for example it can be game-changing in a brilliant way.

But none of your posts really seem to explain why you and your husband have chosen H.E. for your children.

You do assert that many teachers don't care about the kids they are working with - is that your experience, honestly? I've worked in the profession for 30 years, and it's certainly not mine. A few teachers don't care about the kids much, for sure. But they are very much a minority - and as a parent you do have some ability to make decisions about who teaches your child.....

Yet, despite all the potential pitfalls of home ed for NT kids (around limited breadth of education and social isolation primarily); and despite the enormous damage it is clearly wreaking on your relationship, your own financial security, your mental wellbeing, quite frankly.... You still choose it?

Why? Why take this unusual, radical, risky course? If the reasons you choose it could be identified and dealt with, then your kids could go to school and live a more "normal" life and get a great, diverse education; you could go to work, be secure, confident, energised and happy; your marriage could thrive as you both contribute to it as equals and supported each other.... Etc

What is stopping you taking this very obvious course? You talked earlier about what your husband would and would not "allow". That worried me. I am wondering if there is something concerning going on. If so, please reach out for support OP. Both you and your children deserve a normal, happy life. Not whatever this is!

Of course, but people don’t generally say “home educated children won’t grow up to be happy”, they question their ability to function in the world, receive higher education, or get a job, as evidenced by much of this thread. There are many people who do it poorly and I don’t defend that, but especially in 2026 there is no reason to assume that’s the case.

The issue on here is you’re home educating and it’s not always thought of positively (or understood, I mean there are a lot of posts demonstrating that!). If you were on here saying the same thing but you had a job instead of HE, the responses would be absolutely different saying how you need more support and it should be divided equally once you both got home.

I don’t have the answers OP, but once you both ‘clock off’, there needs to be some equal division of home jobs and plan in a small amount of quality time together initially, because you are both working in the day. Yours will be slightly longer hours because of the nature of what you’re doing (ie house and home ed planning and childcare) but you can’t do all that alone. And he needs to make a change to his life too, if he hates his job so much, that’s no life either to spend all day every day in a job you hate. You need to have some serious conversations and make a sustainable plan if you can.

Yep, the curriculum of home schooling is far easier than people pretend - or maybe actually believe. It's definitely better for children to be home schooled by a decent parent who makes a good job of it, they miss out on absolutely nothing and gain hugely from it - but there's a lot of bitterness and envy about that fact on mumsnet, and many just are not bright enough to understand how it works.

But if you hate it, you hate it. You're not happy so you have to make a change. If you woke up tomorrow and you could change just one thing in your life, something reasonable, what would it be? Start from there.

I've met many well adjusted successful people who were home-schooled, aling with some not doing so well. But its not really the point of the thread - and I think that depends on whether the husband is lazy or if he is genuinely struggling with his mental health.

Don’t the kids miss out on the social side of things being schooled at home? Just curious as to how they get interaction with people their own age.

It varies, but where we live, home education is a popular choice. There are pretty much always daily groups and activities, some purely social; others focused on learning.

Also, most HE kids also attend regular sports/hobby activities outside learning, like any other children! My older DC transitioned easily into college: HE kids aren't usually kept in unlit rooms with no glimpse of the outside world.

No, they build networks, one home school educator will take a bunch of kids for certain tutorials. There's tons of information out there on this and the hard work is already done, loads of resources.

Basically, most home schoolers build small school networks where their kids get loads of one to one attention and aren't preached at about the teacher's personal politics and state mandated politics, they don't get attacked or beaten up by kids nobody can control and they don't spend lots of wasted time every day being moved from one group to another.

Parents can focus on just educating their children, and generally the outcomes are fantastic. It's more like having their own tiny private school system, than what most mumsnetters seem to imagine.

You and your DH should be sharing the work 50:50 outside his working hours. We don't do that but I wish we did (long backstory)

Incidentally (and I've not read all the replies, just the OP's posts), we are talking about home education, not homeschooling. The DfE's definition of homeschooling is school at home, when a child is on the roll of a school and is having work sent home eg due to illness or a Covid lockdown. What the OP is describing is (elective) home education. The terminology matters because home ed often looks nothing like school-at-home, but many (including LA staff) start thinking that only school-type approaches are valid if it's referred to as 'homeschooling'.

Why did you choose home schooling for 3 children? Also if you go to bed with the 4 year old who puts the other 2 to bed and do you spend anytime alone with your husband?

I'll answer your actual question.

I home ed and don't have a paid job. DH works from home.

I do everything to do with the kids, most of the housework, all of the gardening, and everything a around our social life (organising trips etc).

DH does the cooking and shopping, books cars in for service etc, puts bins out, does a tiny bit of housework, all laundry.

Your DH is selfish and lazy and you would probably find life easier without him.

Nobody is actually answering your question. Your husband should be helping more in the evenings and you should absolutely have a bit more time to yourself. It sounds really hard for everyone right now so something is off. Definitely worth a wider, honest conversation about whether things are working as they are.

it sounds really tough

Yes, I did, and they didn't do A levels. They got other qualifications that allowed entry. One was in full time dance training until 17 when an injury took them out. They used their dance qualification for entry (since they didn't want a specialised course). If they had wanted a specialised course, I'd have sorted a bridging course for them.

Sorry but not all jobs are lovely and fulfilling. Some jobs are there to pay the bills, and if he hates it he either sucks it up because it pays so well, like many, many people do, or he moves on. But he is using that job to hold you over a barrel where family/home life is concerned. He isn't working crazy hours at his job like many doctors, lawyers, financiers and yes, teachers. So why is he so 'exhausted' all the time? He has hours at the weekend and in the evening that the OP does not.

He doesn't sound depressed, he sounds like a selfish, selfish man who doesn't recognise his wife's contribution because he is too stupid to see that unpaid work is still work.

If you were to replace yourself how much would you cost? Private tutor + cleaner + house keeper + cook + long days + weekend overtime.

He is taking the piss.