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 ?

Hopefully you're using one of those options to teach your kids English.

Our family has been in varying degrees of school/ not school, and tbh, beyond the education part of the day, it was 50/50 for both parents. But as much as i understand the appeal of home education, ultimately we could not find a balance that worked. It’s pretty full on OP, and you need to look at the wellbeing of whole family if you’re going to make it work. Education isn’t worth the cost it’s tolling on you and your DH as it is.

Do you get paid for it?
No because it’s not work.

You are within your rights to homeschool and be a SAHP but you’re being disingenuous to say it’s work because you know it’s not.

Is that how you felt as teacher, that you couldn’t care less about your students?

She has plenty of friends and goes to groups and clubs with children her own age? Bizarre that people think homeschooling means we are always at home😂

This, always wonder if the dc wanted to go to school would the homeschooling parents let them?

I don’t understand why anyone would home school unless their children hated school or had some kind of breakdown. They will miss out on so much. I would have hated being home schooled. Then you could work part time. Your dh sounds depressed but he does need to pull his weight

Do you have anything productive to say about my original question or are you just here to write a mean post and make yourself feel better? Pathetic

I’m have cared for young children…

I’m a single parent like many others - how do you think we get our chores done??

Admittedly I've only read the first page of posts but I'm going against the grain in saying when do you get a break? He buggers off back to his office at 7pm presumably after you've fed him and has alone time all evening spending no time with his kids at all and sleeps in every weekend morning....nah not ok.

My post was not that I am unable to do the chores with young children. It was about how others share the workload between two parents who are both responsible for their house and children

This isn’t about homeschooling (although generally MN posters dislike it). It’s about your DH being a lazy sod and thinking he just has to provide financially and doesn’t do anything else.

He should be spending time with his children and if you are having to do all the bedtime routine, he should be washing up
after tea or cleaning the kitchen. At weekends, you should both get the opportunity for a lie in.

Sorry you are getting a hard time on here. You are raising 3 children, homeschooling and running a house, all while your DH does a 9-5 job and fuck all else. He should be ashamed of himself.

Do you want to go out to work, OP?

You aren't wrong.

He needs to start doing bed time. So what if they don't settle for him. They will if he does it regularly.

That’s exactly what happens

No. I would like to home educate my children

I don’t believe any one with children would tell a sahm with a toddler and a preschooler that they have 4 free hours to do chores a day and nothing should need to be done in the evenings. It’s one of the most obtuse things I’ve heard today.

Many tears have been shed over these replies 😂🤪 genuinely thank you.

You're clearly not going to take any advice.

It doesn't make me feel good at all that children are being "educated" by people without basic English skills.

Of course not. But I believe parents care more for their own children than teachers do

Does the 2 year old not need any supervision in those 4 hours? Perhaps a two year old can make their own breakfast and lunch and get themselves dressed? Presumably the 4 year old is entirely self sufficient? Is OP allowed to eat lunch too? If we are counting 'getting ready for work', is OP not allowed to shower and get dressed?

Or must she toil every possible moment of the day on house work to get her chores done, so that the great breadwinner never has to lift one finger on a weekday, and only very minimal on the weekend, despite the fact that his single colleagues, or colleagues whose partners also work, presumably manage to not die of exhaustion despite the lack of live in housekeeper?

Appalled at the judgement telling OP to just go back to work as if that will solve everything, and skipping over the details.

OP I really feel for you that your husband stays in bed until 10/11 daily while you’re up at 6 with the kids. And that he has solo leisure time 7-11pm every night while you sleep so you can get up in the morning.

I always thought as a SAHM you agree you will do the same ‘work’ as him, so during working hours (11-7 for him perhaps?) you fully parent the kids and do as much housework as realistic, then outside that time, you split everything else 50/50.

The new ‘currency’ is free time, so if he’s getting 10h sleep, 5h leisure time and 8-9h work there’s a massive discrepancy with you getting 10h sleep, then parenting and housework 12-14h/day. How would a job solve that if he’s not doing any more childcare/housework?

He is their parent too, parenting is not a chore you can outsource like cleaning. He needs more time with them. They ‘don’t settle
for him’ at bedtime because he’s not putting the effort in to be kind, firm and consistent daily.

OP if I were you I would treat your job like a job. Book a homeschooling conference and go away for two nights and stay in a hotel while he takes leave. Tell him he can read them stories for an hour before lights out while you research and plan lessons and activities for the following day. Otherwise all you’re doing is providing the childcare to facilitate him completely failing to bond with his kids.

Most people share the burden regardless of working hours.
My DH works FT and mine are the age of your youngest two. He gets up and makes me a coffee in the morning, if he’s working from home he will mostly let me lie in. He will play with them about half the time during lunch on the day he works from home.
I always make dinner so it’s ready for him coming back, but then he will clean the kitchen.
Most of the time he will do bath and I will take 20 mins to sit with a drink and read, then we will share bedtime reading and putting down.

Most engaged fathers are like this because they want to be with their children.

That's mean, TBF.