Please help me decide if the balance of duties is right...

[robin3]

This has been bugging me for ages so help me decide if the balance of duties between me (working F/T) and DP (SAHD) is right or wrong. I'm still not sure because I know staying at home is really difficult.

Background info...
Two children
One is a pre-school 5 mornings a week and with Grandparents 1 afternoon a week
One is at nursery/with Grandparents 4 mornings a week
DP works two evenings a week and virtually all day Saturday.
House is small 4 bed with big garden

SOOOOOOOO
What are the tasks that need to be done and what is a reasonable split?

He should be completely responsible for the running of the home during the week IMO. That includes the washing, ironing, cleaning/housework, tidying up, gardening etc. I don't think you (or a DH in another situation) should come home to loads of chores if they work full time. It sounds like he has every morning to himself.

Yip agree with Sandy - he should be doing the majority, if not all, of the chores around the house!

I think maybe you should take responsibility of clearing the kitchen after dinner, and jointly putting the children to bed. But considering he has 4 mornings a week free, that should be the extent of your help, really.

He should be doing the rest, and more importantly, he should be organising the rest. Not enough to ram clothes through the washer, he shoudl be putting them away, having decided where they go!

The majority of the chores shouls be done by your DH as he is at home and you work full time, but you have to take a turn with doing some chores and show willing. Read the other boards about women feeling completely devalued because their DH's do nothing around the house and apply it to your DH as a SAHD

imo you should jointly tidy up before you go to bed

if you have been at home with kids all day and your other half does not help with the stuff that needs doing after the kids go to bed then it feels like you never stop

ie f/t person does not get to sit on arse watching CSI while sah person fills dishwasher/ tidies up kitchen and sorts out kids sarnies for morning

everything else tho (regular cleaning etc) gets done by SAH person

make him a list

or send him off to flylady

I have book I can send

bought it for dh

it is called something like 'the man's guide to doing the house' and is funny and often mentions beer and tells Man what to do every day/ every week

will send if needed if you promise to put few quid in lifeboats box

Currently I'd say it's as follows -

Cleaning - DP but other than dishes/washing and folding the other bits are not done consistently.
Cooking - DP prepares and cooks most of the childrens food but I cook our food and sometimes leave things for the children to have the following day. DP also buys the food but again isn't consistent about what day he goes shopping and will buy the same things every week unless I request variety (which is difficult if I don't know he's going). Every night I make dinner from the ingredients I find in the cupboards. Maybe once a week DP will cook a basic meal.

What other chores should I consider?

I have a list of stuff that I have made up using the flylady principle ie that you tidy up your main untidy areas once or twice a day (ie toys, piles of paper, kitchen etc)

and then each week, on a monthly cycle, you work your way around each area of your house

I have a list for each 'zone' so I do 15 mins a day in that week's zone and that tends to keep things really good in that you never have to spring clean

and then there is a one-hour 'home blessing hour' where I do things like proper clean of kitchen floor, stairs vacuuming, proper toilet clean etc

laundry load goes on first thing, is put away as soon as dry; laundry is a daily routine also

I can't see a problem with you cooking, make your own meal plans if you are bored with his

can you shop online or make him a list?

home blessing is once a week by the way

I can't say I spend more than 30 mins on housework a day

I get home and immediately take over the putting the kids to bed...so always put eldest to bed and 5 nights out of 7 I'm home to take over youngests bath and or do stories and bottle. That said...DP uses this time to either go in to garden and/or load dishwasher and tidy up....never sits down in front of the TV.

DP also does all the paperwork but never files it so it's in random piles and he can never find anything which makes me annoyed as well.

Thanks for the book offer Cappu but the other BIG issue is he takes no counsel and I try not to offer any criticism or advice because it really upsets him...he has no lifelong training in this subject and I think because we live in an affluent area and most of our friends have cleaners/gardeners/nannies he doesn't think the full role is a reasonable expectation...neither do I but I bet I'd do much more if the roles were reversed.

Anyone going to calm me my defending his position a little here i.e. it's too much for one person to take on etc.

Oh and tried suggesting the ordering online but he says we miss special offers

Well he is not really a SAHD is he, he does work part time. So there is that in his defence. So I think that on the days he works in the evening, you should do cook and clear up etc but with him having got the housework, washing etc up to date earlier in the day. Then on the other days, really he should cook and you clear while he catches up with other things.

I think the main problem seems to be a lack of structure and organisation. The food is an issue - could you meal plan and do a shopping list together then he could go off to the shop and either subsitute in any bargains he finds or bung them in the freezer and plan them in for a later date. I really don't think it is an excessive amount of work to expect of him, given the free time he has.

I work 3 full days a week. I do all the menu planning, shopping and cooking. We have 6yo and 3yo (who is only in nursery when I am working). I clean upstairs and we share at cleaning downstairs. We share laundry and ironing but I do more. He clears up and loads/unloads the dishwasher.

I'm a single mother, so I'm afraid I'm not going to say it's too much to take on - a good balance is this. weigh up time spent with the option to sit and relax in the day. You should both get an equal amount of this. He gets a few hours every morning - he could prep a meal, or do the shopping, or vast amounts of washing, ironing, deepcleaning, or he could choose to sit on mumsnet or similar and have to catch up later when the kids are in bed - like I often have to. BUT he should not be sitting on his arse watching you catch up on things he could have done while stiing on his arse earlier.

I would guess a fair whack of the housework can be done in the mornings, and the rest can be split.

Er, whyis there an advert on my kids word?

if he doesn't take counsel then you have to say he needs to work out a structure that works

if that means you both sitting down and sorting out responsibilities that's fine, or if it means him doing it it is also fine

I have to admit that I am in his position (except not as much free time!) - I work part-time, and I do do most stuff. Dh does bedtimes and sandwiches for the kids and tidies up in the evenings but all the other responsibility is mine, and I don't mind taking it because I know how hard he works (mainly because on the days I work I work with him and he is v stressed), and in some ways my life is a doddle in comparison (sitting round 'looking after children' as they play in another room while I mn, or chat to friends, etc)

It needs to get done, but he needs to work out how to do it for himself

if dh started suggesting to me how better to do it - Christ I'd murder him. So I do kind of see his point

Ok...because I'm feeling grumpy I will also add that his 'job' earns no money and he does it to keep his hand in. The result of this is that I have the children to look after by myself all day Sat. Also on Sundays and on holiday I am full-time Mum and do all the looking after because I'm compensating for the fact that I work F/T.

All that said...again if I'm being fair he is not lazy and is always busy. Lack of routine/system is a massive issue and also speed of doing....I watch him load the dishwasher with the precision of a surgeon and the speed of a snail. Our house is actually pretty tidy just not clean enough beyond the kitchen.

I have no way of addressing this without upsetting his manly pride.

Maybe I should suggest he builds a career as a domestic God tutor and that way he would do the research and maybe follow his own advice.

I think you are being a little bit control freaky though I can totally see why

dh would support me in any endeavour but personally I think that not having any family time Sat and Sun is a big problem

why can't he do his work when the kids are at preschool and nursery?

what does he do with that time?

I don't think you are being control freaky at all. Why does he think his manly pride comes above the care of your family?

Are you finding the set-up quite tiring?

I would look at it from totally a different angle - how much free/"me" time do you each get, and how equal is this. It is unfair for him to do all the chores if you then have say 14 hours free a week and he gets 2. And be prepared to review this allocation - it is always easy to say that some chore or other takes a certain length of time in theory, but sometimes you have to check the reality. People have different efficiency rates too, so you may have to factor in that he might take longer to do some chores than others, or simply one of you is more thorough than the other.

You may mutually decide that it is beneficial for some chores to be outsourced in order to gain time.

Agree I'm being control freaky really but not dealing with it means every so often it builds in to a BIG problem for me.

Ladymuck...kind of agree with your approach and this is the view that I've always taken so I tell myself that no-one sits down until 8 at night so we're both equally busy mucking in and that's fair but in truth a lot of things are never done on his list i.e. cleaning the bathroom floor. Plus we're always just about getting by. When the kids were tiny I'd be up til 10 pureeing food for them.

He can't work any other times of the week as that is what the job requires and WE are hoping he can build it up so I don't have to work full-time until I'm 65...so longterm plan.

Sundays we do spend together but say we visit the Grandparents...he arrives, sits down with the Sunday papers and waits for my Mum to bring him a cuppa! Kids lunchtime comes and guess who figures out what the kids will eat? Most mothers I speak to view the weekends responsibilities as the same as during the week and I hear that F/T working men get to play golf and stuff! Obviously I don't expect this at all as I want to be with my children.

Honestly he's such a nice guy but he doesn't appreciate what the job description is. Yes i'm tired of it but it's much better now than it was when the kids were newborn and I was getting up twice a night and still working.

Sorry Ladymuck as for freetime....don't know about him...if you consider time in the garden then probably 8 hours a week during the day then evenings after 8ish.

I have 7 nights a week after 8 and an hour on the train to and from work.

I think you're right that he doesn't seem to know what the job description is

do not start doing the jobs that are 'his'

he needs to have some pride in his home as his workplace; doing the sah job is a job just like any other and needs to be treated with respect and commitment

I do my job, dh does his. It is only fair. I think your dh is ligging it a bit tbh

however how you phrase that - gee, I dunno

I don't agree with getting him a cleaner btw, that's just going to cause more resentment imo

Travelling to and from work isn't free time. Commuting is rather stressful. Free time is when you get to choose what you do.

I can't believe you are ending up cleaning the bathroom floor when he has all this time on his hands at home.

Doing chores slowly or badly is a typical male (teenagers do it to) way of getting out of domestic work. The manly pride thing is just another barrier he's put up in order to make you afraid to confront this. It sounds to me like he is exploiting you.

We had a cleaner in our last house and this helped my stress levels a lot. Didn't mean he did anything more than he does now and amusingly he used to sit on his computer whilst she was there. I'm not sure it ever occured to him that she was doing in 2-3 hours what he could have done i.e. 1 mornings hard graft is all it takes. Anyway when we moved we agreed that we wouldn't have a cleaner due to cash restrictions.

In the past month I tried to be constructive by suggesting that we get a cleaner again...sort of recognising that he has too much on and that the money has got to be worth giving up other things for...he said 'not yet...let's wait until next year'. I didn't ask why but thought that he might take a hint....wrong.

So...I'm going to wait until we are both in a good mood then raise the cleaner thing again and then I suppose I'll have to take the leadership role again on food doing endless meal planners and shopping lists.