If you are a SAHP, how, if at all, does your partner help you around the house?

[Anonymous]

We have three young kids and my husband does most of the dishes, gives baths and puts the kids to bed plus takes care of everything on the outside of our house on weekends. He’s a good husband too so I have no complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your children are in school, I would expect you should be able to get all your stuff done during the school age and there should be zero to do on the weekend and in the evenings (save for dinner).

DH and I both work full time in very busy jobs, and we only have about an hour of stuff to tackle on the weekends. If I had a sah spouse of school age kids, and there was any expectation of me doing work on the weekends, I would promptly tell you to go back to work. Because I would rather do 1 hour of chores on the weekends with my spouse contributing income, than do one or more hours of chores on the weekends with my spouse not contributing income. Sure, we outsource housecleaning and yard work, but - surprise - that is the beauty of having two incomes. You can afford all that plus have lots of money left over.

Do you have kids?
This doesn’t really make sense to me. A lot of stuff needs to be done nearly every day and at pretty specific times (school pick up and drop off, for example, also meals, wake-up and bedtimes, etc). You can’t just save it for a few hours on the weekends.

And if you aren’t talking about the day to day childcare and running of a household, and you outsource the housekeeping and yard work, then what are you doing for hours on the weekends?

Of course I have kids. When kids are school age, you have the five hours a day to yourself. Let’s say you spend one of those days doing a full weekly cleaning of your house. Grocery shopping for an hour two other days. A few loads of laundry on two days takes maybe twenty mins of hands on time spread over several hours at your leisure. What are you doing the rest of the school days? Not much. So you should handle the two hours of before school stuff and drop off plus the after school shift and dinner. I have never understood women who think that just because their working spouse is home and night, stuff should be split fifty fifty- when she did nothing all day long.

And before you ask, yes I also worked PT from home for three years when my son was a baby while we had a nanny for four hours a day while I was working, I handled all other household chores - laundry cleaning cooking etc. it’s just not that much. When kids get older, the after school stuff adds a few hours a day; but again you don’t have a job or any day time obligations so why wouldn’t you handle the post school trade off?

As to what we do on weekends: 3-4 loads of laundry, cat litter, deep clean kitchen (our cleaners only come every two weeks), break down recycling boxes, do returns, other small cleaning tasks, there are usually a few things I can fix around the house…. Every couple months we’ll have a more intense chore heavy weekend like spend all weekend power washing or similar. Also, I haven’t had private childcare since son started preschool.

I agree with you. I consider the daytime my time off, and give DH that time when he’s home. This is why SAHMs get kind of annoyed when PTA meetings or school volunteer work is scheduled after school hours.

You can’t have one parent just check out on the kids, but I don’t know any SAHMs who expect their husbands to grocery shopping or do half of the housecleaning.

[Anonymous]

Interesting thread and a curious span of arrangements. Varies a lot, it seems. We have a preschooler in addition to two school-age children, and while I sah, my spouse works a lot, but I wish he would take bigger part in wake-up and bedtime routines, or just sit down for dinner with us. Instead, he prefers to spend time with friends pretty regularly, almost every weekend. Does everyone think it's fair?

[Anonymous]

Not much on a daily basis. He did small repairs, mowed the lawn, took out the trash. I did the cooking, cleaning, laundry, majority of kid/baby stuff like bathtime and bedtime.

Now that I work I still do most cooking, cleaning, laundry, but he gets up with the kids every morning and makes breakfast/takes them to school and does the bulk to driving to activities, going to parent teacher conferences, drs appts etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a SAHM and my DH doesn’t lift a finger on chores. Never has, never will. No, he did not shovel snow. No, he does not take out the trash. This is a big reason I’m a SAHM.

He does parenting though!

Similar. I knew if i worked i’d be doing my job and all the house/kid stuff which is a bad deal for me. He does a lot of driving around for kid activities after school and is involved on the weekends, because we need to divide and conquer, but none of the chores, maintenance, logistics, planning, school stuff etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting thread and a curious span of arrangements. Varies a lot, it seems. We have a preschooler in addition to two school-age children, and while I sah, my spouse works a lot, but I wish he would take bigger part in wake-up and bedtime routines, or just sit down for dinner with us. Instead, he prefers to spend time with friends pretty regularly, almost every weekend. Does everyone think it's fair?

Presumably you have time to go out with friends a couple times during the week during the day, right? Three hours at coffee? I'm assuming your preschooler is only in half days. If they're in full days, you presumably have time to meet up with friends every day.

Seems fair that he gets some time on weekends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Multiple school-age kids in the picture. Does your partner do any chores around the house, either during the week or on weekends?

Yes of course. We tag team all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting thread and a curious span of arrangements. Varies a lot, it seems. We have a preschooler in addition to two school-age children, and while I sah, my spouse works a lot, but I wish he would take bigger part in wake-up and bedtime routines, or just sit down for dinner with us. Instead, he prefers to spend time with friends pretty regularly, almost every weekend. Does everyone think it's fair?

Presumably you have time to go out with friends a couple times during the week during the day, right? Three hours at coffee? I'm assuming your preschooler is only in half days. If they're in full days, you presumably have time to meet up with friends every day.

Seems fair that he gets some time on weekends.

No, I sah and the preschool sahs too

[Anonymous]

*preschooler

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your children are in school, I would expect you should be able to get all your stuff done during the school age and there should be zero to do on the weekend and in the evenings (save for dinner).

DH and I both work full time in very busy jobs, and we only have about an hour of stuff to tackle on the weekends. If I had a sah spouse of school age kids, and there was any expectation of me doing work on the weekends, I would promptly tell you to go back to work. Because I would rather do 1 hour of chores on the weekends with my spouse contributing income, than do one or more hours of chores on the weekends with my spouse not contributing income. Sure, we outsource housecleaning and yard work, but - surprise - that is the beauty of having two incomes. You can afford all that plus have lots of money left over.

Do you mean to say you have a daily housekeeper doing the daily cooking, kid driving 3-6pm, errands, laundry, daily tidying up/dishes?

Or you mean you have a house cleaning team come once a week ir every other week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting thread and a curious span of arrangements. Varies a lot, it seems. We have a preschooler in addition to two school-age children, and while I sah, my spouse works a lot, but I wish he would take bigger part in wake-up and bedtime routines, or just sit down for dinner with us. Instead, he prefers to spend time with friends pretty regularly, almost every weekend. Does everyone think it's fair?

No, 6-8pm should be family time, not friends or more office work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Husband with a SAHM. Our kid is 11 and in school for over six hours per day. I work 50-60 hours a week and do a great deal of: cooking, cleaning, my own laundry, pay all the bills, file taxes, investments, retirement, cut the lawn, cook 50% at home, clean the dishes more than 50% of the time, etc.

The list can go on for a while. I'm also the lead in everything our kids does for school. Parent/teacher meetings I'm the one speaking and organizing the talking points. Emails to school or teachers are from me. I also drive our kid to sports 99% of the time (which during fall and spring is 5-6 days week.

Yes, my SAHM is lazy. Average iPhone screen time is 12-13 hours. I check weekly. Yes, we have discussed divorce. I plan on filling once my kid is in high school.

Do you work from home those 50-60 hours a week or a lot on the weekends?

Otherwise I don’t see how you fit in a RT commute, office time, and driving around kids to activities from 3:30-7pm every day. Plus cooking and feeding them before and/or after.

Anyhow, I know a ton of white collar working women who work 8:30-5:30 and then family obligations 5:30-8:30pm. Whist their husbands hide and don’t lift a finger.

[Anonymous]

When he's not working, he does everything he sees that needs to be done. We agreed that I'm responsible for dinner three nights a week and he's responsible for cooking three nights. We have leftovers, takeout, or go out one night a week. If I've done two loads of laundry but by the time he gets home only one is folded, he folds and puts away the other one. On weekends he takes the kids to their activities and does food shopping. If he sees trash needs to be emptied he does that, if the shoes by the front door are messy he neatens them. We go through mail and bills together, so we both know what's going on with our finances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your children are in school, I would expect you should be able to get all your stuff done during the school age and there should be zero to do on the weekend and in the evenings (save for dinner).

DH and I both work full time in very busy jobs, and we only have about an hour of stuff to tackle on the weekends. If I had a sah spouse of school age kids, and there was any expectation of me doing work on the weekends, I would promptly tell you to go back to work. Because I would rather do 1 hour of chores on the weekends with my spouse contributing income, than do one or more hours of chores on the weekends with my spouse not contributing income. Sure, we outsource housecleaning and yard work, but - surprise - that is the beauty of having two incomes. You can afford all that plus have lots of money left over.

Do you have kids?
This doesn’t really make sense to me. A lot of stuff needs to be done nearly every day and at pretty specific times (school pick up and drop off, for example, also meals, wake-up and bedtimes, etc). You can’t just save it for a few hours on the weekends.

And if you aren’t talking about the day to day childcare and running of a household, and you outsource the housekeeping and yard work, then what are you doing for hours on the weekends?

Of course I have kids. When kids are school age, you have the five hours a day to yourself. Let’s say you spend one of those days doing a full weekly cleaning of your house. Grocery shopping for an hour two other days. A few loads of laundry on two days takes maybe twenty mins of hands on time spread over several hours at your leisure. What are you doing the rest of the school days? Not much. So you should handle the two hours of before school stuff and drop off plus the after school shift and dinner. I have never understood women who think that just because their working spouse is home and night, stuff should be split fifty fifty- when she did nothing all day long.

And before you ask, yes I also worked PT from home for three years when my son was a baby while we had a nanny for four hours a day while I was working, I handled all other household chores - laundry cleaning cooking etc. it’s just not that much. When kids get older, the after school stuff adds a few hours a day; but again you don’t have a job or any day time obligations so why wouldn’t you handle the post school trade off?

As to what we do on weekends: 3-4 loads of laundry, cat litter, deep clean kitchen (our cleaners only come every two weeks), break down recycling boxes, do returns, other small cleaning tasks, there are usually a few things I can fix around the house…. Every couple months we’ll have a more intense chore heavy weekend like spend all weekend power washing or similar. Also, I haven’t had private childcare since son started preschool.

I think she means the hours and hours and hours that it takes to make semi annual dentist appointments and buy gifts. /s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your children are in school, I would expect you should be able to get all your stuff done during the school age and there should be zero to do on the weekend and in the evenings (save for dinner).

DH and I both work full time in very busy jobs, and we only have about an hour of stuff to tackle on the weekends. If I had a sah spouse of school age kids, and there was any expectation of me doing work on the weekends, I would promptly tell you to go back to work. Because I would rather do 1 hour of chores on the weekends with my spouse contributing income, than do one or more hours of chores on the weekends with my spouse not contributing income. Sure, we outsource housecleaning and yard work, but - surprise - that is the beauty of having two incomes. You can afford all that plus have lots of money left over.

Do you have kids?
This doesn’t really make sense to me. A lot of stuff needs to be done nearly every day and at pretty specific times (school pick up and drop off, for example, also meals, wake-up and bedtimes, etc). You can’t just save it for a few hours on the weekends.

And if you aren’t talking about the day to day childcare and running of a household, and you outsource the housekeeping and yard work, then what are you doing for hours on the weekends?

Of course I have kids. When kids are school age, you have the five hours a day to yourself. Let’s say you spend one of those days doing a full weekly cleaning of your house. Grocery shopping for an hour two other days. A few loads of laundry on two days takes maybe twenty mins of hands on time spread over several hours at your leisure. What are you doing the rest of the school days? Not much. So you should handle the two hours of before school stuff and drop off plus the after school shift and dinner. I have never understood women who think that just because their working spouse is home and night, stuff should be split fifty fifty- when she did nothing all day long.

And before you ask, yes I also worked PT from home for three years when my son was a baby while we had a nanny for four hours a day while I was working, I handled all other household chores - laundry cleaning cooking etc. it’s just not that much. When kids get older, the after school stuff adds a few hours a day; but again you don’t have a job or any day time obligations so why wouldn’t you handle the post school trade off?

As to what we do on weekends: 3-4 loads of laundry, cat litter, deep clean kitchen (our cleaners only come every two weeks), break down recycling boxes, do returns, other small cleaning tasks, there are usually a few things I can fix around the house…. Every couple months we’ll have a more intense chore heavy weekend like spend all weekend power washing or similar. Also, I haven’t had private childcare since son started preschool.

I think she means the hours and hours and hours that it takes to make semi annual dentist appointments and buy gifts. /s

I don’t know. Dentist/doctor appointments aren’t nothing. If you have three kids and a couple of elderly relatives, plus your own teeth and health needs, it can take up a good amount of time.

I realize that everyone on this board has WFH jobs where they don’t actually ever work. But for those of us who have real jobs, that stuff can be a lot to schedule.