what do SAHMs do once kids are in school?
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Anonymous
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Pretty much everything house and home related so that none of it needs to be done after school or on weekends. Get all shopping done, meals prepped and ready. Cleaning, garden and yard maintenance. Also lots of volunteer work, time in the kids schools and on school outings. Home for sick days..and niece and nephew sick days and neighbors kids sick days! Also home for all appointments and contractors. A place to hang out with a snack and adult supervision for the middle school age neighbor kids who would otherwise be home alone. Lots of catching up with friends, visiting and helping out elderly family, taking meals to someone who is sick etc...
Creates a great deal of quality family time and individual time with the kids on evenings and weekends and time for date nights too. Minimizes rush and playing catch up and keeps stress in the family low. |
Anonymous
| THIS ^^^ so well said - the stress is so low around here- the quality time is sooo high. And I have so much energy to clean up after dinner and let DH play w/kids! It's so fun to hear them playing together. |
Anonymous
PP who just went back to work here -- man I do miss that and I definitely did NOT take advantage of that when I had the damn time! 
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Anonymous
PP you quoted here. There is still 5 years worth of scrapbooking...it's just not going to happen. |
Anonymous
Who the fock does scrapbooking? |
Anonymous
| I somehow doubt the op is real. Sounds like a fake pair designed to stir the pot. |
Anonymous
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I'm just so darned tired from the years of working PT, FT, PT again, juggling everything. I have finally made myself take some time to exercise, have lunch with a friend sometimes, take a nap. I'm MUCH less exhausted and don't feel like I'm the edge of my abilities at every moment. I don't SAH completely, but I work PT for myself so have a lot of flexibility and a fair amount of time.
OP, if you are real and mean well, perhaps your DW would do well to sit down and make a schedule. I do feel I do better getting things done when I have less time. More time makes me waste time. I'm trying to figure out a loose schedule of activities during the week so that I can get everything done and (1) not put too much on my DH and (2) have weekends free to hang with the kids. Haven't gotten there, but trying. I did do baking this weekend, both days, with the kids, without totally losing my temper. Could not have possibly done that back when the kids were littler and I had less time. |
Anonymous
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Maybe think about your wife's day as a workday. Does she put in at least 8.5 hours, between getting kids ready for school in the morning and the cleaning/homework/dinner/bedtime duties when they come home? I suspect that her afternoons/evenings are probably busy. You probably get to relax after you come home from work and she deserves some time off work, too.
Or do you expect her to be working 10, 14, 24 hours a day? |
Anonymous
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Tennis at club
Shop at N-M (alternate: day spa) Review samples with decorator Yell at landscaper service (wish I'd studied Spanish more) Remind nanny to leave for school pickup Oh, where did the day go? The kids are home already?! |
Anonymous
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That load of laundry you hear when you get home is not the first to be done -- it's the 3rd and the other 2 are already put away. Laundry never rests.
It IS easier when the kids go back to school -- which still isn't enough reward for the incredible amount of work done during the years that they were home and DH was assuming that he didn't need to help out, you know, because I had all that time to do 100% of the work. With the kids in school, life is paced at an enjoyable pace. Housework gets done in the morning, lunch with friends, volunteer activities and grocery shopping, and then I'm there to chauffer in the afternoons, help with homework, make a decent dinner, and still have the energy for DH when he comes home. None of this was true when I was juggling and squeezing all of this into 3 hours in the late afternoon. And I was not happy. |
Anonymous
| To address the OP directly, there could be many reasons for DW's evasion of your questioning. Perhaps she feels overwhelmed by the scope of these long-term projects you mention. Perhaps her skills as, say, a handyman, if that's the case, are limited and it's difficult for her to get going. It's possible her time during the day is her only privacy and she evades your questions to protect her privacy - not entirely reasonable but possible. We're not all WonderWoman. i also would consider one PPs suggestion that her time "off" do not coincide with your time "off." E.g. I am on duty during the evenings, cooking, cleaning up after dinner, getting lunches ready and getting kids into bed, while that's DH's time off. So perhaps she's taking time during the day to paint her nails, bathe, veg ... . It's also possible the the kids only recently started school full time - is the youngest a kindergartner? Maybe she's adjusting to this new normal and trying to find her own space/time continuum. |
Anonymous
This seems fair. And shuttling kids around is time that is not your own, even if it doesn't seem like hard work. Cooking and grocery shopping take a lot of time. Preparing crafts and playdates takes time. I waste a lot of time in the day. But I also do a lot of stuff without anyone realizing the time it took. But this is my first year with the kids both in school, and I definitely am looking for a job or grad school. Strangely, I don't take advantage of things I want to do (yoga, exercise, manicure, whatever) because it seems too decadent and time-wasting and I "should" be doing something productive, but then I waste the time on other stuff (internet) instead. |
Anonymous
why not take a class btw. tennis and spa days? |
Anonymous
why not take a class btw. tennis and spa days? |
Anonymous
why not take a class btw. tennis and spa days? |