Wife wants a house cleaner instead of preschool

[Anonymous]

OP it sounds like you want to punish your wife for having OCD and staying home. Do you resent her? Do you respect her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife isn't cool with getting rid of weekly house cleaning so we can pay for preschool. She has a part-time job on the weekends as a concierge. She's been a stay-at-home mom since our oldest was born. I am on board with her working or not working. Our first child was invited to public preschool because he was in an early intervention program. The second child's preschool won't be free. He goes to the YMCA at least four times a week for two hours a day, and they swim for another hour. My wife thinks gym childcare can provide a preschool experience.

OP here. We can afford both. I feel that weekly housekeeping is excessive. My wife doesn't want our child in preschool because she has trust issues. She would be okay with our child going to a public PreK, but that's not an option where we live. She feels the YMCA is the next best thing to regular preschool. I wasn't aware of any of this until today. She wants to hold onto him a while longer. She's terrified of school shootings. I suggested getting rid of a weekly housekeeper because I don't feel like we need it every week. My wife is OCD. The private preschool I have looked at is Montessori, and they are expensive.

Is it that you think a house doesn’t need a full cleaning every week, or that you believe you wife’s time is worth less than the weekly cost of a cleaning service?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a SAHM but hate cleaning the whole house by myself! We made a choice by having kids, than sacrificing my career rather than my husband's, and to read people saying SAHM should also be doing the cleaning on top of caring for the kids is infuriating.

First of all, no one likes cleaning. But you do it anyway because it needs to be done. I work FT and still clean my own house but that doesn't mean that I look down on people who do have house cleaners. I had one for years until COVID came along, I got laid off and then just never found a new housekeeper once I went back to work. If you want to pay someone to clean your house, that's great.

But did your kids also go to preschool? The issue is the selfish choice to not spend 2 hours a week cleaning yourself (which OP will have time for if her child is in preschool) so that she doesn't have to clean her own home. I get that its only pre-school but as a parent, I can't imagine not choosing my child's education/socialization over a housecleaner. No offense to the OP but if they cannot afford to pay for both, I'm guessing they are not living in a huge house.

The child gets socialized at the YMCA CHILDCARE for days a week. I've never understood the obsession with preschool in the US. If it's so important, why are the US kids so behind academically compared to the rest of the world? Parents went to check off boxes.

But no quality preschool program is focused on teaching reading and writing either.

Going to the childcare center while OP works out is not the same as preschool. Its not the same group of kids each day, they are not educating them on basics they need to know for K and the child is not learning how to behave in a classroom environment. Those are the benefits of preschool. For all we know, the kids are sitting there watching a movie while the mom works out. Again, it's about this is what mom wants to do, despite it not necessarily being the best option for the child. OP's wife sounds entitled and selfish.

They don't play movies at the YMCA. The one I go to has a glass wall. I can see everything that goes on. You sound judgemental.

Are they teaching them how to write letters? Read? Organizational skills? Look, maybe they are. I honestly wouldn't know because I sent my child to pre-school. And yes, I am being judgemental. I judge a parent who chooses to keep a cleaning service and gym time over their child's education.

Is preschool essential? Maybe not. But if you ask my best friend who is a Kindergarten teacher whether it helps, she will tell you that she can absolutely tell which of her kids went to preschool and which didn't. And usually the ones who didn't are the ones who struggle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife isn't cool with getting rid of weekly house cleaning so we can pay for preschool. She has a part-time job on the weekends as a concierge. She's been a stay-at-home mom since our oldest was born. I am on board with her working or not working. Our first child was invited to public preschool because he was in an early intervention program. The second child's preschool won't be free. He goes to the YMCA at least four times a week for two hours a day, and they swim for another hour. My wife thinks gym childcare can provide a preschool experience.

She is wrong.

Why don't you read up on the many advantages of preschool, the standards that are required by accreditation. Then you can have a substantive discussion with your wife.

Aren't you kids worth more than a post to DCUM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife isn't cool with getting rid of weekly house cleaning so we can pay for preschool. She has a part-time job on the weekends as a concierge. She's been a stay-at-home mom since our oldest was born. I am on board with her working or not working. Our first child was invited to public preschool because he was in an early intervention program. The second child's preschool won't be free. He goes to the YMCA at least four times a week for two hours a day, and they swim for another hour. My wife thinks gym childcare can provide a preschool experience.

She is wrong.

Why don't you read up on the many advantages of preschool, the standards that are required by accreditation. Then you can have a substantive discussion with your wife.

Aren't you kids worth more than a post to DCUM?

It sounds like his wife already did that. Shes trained in Montessori.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife isn't cool with getting rid of weekly house cleaning so we can pay for preschool. She has a part-time job on the weekends as a concierge. She's been a stay-at-home mom since our oldest was born. I am on board with her working or not working. Our first child was invited to public preschool because he was in an early intervention program. The second child's preschool won't be free. He goes to the YMCA at least four times a week for two hours a day, and they swim for another hour. My wife thinks gym childcare can provide a preschool experience.

She is wrong.

Why don't you read up on the many advantages of preschool, the standards that are required by accreditation. Then you can have a substantive discussion with your wife.

Aren't you kids worth more than a post to DCUM?

It sounds like his wife already did that. Shes trained in Montessori.

You can read about the advantages, but perhaps his wife has seen too much stuff happen at preschool she doesn't like.

[Anonymous]

Keep the cleaner.

[Anonymous]

I wonder what people on this thread would think of me homeschooling my elementary and middle schoolers with twice weekly housekeeping.

Preschool homeschooling is easy, and it sounds like your wife has specific training in it. What are you flipping out about, OP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife isn't cool with getting rid of weekly house cleaning so we can pay for preschool. She has a part-time job on the weekends as a concierge. She's been a stay-at-home mom since our oldest was born. I am on board with her working or not working. Our first child was invited to public preschool because he was in an early intervention program. The second child's preschool won't be free. He goes to the YMCA at least four times a week for two hours a day, and they swim for another hour. My wife thinks gym childcare can provide a preschool experience.

OP here. We can afford both. I feel that weekly housekeeping is excessive. My wife doesn't want our child in preschool because she has trust issues. She would be okay with our child going to a public PreK, but that's not an option where we live. She feels the YMCA is the next best thing to regular preschool. I wasn't aware of any of this until today. She wants to hold onto him a while longer. She's terrified of school shootings. I suggested getting rid of a weekly housekeeper because I don't feel like we need it every week. My wife is OCD. The private preschool I have looked at is Montessori, and they are expensive.

This is very different from your initial framing. What is the real issue? Money, your expectations for your wife, her OCD/over-protectiveness, something else?[/quote

I want him to attend Montessori, but she wants to home-school him for preschool. She is trained in the Montessori method. She believes that she would better teach him preschool academics than any school could offer. She doesn't want to teach him after preschool. We're not a homeschooling family. Our son is approaching four, but he has a late birthday. He'll be almost six when he's allowed to begin public kindergarten.

Montessori has such a rigid approach to education. It was invented in the 19th century by someone who didn’t raise her own kids and worked with orphaned children and children of very poor people. I am not saying that to knock it, because I went to a Montessori school and sent my first child to one. But I think it has some limitations, specifically around socioemotional learning which is the most important at that age. If your wife can do Montessori at home, a compromise might be a PT (like 3-4 mornings a week) program that focuses on socioemotional. It’s really helpful for kids to learn how to work through conflict, sharing, making friends, negotiating play in a stable environment with the same group of kids and trusted teachers. It sets them up to be able to do this more independently in school when they will not get as much handholding.