Stay-At-Home-Mother but not Housekeeper

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my current arrangement and has been for 19 months. It works. My advice is to outsource as much as possible at first, you can decide later if you want to absorb those responsibilities. Oh, and it helps to trade sex for a certain lifestyle.

Fixed that for you.

Ha, thanks for clearing that up. I know a bunch of SAHMs who have the same arrangement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my current arrangement and has been for 19 months. It works. My advice is to outsource as much as possible at first, you can decide later if you want to absorb those responsibilities. Oh, and it helps to trade sex for a certain lifestyle.

Fixed that for you.

Ha, thanks for clearing that up. I know a bunch of SAHMs who have the same arrangement.

No you don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I get not wanting to spend all day cooking and cleaning. Some outsourcing is fine, but honestly it seems weird to me that you want to focus 100% of your energy on the baby like a nanny. You aren't a nanny. Your child is going to have a weird perception of the world is your life completely revolves around him/her.

I'm a working mom, but a lot of my bonding time with my toddler involves him standing on his kitchen stool and "helping" me prep dinner. We go to the park and then hit up the grocery store together. He mimics me using a towel to clean the floor. He is my "organizer helper" for putting away laundry.

Of course I do outsource deep cleaning and a lot of free time is spent at the park, library, classes, birthday parties, etc. But your child is supposed to learn how the world works through spending time with you. Not everything has to be some carefully planned Pinterest activity.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my current arrangement and has been for 19 months. It works. My advice is to outsource as much as possible at first, you can decide later if you want to absorb those responsibilities. Oh, and it helps to trade sex for a certain lifestyle.

Fixed that for you.

Ha, thanks for clearing that up. I know a bunch of SAHMs who have the same arrangement.

No you don't.

Oh, I do. Similar winking/giggly sex kitten talk and all. But to each his/her/their own. Just not an example my partner and I want to set for our own children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of my SAHM friends had a cleaning lady come weekly or every-other-week to handle the major cleaning tasks. I don't think that's unusual.

But it also seems like you are going into parenting with a very rigid idea of how things should be and already have your hackles up about what's ok for you to do vs. not in order to preserve your equal status in your relationship. That, not a housekeeper, is IMO setting you up for trouble. Sure, get a housekeeper and discuss plans with DH but prepared to be flexible.

Also, to keep up the equal partnership with DH, I'd recommend letting him be the one in charge of some aspect of childcare. In our family, DH did baths from day 1. That was his time with the kids and the area in which he got to be the expert. I think it helped keep us from falling into an assumption that since I was a SAHM that all parenting duties were mine.

+1 This is good insight and advice in my opinion. It's unclear from your post if you're just talking about a housekeeper or you're considering putting more on your husband's plate because you'll be too busy engaging your child. If it's the latter, I'd reconsider your plan. There are lots of things to consider...who will cook meals? Are you willing to grocery shop/meal plan or is that not engaging enough for baby? Who will get up with baby in the night? A game plan is good, rigidity not so much. For us, SAH means that my husband's life is easier and so is mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my current arrangement and has been for 19 months. It works. My advice is to outsource as much as possible at first, you can decide later if you want to absorb those responsibilities. Oh, and it helps to trade sex for a certain lifestyle.

Fixed that for you.

Ha, thanks for clearing that up. I know a bunch of SAHMs who have the same arrangement.

No you don't.

Oh, I do. Similar winking/giggly sex kitten talk and all. But to each his/her/their own. Just not an example my partner and I want to set for our own children.

eh, they probably engaged in that winking/giggly sex kitten talk BEFORE they had kids. I suspect that the ones who brag about their sex lives the most probably don't have much going on in that department. But that is just a guess.