Coming to grips with gender/class implications of SAH

[Anonymous]

I want to address this part of your last post:

"3. Part-time work seems like a bad option to me. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I have a husband who doesn't want to do anything around the house -- we will fight and end up in a situation where I do almost all the work. So the solution is to give myself outside work in addition to the housework? How is that a solution? Additionally, part-time work is not available in my current field so I'd have to radically readjust. And I'm skeptical (see prior poster's note) that intellectually satisfying part-time work exists anyway."

Well, PT work is not a bad option if you enjoy your work. I work FT (though did work PT for a few years) and find that it energizes me. Sure, it can be tedious and exhausting with some of the day-to-day, but overall it makes me happier and makes me more organized.

Also, some women feel that they don't lose as much of themselves with one foot in the workforce door. If you can afford the PT childcare and outsourcing help, it is a great option and might make you feel less resentful if your husband (since some women complain they resent their husband holding on to his career while they have given up their's).

But if it's not an option or you aren't crazy about working then it's not a good solution.

I think you definitely need to make sure your expectations are in line with your husband's. It is his culture and his bg that makes him think this way you say? Fine, just make sure you are on board with that. That may be the rationale but it wouldn't fly in my book (then again I didn't marry this guy and you probably kneew that going in to it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, here is a common misunderstanding:

Many working dads whose wives stay home think the parenting split should be, oh, 25-dad and 75-mom, while the SAHMs shoot for 50-50. They are both wrong. It should be 100% for both.

Of course, the amount of time away from home factors into how much the actual physical tasks of parenting get divvied up. But fatherhood is 100%, 24-7, 365, til your last breath. OP, your husband's compartmentalizing is BS, an intellectual exercise, an illusion.

Your hoped-for children need to see their parents in service to one another, and unconditionally in service to them. Loving parenthood is all about the little selfless acts. Your kids need to see their dad as someone who cherishes their mother, who is not "above" any child-related task, and who is strong in patience and generosity.

Parenting is not a contract you draw up with your spouse and your kids. It is a relationship, falling in love. I am glad to see you are trying to keep communication open, but I am afraid your framework is off.

Signed,
Mom of many, whose husband works two high-stress jobs with long hours, who shoulders most of the actual work without any outside help, but who feels completely valued and supported by the father of her children
PS. My married brothers all work professional jobs with long hours while their wives care for their little ones without help. Only one marriage has any strain, and that is the brother who subscribes to your husband's "plan.".

I posted earlier (asking if your husband really used the word menial to describe many parenting tasks) and I think this poster really phrased things perfectly. Whatever the arrangement you wind up with, you've got to feel that your husband values and supports you. Outside help from someone else can't replace that.

[Anonymous]

I'm not getting all the bashing of the husband in this one. I think he is being totally reasonable. As OP said, he doesn't really know what to expect and who can blame him for not wanting to clean-up and do other stuff like that when he's home if they can afford to hire someone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, here is a common misunderstanding:

Many working dads whose wives stay home think the parenting split should be, oh, 25-dad and 75-mom, while the SAHMs shoot for 50-50. They are both wrong. It should be 100% for both.

That's a nice philosophy. Maybe the OP is looking for philosophy. But there are practicalities to be worked out as well. Childcare and hosuework is in fact measured in hours, as well as philosophy, as is WOH. Studies show time and again that women end up with way more total hours (taking into account both WIH and WOH) than men do.

[Anonymous]

So, he doesn't want to have children at all if you don't SAH? Would he work the same schedule and have the same expectations of doing very little regardless of your work schedule?

[Anonymous]

I am SAHM with a PT nanny and cleaning service. My advice is to get over hang up on class. Your life is what it is. At the end of the day, yes, there are some negative class implications but I decided after 3 hours of bad sleep (we have an infant & toddler), I no longer cared. I wanted sleep. People may think I am lazy or a bad mommy but I just no longer care.

As for the gender implications, once children enter the picture few marriages (between a man & woman) are equal, so say sociologists who study marriages. (Gay couples, if I remember correctly, are far more equal in their division of household/child rearing labor.) Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, here is a common misunderstanding:

Many working dads whose wives stay home think the parenting split should be, oh, 25-dad and 75-mom, while the SAHMs shoot for 50-50. They are both wrong. It should be 100% for both.

That's a nice philosophy. Maybe the OP is looking for philosophy. But there are practicalities to be worked out as well. Childcare and hosuework is in fact measured in hours, as well as philosophy, as is WOH. Studies show time and again that women end up with way more total hours (taking into account both WIH and WOH) than men do.

It sounds to me like OP and her husband are trying to find a way to equalize those numbers and sound actually committed to doing so. That's admirable. The questions for OP, I think, boil down to 1) does a gender-normative division of labor cause its own problems even if hours are reasonable? 2) can equal hours be achieved through the plan they are discussing? and 3) are there concerns other than equalization here?

As to 1), I totally get division of labor, but I worry that rigid roles like this will ingrain a new generation of children to insist on the same arrangement DH thinks is normal (it's not, btw, not at all).

2) As a PP so elegantly put it, OP's "me time" is likely to be spent running family errands unless she has magically cooperative children that will allow her to run those errands "on the clock." I guess theoretically, if they have enough money, they just increase the amount of help-time, but at some point then, the OP is not SAH with the kids very much, which goes against what they are trying to achieve. I guess I'm just skeptical this can work.

As to 3) My main problem with the OP's DH is that he seems lazy and selfish. He wants to rigidly define what he will and won't do, and when situations are happening on the ground in the evening -- with dinner on the stove, one child trying to feed the goldfish to the dog, and another child sick and in need of medicine -- six hands (not two) are needed. It won't matter that she "got her two hours of me-time" in the middle of the day because she will be OVERWHELMED AT THAT TIME and watching her husband stand (sit on his ass) by and do nothing. Of COURSE that will create resentment. Maybe DH's mom and grandma didn't resent it, but it sounds like this OP will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thought I would respond to a few points. This has been really helpful for me. Please continue helping me to think this through.

1. Neither DH nor I have any experience with kids. We are flying blind here. All I know I've learned from DCUM (Lord, help me). He grew up in a culture where all the wives do all the work all the time, fathers are absent bread-winners, and he thinks he's being reasonable and compromising based on the families he knows (and, to be fair, he is based on the families he knows). He claims the men he works with have the same arrangement, but of course he really has no idea, does he?

2. Yes, DH uses the term "menial" to describe laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. He wants nothing to do with it. I need to get a better understanding of where wiping peas off the children, giving them medicine and comforting them when they're sick, etc. falls on his spectrum of "fun" versus "menial." I suspect he'll say that if it involves the kids themselves, he'll take the good with the bad, but that he doesn't want the indirect-child-care work. Definitely need to find that out.

Well, here is an example that you can present him with. There is a lot of child-related laundry, starting pretty much immediately. Who will do the laundry? In my house, my husband does the laundry, while I do a lot of the cooking. That's just the way it's shaken down - it was never spelled out. I know fathers with preschoolers who have NEVER changed a poopy diaper, which is completely insane to me. Changing diapers is not fun, but it is part of caring for a child and I do not think that it would be acceptable or him to be willing to play with the child, feed the child, and then pass the child off to you the second it's time to remove dirty clothing or change a dirty diaper.

Anonymous wrote:3. BTW, my husband doesn't necessarily want me to do menial work either. He says (and means it) that he'd be happy to just hire in full-time housekeeping and cleaning service as needed. He believes in outsourcing everything possible -- that's what they do in the home country. :-/ That is distasteful to me and not the way I want my children raised.

We have a cleaning service who come in and do the actual CLEANING. What I do after work can be better termed as straightening. Does your husband never do any of his own dishes? Does he leave piles of clutter all over the place, expecting someone else to take care of it from him? I thought that I would have an issue with a biweekly cleaning service, but I have found that it has taken SO much of the pressure off that particular situation.

Anonymous wrote:3. Part-time work seems like a bad option to me. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I have a husband who doesn't want to do anything around the house -- we will fight and end up in a situation where I do almost all the work. So the solution is to give myself outside work in addition to the housework? How is that a solution? Additionally, part-time work is not available in my current field so I'd have to radically readjust. And I'm skeptical (see prior poster's note) that intellectually satisfying part-time work exists anyway.

5. We are talking about this now because I think it's important to set expectations and obviously, we have some work to do given the different places we come from. I don't want either of us to be completely caught off guard or have an unrealistic view of things. If we can't reach something that seems likely to work, we'll put off having children while we work through it or maybe stop TTC (we're just starting now).

I don't think you should STOP trying. I think you should keep talking. I think you have gotten a lot of good perspectives on this thread from various points in the process. I think it would be good for your husband to talk to some other dads and see what their experiences have been regarding what babies need. It sounds to me that when he imagines parenthood, he imagines parenting an older, verbal child. Parenting a baby is a whole different ballgame in a lot of ways, and I think that the most important thing is to be flexible in what you think your big plan is. I never thought I would hire a cleaning service. I never thought I would send my child to daycare. But as things evolved, and we gave ourselves room to say "Okay this plan we had when she was a twinkle in the sky is clearly not working - let's try something else", we found solutions that allow both of us to have downtime (both together and separately).

Also, I think your DH assumes that he will get home and want to relax and do whatever he wants to do NOW when he gets home after a long day. There are times when that will be true. For us though, when we get to the end of a long day at work, there is nothing more relaxing than a sweet giggling baby girl giving hugs and kisses. The downtime and the childcare and the playing with the baby are not mutually exclusive. You just have to be very flexible.

Good luck, OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, he doesn't want to have children at all if you don't SAH? Would he work the same schedule and have the same expectations of doing very little regardless of your work schedule?

OP here. Yes, he would. He has a time-consuming job. He wants to use his off-time to "enjoy" being with his children. If I were to continue working as now or switch to something less-intense/PT, he envisions that we would just out-source more of the household work to ensure that we each retain me-time, down-time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

OP here. It concerns me, too. We had a long talk this weekend on exactly that topic. He made clear that he wants to spend lots of time with his children, just not doing "chores for them." I.e., he wants to play with and read to them, help them with their homework, eat and have dinner with them. He does not want to do their laundry, clean their rooms, cook their food, do their dishes, etc. We think (correct me if I'm wrong) that there is less "fun stuff to do with the kids" when they are younger, and that things might be rough figuring that out for the first few years, but that we'll be fine once they're 3-4. It seems that a lot of women here on the Board have mentioned that husbands have a hard time bonding with kids before that age.

OP, does your DH understand that the "fun stuff" is not always "fun"? Just some examples: Mealtime with a toddler is hard work. Tantrum at the park when child doesn't share. Imagine reading stories, but child turns out to be dyslexic and it's painful and difficult for them. Helping with homework when the middle schooler doesn't want to do it. Discipline is tough, and if a parent doesnt stay consistent, they will help to create a monster (or at least a brat). You need to get an idea of what - exactly - DH means when he talks about his hoped-for role as a father.

As for the laundry, diaper changes, dishes - if you both want to pay someone to do that work, I don't see any issue. No reason the SAH mom has to be the one to do it. Every family decides differently what to outsource and what not to outsource.

Does your DH have friends with children? Maybe you could spend some time with them to get a more realistic view of parenthood. For several months, my first child loooved having his diaper changed (I'm sure it was the close-up attention). I felt no need to pass that task to anyone else. Some tasks are more time-consuming than I expected. Finally, it's one thing to outsource but another to not even know how to do certain tasks. What if you get very sick over an entire weekend - will he have honed the skills to handle taking care of the kids (and you!) full fime?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thought I would respond to a few points. This has been really helpful for me. Please continue helping me to think this through.

5. We are talking about this now because I think it's important to set expectations and obviously, we have some work to do given the different places we come from. I don't want either of us to be completely caught off guard or have an unrealistic view of things. If we can't reach something that seems likely to work, we'll put off having children while we work through it or maybe stop TTC (we're just starting now).

Seems to me that his position is pretty clear. He does not want to do "woman's work" What left is for you to decide how you will handle the hand that you have been dealt (you did choose him knowing his background). With the additional infor that he has posted about his background I think that he is actually being a bit generous in offering to outsouce everything possible. I hear that this is not the way that YOU want to raise kids but unless you are willing to either not have kids with him I think it time to start talking compromise. BTW, I would not be too confident that our DH will be able to "change his ways" so even if he agree to help with "menial" tasks he may revert to what comes naturally once the kids come and he seems how hard it is.

I will also leave you with a gem that my DH likes to throw around - "the secret to a happy marriage is picking the right partner".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am SAHM with a PT nanny and cleaning service. My advice is to get over hang up on class. Your life is what it is. At the end of the day, yes, there are some negative class implications but I decided after 3 hours of bad sleep (we have an infant & toddler), I no longer cared. I wanted sleep. People may think I am lazy or a bad mommy but I just no longer care.

As for the gender implications, once children enter the picture few marriages (between a man & woman) are equal, so say sociologists who study marriages. (Gay couples, if I remember correctly, are far more equal in their division of household/child rearing labor.) Good luck!

I agree with this poster that you have to get over the class thing. You apparently have money now. You are a sadist and a masochist if you don't use it to make your life and your DH's life happier. You can, in fact, literally "buy happiness" by outsourcing the work that neither of you wants to do and will argue about and ruin your marriage over.

As to the gender thing ... Oy. Well, you knew what you were getting into on that when you married him, right? But presumably he knew what he was getting into as well by not marrying a girl from whatever culture he is from. Compromise is not going to equal 50/50 on the "woman's work" for you two. But I disagree with the poster that just because she knows his position, she must suck it up. He knows her position. Why isn't he sucking it up and learning how to change a diaper?

[Anonymous]

OP, I am a single mom. I WAH three days a week and have a un-fixed WOH schedule for meetings that ends up being about 10 hrs/week. Take the child care. I have a full-time nanny, even though I am working a total of maybe 35 hours. Why? Because there is so much stuff to do and children are so demanding, here is a weekly break down of chores and stuff:

Mine:
35 hours: work
10 hours: cooking from scratch
4 hours: grocery store, cleaners, gas station, mall, random other stuff
4 hours: commute
4 hours: cleaning
2 hours: personal care


Nanny:
4 hours: laundry
4 hours: cleaning up after tornado kid
2 hours: kitchen chores and cleaning DC's eating area
2 hours: bathing tornado kid

Those 12 hours of chores that my nanny takes on allow me to go to the park with my DC. Most of that stuff takes place during nap time, when I am definitely working away so that I can see my child during awake hours. Once again, take the childcare if it is offered.

Why wouldn't you? Even when your husband does get home and contribute 2 hours to being with the kids and 1 hour to chores, after you have spent time doing stuff around the house, you will STILL have more to do.

Basically, it comes down to this--do you want to have time to spend with your husband in the evening or do you want one of you to be doing laundry and the other to be scrubbing toilets?

You will get over the gender-typing stuff when your maternal instinct kicks in, I did.

[Anonymous]

We have five kids. I gave up my career to stay-at-home after our first was born. My husband works long hours in a demanding, high stress job. We've been married 25 years.

So, my thoughts: First, you are over thinking this. Neither of you have any idea what type of pregnancy, childbirth, or kids you'll have. The conversation itself is good. But stressing out about the details is silly.

If you stay-at-home, your job becomes managing your home. That means cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, errands, childcare, maybe managing the household finances, ..... all things associated with managing your home. It's unfair to expect your husband to come in from work, eat supper, then clean toilets. Of course he'll change a dirty diaper or soothe a tired baby. I'm sure he'll help with bath time and bedtime. And he'll likely have no problem helping you clean up after supper. But if he works outside the home and you work at home, he shouldn't have to contribute much to the housework. Do you go to work with him and help him during the day?

Like an earlier poster said, it's never 50/50. Both parents give 100% when they can. There will be times when your husband has to work late or travel and you'll be doing it all. There will be times when you are sick and he'll have to take over. There will be times when the kids are sick when you'll both have to do more. Life happens. And in a healthy marriage there is no tit-for-tat.

For what it's worth, I never felt like I needed a housekeeper nor a nanny. I don't see anything wrong with getting help if you want it. But honestly, it's not that difficult if you look at your responsibilities as a stay-at-home mother the same way you would a paying job. My goal everyday is to maintain an organized, clean, peaceful home for myself, my husband and my kids. That takes time, planning, preparation, and effort. But I absolutely love it! And at the end of the day, I know I'm doing what's best for our family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not getting all the bashing of the husband in this one. I think he is being totally reasonable. As OP said, he doesn't really know what to expect and who can blame him for not wanting to clean-up and do other stuff like that when he's home if they can afford to hire someone?

Really? I think some of us have a big problem with the idea that the husband gets to keep his old life, add the joy of kids, and not have any of the "menial" stuff. I also think some of us think he is being unrealistic if he thinks he can have a good relationship with his kids without doing all the "menial" stuff involved. Just sounds a little too tied up neat in a bow for me anyway.

I'm a WM and yes, the menial stuff can be exhausting on top of working but it's part of being a parent. I understand if one parent stays home it makes more sense for them to handle more, but it sounds like he is not willing to handle any. Just doesn't sound like he wants a partnership in the way most of us are used to. Yes, he is willing to bring home the money and support the family, which is important, but he's not really willing to be a true partner in parenting.