What are Fair Expectations for Stay-at-Home Dad
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Anonymous
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Giving your spouse a list of things to accomplish each day is controlling and borderline abusive.
If a man made lists of what he expected his wife to do while home each day and was monitoring what she did and how well it was done, he would be crucified. |
Anonymous
That is kind of the point of the post. What is fair, then? |
Anonymous
I see the stay at home part, but where the hell is the dad part? |
Anonymous
+1 especially the expectation (from a PP) that the SAHparent be ready to sexually satisfy the working parent. hypocrisy can be funny at times but in this case, OP has a real right to expect (and demand) more - husband is really slouching. |
Anonymous
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I stay home with four children, so I speak from experience. My dh has always worked and I have always stayed home since the eldest was born in 2004.
He needs to understand that you both need to work together, so that your evenings and weekends can mostly be free from cleaning, shopping etc. That is the beauty of having one stay home parent. At least, that is what we aim for. Some weeks, my husband has to chip in more than others (depending on the circumstances over the last 10 years - pregnancies, illnesses, snow days etc). In your case, with one child and a small condo, it really should be fairly easy. He should get most, if not all done. It is a slog to stay home, so you do have to be mindful of that. In your case, I wonder if he could have all done by the time you walked in the door, including having a meal in front of you and he gets to walk out after a few minutes and unwind. That is what worked for us when our kids were younger and I would be out of my mind by 6 pm. My husband would then eat, tidy up and play with the kids. He would also be on bedtime duty most days. I would get an hour or so off and come back somewhat refreshed. We would then have the evenings to ourselves. Just an idea. I hope you can work things out and he steps up for you and your family. |
Anonymous
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so wait
you're calling him a SAHD even though he is actually contributing to half the bills with his own money that he has saved? continuing on as if he were working? |
Anonymous
No. I pay for everything. The bills are in his name, with his accounts, and he pays them with my money. |
Anonymous
Sorry, "our" money from my paycheck. The reason I'm not pushing a job is because of how expensive daycare is. |
Anonymous
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I SAH with 2 kids under 4 - this is what I do:
get the kids up, dressed, fed, take the older one to school. Maybe start some laundry so later in the day I can put it in the dryer. Morning outing with the child who is home. Pick up older, make them lunch. Nap for younger, older has 1 hour of rest time. Finish the laundry, straighten the house, start some dinner prep, generally take a break until nap/rest is over. Afternoon outing with both kids. Dinner for the kids, bath for the kids, husband is generally home to put them to bed. I cook our dinner while he does that. If my husband was SAH I would expect him to be doing those things. |
Anonymous
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You said he does dishes, most laundry, and most groceries, as well as house repairs and most appointments. That's reasonable. Don't push on that front.
You can't change everything, so focus on one thing. Otherwise it becomes overwhelming, and he just ignores and does what he wants, and you become the "nag." That one thing should the speech therapy. Your son needs to come first and be the top priority. Push that one issue only, and compliment him on the things he does do. |
Anonymous
At that age, you wouldn't know much about the difference anyway. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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I don't think it's unreasonable to sit down with a list of things, as long as it's clear that EVERYONE is getting assigned things from that list. As for his argument that it's too rigid, if things are not getting done, then the current system is NOT working. When I was home with the kid (6 months of maternity leave, plus back to work part time for a while), we had an understanding that the house couldn't turn into a hell hole. Laundry was 100% my problem, no matter whose it was. Grocery shopping we sometimes did together, but I did almost all the cooking except weekend breakfasts, which DH wanted to do himself, and grilling, which I am completely inept at. Cleaning up kitchen messes was the business of whoever made them, unless the other person was being generous. I also didn't consider "being home with DD" to be my full time job, such that I had to do all child stuff even when DH returned from work. That said, when I was home with her, she was <6 months old and breastfed, so a lot of the after hours child stuff fell to me anyway.
It is honestly not that difficult to keep up with groceries, meal preparation and cleaning when you have one young child and one adult who is home with that child all the time. If your husband is having trouble managing that, he might not be cut out for this sort of work and should find a job doing something he's better at. Daycare is expensive, obviously, but there are couples (myself and DH included) who have one adult who works a job that barely covers the daycare bills because it was worth it to avoid the emotional toll on our relationship of how miserable I was staying home and what a pain that made me to be around. |
Anonymous
How does "all you need to get done, but in shorter amounts of time" equal parenting? Kids aren't chores to get "done." |
Anonymous
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What your DH can and can't get done during the day completely depends on what type of kid you have and evolves as the child gets older and can be more independent. It's kind of pointless to ask random people on a forum to weigh in on what should work for your family based on what works for them in totally different circumstances. Talk to your DH about your expectations for the day and his and try to meet somewhere in the middle.
The only thing I can see from your list that he absolutely should be doing, is taking DC to speech therapy appointments. |