Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. [b]Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Tell me you don’t have kids without telling me you don’t have kids (or you live in a 1 stoplight town with one camp). Sneaker shopping for 2 kids took over an hour this week bc sizes are so inconsistent.

You sound like a loon. Buying a kid sneakers takes a single trip to a store to try on some shoes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. [b]Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Tell me you don’t have kids without telling me you don’t have kids (or you live in a 1 stoplight town with one camp). Sneaker shopping for 2 kids took over an hour this week bc sizes are so inconsistent.

It only took an hour? Order a bunch of sizes from Zappos and try them on at home. That might get it down to 45 min.

Camp is not complicated. Send them to the same one or two camps each year. Choose two and be done with it. When they get older, have the kids research the camps.

Assign husband to deal with paperwork.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This reminds me a lot of my husband - at least he didn't ask me personally to help with his side hustle but he did ask to take off hours and hours from home to go pursue it even though it is an unpaid invention idea. He has tons of inventions in his mind that never pan out and can keep his regular jobs

DH invested in an idea to create new apparel category that flipped the script on shirts, using them as pants. Armholes as pant legs; neck hole as breeze feature.There was a lot of enthusiasm at the outset but sales did not follow. Now we are left with 3,600 of them and only pennies. Heartbreaking

We're not talking about this post enough

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the most enraging post ever on DCUM. I’m kind of surprised you didn’t walk out on him tbh. We have several young children about two years ago I decided I would never go back to full time work while there are children in the home. It is patently obvious that women, careered and not, do the vast majority of childcare and home-related tasks. It is a recipe for resentment to require a wife to bear the burden of income generation and also do most of the childcare. When we divided up the labor into two - my DH makes a great salary, pays all the bills, I work a small part time job and take care of the kids - my respect for him improved dramatically and our marriage got better. People are outraged and will call women gold diggers who expect their DH to pay the bills when they have children, but I’m a believer now that I’ve seen the incredible benefit to the marriage relationship when a man focuses on making money and his wife takes care of the children.

So you decided for your entire family to halve your HHI? Until your youngest child is 17? But you are upset that other people may call women gold diggers because theyre sitting on their a$$ while their final kid is in HS? GMAFB. You are a gold digger - is that not the literal definition?

My DH decided to halve his contribution relative to mine in childcare and home tasks. It’s a simple matter of math. There are only 24 hours in a day. Why would I choose to work more than he, earn more than he and then do all the childcare in addition? I swear people think women are idiots.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anyone who actually thinks researching camps is a 10 minute task is high, a crap parent, or has never actually looked into summer camps.

Medical forms take longer than that.

Shoes also take longer than that once a kid is over 5 and cares what kind of shoes they are wearing.

But I am guessing you know that and are just trolling.

No, I have three kids ages 8-14 who have always done summer camps and gone through countless pairs of shoes.

I believe that some of you can spend infinite time on these extremely simple tasks, but that does not make the tasks inherently time-consuming.

Maybe it’s because I’m a professional research scientist, but whenever someone describes “researching” summer camps as though it’s some arduous thing it is a red flag that they are some combination of inefficient and incompetent. I mean really, what exactly are you researching? My research consisted of 1) what camps are available near our house, 2) what are their hours, 3) which of those have space available for the weeks we need (summer break minus our vacation week), and 4) of those still standing which ones would the kids like best?

I cannot fathom how it would take longer than 10 minutes to fill out a medical form. I guess maybe if your kid has lots of allergies or is on a bunch of medications?

Shoes also aren’t difficult. Stride rite for the little kids and jordans for the older ones. My kids have big feet so we just order online. And this will probably blow your mind, but once kids are capable of looking stuff up on the internet (elementary school) you can just have them send you a link to the shoes they want. So there are maybe two or three years where a kid is old enough to care what shoes they’re wearing but unable to pick them out on their own. So for those cases I’ll concede that it’s maybe a 10-15 minute task. Happy?

But some of us care about our kids and what they like to do and the fact that they are much happier with certain conditions (e.g. access to indoor facilities for hot days) and enjoy going to camp with friends. None of that is strictly necessary but I consider it a good use of my time to find a camp that provides specific instruction they are looking for and to coordinate which weeks they will do various camps with their friends parents. I don’t find it particularly burdensome but it’s a task on my list like a number of things that I chose to do well.

If you don’t care I can understand how you could do camp sign up extremely quickly. Like giving your kid a happy meal for dinner every night. Easy peasy, right?

NP here. It’s not at all the same. I prioritize good nutrition. But with camps, we go with what we’ve heard is good through word of mouth. Or if someone asks us to join them for a week at a particular camp and my kid agrees, then I know exactly what to sign up for.

Similarly for shoes, as PP said, find a brand or two that fit your child and then just order from there. Or if your child comes home saying asking for X, then no research required, just buy X.

Some of you waste your life in researching and claim it makes you a “good parent” whereas in reality it makes you stressed out, snappy, and a terrible parent and spouse.

This! If you enjoy doing it, great. But happy, healthy, well adjusted children have been launched into the world without all of this.

When I did camp sign up, I will admit that I “counted” it on my side of the ledger. I have asked him to take on some of this researching/planning work. He does it in 1/10th of the time and while in the beginning I cringed at his lack of thinking about it, kids are happy, I am happy, so I leave it alone. Kids know to give him parameters up front otherwise they won’t get what they want. He doesn’t put endless options in front of them. And yet, the world keeps on turning. It’s amazing.

In OP’s case, the contempt is so strong that I don’t know if the marriage can be saved. But if she really wants to do it, I would suggest that she thinks about the things that have to be done - dinner, laundry, that kind of stuff and let some of the other things go. If her husband is employed full time, I just don’t think it’s fair to hold his lower salary against him. But most of all, it’s getting back to thinking about things as a partnership rather than only seeing the negatives. If you can’t do that (and it’s ok if you can’t), just divorce and spare yourself, him, and the kids the pain of an unhappy household.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This reminds me a lot of my husband - at least he didn't ask me personally to help with his side hustle but he did ask to take off hours and hours from home to go pursue it even though it is an unpaid invention idea. He has tons of inventions in his mind that never pan out and can keep his regular jobs

DH invested in an idea to create new apparel category that flipped the script on shirts, using them as pants. Armholes as pant legs; neck hole as breeze feature.There was a lot of enthusiasm at the outset but sales did not follow. Now we are left with 3,600 of them and only pennies. Heartbreaking

We're not talking about this post enough

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. [b]Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Tell me you don’t have kids without telling me you don’t have kids (or you live in a 1 stoplight town with one camp). Sneaker shopping for 2 kids took over an hour this week bc sizes are so inconsistent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anyone who actually thinks researching camps is a 10 minute task is high, a crap parent, or has never actually looked into summer camps.

Medical forms take longer than that.

Shoes also take longer than that once a kid is over 5 and cares what kind of shoes they are wearing.

But I am guessing you know that and are just trolling.

No, I have three kids ages 8-14 who have always done summer camps and gone through countless pairs of shoes.

I believe that some of you can spend infinite time on these extremely simple tasks, but that does not make the tasks inherently time-consuming.

Maybe it’s because I’m a professional research scientist, but whenever someone describes “researching” summer camps as though it’s some arduous thing it is a red flag that they are some combination of inefficient and incompetent. I mean really, what exactly are you researching? My research consisted of 1) what camps are available near our house, 2) what are their hours, 3) which of those have space available for the weeks we need (summer break minus our vacation week), and 4) of those still standing which ones would the kids like best?

I cannot fathom how it would take longer than 10 minutes to fill out a medical form. I guess maybe if your kid has lots of allergies or is on a bunch of medications?

Shoes also aren’t difficult. Stride rite for the little kids and jordans for the older ones. My kids have big feet so we just order online. And this will probably blow your mind, but once kids are capable of looking stuff up on the internet (elementary school) you can just have them send you a link to the shoes they want. So there are maybe two or three years where a kid is old enough to care what shoes they’re wearing but unable to pick them out on their own. So for those cases I’ll concede that it’s maybe a 10-15 minute task. Happy?

But some of us care about our kids and what they like to do and the fact that they are much happier with certain conditions (e.g. access to indoor facilities for hot days) and enjoy going to camp with friends. None of that is strictly necessary but I consider it a good use of my time to find a camp that provides specific instruction they are looking for and to coordinate which weeks they will do various camps with their friends parents. I don’t find it particularly burdensome but it’s a task on my list like a number of things that I chose to do well.

If you don’t care I can understand how you could do camp sign up extremely quickly. Like giving your kid a happy meal for dinner every night. Easy peasy, right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. [b]Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Tell me you don’t have kids without telling me you don’t have kids (or you live in a 1 stoplight town with one camp). Sneaker shopping for 2 kids took over an hour this week bc sizes are so inconsistent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You both sound miserable, to be honest. I predict you two will divorce in 2025.

How is the OP miserable when this man actually told her “what else do you have to do that you can’t help with this” and she’s working FT and managing all the load of being a parent and managing a household while he doesn’t help? She’s a problem for being resentful? Absolutely not. You’re trying to gaslight this poor OP too.

Sounds like he is working. She is now earning twice as much as he does, and in the past he outearned by twice as much. But, somehow she seemed ok when she was earning less, but is not ok with him earning less.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. [b]Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anyone who actually thinks researching camps is a 10 minute task is high, a crap parent, or has never actually looked into summer camps.

Medical forms take longer than that.

Shoes also take longer than that once a kid is over 5 and cares what kind of shoes they are wearing.

But I am guessing you know that and are just trolling.

No, I have three kids ages 8-14 who have always done summer camps and gone through countless pairs of shoes.

I believe that some of you can spend infinite time on these extremely simple tasks, but that does not make the tasks inherently time-consuming.

Maybe it’s because I’m a professional research scientist, but whenever someone describes “researching” summer camps as though it’s some arduous thing it is a red flag that they are some combination of inefficient and incompetent. I mean really, what exactly are you researching? My research consisted of 1) what camps are available near our house, 2) what are their hours, 3) which of those have space available for the weeks we need (summer break minus our vacation week), and 4) of those still standing which ones would the kids like best?

I cannot fathom how it would take longer than 10 minutes to fill out a medical form. I guess maybe if your kid has lots of allergies or is on a bunch of medications?

Shoes also aren’t difficult. Stride rite for the little kids and jordans for the older ones. My kids have big feet so we just order online. And this will probably blow your mind, but once kids are capable of looking stuff up on the internet (elementary school) you can just have them send you a link to the shoes they want. So there are maybe two or three years where a kid is old enough to care what shoes they’re wearing but unable to pick them out on their own. So for those cases I’ll concede that it’s maybe a 10-15 minute task. Happy?

But some of us care about our kids and what they like to do and the fact that they are much happier with certain conditions (e.g. access to indoor facilities for hot days) and enjoy going to camp with friends. None of that is strictly necessary but I consider it a good use of my time to find a camp that provides specific instruction they are looking for and to coordinate which weeks they will do various camps with their friends parents. I don’t find it particularly burdensome but it’s a task on my list like a number of things that I chose to do well.

If you don’t care I can understand how you could do camp sign up extremely quickly. Like giving your kid a happy meal for dinner every night. Easy peasy, right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This reminds me a lot of my husband - at least he didn't ask me personally to help with his side hustle but he did ask to take off hours and hours from home to go pursue it even though it is an unpaid invention idea. He has tons of inventions in his mind that never pan out and can keep his regular jobs

DH invested in an idea to create new apparel category that flipped the script on shirts, using them as pants. Armholes as pant legs; neck hole as breeze feature.There was a lot of enthusiasm at the outset but sales did not follow. Now we are left with 3,600 of them and only pennies. Heartbreaking

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anyone who actually thinks researching camps is a 10 minute task is high, a crap parent, or has never actually looked into summer camps.

Medical forms take longer than that.

Shoes also take longer than that once a kid is over 5 and cares what kind of shoes they are wearing.

But I am guessing you know that and are just trolling.

No, I have three kids ages 8-14 who have always done summer camps and gone through countless pairs of shoes.

I believe that some of you can spend infinite time on these extremely simple tasks, but that does not make the tasks inherently time-consuming.

Maybe it’s because I’m a professional research scientist, but whenever someone describes “researching” summer camps as though it’s some arduous thing it is a red flag that they are some combination of inefficient and incompetent. I mean really, what exactly are you researching? My research consisted of 1) what camps are available near our house, 2) what are their hours, 3) which of those have space available for the weeks we need (summer break minus our vacation week), and 4) of those still standing which ones would the kids like best?

I cannot fathom how it would take longer than 10 minutes to fill out a medical form. I guess maybe if your kid has lots of allergies or is on a bunch of medications?

Shoes also aren’t difficult. Stride rite for the little kids and jordans for the older ones. My kids have big feet so we just order online. And this will probably blow your mind, but once kids are capable of looking stuff up on the internet (elementary school) you can just have them send you a link to the shoes they want. So there are maybe two or three years where a kid is old enough to care what shoes they’re wearing but unable to pick them out on their own. So for those cases I’ll concede that it’s maybe a 10-15 minute task. Happy?

But some of us care about our kids and what they like to do and the fact that they are much happier with certain conditions (e.g. access to indoor facilities for hot days) and enjoy going to camp with friends. None of that is strictly necessary but I consider it a good use of my time to find a camp that provides specific instruction they are looking for and to coordinate which weeks they will do various camps with their friends parents. I don’t find it particularly burdensome but it’s a task on my list like a number of things that I chose to do well.

If you don’t care I can understand how you could do camp sign up extremely quickly. Like giving your kid a happy meal for dinner every night. Easy peasy, right?

NP here. It’s not at all the same. I prioritize good nutrition. But with camps, we go with what we’ve heard is good through word of mouth. Or if someone asks us to join them for a week at a particular camp and my kid agrees, then I know exactly what to sign up for.

Similarly for shoes, as PP said, find a brand or two that fit your child and then just order from there. Or if your child comes home saying asking for X, then no research required, just buy X.

Some of you waste your life in researching and claim it makes you a “good parent” whereas in reality it makes you stressed out, snappy, and a terrible parent and spouse.