Anonymous wrote:RE: What do SAHMs do for 6 hours

Well, what do YOU do on the weekends? SAHMs do that. Don't you have any hobbies? Do you read, work out, listen to podcasts? Do you have pets? Do you ever clean your house? Do you ever volunteer somewhere?

Is it hard for you to fill six hours on a Saturday? It's really not that much time.

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Anonymous wrote:Why should he work if you won’t?

OP here - my view is, why should I do everything I do now plus a job? I would be insane to agree to that. He’s not going to magically do half.

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Anonymous wrote:There was another thread on this where someone did the math on childcare hours of little kids vs school age kids, and there are only about 10 fewer hours of childcare with older kids. School aged kids sleep about 3 hours less a day than little kids (9-10 hours vs 12-13 hours), and so when kids go to school, you typically lose that time in the evening that you would normally have to yourself.

What are you talking about? My school age kids help with chores and entertain themselves before bed. I have more leisure time than ever. But we don’t sign up for travel sports so that helps.

Well, my kids go to bed at 9pm now, and they wake up at 7am, needing to be at school by 8am. They used to go to sleep at 7pm and wake up at 7am only needing to have their diaper changed.
So, I go to bed at 10pm and wake up at 6am so that I’m ready to go by 7. I used to have 3-4 hours every evening on my own, and now I really don’t.

It’s not that it’s hard, but I never really thought any of it was that hard. It’s still childcare, though.

Yup. I found the baby/toddler phase a lot less work in a lot of ways, because kids are pliable and still sleep a lot at that age. I feel like babies are time consuming but generally quite easy, get progressively more challenging until about age 7 or 8, and then typically get easier from there but it is highly kid-dependent. I certainly know plenty of kids where the really hard work of parenting didn't even start getting tough until they were in elementary school due to special academic needs that arose or social issues. So a 10 yo or 14 yo could, in my opinion, easily require more effort and energy than a baby, and potentially even more time. What parent does not sometimes think fondly back to that first year and three naps a day and a bedtime that consisted of nothing but a bottle and a diaper change? Babies aren't "easy" but they are exceedingly simple. School age kids are rarely simple.

But you have the whole day they are in school so BFD

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Anonymous wrote:Serious question: what do you do with the six+ Hours when your kids are out of the house? I can’t imagine having that much time for myself every day. I mean, any logistics/chores could all be done within three hours. And with no boss breathing down your neck. I can see how your husband could be resentful.

Not OP but it isn’t that much time. Not OP, but I workout at a gym daily and between going there, taking a shower, running some errands, cleaning up areas of the house (I do a daily pick up plus deep clean parts on a weekly schedule), yard work, I bake our bread daily and cook meals from scratch and that is very time consuming too. Six hours flies by.

I went back and reread this post and honestly think this person has to be trolling and mocking SAHMs. I honestly don't see any SAHM listing showering as a meaningful contribution, I just don't.

I agree. It seems like folks are just baiting each other with nonsense comments.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, I was married to a doctor and stayed home. Worked out to my advantage when he traded me in for a new model. Alimony for life.

And now you don't have to wash his socks either. I divorced my wealthy husband and I will get his retirement since I was the beneficiary, not his current widow. A SAHM is often financially secure. Something many don't understand.

Anonymous wrote:Make a list of all the house/kid stuff and have him select the half of the tasks that he will do. (Be sure to divide it into daily, weekly, occasional so he can't take all the occasional tasks like weeding and making drs appts and leave you with dishes and laundry and cleaning).

My suspicion is that he will balk at this. If he says no, then tell him you aren't going to go back because you can't handle everything yourself while working full-time.

If he says ok, then go back to work, but make sure he is handling all his tasks himself. If he is in charge of dishes, and he doesn't do them, they pile up in the sink. If he is in charge of trash, and he doesn't take out the trash, then you have overflowing trash. He will either step up or realize that things are better with you at home.

This is the only way.

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Anonymous wrote:Serious question: what do you do with the six+ Hours when your kids are out of the house? I can’t imagine having that much time for myself every day. I mean, any logistics/chores could all be done within three hours. And with no boss breathing down your neck. I can see how your husband could be resentful.

Not OP but it isn’t that much time. Not OP, but I workout at a gym daily and between going there, taking a shower, running some errands, cleaning up areas of the house (I do a daily pick up plus deep clean parts on a weekly schedule), yard work, I bake our bread daily and cook meals from scratch and that is very time consuming too. Six hours flies by.

Oh, barf. Working moms do all of this with a job (except “bake bread” — WTF — but if they really wanted to do that, they’d do it on the weekend).

You take a shower, work out and run some errands? Wow! Color us all impressed.

^ This.

Exactly - I work, have kids, drive them to activities, and make every meal at home. Oh, and I take a shower. BFD. You are so lazy.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I am not worried about divorce, and if I’m wrong we have more than enough assets to divide. Which is part of my frustration about him wanting me to go back. It’s like, “why?” Things are good the way they are.

Anyway I wasn’t really looking to debate it as much as hear from women whose husbands maybe weren’t convinced at first but them changed their minds.

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Anonymous wrote:Serious question: what do you do with the six+ Hours when your kids are out of the house? I can’t imagine having that much time for myself every day. I mean, any logistics/chores could all be done within three hours. And with no boss breathing down your neck. I can see how your husband could be resentful.

Not OP but it isn’t that much time. Not OP, but I workout at a gym daily and between going there, taking a shower, running some errands, cleaning up areas of the house (I do a daily pick up plus deep clean parts on a weekly schedule), yard work, I bake our bread daily and cook meals from scratch and that is very time consuming too. Six hours flies by.

I went back and reread this post and honestly think this person has to be trolling and mocking SAHMs. I honestly don't see any SAHM listing showering as a meaningful contribution, I just don't.

Anonymous wrote:Totally agree about DH laying groundwork for divorce. I would never agree to be a SAHM unless my husband made at least $300K with no debt other than the mortgage, and a prenup that was very favorable to me, including a provision for all of his pension benefits to go to me even if he remarried.

Women need to stop quitting work unless there is a prenup in place. Or write up a post-nup or whatever that's called before you submit your resignation letter.