Meanwhile... While everyone else has been chatting back and forth for 6 pages, did OP ever actually respond with what she's doing while her kids are in school? The heart of her post was "When do I get my down time/ me time?", and unless she comes on and says otherwise, I can't see how her situation is unfair at all! Well, aside from it sounding like her DH doesn't spend much time with the kids or her.

Yes, keeping the home together and managing the household is hard work. But most of us who have one it with school-aged children as full SAHMs know that there IS me time during the day, unless you have a special situation (like also caring for an aged parent).

I'm not feelin much sympathy for you OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The sense of entitlement around here is amazing. I'd trade my 50-60 hours / week of high stress paid work for the job of managing the house and school aged children any day.

My wife's daily run is part of her list of "things she needs to do" during the week. My running is part of my leisure time, if we can fit it in.

Oh, and the dirty secret for most men - you can never work hard enough. It will never be "fair". And if you work harder to make her life easier; she won't notice.

(And then when she has a killer body from all that time she works out, she'll probably start cheating on you during all that free time she has.)

I'm a single working mother and THIS is why I'd rather be a single working mother than married to a misogynist asshole like you. I do it ALL and don't complain.

Wussy.

I can't imagine why a catch like you is single.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Off topic:

Your kids are between 5-12 years old. What do you do with your time while they're at school? I'm just curious!

Good question. What exactly are you doing?

If the kids are at school, your DH is right to expect a clean home and a meal when he gets home.

I sah my kids are a tad younger-5, 8 and 10 but I do most of the things you mention. my husband travels quite a bit and works late so I am on my own but I kind of accepted that long ago as "part of my job" I will say that when he is around he coaches the kids teams, drives them around on the weekends and helps out when/if need be but I try to have everything done so weekend is strictly family time. We are out most nights until about 7-we have activities seven days a week so all cooking, errands, cleaning etc get done during the day. I take time to go for a run, meet a friend for lunch, or whatever almost daily. I have found that the older they get the busier we are so I just find it easier to do everything or almost everything myself and get on with it.

Anonymous wrote:OP, get a job. Goodness.

Getting a job won't change the fact that the husband has checked out as a dad. We are answering the wrong question--not if is it fair to the DH or DW, but if it is fair to the CHILDREN.

And it's not. DH needs to step up as a dad before they're grown and gone. Both my husband and I work full time, and split the labor, but we both know the kid comes first in our attention. There is no checking out and downtime until bedtime. Becausse we are parents, not just spouses.

Some of these posts here suggest working parents can hide behind their jobs and be basically absentee to their kids because they bring home the bacon. Doesn't work that way. The SAH spouse may have to take care of the housework, but when you are there, you clean up your own damned mess and take of those kids, too.

Anonymous wrote:The sense of entitlement around here is amazing. I'd trade my 50-60 hours / week of high stress paid work for the job of managing the house and school aged children any day.

My wife's daily run is part of her list of "things she needs to do" during the week. My running is part of my leisure time, if we can fit it in.

Oh, and the dirty secret for most men - you can never work hard enough. It will never be "fair". And if you work harder to make her life easier; she won't notice.

(And then when she has a killer body from all that time she works out, she'll probably start cheating on you during all that free time she has.)

I'm a single working mother and THIS is why I'd rather be a single working mother than married to a misogynist asshole like you. I do it ALL and don't complain.

Wussy.

OP, get a job. Goodness.

haven't read the whole thread - but i gather from later posts that your husband is a bit of a jerk and doesn't like spending time with his kids. that's a separate, and more important, issue than what a fair division of labor is.

but to the question at hand, it seems like SAH parents of school-age kids can, and probably should as a matter of fairness, get things done while the kids are at school - cleaning, running errands, paying bills, preparing dinner, etc. I surely wouldn't begrudge anyone a little me-time squeezed in there, but generally it's worktime. When everyone is home from school and work, it's familytime. Sure, the working parent may need (and deserve!) some decompression time right after work. (That's me in my family. When I get home, after the baby nurses, husband takes the kids and I go out for a walk.) But generally, there should be time spent mostly together.

Hopefully, there aren't a ton of end-of-day chores - just cleaning up dinner and getting the kids to bed. While I agree in theory that end-of-day chores should be split 50-50, who handles that stuff seems to depend to some extent on who's good at what, how bad your days were, who really hates doing dishes, who loves walking the dog, etc. (My youngest girl won't let DH put her to bed. Whatever, it won't last forever. I do it every night.) In any case, there shouldn't be a ton of work left at the end of the day. If so, I suggest adjusting something else!

Interesting how many people are of the 'just hire someone' mindset.

This is part of why my wife wanted to escape DC/the inner suburbian core -- everyone just assumed there was infinity money to handle whatever problems life gave us. Out here there is not so much of that assumption