What's reasonable to expect from a stay at home missus?
 

I’ve been having a few barneys with my lovely missus about fair sharing of the domestic workload. I know I wont be the only one on here! I want it to stop though, and am fishing to see if I am being reasonable and how others cope.

I approach 9 to 6 as a working day, whether that work is a housewife, or going out to work for a wage. So, if you go out to work for a wage, is it fair for you to have to also have to do some ‘un-done’ domestic chores when you get home – clean the cooker, windows, toilet, floor etc? Also, I have seen Carol Smilie paint a windowframe or two ;)

I think I’m pretty good, as I get the baby up each morning and feed him whilst she has an hour lie in [to make up for the odd 5am feed she does]. I then go to work till about 7. When I get back I walk the dogs and cook us dinner. I do all the DIY as we now cant afford tradesmen on one wage. I do all the gardening and also service and maintain the two cars. There isn’t enough time to do all that effectively though – ohh and have some fun! Hence the barneys!

She looks after the baby (1yr old), cooks for him, does the washing and some cleaning. The rest is seemingly TV, shopping & coffee mornings! She used to do a lot more before we got married, and now seemingly uses the baby as an excuse for, well, frankly, being rather lazy, avoiding chores/responsibility and putting too much of it on me. I also know that I do not get 4 ‘free’ and valuable hours a day in my job as my office doesn’t take two naps a day!!!

How do you guys share the chores?

Do you too feel there aren’t enough hours in the day?

Where do you find the time to improve the house, let alone keep it clean?

Am I expecting too much from a new-ish mum?

Thank you counsellors!

IMHO, I think you may be expecting a bit too much. The impression that she watches TV all day, may be a bit misleading. Is this baby your first?
Looking after a baby IS a full-time job - wifey does this AND has a FT job as well :)
I too have a FT job - granted I don't do shift work or nights (wifey's a nurse), however, my other earner is as a studio producer/engineer/programmer. This can involve working from when I get home at 5pm right through until work next morning/getting our two kids ready for the childminder @ 7.30am :(

We HAVE to share the chores, even if we're too knackered to do them. What we tend to do, is to do a bit of the housework during the week (washing, vacuum, dishwasher, making the beds) and try to have a bigger blitz (inc mowing lawns, dusting, cleaning + washing maintaining cars) at the weekend. We also find time to "enjoy"..... I even managed this weekend to get in 5 hours of XBox!! :D The excuse being that I was teaching my eldest daughter (4) how to use the XBOx ;) The youngest sat in her high chair (18 months old) eating and drinking whilst watching us two :D

Not wishing to sound condesending, but marriage is a partnership. Blah, blah, blah. :)

Hope you get it sorted, but this is just my 2p...

Dan :)

Thanks for your comments m8. 50/50 sounds fair if you both have FT jobs. And aye, 1st baby - have no idea how we'd cope with MORE!!!!! :eek:

It's hard work looking after a 1 yr old, I know, have one - with another on the way. I didn't realise how much work was involved until the missis had some problems with serious sickness and was in the hospital several times so I had to book time off to look after baby etc. I too thought it would be easy but looking after our really good lad (no hassle at all) but found that it much harder work, more stress really. I'd honestly rather go to work than stay at home and do the Mum's job, I didn't realise how under-rated they were :D

BTW, I'm like you, getting up early to do breakfasts etc and doing evening feed when I get back in. It's a great way of spending time with the little 'un though. Maybe stop thinking of it as a chore/hassle and look on it as quality time, I found myself getting stressed about it for a while but now really enjoy it.

:)

Mike

While you have admitted to doing a fair bit of stuff around the home, none of them are "the daily chores", ie, the washing, the ironing, the cleaning (especially the bog!), the dusting, the hoovering.....ie, the nasty horrible ones that no-one likes doing.

Did your missus do ALL of the above before the baby? Or did you do your fair share?

I think the moral is that while it may seem ok to proclaim "I've been out working all day - what the hell have you done?", the reality of the situation is that your household now contains 3 people, not 2, one of which is an extremely demanding human (oh, and then there's your new child! :D). So, in effect, there is 50% more housework to deal with, yet 0% more time.

It's hard work, and no-one will tell you it's easy. Easy to say, but instead of rowing about it when the flashpoints occur, try to sit down and discuss it at a more lighthearted time, and try to find out what you can do to help rectify the situation to both your advantages...

I'd suggest you give her a day off to go shopping or something and spend the entire day looking after the baby and trying to fit some household chore in. I'm fairly confident you'll change your opinion of what she does all day.

Take the plug off the telly :D:D:D

you need to help out a bit in the evenings but it sounds to me like she is taking the piss

Also remember that an important part of your child's development is experiencing the outside world, and meeting other people & their children. Not to mention that your wife also needs social interaction to stop her from being driven up the wall by a 1 year old!!

You don't expect your wife to sit at home all day and just do housework do you???

You get hours of social interaction at work all day. If she didn't go out, she wouldn't get any.

why have you got 2 cars?

I think you're quite reasonable and you do more than your fair share of the housework. She's taking the pi$$, the lazy cow. Send her back to work for 2-3 days a week.

expectations - it's all to do with expectations.

your expectation is that your wife will tidy the house, etc and look after the baby.

Change your expectations, 'cos they are a mis-match with reality.

(it only took me 22 years of marriage to figure that out :) )

If I wasn't doing enough work round the house the garden would be a jungle, there would be no hot water or heating. The fridge would be a solid chunk of ice, the downstairs floor would be a swimming pool. The cars would have flat tyres, sludge for oil, and would be so dirty inside and out you'd mistake it for a skip. We'd also still have lovely 1970's interior decor too :);)

In the old day's, you could have given her a slap to get her moving. In Yorkshire it would be commonplace to throw your wife in the fire.

I think you should be a man and lay the law down. There are plenty more fish in the sea i.e Thai girls :D Who will do the lot whilst you get on with the more important things in life.

Typical Scoobynet polarities - 'dont be so unreasonable' & 'sack the bitch' ;) :)

Actually I have had the baby for whole days - he goes in the conservatory to play with toys safely whilst I do whatever needs doing for a bit. No big shakes really... It's just that I feel it unfair to expect me to get the dusters out after 'a tough day at work'; I dont get to sit down till about 8:30 as it is... Weekends I need to be free to do the DIY stuff she CANT do.

>>an important part of your child's development is experiencing the outside world, and meeting other people & their children. Not to mention that your wife also needs social interaction <<
I totally get that and hence suggested a j - o - b, just as long as taking it didnt make us even worse off... this proves tricky with the high costs of nurseries...:(

Ali B - what does your partner do for you m8. I'm sure that all balances out at the end of the day;)

i'm in a similar situation - except our little 'un is only 6 months. i do sometimes get the hump when i come home form a 12 hr day and the place is looking like a frickin squat, but overall i am fairly contented with how things are. the missus does 90% of the feeding and nappy changing etc.

she just isn't a really house proud type - that was evident long before the baby came along.

i think it's fairly normal to get p*ssed off every now and again - no-one's perfect after all. i have a cleaner come in once a week to hover/wash floors, bathroom etc. it keeps things on a more even keel.

:)

Plenty...but when I get complaints..I'll just give a reminder of the stuff that I do, that she can't, and would have cost a fortune in getting in workers/repairers to do.

It doesn't end there....

Got the chemical cleaner on all the carpets last weekend too, fixed the hoover, unblocked the shower plug (seeing I have no hair - who's hair could that be??). got all the crap out the washing machine pump filter. Filled the dishwasher with salt and rinse aid (they don't fill themselves ;) ), also cleaned out the filter on teh dishwasher. Painted the porch, fixed the kettle, replaced 7 fence panels, and 4 gravel boards. Made a custom sized fence panel. Broke up all the old fences and took them to the tip. Bought 1/2 ton of gravel to do down the side, carried ALL the gravel, Concreted the base for the new shed.

I still get called a lazy arsehole :cry:

why have you got 2 cars????

so she can drive around with the kid in it?

Yes mate - she cant be stuck in the house all day - would drive anyone potty!

sell the car, buy her a pram for the kid and spend the extra cash saved on a house cleaner

NO MORE OUTGOINGS! Cheapo Smart car stays; I am not trading it for a set of dusters!

Charlie, do you see that as OK mate with a stay at home mum already in the house?
It's just that as we have completely lost one income now and struggle a bit, the last thing we need is more outgoings on say cleaners...

Scott

Scott - it's more a question of "do i want to clean the bog etc myself, or would i rather pay someone else to do it?".

i just had to accept that the missus was never going to run a super clean and tidy house, which only left me to do it, or get a cleaner in. some of my mates' other halves do all their washing, iron their shirts etc. i have to get mine done elsewhere. it's just about compromise in the end. she's a good cook, a great mother, she doesn't get on my case about going to the pub etc. sometimes i start to get hacked off about it, but most of the time everything works well.

at the end of the day, her good sides outweigh the rest of it. she's going back to work 1/2 time in september in any case, so she'll soon be bringing money in as well.

:)

Ahh - so you have super tolerance temporarily as you have a situation fix in Sept...


Gonna think more about what you said now :ponder2:

edit [these new smilies dont work!]

Er...I'm just a humble woman, mother of two, gran of one and another (grandchild) due in 4 weeks....... Could this lady have post natal depression?
Having been there myself, even the easiest most mundane of tasks can seem like a nightmare. Add up all the chores on a daily basis and you have a mega problem.
It might just have crept up on her. Might do to speak to an expert.

Post natal depression? Hmmm? Know nothing about it. Would this not appear as a general sadness, perceptible beyond the 'ducking as many chores that arent baby related' issue, as I see it?

I'll be google-ing next to learn more... Can you tell me any more meantime pls?

She's taking the pi$$. And I can't believe the amount of people that think she's got some sort of argument. You earn the bread, she tends to the house. I've been off work 5 months (going back tomorrow :(), and I've looked after our son (he is 2 years old, not as young as yours, but at 2 they are into everything, so still take some looking after), and I've still cleaned the house, mopped the floors, did the hoovering, sorted out the gardens etc etc.

The only thing she's had to do is the cooking when she gets in (cos she wants to and likes to), then she sees to the little one to get him ready for bed as she's never seen him all day.

Get her a part time job in the evening, then she'll realise how well off she was.

Andy.

Andy, interesting! Yours is like my ideal, but in reverse. Hmmmm?

Scott, you need to tell her it's just not on mate.

FFS, if I can do it, anyone can cos I'm a right lazy b*stard.

All change for us here from tomorrow, she's going to have to muck in once I'm back grafting. If she doesn't like it, tough (not that she'll mind, she's spot on for all that stuff :))

Andy.

I have told her its not on m8, many a time; it worries me that I may have a bigger decision to make...