Unfortunately, for a lot of parents, especially those with a couple of young kids, there may be a stark divide in terms of what’s expected of a parent who stays home with the kids versus the parent who works outside the home all day. A confused mom took to Reddit to get a little clarification. She’s a stay-at-home parent of two children under 4, while her husband works long shifts outside of the home. Her husband has basically told her that anything and everything related to child care, cooking, and housework is her “job” simply because he works full time. She needs to know if he was totally out of line in saying this or is she being crazy?
This husband told a mom of two that because she stays home, her ‘job’ is to take care of the kids and the house.
It can feel really difficult when you have a partner who doesn’t see you as an equal.
A curious mom took to the popular r/Parenting Reddit thread to ask some questions about what it really means to be a stay-at-home mom, particularly when it comes to dividing up child care, cooking, and housework with your partner who works full time out of the home.
She explained that her husband works 10 to 12 hours daily and she stays at home with her kids, who are 1 and 4 years old. She said some days she is “so exhausted” so she doesn’t always have dinner ready or every chore done.
When her husband is home, he’ll feed the kids and put them to bed, but he also told his wife that because she’s a stay-at-home mom, her “responsibilities are to make sure foods ready, he’s got clean clothes for work, and the kids are taken care of.”
It almost seems like she feels bad that she gets “tired too” because her husband has put everything that goes on within the home on her. She was looking to find out if she’s crazy or was he out of line? Also, she’s curious how other stay-at-home moms handle everything.
A lot of parents in the comments definitely feel her pain and relate to the tiredness.
There are a lot of redditors who fully comprehend what it’s like to stay at home with two young children full time. It can be utterly exhausting!
One person commented, “Kids, especially at that age, are exhausting. There’s only so much you can do. They especially like to go to a room you just cleaned and destroy it.”
How much did this person hit the nail directly on the head?
Someone else in the Reddit comments points out that this doesn’t really seem like a fair setup, especially for the mom, writing, “He says it’s your job, but if he doesn’t work 24 hours, neither [should you]. When he’s home it should be 50/50.”
This is such a fair point.
Another redditor points out that their husband works full time and is “exhausted” from work, but things such as meals and basic housework are “not a high expectation.” Basically, the commenter made it seem as if whatever gets done around the house is great, but other than that, it’s fine to let some things fall to the wayside.
A lot of parents seem to be into the whole 50/50 split when both parents are home. Everything doesn’t fall just on one parent.
There are a lot of comments in this Reddit thread that are all about keeping things as equal as possible for partners and parents, especially when their kids are little.
One person thinks it’s really quite simple. “[T]he way we handled it was that the house and kid were my job while he was at work. Once he got home, it was back to [a] 50/50 split,” the person wrote.
This seems to be the norm for a lot of people in the thread.
Another individual pointed out that being at home with toddlers all day is such a gamechanger when it comes to what you can accomplish around the house. “The ‘I work outside of the home and you do everything at home’ can only work once the kids are school aged. Having a toddler at home all day long is a completely different game,” the person wrote.
So true!
One mom explained that she’s on an 18-month maternity leave with a toddler and she considers her only “job” to be looking after him. She even went as far to say that “whenever [she does] anything else like cleaning and cooking, [she] sometimes feels guilty because it means [she’s] giving him less attention.”
For so many parents, their first priority is making sure their children are taken care of in every sense possible. Perhaps there needs to be an open and honest discussion between this couple about both of their expectations and how the stay-at-home mom looking after two kids 24/7 could use some support.
