This is not meant to be accusative, only informative. I hear so much about how hard it is to be a stay-at-home spouse or parent, but I rarely hear details about what makes it so hard. I don’t pretend that it’s easy, but no one has ever taken the time to explain what they do.

So here’s another chance. Do they actually vacuum every day and cook three meals every day and do laundry every day? What are the chores that need to be done? Does everything really need to be done every single day?

For example, it’s my day off; I just cleaned the entire apartment (vacuumed the carpets, washed the bathrooms, wiped down the kitchen, dusted the furniture), and it’s not even 10 AM yet. If I were a stay-at-home spouse, I would be bored to tears until she comes home in 7 hours.

As a disclaimer, I don’t personally know any stay-at-homes, otherwise I would be asking them instead of Yahoo! Answers. No, I am not married, have four pets (2 cats, 2 dogs), no children, and I live with my girlfriend.
We both work (I have a traditional M-F, 8-5), and she works F-W afternoons & evenings.

Here’s are examples of absolutely USELESS responses: "Wait until you have kids, then you’ll know!" or "Why don’t you try taking care of my kids and see if you think it’s easy!"

I don’t suspect it’s easy, and I’m posting the question so that I don’t HAVE to find out everything by myself (isn’t that the point of Yahoo! Answers, anyway?).

I also don’t agree that it’s a 24/7 job (even if we had kids at home). My girlfriend and I both share household duties, but they’re split somewhat unequally based on what we prefer. I do the cooking (I enjoy it and I’m better at it), and she does the laundry (there was an incident where I had to use a mop and now I’m not allowed to touch the washer).
I imagine that when/if we ever get married/procreate that she may decide to stay home (I earn about twice as much as she does). But I’ve never felt that she should perform all the household chores by herself, only when I’m at work. When I get home, I expect to help out on chores that she can’t do or really didn’t have time for or really didn’t want to do (cooking, fixing car, taking out trash), as well as help take care of the kids.

So if her job is 24/7, then I would really have TWO jobs. An 8-5 outside the home, and the same job as her inside the home. Is this really that unusual to split the housework this way?

It’s true that I hadn’t distinguished between stay-at-home spouses and stay-at-home parents. That’s for you to disclose.

Maybe it’s because I saw how miserable my parents were when my father would come home from work and never do shit around the house while my mother worked part-time and took care of cooking, shopping and cleaning.
A lot of excellent responses already. My girlfriend and I have discussed this before, but I thought I’d reach out for input from those that have been there (her mother never stayed home either) to help alleviate my admitted lack of knowledge on the topic.

I also don’t mean to suggest that caring for children is easy or not-time consuming. I’ve babysat for kids before (ages 4-13) and it wasn’t difficult, but I concede that’s not all day, every day; they weren’t my kids, it was only for a few hours at a time, and none of them were infants.




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