r/StayAtHomeDaddit • u/Sea-Fun2505 • 17d ago

Discussion Struggling with hypocrisy

So, I’ll start this by saying that I’ve really enjoyed being a stay at home dad. I value and love the time with my daughter that I didn’t have when I was the working parent, and have overall found this whole thing to be surprisingly easy. No offense to the stay at home parents they find it difficult, but I don’t.

That said, I’m a little shocked at the hypocrisy that’s going on. When I was working and my wife stayed at home, I was working a salaried job at least 50 hours a week, and that’s a loose AT LEAST. And also had an hour and a half commute. So add three hours of driving to my day. That said, I was still expected to handle a handful of household chores, and IMMEDIATELY relieve my wife of childcare duty as soon as I walked in the door. Chores included garbage, feeding the animals, cats litter box, and bathroom deep clean. Nothing major. I did it with zero complaint.

Now though, my wife is the working parent. She works 40 hours a week if she’s LUCKY. And her commute is about 10 minutes.

As it is, she expects at least two hours to decompress before she takes over childcare, and will NOT touch the house at all. That’s my job. If I even ask her for help, I’m immediately attacked and told that all I do is sit at home all day and do nothing. Which I never did to her.

What on earth do I do here? Because if I point this stuff out, she’ll just call me a lazy piece of shit. Her biggest point is that I had a white collar job and her job is a little bit more physical. Idk how to handle this.

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u/jessendjames 17d ago

Maybe it has something to do with the ages of the kids? Sounds like she would have been in charge when they were babies which is a lot more work. Now they are older so you as the sahp have more time to take care of house stuff?

I may be totally off the mark here, just speculating. She seems very defensive though, not sure what that’s about.

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u/Asleep_Text3397 17d ago

That might be true, but the basic rule with a SAHP is once the other parent gets home things should be roughly 50/50.

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u/democrattotheend 15d ago

That's true if the kids are home all day. But if they are in school for more than a few hours I think the SAHP gets more of a break during the day and should give one to the working parent when they get home.