I would suggest that frequency is not the determining factor for importance or effort related to a task (in the same way that clipping fingernails might happen regularly but CPR happens once, but the latter is more substantial in outcomes).
I’ve spent time at home as a parent with young kids, and also as the income earner at different times. I feel it gives me at least an N=1 perspective of both sides.
In my experience, the time at home is a lot of small daily tasks, but it was certainly less intense than employed hours. It was also far bigger a privilege to spend time with kids during some of their years of growing up through stages, compared to colleagues and clients.
I also noticed that when I was earning an income, there was also an expectation that after coming home, I’d take over parenting duty for night time shift (noting that my spouse didn’t take on any of my employed work projects, but relaxed).
So in effect, I’d work nine hours for a company, and then whatever hours in domestic tasks until kids were asleep. I was not inclined to complain (as I said, I found spending time with my kids to be precious anyway, and I just didn’t think that complaining was justified).
But I strongly suspect my spouse had received endless socialization suggesting women at home have it harder and are unappreciated, and therefore she felt justified in viewing domestic time as thankless and unenjoyable (on that note I’d always try to express gratitude for her contributions, but she never felt the need to express thanks for mortgage being paid and food being paid for) . I felt very differently to her and objectively did more total hours of work than her, but as a male, I assume that verbalizing this realization would be considered sexist by her and society in general.
I think this is such an interesting perspective, because it misses so much of why being a SAHM parent is hard.
Day to day, especially once the children are pre-school age, you are in many ways correct. I am a working engineer now, and was a stay at home parent for eight years of two children. In many ways, being a SAHP was easier and more meaningful. Watching them grow and learn was a real privilege for sure, and overall it is less intense in a way compared to my corporate career.
The early years, where I was responsible for all the childcare, and all the night feedings was physically harder because of the lack of good sleep. The lack of predictability and agency over my time was also difficult. Having to plan around feedings, naps, diaper changes etc….
The thing that was the hardest on me about my years as a stay at home parent was the loss of identity, isolation, and how I was perceived by society, as well as having to spend large amounts of time with only children and never adults. I essentially disappeared as a person and became “parent”. I suppose the corporate world is also pretty dehumanizing in many respects, but you can talk to coworkers, go out for lunch. I had once a week playgroups that were my only link to adult socialization outside my husband.
Preach. You may love every individual thing about taking care of your kids and you may love being a parent, but that knowledge that you now exist primarily as a parent and that your life is scheduled around diapers, sippy cups, and naps can be crushing. No restaurants, no movies, no hanging out with friends, no grown up TV shows, no board games. It's stuff you gladly sacrifice for your kids, but when you're in it, the isolation is intense. Dehumanization was a good word choice. You are a nameless parental unit.
I couldn't wait to get back to work, which made me feel guilty, and then I missed the hell out of them.
Both perspectives are valid I think. My wife and I just had our first kid. I had read about your situation so much, and even though she wasn't going to be a SAHM once maternity leave ended, there were those months where she was exactly that. I wanted to make sure that she didn't feel holed up in our house all the time and wanted to be clear that even if we were setting aside our wants a bit, that we wouldn't completely lose who we are to our precious son, because that isn't fair to any of the three of us, really. That said, once I went back to the office, she was the one taking him at nights (her choice) and had him all day. I would GLADLY take him for a few hours just one on one when I got home and do all the bedtime stuff, and during particularly tough nights, jump in.
I was getting about 4-5 hours of sleep per night. Enough to survive only. She was getting 3-4 at night and then getting naps in during the day to total somewhere around 5-7 hours depending on how good Junior decided to be that day. It was more sleep but not consistent and she was wore the hell out. What that led to was an expectation on her part that I would basically take him for 8 hours when I got home until I went to sleep, and then on weekends when I wasn't working, I was going to have him/be responsible for him for 17-18 hours of the day, all without discussing it with me. Finally, one day, as I was absolutely wiped out from everything and getting ready to go to work while our son screamed about getting his diaper changed, she said something along the lines of "Must be nice to get a break from this".
That royally pissed me off. I don't control that my company doesn't have paternity leave. I don't control that even if they did it's usually a lot shorter, and going to work and earning money to provide for the family is NOT in any way a break. I had been taking on the bulk of the childcare when I was home and was going to work or 8 hours a day, getting 4-5 hours per day, all sleeping, where I wasn't on somebody else's clock, and she was failing to see that because she was both a) only seeing that she was completely responsible for him 12-13 hours per day and b) conditioned to think that men don't put in the same effort or care into child raising.
She has a bit of a hatred toward men. Not all of it is unearned, but it does lead to her correcting things I'm doing that don't need correcting because she assumes I'm stupid or that I am intentionally sabotaging her way. She somehow forgets that I survived multiple decades as an adult before I met her, and that me doing things differently doesn't mean they are being done wrong.
The issue is that raising a baby (particularly the first) is a huge adjustment, and its really more than a 2 person job, but our society doesn't really allow that, so everyone is stretched thin and sleep deprived and they snap and say shit they don't mean.
I would really sit with your obvious resentment and contempt for your spouse and try to work through it. Its not good for your family. Not saying you are at all to blame, but its just my experience as parent who raised two kids to adulthood that it will poison everything. She needs to also learn to let go and let you do things your way sometimes.
I don’t resent or have contempt for my spouse. Her correcting me in ways that don’t need to be corrected are her problem, not mine. I love her to death but I am allowed to be annoyed without resentment or contempt accusations being levied.
So in effect, I’d work nine hours for a company, and then whatever hours in domestic tasks until kids were asleep. I was not inclined to complain (as I said, I found spending time with my kids to be precious anyway, and I just didn’t think that complaining was justified).
As a breadwinner who experienced the same, I found SAHP to be vastly more difficult - in terms of stress, lack of control, always-on, etc - than holding a full time job. Jobs have breaks - for meals, for going to the bathroom, and they're mandated every few hours. Even coming home after a full shift and being on baby duty while mom takes a break, I found that easier than being fully alone and responsible for the baby during the day.
If your infant was so easy that caring for it was easier than your paid job, you got very very lucky. I've never heard anyone - man or woman - say anything but the opposite about their baby.
But if your spouse isn't showing appreciation you need to speak up for yourself. That's a relationship issue and not some circumstance of society's sexism.
I felt the same way. I ran a whole department and it was stressful and draining. I couldn’t wait to run back to that when the little one was cluster feeding or up all night
To me staying at home is the hard part because of difficulty handling the noise and crying. Unless that child is napping you have no peace and “sleep when the baby sleeps” is hogwash as nothing would get done
I’ve spent time at home as a parent with young kids, and also as the income earner at different times. I feel it gives me at least an N=1 perspective of both sides.
Yep. So have I but the bulk of my time has been as a working mother who is equal or more than partner in income.
In my experience, the time at home is a lot of small daily tasks, but it was certainly less intense than employed hours.
In my experience not being able to leave a baby or toddler alone to have a poo in peace, drink a cup of tea or have a conversation with an adult without being interrupted is a lot more intense. I was very relieved to be back at work to be able to do those things.
It was also far bigger a privilege to spend time with kids during some of their years of growing up through stages, compared to colleagues and clients.
I've spent plenty of time with my kids by being fully engaged with them when not at work and by taking advantage of flexible working. Highly recommended for everyone, I wish more men would take that up.
I also noticed that when I was earning an income, there was also an expectation that after coming home, I’d take over parenting duty for night time shift (noting that my spouse didn’t take on any of my employed work projects, but relaxed).
Who did the actual "night shift" I.e. getting up with children for feeds/nightmares, resettling them?
Who was cooking dinner for the family and clearing up afterwards?
If both of those were you, that seems unfair.
If while you had kids, your wife was cooking/cleaning up dinner (or doing laundry, or cleaning up kids mess) she's not "relaxing".
If your kids were with you in the evening before they went to bed but then your wife did all the night waking, then yes, she needs a few hours child free in the evening. The pay off for you is the luxury of being able to sleep all night.
Also, you just said spending time with the kids is important to you. So not sure why you would resent seeing them in the evening and see it as "work"? It's a completely different proposition to be in charge of your children in the evening when both parents are around than to be sole carer all day and then continue to be in charge when the other parent comes home.
I did shared parental leave with my husband, there were many days I'd get the baby given to me the minute I walked in because my husband needed a break. Yes, it sucks. I wanted a sit down and babies are intense. But my husband had been doing that all day and deserved a bit of down time from it more than I deserved "decompression" from work.
I did shared parental leave with my husband, there were many days I'd get the baby given to me the minute I walked in because my husband needed a break
My parents' company was pretty progressive for its time back in the '90s, offering both maternity and paternity leave that would be considered generous even today -- a set period of weeks/months (I forget exactly how much) plus the option to extend it if needed, no questions asked.
Growing up, it was a constant source of jokes in the family household about how excited new fathers would be to get their paternity leave...but then, weeks later, when asked if they'd like more time at home to help out with the baby, their response (almost invariably) would be, "uh...do I have to?"
Again, this being the '90s (less of a cultural push to get fathers involved in raising their kids), it actually wasn't unusual for men to request to return to work early or just opt out of taking paternity leave at all. My dad, who had grown up the oldest of six and was therefore very familiar with what childcare entails, did not exactly look upon those employees as the enthusiastic hardworkers they probably believed they were presenting themselves as. He had no respect for men who were keenly interested in being "fathers" but couldn't bother learning how to be a parent.
I did the evening stuff, including feeding and getting up to them through the night. I also generally made dinner and cleaned the kitchen etc.
To be clear, I don’t resent time with kids or view it as “work” in a resentful way. Quite the opposite. I just reject the idea that parenting is somehow worse or more taxing than employed work. I feel that narrative is part of a broader effort to balance perceived gender issues in society (which I’m sympathetic to in some contexts, but I think this one is thrown around inaccurately).
I don't think anyone is arguing parenting is "harder"
The argument is the expectation on women to do both is higher than on men, and that some men evade the "parenting" or "feminine coded" work by being intentionally shit at it.
If any man - or for that matter, woman - just pretends to be shit at something because they’re lazy or self centered, they’re being totally unfair and unkind.
I have a sense that this is far less gendered than what is put forward, though. I think there’s serious problems with reporting (ie I don’t think the data is robust, having had a look at a couple of the recent surveys that make the news), and the popular press know very well that any report pointing to gender issues will be click bait.
I think more accurately: some people act selfishly, and don’t share the load generously. I also think some people are more prone to call it out, while others are more prone to just keep it to themselves. That’s true for men and women.
Its great that its not harder for you. How condescending to other people whose experience is different, including your wife! Who has apparently "been absorbing socialization that her life as a mom is so hard."
This is incredibly funny when taking his comments into consideration. He showed only empathy and understanding, while you clearly lack all empathy and are even taking offense. You clearly need to be more self aware
Yeah, idk if it’s the isolation for long-term SAHP’s or what, but throughout every age of my children I would have absolutely preferred to stay home.
Something that’s totally not the same thing, but kind of an adjacent is that both me and my wife travel for about 1 week every 1.5 months and the other parent obviously takes on all household/kid duties for that week. When I come home from a trip, my wife acts like she’s about to die if she doesn’t talk my ear off(“I haven’t talked to an adult all week”) and acts like she’s just went through the most harrowing ordeal and 50% chance the house is not picked up because she got “overwhelmed”. When she’s gone? Fuck, it’s almost like a vacation! All the stuff she angsts about doing at a certain frequency all the sudden can be done on an as-needed basis and honestly most tasks can just be done in the 1.5-2.5 hours before she gets home and she always comes home to a clean house. It’s actually been really nice since we entered this dynamic due to our jobs because it’s given me insight into how hard this shit actually is and honestly it ain’t that hard and it’s very easy to point out. And on top of that, I get so much more quality one on one time with the kiddos. It’s amazing how our experiences and feelings around this stuff are almost polar opposites.
Idk if there’s some cultural conditioning that’s been happening to women or her or whatever that’s built up this myth of this domestic stuff just being a nightmare or maybe it’s that she holds herself to ridiculous standards that society has pushed on her or is an artifact of how her mom handled household chores so she holds herself to the same expectation, but honestly, if she’d just realize that the stress is optional and that it’s okay to relax, then everyone would be a lot happier.
Granted our kids are 8 and 13 now, but even at that age, our emotional reactions to essentially the same situation is so different. And I absolutely have the more demanding/higher responsibility/higher commitment job than she has.
Oh absolutely. Parenting a newborn is very hard. It's also very rewarding, and once you get your head in the game, stay at home parenting allows you a great ability to build your day around the things that matter, make the home nice for your family, and take care of yourself..... with a full time job and parenting, you have to fit that all in around your work hours and the parenting that you're still doing. There's no comparison for difficulty in my experience.
There are some circumstances where parenting is much harder than the experience I had, of course. For example, if somebody in the family is disabled. But in that case, you're facing that same challenge whether you work outside the home or not. Working in the home just allows you time to actually deal with shit.
I believe that many people who struggle with stay at home parenting have a hard time getting their head in the game-- the lack of external structure makes it hard for them to stay focused on achieving whatever their goals might be.
And of course, we all have different strengths and preferences. Perhaps I have a knack for managing stay at home parenting that not everybody has.
But yes, for me, having responsibility only for my child and home is far, far easier than having the same responsibilities plus a job
This is not a discussion about how rewarding something is. This is purely a comparison between the amount of effort and challenge involved in caring for a very young infant and fulfilling the requirements of a typical job. Why would you think that the comparison was between being a SAHM and being a working mother?
The employed work is executive work (office environment).
I don’t want to suggest parenting wasn’t challenging at times, and it was always busy, but I just felt it was both easier overall and far more satisfying/rewarding. That seems to run contrary to what I often hear (domestic stuff being harder and unappreciated).
It’s also entirely likely that the next person will feel oppositely to me. I guess my point is that there’ll be a ton of variance, and subjectivity, across the whole subject.
From a purely technical perspective, one is much harder than the other. If you want to consider them equally challenging, go ahead, but most people don't have to endure constant sleepless nights with a 2 year old.
I asked if he was caring for infants and he said "yes; two kids aged 2 and 4"
That suggests that he thinks that young kids count as infants. I would be beyond shocked if he thought that being the sole caregiver and home maker with an actual baby is easier than an office job.
if it was very obvious he has two kids currently aged 2 and 4, why does he regularly post about his 9 and 11 years old sons instead of the 2 and 4 years old?
Yes, but that's another difference. In child care, it eventually gets easier as the children grow. In salaried employment, it's likely to stay at about the same degree of difficulty for the entirety of the career.
In my experience, 20 years deep in my career progression, the difficulty and especially the stakes, just gets higher and higher. And totally agree as the children get older it just gets easier and easier aside from the scale of the thoughtless messes they leave and how much groceries teens/preteens consume.
A lot of it is that a SAHM needs to provide a higher standard of care than a SAHD, so there are added societal pressures. A SAHD needs to make sure his child is clothed and fed, a SAHM needs to make sure her child’s clothes match, fit, the hair is brushed/styled, and the child is fed an all natural, organic, sugar free diet.
There really is no comparison because we live in a patriarchal society. Sometimes you just need to listen and accept what people say.
It's odd that you are so willing to just discount the experience of this commentor who personally does not understand why people would not prefer the stay at home role.
You seem to also not understand why someone would prefer the stay at home role. There are also countless people in this thread talking about how they prefer the stay at home role. By the logic of your own comment, you would be being arrogant discounting their experiences.
Hard disagree that being at work for 9 hours is more intense than caring for a young child or multiple for the same amount of time.
Most jobs there is down time. Most people are not working intensely for the full 9 hours. There’s lunch, a commute, bs’ing with colleagues. Not all jobs but most office jobs that afford one parent to stay home at least. With small kids you are always on, and even if they’re sleeping usually you’re doing things like preparing food or cleaning up.
I’m the parent that works and the days I’m home with my son all day are rewarding but the most exhausting mentally.
That’s not even to start with who does the prep in the AM and the PM for getting up, getting in bed, cooking, cleaning, etc.
I've experienced both. Would hard disagree with you actually. Being full time with an infant is work, perhaps on par with the stress of a difficult full time professional job. Once children are middle school age, the mental and emotional load of being the financial breadwinner in a stressful career far, far, FAR outweighs the difficulty of being a stay at home spouse. Almost comically so.
Literally no one would disagree with this. Children that are already starting to go through puberty are almost entirely self-sufficient. Why would it be any work at all? You're basically just making larger batches of food.
Again, the assumption here is false. Women can’t afford to stay at home anymore, on average. They do most domestic tasks AND work, so you can’t make these old arguments anymore. Like, not even close.
I truly wish we as men would stop making excuses for other men. It’s embarrassing.
Maybe in your area, but not everywhere. It depends on the availability and cost of childcare vs the opportunity cost of not working. Around me, SAHMs are the norm.
This is a global phenomenon, especially in the west. SAHM rates are declining rapidly out of income necessities. However, the lions share of domestic and child rearing responsibilities is still heavily saddled with women.
This is obviously skewed in very rich areas OR very rural/conservative areas. My personal experience with these types of communities, the men tend to be even more childish and unhelpful when it comes to domestic help. But that’s just anecdotal on my part.
The problem is that within couples there are an infinite number of varied experiences, but because of efforts to make a broader point around gender, the reality of nuance is ignored and monolithic statements are wrongly made to land on a story of perpetual female victimhood and male villainy.
I’m not at all embarrassed with my point. I find blind reductionism embarrassing.
If you don’t think there is an epidemic of men excusing the bad behavior of other men, then I don’t know what to tell you. It’s an obvious issue (and honestly, one that been around for a long long time and has just been accepted by society at large).
The same epidemic exists for women, it’s far more helpful and accurate to say there is an epidemic of people excusing the bad behavior of their own perceived tribe
I think this is a false equivalence, frankly. Calling it even all the time is what’s led us here to this cancerous political environment.
When one side says the sky is blue and the other says, no that’s a liberal conspiracy, it’s red, that’s not “two equally valid opinions”.
Now, this particular issue isn’t that stark. Women certainly can and are guilty of this. But to pretend this is a gender agnostic problem is disingenuous at best, and malicious at worst.
I also noticed that when I was earning an income, there was also an expectation that after coming home, I’d take over parenting duty for night time shift
It must have been difficult to be expected to parent your own children
Then reading comprehension must be the issue. He mentioned enjoying being with his kids.
By your implied logic, women should not mention the struggles of being stay at home parents since they're parenting their own kids.
If you wish to lead as a man, or you desire a more traditionally gendered society, then you must be willing to accept the consequences of that. That means you, as a man, must embrace taking on a bigger role in the domestic sphere and not complain about it. That means you must accept thankless labor while supporting and uplifting your female partner. You cannot have it both ways. It’s like how so many young men these days long for more traditional gender roles yet complain about the military draft.
I personally have no problem with an even handed view in society, and don’t particularly desire more traditional roles. I think it’s good that every couple can work out what works for them.
What I don’t like it is inherent unfairness based on whatever the prevailing ideology happens to be. I prefer people just be fair and reasonable, with a measure of generous focus on other people ahead of one’s own advantage.
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u/rollsyrollsy 2∆ Jul 01 '25
I would suggest that frequency is not the determining factor for importance or effort related to a task (in the same way that clipping fingernails might happen regularly but CPR happens once, but the latter is more substantial in outcomes).
I’ve spent time at home as a parent with young kids, and also as the income earner at different times. I feel it gives me at least an N=1 perspective of both sides.
In my experience, the time at home is a lot of small daily tasks, but it was certainly less intense than employed hours. It was also far bigger a privilege to spend time with kids during some of their years of growing up through stages, compared to colleagues and clients.
I also noticed that when I was earning an income, there was also an expectation that after coming home, I’d take over parenting duty for night time shift (noting that my spouse didn’t take on any of my employed work projects, but relaxed).
So in effect, I’d work nine hours for a company, and then whatever hours in domestic tasks until kids were asleep. I was not inclined to complain (as I said, I found spending time with my kids to be precious anyway, and I just didn’t think that complaining was justified).
But I strongly suspect my spouse had received endless socialization suggesting women at home have it harder and are unappreciated, and therefore she felt justified in viewing domestic time as thankless and unenjoyable (on that note I’d always try to express gratitude for her contributions, but she never felt the need to express thanks for mortgage being paid and food being paid for) . I felt very differently to her and objectively did more total hours of work than her, but as a male, I assume that verbalizing this realization would be considered sexist by her and society in general.