Should a woman (SAHM) be doing EVERYTHING in the house if she doesn't go out to work?

Person_one

evenasus wrote: »

I know that, tell that to my husband.

He just sees a load of buttons.

Sorry to be morbid, but what if you die or become disabled?

amistupid

Peter333 wrote: »

Should a woman (SAHM) be doing EVERYTHING in the house if she doesn't go out to work?

Absolutely and don't forget washing the car, gardening and walking the dog. All these chores should all be fitted around her primary function to sexually pleasure her man.

evenasus

Person_one wrote: »

Sorry to be morbid, but what if you die or become disabled?

That what I keep saying to him.
He just replies that he would find out when he needed to.

I think it would hit him very hard. He'd probably then realise just how much is involved in housekeeping.

evenasus

amistupid wrote: »

Absolutely and don't forget washing the car and gardening. These chores should all be fitted around her main task of sexually pleasuring her man.

You might need to hide after that comment.

stephen77

Depends how many hours her stay at home activates take.

If she is doing all the house work etc with in 10 hours a week. Then I would not see you doing very little as a issue.
if you like 5 course meals all made from scratch and its taking 60 hours a week to do by herself. Then some help would be required.

Pennywise

Surely the answer is that she should do as many "house" working hours as her OH. If he works 35 hours per week, then she should work 35 hours per week too doing the housework, shopping, child care, etc. If the "house" work takes longer, then they need to both do half each of the extra. But I really can't see how the "house" related work can take 35 hours or more.

azjh77

Bit of an aside, but when I worked full time and my husband was a SAHD, I got nothing but "when is he getting a real job" comments from people. We've established that running a household is a full time job (and we have 4 kids, who are younger than those mentioned in the OP, so probably more mess, toys to pick up, dishes, washing etc) so I wondered if any men with SAH wives ever get asked if their wives are going to get "proper jobs"?

sulphate

The person who isn't working (in this case, the woman) should be doing the majority of "keeping the house". If the man works 36 hours over 4 days, that's 9.5 hours a day (including a 0.5 hour lunch break), assuming a 0.5 hour commute each way he would be out of the house from 7.30am to 6pm, so not really fair for him to be expected to do lots of housework when he gets home too.

That doesn't mean that when the man gets home he should be waited on hand and foot.

An equal division of work would be for the woman to do things like laundry, cleaning, the school run, while the man is at work and when he gets home they could split it equally i.e. one of them prepares dinner while the other runs the kids around in the evening if necessary. Cleaning the oven/kitchen after dinner etc could be done by the woman the next day. As someone else said, cleaning doesn't take 36 hours a week.

It amazes me that there are still men out there that don't know how to work a washing machine!

onlyroz

I would expect that a stay-at-home parent to school-aged children would do the vast majority of the housework and cooking during the week. At the weekend I'd hope that the working parent would at least chip in with the cooking, and help out with the bigger jobs like gardening, DIY etc.

It's a good point about people being unable to cope if their partner dies or becomes disabled. This happened to my father-in-law when my mother-in-law developed dementia. He suddenly found himself having to learn how to do things that he'd never done in his life. He coped pretty well but I know that some people would be utterly lost.

I have a friend who is now divorced, but when she was married she used to go to extremes whenever she went away leaving her husband at home. She'd set out meals for him in labelled boxes with full cooking instructions. E.g. this one for monday dinner, microwave for 3 minutes. This one for tuesday lunch, bake for 10 minutes. Etc etc.

Okydoky25

Being a SAHMto 2 toddlers he was I see it I am responsible for everything until the hubby gets home and then it is shared between us. It is a demanding job at that age tho.
at 10/15 not so much and I would prefer to work and share rather than be expected to do everything!