Poll of the Day > Is being a stay-at-home mom really that hard once the kid(s) start school?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I mean, you get up, take the kid to school at 730-745 (or whenever), and pick him/her up at 3.

What are your responsibilities during that window?

Yes, I'm sure it's hard on weekends and holidays off school, I'm not dismissing that. But what about a normal 5 day week? Is it really that much work?
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taking care of the home.

houses don't just take care of themselves.
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I would love to be a stay at home dad.

*wink @Jen0125

I already have the kid so you don't have to have one.
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It's the cabin fever that makes it hard

you dont need to do major cleaning every day (not even once a week). laundry is easy because of machines and most people dont take extra time to cook. even if they do you dont need to cook every sigle night, leftovers are a thing
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Jen0125 posted...

taking care of the home.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

you dont need to do major cleaning every day (not even once a week).

Pretty much my response. Hell, you could vacuum the entire house once a day (which would be superfluous, but I'm just being generous here), and that would only take 1-2 hours (depending on house size, obviously). Maybe clean up some messes the kid made the night before from fingerpainting or some shit?

But honestly, there really isn't that much to do when you're home alone. Laundry, dishes, and most other things all have machines.
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i think you guys are assuming a lot of things about a family.

you don't know anything about the family's neatness level, how many extracurriculars the kid/s have or how many children are in the family. you don't know what kind of "machines" they even have to do chores. you don't know how big or small their home is. you don't know how they plan their meals or don't plan their meals. you have no idea about anything.

you're making an assumption about literally everything just to call the stay at home "mom" (why not dad?) lazy.

some stay at home parents have hobby businesses that they do from home while the kid is at school too to supplement income. it's not a full time job and not something they need to leave the house for.
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they could be taking care of elderly family members during that time
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It ebbs and flows. Kind of like Jen and Joex said. I have a friend who owns a handy man company so I will help him out now and then. I also have retired parents that I help them with when they need things (grocery shop, home repairs, etc,). I also was a teacher so I will volunteer from time to time at my kids school in which ever class room that might need help.
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Jen0125 posted...

i think you guys are assuming a lot of things about a family.

you don't know anything about the family's neatness level, how many extracurriculars the kid/s have or how many children are in the family. you don't know what kind of "machines" they even have to do chores. you don't know how big or small their home is. you don't know how they plan their meals or don't plan their meals. you have no idea about anything.

you're making an assumption about literally everything just to call the stay at home "mom" (why not dad?) lazy.

some stay at home parents have hobby businesses that they do from home while the kid is at school too to supplement income. it's not a full time job and not something they need to leave the house for.

the point isn't how they plan/dont plan meals etc. the point is they could. it means things are easy-super easy depending on the planning. the people who claim it's like a full time job (like the annual survey of wages) is bs. there are several things you don't have to do each day. some can be done once a week (laundry) or once/every other week (full cleaning)
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how do you know how much laundry they have? some people do laundry daily and put it away. some people do laundry weekly all at once and make it a whole day chore. some people do it a couple times a week.

you're making assumptions about family preferences.

the main point is it's literally none of your concern how a family prefers to operate. if both partners are satisfied with the workload each person is putting in it doesn't matter to any other person on the planet as to what is going on inside their home. mind your own business.
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Anyone who thinks you can skimp on cleaning the house when you have kids either:

A. don't have kids of their own yet, or
B. are comfortable living in a dirty house.

Kids will tear your house apart on a daily basis, drop food all over, pee on the floor or furniture, etc. Kids are messy. Just this week my one-year old managed to shit on the couch twice (my fault, I thought I could get away with cleaning up after dinner, took her diaper off while I was cleaning her and figured I had five minutes to do dishes. Nooooope) There's no avoiding it. Cleaning is a part of your daily routine. Laundry machines won't fold and put away your laundry for you (yet). Not everyone has a dishwasher, and they don't load or unload themselves.
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if they want to do it daily thats their choice, doesnt change the fact that they could do it once a week and it would save a vast amount of time. if they claim they have tons of work to do but are doing it in a way that creates more work thats their choice. it doesn't mean it's actually as hard as they claim.

besides, once a child is old enough they can do their own laundry and have some chores, thereby freeing up even more time
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Well, things are only as hard as you perceive them to be, anyway. Household chores aren't hard to me at all, but other people might find them to be a huge headache.

And like I said, when you have kids, your house will be dirty on a daily basis. Whether or not you choose to clean it is another matter, but there's work to be done daily.
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who are you to tell someone how many times a week they should be doing a chore in their own home?

babies/children go through a ton of clothing. they're MESSY. they spill things constantly. they're always getting things dirty. you need to constantly clean.

cleaning doesn't need to be deep cleaning but any number of spills or messes can be made on any given day. vacuuming and dusting can be done more than once a week especially if you have pets. it all depends on how clean you like your home to be.
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Jen0125 posted...

how do you know how much laundry they have? some people do laundry daily and put it away. some people do laundry weekly all at once and make it a whole day chore. some people do it a couple times a week.

you're making assumptions about family preferences.

the main point is it's literally none of your concern how a family prefers to operate. if both partners are satisfied with the workload each person is putting in it doesn't matter to any other person on the planet as to what is going on inside their home. mind your own business.

Even when laundry builds up, calling it an all day chore is laughable. You literally just take clothes and put them in a machine that does all the work and you come back 45 minutes to an hour later and put them in the other machine... then you come back another 45 minutes to an hour later and do the only actual work portion which is folding and putting them in the drawer

It was for my mom. She is obsessed with a clean house.
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OhhhJa posted...

Even when laundry builds up, calling it an all day chore is laughable. You literally just take clothes and put them in a machine that does all the work and you come back 45 minutes to an hour later and put them in the other machine... then you come back another 45 minutes to an hour later and do the only actual work portion which is folding and putting them in the drawer

that shit can take all day to wait to get done. 45 minutes for the wash cycle, 60-90 for the dry cycle. if you have 3 loads that's at least 4.5 hours while you wait for the dryer. then you have to actually fold it all and put it away. that's time consuming dude. you need to make sure you're home to time it right or else you're wasting even more time. laundry is the most annoying and time consuming chore to do especially if you want to make sure you're actually doing it efficiently.

no one is saying you need to sit and wash the machines but to say it doesn't take up the bulk to the day waiting for it to finish is a silly argument.
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But during those 45 minutes, you're cleaning the floors, cleaning the bathroom, folding a separate load of sheets or kids clothes (yes, it's common to have multiple loads of laundry to do in a day). It's not like you just sit on your hands while the laundry machines are going. There's plenty of other cleaning to do, housework, handyman stuff, bills... it really almost never ends.
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Jen knows what's up.
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Yes.
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Jen0125 posted...

who are you to tell someone how many times a week they should be doing a chore in their own home?

babies/children go through a ton of clothing. they're MESSY. they spill things constantly. they're always getting things dirty. you need to constantly clean.

cleaning doesn't need to be deep cleaning but any number of spills or messes can be made on any given day. vacuuming and dusting can be done more than once a week especially if you have pets. it all depends on how clean you like your home to be.

idc how they do things... until they try and claim they have soooo much work and how its sooo much harder than i could possibly imagine. then i say it's not my fault you cant manage time
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well i will say i fucking hate folding clothes

Krazy_Kirby posted...

idc how they do things... until they try and claim they have soooo much work and how its sooo much harder than i could possibly imagine. then i say it's not my fault you cant manage time

barely anyone makes this argument. it's so overblown it's not even an issue.
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Far-Queue posted...

But during those 45 minutes, you're cleaning the floors, cleaning the bathroom, folding a separate load of sheets or kids clothes (yes, it's common to have multiple loads of laundry to do in a day). It's not like you just sit on your hands while the laundry machines are going. There's plenty of other cleaning to do, housework, handyman stuff, bills... it really almost never ends.

It does seem like it never ends. In the summer my kids will do their own clothes and cook some. I view my goal during the school year is to do every thing that needs to be done so when my kids and wife are home we have free time to do whatever we'd like to do whenever we'd like. When working, it felt like almost all free time my wife and I had were household related or some errands we had to do.
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It highly depends on...

how many kids you have,

how behaved your kids are,

how clean your kids are,

how old they are,

how big your house is,

how clean you want the house,

how committed you are to excelling at the job.

Are you cleaning the house every day?

You can be a stay at home mom and only clean once a month, give your kids a few dollars for lunch and give everyone canned soup and store bought bread for dinner and, or you could get up earlier than everyone else and make them a nice breakfast, a nice bag lunch, and spend over an hour preparing a nice home made dinner.

How hard it is is heavily dependent on how much effort you want to put into it.
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it's probably a lot less time consuming to try to do a load several times a week than try to do it all on one fucking day man. you could spend hours alone folding all that shit. it's annoying. that's what my mom always did sunday and then she'd make us help when we started getting older.
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Some laundry you can't just wait to wash. Kid pees the bed? Laundry time.

Stay at home parents don't get days off. The nice thing about a job out of home is you work it and you're done. Yes you have things to do at home, but nothing like a stay at home parent. They don't get days off, they don't get vacation, they don't have a job that just ends after 8 hours. They're always working or on call and getting paid nothing. It's pretty thankless. However they make it work is fine and not my place to judge the efficiency of their laundry queue.
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You're just going to ignore what I said

That's

Okay
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Wii3Kings posted...

Far-Queue posted...

But during those 45 minutes, you're cleaning the floors, cleaning the bathroom, folding a separate load of sheets or kids clothes (yes, it's common to have multiple loads of laundry to do in a day). It's not like you just sit on your hands while the laundry machines are going. There's plenty of other cleaning to do, housework, handyman stuff, bills... it really almost never ends.

It does seem like it never ends. In the summer my kids will do their own clothes and cook some. I view my goal during the school year is to do every thing that needs to be done so when my kids and wife are home we have free time to do whatever we'd like to do whenever we'd like. When working, it felt like almost all free time my wife and I had were household related or some errands we had to do.

Exactly. I swear the only real time we get to ourselves is after the kids are in bed. And even THEN we may be trying to tidy up a few things we couldn't get to. The amount of naïveté in this topic is astounding. Anyone who thinks having kids is a cakewalk is in for a rude awakening. It's a non-stop job.

Oh, we just need to manage our time better, really? Every moment can erupt with any number of unexpected, unforeseen little disasters, like my kid shitting on the couch. Some things you can't plan for, and when you have kids, unplanned for things occur by the hour. And that's on a good day.

That said, I love being a dad. It's a lot of work, but it's easily the most rewarding experience I've ever had. Don't mean to paint it like it's all doom and gloom.
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Jen0125 posted...

it's probably a lot less time consuming to try to do a load several times a week than try to do it all on one fucking day man. you could spend hours alone folding all that shit. it's annoying. that's what my mom always did sunday and then she'd make us help when we started getting older.

Yeah, luckily I'm just doing my own clothes so it's not that bad. Plus, I tend to go into turbo android mode when I do boring chores like that and get them done really fast. That's what I do with things I hate doing

Doctor Foxx posted...

Some laundry you can't just wait to wash. Kid pees the bed? Laundry time.

Stay at home parents don't get days off. The nice thing about a job out of home is you work it and you're done. Yes you have things to do at home, but nothing like a stay at home parent. They don't get days off, they don't get vacation, they don't have a job that just ends after 8 hours. They're always working or on call and getting paid nothing. It's pretty thankless. However they make it work is fine and not my place to judge the efficiency of their laundry queue.

It depends on who you're with. You could argue that the man working hard all day to pay the bills is a thankless job as well if he comes home to a stay at home wife who greets him with complaints about not making enough money and no dinner. Not saying that i believe in the stay at home wife lifestyle but if you agree to be a stay at home wife, you should at the very least prep a meal for the husband when he arrives more often than not.

topic is about is it hard.

answer is no, if done with some effort.

if you had a paper due for school and you went to the library to search books for info and then used a typewriter to do the report that doesn't mean it was a really tough paper. it means you didn't plan to do it a. easier way.
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That depends if your kids pick up after themselves, how often you have to go grocery shopping, how clean you want your house etc.
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Being a homemaker is no joke

Sure there are some people that are just couch potatoes but the ones that properly take care of the home and cook meals are working their butts off
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

answer is no, if done with some effort.

lmfao

child rearing is hard. just because your kid goes to school for 6 hours a day doesn't make child rearing less difficult. jesus christ. it's really easy to tell who doesn't have kids in this topic.

SmokeMassTree posted...

You're just going to ignore what I said

That's

Okay

i don't want your kid

he doesn't have good genetics
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Jen0125 posted...

Krazy_Kirby posted...

answer is no, if done with some effort.

lmfao

child rearing is hard. just because your kid goes to school for 6 hours a day doesn't make child rearing less difficult. jesus christ. it's really easy to tell who doesn't have kids in this topic.

SmokeMassTree posted...

You're just going to ignore what I said

That's

Okay

i don't want your kid

he doesn't have good genetics

i babysat my nephew 5-7 hours a day for over a year while also taking care of my mom, doing laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning etc. once you get a system in place the work becomes easy.
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Jeeze, his mom isn't that bad
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"i babysat" lol k
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done with the idiot who thinks they know my situation when it actually gave me plenty of insight to this topic.
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You don't speak to my future meal ticket like that!
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SmokeMassTree posted...

You don't speak to my future meal ticket like that!

your name isn't mando!
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Far-Queue posted...

Jen knows what's up.

Going with this.
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Muffinz0rz posted...

I mean, you get up, take the kid to school at 730-745 (or whenever), and pick him/her up at 3.

What are your responsibilities during that window?

Yes, I'm sure it's hard on weekends and holidays off school, I'm not dismissing that. But what about a normal 5 day week? Is it really that much work?

tbh, when kids hit a certain age, SAH moms usually go back to work. Granted, kids have lots of afterschool activities as well, which keep a SAH parent busy. Then you have housework, chores, cooking, and a myriad of small tasks. That's assuming that the SAH doesn't have an at-home business, of course.

The real issue is that most work schedules don't really accommodate when the kids are home so, if one parent isn't around, you'd need to rely on grandparents, babysitters, neighbors, etc.
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As someone who did everything a say at home mom/dad would do for years, while working and for some of it going to school as well, I can say there is certainly plenty to do, and it might even take up more time then your jobs.

It's not just cleaning up the house (which can be a chore for 4+ people, lots of dishes, messes, laundry etc that needs to be done every day). It's also shopping (if you are trying to save money like I do this can be time consuming, but can often save quite a bit per month), cooking (which I usually did by making slow cooked meals in crock pots while at work, or by prepping stuff for stir frys or making pasta sauce and freezing it etc, or just bbqing since that is fast).

Don't forget that the kids most likely have activities they need to be dropped off at after school, and that school hours are not really that long (8 am drop off, till 1:30 or 2:30 depending on the day where I worked).

Meanwhile I at least also paid all the bills and dealt with medical trips for 2 elderly members of my family.

Not all stay at home mom/dads deal with that much (Certainly not while working) but the point is there is plenty to do, and while you might not spend a full 8 hours a day doing it, you certainly can spend at least 6 on average (and with kids the "weekends" are actually often more hectic since you have the kids the whole time etc.

Then you have the whole psychological part for those who actually don't have another job and that is their whole life. Almost any job is better then having your whole life center around taking care of a family, especially if that family takes you for granted and doesn't appreciate it. You can easily have your whole self worth be focused on your "job" as a stay at home parent, which can lead to serious problems once you are no longer needed as much.

This is especially true if you have young children for a decade or so, before they are all old enough to not need to be supervised. If you have 3 kids over 6 years, the youngest won't even start school for over a decade after the oldest was born. This can make a parent feel like they can't fit into society and work themselves, and cause them to feel worthless or bad about themselves once they are no longer actually needed to watch the kids constantly (even if they are still doing all of the above I mentioned).

Worse many significant others can grow to resent the stay at home partner, feeling like they are not pulling their weight, especially once they kids have started school. In many cases this leads to the partner resenting the stay at home parent more and more and eventually to divorce.

So now you have a parent who focused his or her whole life on the family, which is now in shambles and breaking up, the kids no longer need him or her as much and may even want to be with the other parent more (As they have always been the "fun" one), and now they need to find a way to support themselves (and support the kids as well, at least partially), after having no experience for a decade (or possibly ever depending on how early they had kids).

So yeah, I don't think most stay at home parents have a good deal at all. It sounds great to be able to spend the time with the kids early on, and be a hands on parent, but honestly I highly recommend hiring a cheap babysitter and working during the day (both parents). It'll lead to a more healthy long term relationship and it will prevent the stay at home parent from focusing their whole life on the family.

There are exceptions of course, and in some cases it works fine, but honestly don't think it's worth the risk. You can get babysitters for as little as $10 an hour, and....honestly, everybody can make at least that much working. It's better to just make as much as you pay the babysitter, then to stay at home and take care of the kids.

Hard to see that when you have a new baby you love and want to be with all the time though.
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Zeus posted...

The real issue is that most work schedules don't really accommodate when the kids are home so, if one parent isn't around, you'd need to rely on grandparents, babysitters, neighbors, etc.

This isn't a problem at all. In fact, they even say that latchkey kids get special powers.
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Muffinz0rz posted...

I mean, you get up, take the kid to school at 730-745 (or whenever), and pick him/her up at 3.

What are your responsibilities during that window?

Yes, I'm sure it's hard on weekends and holidays off school, I'm not dismissing that. But what about a normal 5 day week? Is it really that much work?

It seems to be hard to fill the hours without getting a sidepiece if TV and a couple of my friend's relationships are to be anything to go by...

Muffinz0rz posted...

you get up, take the kid to school

I feel like you might have skipped a part somewhere in there
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yeah once a kid hits the age of like 8, stay at home parents basically become worthless

so
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my mom stays at home she maybe does an hour of shopping eats and then lays in bed the whole day

if I have children though I want my wife to stay home with them I don't trust strangers or enviroments like that to raise my kids properly I want an adult I trust, until they're old enough
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Kids are freaking needy and constantly are following you around. You try 4-5 hours with a kid following you around and interacting with that kid for 5 days in a row, and then on the weekends... And see how you feel.

I have been babysitting my sister since she was born, and she's 10 now. Regardless of how long I watch her, it's freaking exhausting because of the previous things I've mentioned.

I love her, but sometimes I can't stand it. I can't even imagine being a parent. You can't escape it.
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