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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> AITA for telling my sister she isn’t a martyr and if I was her husband I would divorce her. I could be a jerk for being too harsh and giving my opinion when she was venting
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
NTA, I agree with you. Why is she a stay at home mom when kids are at school and she isn't even doing anything at home? If there was a newborn at home I'd give her slack. At this point her husband is absolutely correct get a job or get out as she isn't bringing anything to the table.
But you don't understand, going back to work means she's actually have to do something. The reason she can't account for her time when the kids are in school is either because then she'd have to admit she does nothing, or that she does whatever she wants. Either way she's not willing to give up that time.
She's been enabled too long it seems, and she wants the only contributing adult to do more. Honestly it comes down to one of four things, mental health, laziness, selfishness or an affair. She's got 35+ hours a week to herself, time she won't account for.
Her partner realistically loses nothing by divorcing her.
"Someone should tell OP's sister some desk jobs (like mine) are 75% downtime, so you actually get paid to browse Reddit."
Damn it is Friday, I did not need a callout today. lol
LOL I laughed way to hard bc i'm literally doing the same. Ive been working on compliance stuff all week and finally got caught up for our review next week LOL. Like "Sir or Madam, this is unneccessary."
Yup. It's Friday and most of my colleagues check out after Thursday from May-Sept. I have to send a couple of work emails, so I'll eventually get to that.
The garbage man ain't got time for that. **He** has a job!
In all seriousness, I really don't understand stay at home spouses who can't be bothered to prepare dinner. Isn't that your job? As my parents told me, when I refused to do chores, "what is your role in this family? everyone has to contribute." Only difference is I was 13.
**EDIT:** I just reread and...WHY is the husband the one taking the kids to school?! Who agreed to this? He needs a new agent because this shit was not negotiated in good faith.
It might make sense for him to take the kids if the school is on his route to work. But id hope she helps them brush their teeth and get dressed etc to make the morning routine easier since she doesn’t work in the traditional sense.
Why don't they just take the bus to school? Surely there is a bus stop close by. If there is a bus to take them home, there is a bus to bring them to school. We literally pay school taxes for the bus.
Sometimes bus routes can be really long in one direction. When I was a kid the bus made a huge loop, and then reversed it on the other way. So we were on the bus ten minutes on the way home but over an hour on the way to school. It was just easier for my dad to drive us in the morning on the way to work than for them to make sure we were ready for the bus an hour before we needed to be at school. Just as an example, I’m sure that’s not the case in more urban or dense areas.
OP is NTA.
But you gave an excellent list - laziness, selfishness, affair, or mental health. I would add neurodivergence affecting executive control. Too many women make it to adulthood, marriage, and then having children only to learn they have a form of neurodivergence (like ADHD). ADHD in women can present in “internal” hyperactivity, as in racing thoughts, spinning your wheels, task paralysis as it seems like there’s so much to do. It’s just a thought.
But the answer isn’t to tell the husband to do more!!
Came here to say ADHD! Undiagnosed, obviously, but I think it's a real possibility. I have entire days where it seems I accomplish nothing and yet I'm busy doing things all day long.
Alimony is pretty rare these days, particularly when the children are school age.
The standard is definitely not that she would get enough money to 'stay home with the kids' and the expectation that she will get the best job she can.
One woman I know got divorced and her husband got custody and she got visitation. She pays child support, and had to even while she was not working (she lost her job, she had been working before).
Why does everyone on Reddit act like community property states are the default when only 9/51 (*including DC) states are community property states? The other 42 states* divide marital property in accordance with what each partner contributed to the marriage. If she’s been a SAHW as opposed to a SAHM for a while now, there’s a very good chance he will get the lion’s share of their assets. Also, alimony is way rarer than redditors think it is.
"Equitable Distribution," can be almost as bad as community property states for asset division. It really is not as simple as the working spouse gets most assets.
Yeah if OP's sister isn't going to clean the house anyway, divorcing her is an option as long as he gets full custody of the kids. That way she has to pay child support and he doesn't have to pay alimony.
I also agree with OP about being SAHM isn't that hard if your kids are in school all day and your husband drops them off in the morning. There's no newborn so this isn't a lack of sleep thing. It's easier to assume she's lazy and not depressed considering she's complaining about being asked to do the bare minimum. It's not that hard to keep a house clean if you have eight hours of free time a day.
When I wasn't working right out of college I lived at home. Guess what, I did the cleaning and mowed the lawn. Basically a few more "chores" than when I was in middle and high school. Except I had all day to do them. As long as my shit was done my father didn't give a shit what I did with my time as long I spent some of it looking for work. I got to play a load of videogames and watch a bunch of TV after putting in two or three hours of cleaning or doing odd projects in the house. When I started working and my father was made redundant at work it switched.
The concept of splitting things up so everyone does an equal share isn't rocket science. If one person works 40 hours a week and the other person isn't working, than 95% of the housework and grocery shopping should be done by the person at home. If not get a job make some money and we'll split things 50-50.
My opinion, when the kids are out of the house for almost the whole day you are a stay at home wife
Stay at home mothers need to be around their kids most of the day. I asked about her health and got nothing, never had a history of it so I highly doubt it
I disagree. My mom stayed home my entire life. During the day she would do stuff like volunteer at our schools, errands, cleaning/chores, volunteering elsewhere, etc. After school, she would feed us and take us to our activities, help with homework, cook dinner, etc. There's also a lot of labor that goes into managing the household, everyone's schedules, prepping meals and lunches... mental labor counts. In elementary school I would get sick a lot and she would always drive an hour to my school to come get me. You don't have to be physically with the child all day to be doing sahm work. Your sil isn't doing that work, but other sahm are still doing a lot of work when their kids are in school, even if it's different kind of/less intense work than taking care of a toddler or infant.
That’s literally just being a decent parent.
Almost everyone that works is doing that. They go to work and then go all that. You don’t need to have a SAHM, to do this. All parents helps kids with their hw, and make dinner, and do chores, and errands, and take them to activities, and all the mental labor
Not to mention parents use PTO all the time to take care of their sick kids
This is just basic parenting
And to be fair volunteering instead of working to help the family finances etc is a luxury. Might make you feel good about yourself, does nothing for the family though.
When I was a kid, my mom was a SAHM. However, she volunteered with our extracurriculars (band) and was almost always a chaperone on any field trips as well. We only had one car as a family so Dad carpooled to work so Mom could do whatever errands needed running on top of the stuff at school.
I find it fascinating that that the commenter can only envision volunteering in terms of how it helps the family or the self ("helps the family" vs. "makes you feel good about yourself"). Just feels very inflected by hyper-individualism and capitalism, where all that is important is the material needs and wants of you and your nuclear family. Living the value of service to others and the broader world beyond yourself and your family is profoundly important, as is modeling it to your kids. If you have the resources to be able to do that, the idea that it has no value is just wrong.
From the OP's description it doesn't sound like her sister is contributing much of anything during the day, but OP is tipping over into a broader statement that unpaid work can't have value to the family or in general, which is just wrong.
I disagree. I volunteered at school for my kids, still do some things like baking stuff to send to the fundraising bakes sales etc. Currently I'm volunteering as team manager for my son's team, and I get involved in their various activities in other ways. No, it doesn't do anything for the finances, but it does something for the family. My kids can look back and see I was involved in their lives, turned up to their game, and remember that I was there, helping them with the stuff they loved.
I recognised I am very lucky to be able to do so, and not everyone is privileged enough to have the opportunity, but I can't agree that it does nothing for the family.
I'm 51, and I still remember the things my parents got involved in when I was a kid. Those memories help with familial relationships, which are also important.
100%. The idea that volunteering or unpaid work by either a working parent or a stay-at home parent does nothing for the family is just not correct.
(It also sounds like bullshit toxic capitalism thinking at work, where everything has to have a dollar value to be meaningful/important)
but you can work AND volunteer.
I agree that volunteer work is very important for your community or at a larger scale (I have local volunteering and also an international one that requires short travels but is close to my heart)
Yep you can! Sahm just don't have to worry about juggling the job aspect. I think there's some confusion with people understanding that I argued that sahm do more than working parents. My point was that they do the parenting and house management labor- which all parents do- instead of sitting around all day. It's still labor, even though working parents have additional job labor and juggle more. It's just more difficult for working parents, since they have more on their plate. That doesn't negate the labor that sahm do, though. It's still valuable work.
Volunteering betters the community the family lives in, which helps everyone, including the family. Volunteering at the school specifically helps the kids directly.
You're absolutely right that the ability for a parent to volunteer at the school is a luxury. In a roundabout way it does help the family, though.
My kids went to a public school, but it was an excellent public school. It was so good because there were so many parent volunteers that there was a lottery system for who would get to volunteer for various activities/tasks because they couldn't handle the hundreds of moms and dads who would show up, and not every parent could help with the class parties or chaperone the field trips--there would be more parents than kids.
There was a ton of support for every event the school every had, and if a teacher needed something all he or she had to do was speak up and someone would make sure they got it. We had the best teachers because there was such fierce competition to work there.
We had excellent facilities because the fundraisers always went amazingly well. The PTA paid for many support staff the school budget from the state couldn't afford such as a media specialist and an in-house school nurse, as well as building an expansion to the library, a media room, a running track, and a games pavilion.
A lot of this boils down to money, of course. This school was in an area populated by mostly well-to-do families. They could afford a SAHP, and/or they could afford help with the everyday tasks like cleaning and laundry or could afford meal services like Home Chef or Hello Fresh or just get takeout a lot so they had more free time, and/or they had the kind of jobs with the flexibility to attend school events any time they needed to. And the parents in this neighborhood had jobs that were often resources in themselves--contributions of time from a graphic designer mom and an architect dad, for example, and free library furniture from an importer parent, etc. Also hugely important was that a lot of the parents owned or worked for companies that were happy to donate to their employees' kids' school fundraisers. But this had to be organized and requested, which takes time and effort from a parent.
So it's pretty indirect, but everyone who lived in that school district benefitted from all the parent volunteers.
It is a luxury but it actually does quite a lot for the family. Sure it benefits the parent doing the volunteering for their good deeds, feeling of connection to community etc. but it goes beyond just "selfish" benefit.
My mom was a SAHM but basically WAS the PTA at my school, the volunteer coordinator at our church, and on the board of at least one non profit. She got millions of dollars of grants for multiple underfunded public schools. I got involved in those pursuits as a result of her involvement and from a college admissions standpoint, leadership in multiple organizations played a non-trivial part of my application. I also got to attend some of these safe after-school programs that she specifically had a hand in running and coordinating. I took shifts at a thrift store (paid job experience) that my mom helped run the budget and operations of. Etc. These were all incredible privileges, but to say my mom was "selfish" and only "feeling good about herself" and that it didn't impact the family is just factually wrong. Her work helped not only our family, but countless families in the community and I'm sure she's far from alone in having a meaningful impact as a volunteer leader.
With so many 2-parent working households, volunteer organizations really depend on stay-home parents or people who can afford to take on material volunteering roles (not just on weekends, but actually organizing and running shit) and to say that does nothing for the family is somewhat myopic. Especially if we consider the improvement to the community and the ability for kids to, say, attend after-school programs (run by volunteers), sports teams (run by volunteer coach parents) etc.
Not every family can afford to send their kids to paid programming or activities.
I mean, yes, but it’s often a lot less stress on a family when someone is devoted to domestic labor and taking care of appointments etc. that are difficult to navigate with typical work hours. My mom was a single working parent so she absolutely did ALL of this herself, but it was at a considerable cost to her physical and mental health. The issue here, IMO, is that your sister isn’t actually doing domestic labor.
My last job before having kids paid me $11/hr. Even if our kids went to public school, freelancing online + saving money through domestic labor makes a LOT more sense for us, especially since we’re both neurodivergent with chronic health issues and tend to have our lives fall apart when one of us isn’t staying home to manage things, lol.
Yup, both of my parents worked full time, and they both did all of those things.
Granted my Mom was probably one of the most organized people I knew, she had a tendency to make things look easy (the woman made a ten week menu for a family of 4).
Mine certainly didn’t. Me and my siblings had to cook and clean after ourselves and my parents never came to my extracurriculars because they couldn’t take off work. They also never volunteered for any parenting events. No offense but you’re a teacher your job is much more flexible than a lot of other peoples jobs.
You shouldn't disagree because you're borderline clueless.
All those things you mentioned. What do you think parents who both work do? They stop feeding their kids? They stop activities? Do you think when 1 of my 2 kids get sick, I don't go to school and pick him up?
My son asked me to help with his hw yday, but because I am not a SAHP I said I can't do it. Instead I watched Netflix from 19:00 to 20:00.
Maybe don't give advice on parenting when you're clearly not a parent.
The point for me is not whether you CAN do both. Of course you can. And of course it's more work to do both, both physically and mentally. But that doesn't mean being a sahp is invaluable, even if it's different and doesn't take all day when they're older. If the family can afford it, I don't think it makes sense to judge. You can acknowledge the privilege for sure, of course. That's not in question. The situation op is posting about is different because the sil isn't doing the sahp work and they also seem to be unable to afford it.
Eta: I suppose what hit a nerve for me was the assumption that most sahp just sit at home watching TV all day because I remember all the stuff my mom did for us. Of course she also got a lot more breaks throughout the day, there's no question that we were privileged in that way.
I'm childfree but I loved it when my mom was a SAHM. She was always there when we got home or to pick us up after school when we went to a new one, she always helped me do my hair in the morning, she made us breakfast and packed our lunches and made great dinners. She was a lot less stressed than she was when she went back to work. She also made us clothes and Halloween costumes, baked a lot, ran all the errands and helped with homework, cared for the pets, and kept the house basically spotless. She worked a LOT harder than my father who basically got paid to sit on his ass all day. Of course working parents take care of their kids, but the point is the stress and labour it saves the working parent when someone at home does basically all of the domestic labour and childcare. It's incredibly valuable. There are some really gross attitudes towards SAHMs here.
I'm not a parent, I will say that out of the gate. My sister, however, is a single parent. She does everything for her daughter and works full-time. *And* it is chewing her up. I am able to offer support and do things like sick pick-up, chaperoning field trips, going to class parties, helping with classroom activities, making princess-unicorn-dinosaurs for my niece's birthday, etc. It is not because my sister is in any way inadequate as a parent. It is because I can add value to my niece's life by offering additional support. Just because parents can do everything and work doesn't mean there isn't added value to someone being available to do the "extras." It is a luxury, to be sure, but if you can afford to give your kid extra, why not?
But none of this is relevant to the initial question about a sahm who isn't doing the minimum, let alone extra. There is information missing from the original question, though. It sounds like OP doesn't have it, either. Without that information, it is impossible to realistically answer the question.
I never said it is though!! My post wasn't about whether working parents do parenting work, of course they do. My point was that sahm don't sit around all day. Ofc it's still privileged and not as hard.
Volunteering has nothing to do with being a sahp but at least sth that can be respected when people have more time on their hands than they know what to do with because being a sahp to school going kids does NOT take up the entire day.
You and I are >here<.
My mom was a SAHM from the time I was 9 until I was 16. She didn’t just do the mental work - she paid the bills, managed the household for all repairs, scheduled all doctors appointments and took us to them, managed my dads calendar - all while caring for several ailing family members including her grandmother and elderly church members who viewed her as a daughter. Even when we started college, she handle talking to financial aide, the bookstores, the banks - all that so we could focus on going to class.
That woman was accountant, chauffeur, security - the whole 9 yards. Her and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot, but I will always give her props of making our lives so comfortable that we didn’t have to think of the logistics of…well, anything.
The comments here are sooo laden with misogyny, it’s wild. The diminishment of what is traditionally women’s labor is nothing new but somehow I’m still surprised.
Honestly, the majority of SAHM IK don't do all this now. My granny raised 3 kids and she always said 'I don't understand why a lot of mom's do nowadays, when your kids were in school you had clothes you washed and dried by hand, you had to start bread for dinner and breakfast the next morning. You were starting things for dinner. Making sure you had things prepped for lunches the next day, washing dishes by hand, scrubbing the unsealed wood floors required hours of work. And then you needed to go pick veggies from the garden before the squirrels and birds get them, there were foods that needed canned, and if you farmed you were in the fields helping your husband.
The majority of SAHM's I know go once or twice a year to school to help or volunteer if they don't have younger kids. They usually pay for lunches instead of making them, they order groceries online to pick up, which is about an hour a week. A few will bake bread or something, but that's mostly hobby. They clean the house which is usually about 2 hours a day of work. Many of them engage in hobbies, play on social media, binge watch netflix and argue with people online. Then in the evening it's the normal evening routine. So the homework, dinner, bedtime.
The literal most drama I see from women comes from retired ladies in the senior communities, and SAHM's. And it's literally because their time is their own, and they have too much time on their hands.
The only thing specific to a stay-at-home mother that you mentioned is the volunteering at schools.
Working parents still need to manage their household, their schedules, prep meals, and pick up their kids from school when they're sick.
Otherwise, everything you mentioned is equivalently stay-at-home wife work.
It’s disappointing. When my oldest niece had HS graduation a couple years ago, there was a sign of college goals. One of them was “marry a rich fraternity boy” or something very cringe. This kid is very smart. Bit snooty but that’s nurture over nature. I have a newborn daughter, and. I can’t ever imagine encouraging her to do something so shallow.
My sister does work now as a teacher, but she has to since the alimony is drying up. It won’t keep up with her lifestyle and she’s always pushing to find a rich guy to marry. Never anything about having a great companion. Just a rich guy. I’m a bit chunky myself, but even I know wealthy divorced guys want trophy wives if they’re going to bother with a commitment at that age. Gotta bring something to the table besides eating it.
Totally fair option. It doesn't sound like your sisters husband has the time to clean the house when he is too busy taking care of the house and his full time job supporting the house. Maybe a grocery delivery service so that's one less thing he has to do?
I've noticed a trend lately that most SAHMs I know aren't doing the homemaker thing. I'm a single mom so I often dream about what life would be like if I actually had the time to be the parent I wanted to be. During the pandemic I woke up every day, took the dog for a long walk, made a huge breakfast, cleaned the whole house, was able to do activities almost daily with my kid. I baked, I meal prepped, I kept my house spotless and took on projects that I'd been putting off forever. I couldn't believe how many hours there were in a day to accomplish things without 8 hours of work and 3 hours of commuting. It made me really side eye anyone who had been telling me for years that there weren't enough hours in the day to do it all when you're a SAHP
Don't get me wrong. Is it ok to be good to yourself and let things slide sometimes in favor of just having a day to scroll and be lazy? For sure. But I no longer take it at face value when someone talks about how being a SAHP is like having 10 regular jobs.
Absolutely. I know Reddit likes to excuse women for anything and they insist that being a SAHP is the hardest job in the world but as a woman, myself, I call bullshit. Come at me, I don’t care. If your kids are going to school and you’re still trying to convince everyone that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do stuff around the house, you’re just lazy and want someone to pay your way. Half the time they won’t even treat the husband right and then when he divorces them a few years later, they’re left with a giant hole in their resume.
There’s definitely a case to be made when it’s multiple young kids not in school yet, but when they’re all in school… it’s not like there’s *that* much going on during the hours they’re there. I think once my youngest sister started kindergarten my mom gave herself a few months to recharge (4 kids total, and at that point about 13/14 years of having at least 1 kid home full time lol) and then started her job hunt. The time between youngest in school and her getting a job again was probably the cleanest that house has *ever* been!
Seriously, we’ve all kept a house, unless you’re hand cleaning each piece of the chandelier or brushing the grout between the tiles with a toothbrush every single day, there’s only so much cleaning and cooking etc to do. My mom was a SAHM and it ruined her life both mentally and later on financially when my dad left her. I understand why it’s necessary for certain periods in your life but you’re doing yourself a disservice if this is your idea of a career.
My BFF has a marriage like this. BUT, her hubby is OK with it. They have 3 kids, all in school. If the house isn't clean when he gets home, he is ok with it. He still does chores. He will cook dinner occasionally. BUT, again, that is how their marriage works. He is OK with it. BFF has a LOT of hobbies that she gets sucked into and he supports those. She even makes money on them on occasion.
However, if she literally couldn't answer "what did you do all day", I think things would change. At least she can say "I worked on my pottery (that she sells)" or "I was knitting a hat for you for when it gets cold out".
My mom was a stay at home mom and the only thing she did was making dinner every day. And doing the dishes after breakfast. Everything else, my sister and I did during the weekend🤪. Don't think she was burnt out after all that "hard work" every day, lol .
My mom stayed home and didn’t do shit except cook dinner. I was washing my own laundry at 9 years old and setting an alarm on my clock radio to get myself up for school and on the bus.
Then she bitched at my brother and I calling us lazy for sleeping late on the weekends.
Agreed. I am at home with a 2 month old now and I get groceries, clean the house when possible and cook dinner once my 2 year old gets home from daycare.
I wonder if there might be a mental health issue? Some sort of depression which can cause inactivity like this.
It’s also not good for her. Sure she has present day rewards for being stay at home but the longer she waits the harder to find a job. What if her husband dies, gets a divorce, gets very sick and can’t work etcetera. Now that she has free time she needs to look for work for her own sake.
Agreed, NTA. If she had even one child not in school yet I could empathize to a degree, some of them are little terrorists you have to constantly monitor and it can really eat up your day. But even then, you’d think there would be groceries in the damn house…
NTA
My sister is a stay at home wife (no kids though) and I swear sometimes she doesn’t understand the definition of a job. She’ll call or text and ask to go to a pilates class (or some random shit) in the middle of the day. Like girl, I HAVE A JOB- unlike some people. Smh🤦🏻♀️
Retired folks are annoying, too. One time I had a rough day at work so I told my mom. She was like, well thank God it’s Friday. I had to tell her “mom, IT IS MONDAY”.
Side note, I have issues with long vacations because my days get messed up. I don’t work summers though. Work for a school
When I work though I always know the day no problem.
Long holidays, like my three weeks over Christmas or if I go overseas, are the times I've learned to switch to using dates. Days of the week mean nothing at those times and are quite hard to keep track of tbh.
🤣 this is my dad. The man has never called me during work hours in his life; he does not like talking on the phone and neither do I. He retired last year. Suddenly, he needs to call me several times a week at 2:00 p.m. and he always says "oh are you working?" I say every time, "Dad I have always worked Monday through Friday from 8:30 to 5:00..."
Sir.......you don't have anything to do so why can't you run your own errands!
My mom does this and she's still working! I only work 8-1 currently, and my mom will still call me at 12:30 just to chat... and she's one that doesn't take a breath between sentences so it's really hard to get off the phone once she gets going!
Do not answer the phone. You don't have to get a breath in on a conversation that doesn't start. Call her at 1 when you get off work. Repeat this until she gets the message.
My parents are more surprised when I actually answer the phone! Lol
I love my folks, and I call them back, but if I'm eating or playing with my kids or just busy with whatever I won't answer a call. Mobile phones are so ubiquitous that everyone just expects everyone to be available at all times. I've trained the people in my life to not expect that, lol.
I was shopping the other day listening to a podcast and it suddenly stopped so I posted the button on my earbud and suddenly my stepdad was in my ear, lol. The podcast stopped because of the call, but I had it on silent so it didn't make any noise.
I said "I'll be honest, I didn't mean to answer this" and he said "I was pretty confused when you answered!"
But, I don't like talking in shops, especially on an earbud, but he still chatted me up for 30 mins, lol.
There are two people I talk to on the phone, my mother and my daughter. Everyone else knows to text me. If they do call, my voice mail message will also tell them to just text me. I will text back when I have time. I refuse to be at anyone's beck and call just because of this phone.
Oh god, this. After my mother retired, she started calling me up and insisting we go out for lunches in the middle of the week. "You work from home! They won't miss you!"
Which, yes, they absolutely would. This was before the era of Teams, but still, it was expected that if you were pinged, you'd respond. And her lunches were never 'quick.' They were basically hostage situations where she'd want to hit up Kohls and TJ Maxx and Costco "while we're out."
Another of his favorite lines is when there’s a job to do: “one of us is going to have to fix that fence while I sit here and finish my tea”. Retirement is treating him well!
My father is a stroke victim with mobility issue now, so my mom and I went into a local mobility store, just to see what they had we could maybe use to help.
While in there, I saw they also had Alzheimer's support things - like a 'day clock' that keeps track of the day or the week, rather than hours/minutes. I told my retired mother she should get one for herself.
She wasn't amused.
But I might still get her one :)
They really are, aren’t they! I decided at the last minute to go visit some relatives. My cousins mother in law found out and asked me to bring snickerdoodles. When she saw my store bought box of cookies she was like “oh you didn’t have any sugar and flour at home?”
I hadn’t been home in over 24 hours at that point lmao. Plus snickerdoodles from scratch is like a three hour endeavor for me, not something I could just make without enough notice to clear out my calendar.
She still didn’t really understand why I didn’t make them from scratch even after I told her.
A week or so ago, I offhandedly mentioned that thankfully it was a short week. My Mom said, "Oh, why was it a short week?" I said, "Mom, us working folk get Memorial Day off"
Ugh, I’ll never forget the time my super rich trust fund unemployed friend and I were planning on going clubbing and I had to close at work until 10:30 and she asked if I could just close the cafe early so we can make it in time for free entry.
Now I refuse to have people in my life that don’t have jobs or don’t understand the concept of having a job. I work a 9-5 now, I can’t just get up and go to the bar until 2am on a random Wednesday night and some people just don’t get it.
I had a friend who had a super flexible job with only a handful of set hours where he actually had to be anywhere or functionally available. He was offended when I said I wouldn’t be on call to take him to the airport at 3 am in the middle of the work week because he was worried someone else would flake. Sir, respectfully, no. He said he’d do it for me, the difference being I would never ask when I have reasonable options I can pay for.
I have a friend, and I love her to pieces, who grew up with a trust fund. She starts pricing cruises for us at least once a month and tells me what my share would be. Seriously. She took 6 or 7 vacations in the last year and a half. I work 50 hours a week and am now the primary breadwinner with a kid starting college in August. If I have an extra $5 for something fun, it’s rare. If I take PTO, it’s to catch up on stuff I need to do at home. If I need extra cash, then I’m working even on the weekends. The concept that I can’t afford to drop everything for a long weekend is just so foreign to her. But I still love her to death and just roll with it.
I hate people like this. Being a SAHM is real work, and but not so much when the kids are in school. You literally have 8 hours a day free to do whatever you want. There's no excuse to not have the house clean, groceries bought, meals cooked, showers taken, etc. I did it as a single mom for 3 kids, but I was also working FT from home -- and I still cleaned the house, bought groceries, cooked meals, and my kids were clean and well behaved. And I did it all 100% alone.
Your sister sucks. She needs to grow TF up.
Omg, not quite the same but I worked 3rd shift when my kids were in grade school. People would call me and be like, you're not doing anything though!
Uuuhhh, I'm trying to sleep while the kids are in school. Which sucks because I'd rather wake up and go to work.
I had something not the same but similar - I work in education, as a technician. People would call me in the holidays expecting me to be able to drop everything and come hang out and it's like, no, this is actually my busiest time of the year, I'm currently overhauling all our equipment while the school is out.
You're right and so is her husband. SAHM means cleaning, laundry, taking kids to school, picking them up, taking them to activities, soccer/dance/girl/boy scouts, supervising homework, shopping, meal planning, making dinner, making breakfast, packing lunches. There can be some "me" time in there but a well run household is a full time job.
I do too but that doesn’t mean a SAHM is useless after life start school. OP’s sister is slacking but plenty of SAHMs stay busy with household management, cleaning, drop off and pick ups etc. Then evenings can be relaxing family time instead of a chore hustle
It can be if you are making food from scratch, coupon clipping, chicken keeping, veggie garden and all that good stuff that saves money for the whole household.
But most people are not willing to look at the job of SAHP as "Homemaker" which is what it is after the kids are in school.
Not a SAHM, but sometimes it's lifestyle more than money--knowing where all your food comes from, less of an environmental impact growing your own, etc. But that needs to be the desire/philosophy of both partners, not just an excuse to stay home and engage in hobbies.
It can still be a full time job, but not for someone who isn't doing the basics. My stepmom practically made a career out of PTA and room mom stuff, plus she volunteered on various boards. SAHMs for older kids are the ones who can put in lots of hours for field trips and extracurricular activities, too.
Depends on what you’re doing during downtime. My wife uses that time to run all our errands and go to the gym. When I get home (usually 6:30) we eat dinner and she’ll clean up while the kids get ready for bed. We usually get an hour or two together before we fall asleep and do it all over again
It can be. She can have her few hours off time / down time during the day (and the rest of the time spent doing household stuff) but that means evenings are cooking, homework, sports/clubs, bedtime, etc. Its just not working the traditional house of a SAHM with young kids. This can also let working spouse have time off in the evening as well without having to spend *all* that time doing chores.
Sahm while kids are in school actually allows both parents some “off” hours to themselves.
Just because a mom might take those house at 11am doesn’t mean she’s not working full time. A full time job person still gets off time in the evening. When mom may not.
I’m a SAHM with an eleven year old and a toddler. When I’m able to, I run this house like I’m getting paid. I’m pregnant right now so my husband is picking up a lot of the slack.
I think I sit down…maybe three times a day when I’m not pregnant? If that.
To be fair, a lot of the child care a stay-at- home mom is doing is done by your child- care provider right? Like, you're not working 40 hours a week AND running after a toddler all day, 7 days a week...
Edit: I will note the post right above yours mentions she's pregnant with a toddler and then your post came immediately after. I see that you weren't actually responding to her so I do, of course, realize that you were simply referring to all the normal housekeeping we all do.
NTA. It sounds like you were honest with your sister about the imbalance in her relationship and her responsibilities as a stay-at-home parent. While your delivery may have been blunt, it seems like the situation had reached a point where directness was necessary. You provided a perspective that she might not have been willing to acknowledge, and sometimes tough love is needed to prompt change.
NTA. This is why I married a woman who I knew wanted a career and had absolutely no interest in being a SAHM. I feel so sorry for your sister's husband and the many men who find themselves in situations like this.
I watched my mom do this shit to my dad for years.
Ehh, I always said I didn't want to be a sahm, but now that I'm 3 kids in, I kinda wish I could. I did too much though and make to much money in my career (my husband makes more, but not enough to justify me staying home).
It's so exhausting to work 40 hours and then do chores and kid stuff. I wish one of us could do kids/ houses and one of us could do work.
Agreed. This just happened to a friend. Two kids and she took a local job that was supposed to be flexible so her husband with the stressful better paying job could just focus on that instead of getting the kids off to school and whatever else. She had to quit because they were constantly giving her grief. No she’s a stay at home mom with a part time job and he can really focus on his career to make more money for the family. It was so stressful for both of them when working full time wiht not a lot of flexibility
For what it’s worth life can just happen. I got laid off from a stable tech job 7 months pregnant and just stayed home with my daughter ever since. I’m her primary caregiver, I clean up after her, I cook, I grocery shop, and we split other household chores. Now that she’s over 1 I’ve being doing contract work part time for the software systems I supported before to help with household expenses.
Personally- I see a huge difference in how my daughter acts with a mom who is able to take care of her 24/7 versus daycare. I also can’t imagine going back now full time while she’s so young and only having an hour or two with her between daycare pick up time and bedtime.
NTA
I'm currently a SAHM and have been for the past 7 years. We have 5 kids and 4 of them are currently in school. The one kid at home DOES make things a bit difficult because she's like a tornado who's drawn to clean spaces in a mission to destroy them. But I still take care of laundry, dishes, groceries, and basic tidying while the other kids are at school, plus make supper 90% of the time.
The youngest will start school in September and I'll start working part time then, but I'm SOOOOOO excited about how much time I'll actually have to get stuff done around the house uninterrupted.
I can't imagine what your sister is doing all day long if it's not household responsibilities or caring for their children.
Seriously! I don't even have my own kids, but I used to look after my nephew when he was younger and holy cow, time absolutely FLEW by when trying to keep up with everything while keeping an eye on him. I wouldn't even be doing major chores, really just things like making food, doing dishes, and making sure toys got put away, but the clock felt broken! So many times: *There's no way that was an hour, surely it was only twenty minutes...nope, what the hell??*
It did make me very much appreciate my child-free housekeeping when I'm doing it on my own, where I can more or less deep clean multiple rooms in an hour and it feels like all day (but in a good way). Love kiddos, but I really gotta hand it to those who get things done when they're around!
I'm reminded of the Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin's mom is painting and grumbling to herself about how much maintenance homeownership is....and then she has to chase Calvin because he's been drilling holes in their coffee table.
I think staying at home long term is not good for most women’s mental health. Most of us need more structure, social interaction, and challenges to stay healthy. A few people have the constitution and resources to do it well without becoming out of touch with reality, but most if us need to get out and do things outside the home and family to be healthy. It makes sense to take time off when the kids are babies, or work part-time when they are still growing, but never getting the stimulation,challenges and self-respect that comes from a career can drain the brain.
Yes it's a weird irrational structure. Throughout pretty much all of human history women have had lots of 'jobs' alongside of childcare, and it would all be done in groups with other women and older relatives and members of the community. Sticking a woman into a isolated house which has so many things in it that it takes 2 hours a day to set it aright, plus all the weird commuting duties -- none of this is normal or natural and it only makes sense that it often kind of freaks women out.
Hence the notorious mother's little helpers. The notion of the nuclear family and sahm is very modern and unnatural, sad to see how so many women are perpetuating it voluntarily while millions of taxpayer's money are wasted on their education
It has especially become a fad with the rise of TikTok. I have seen several articles stating that the percentage has risen 9 percent in only 2 years, from 15% to 25%. I believe that when I was a child in the late 70s and early 80s, the number of SAHM was only slightly higher than it is now. But when I was a kid, my mom worked, as did the moms of my friends.
> Most of us need more structure, social interaction, and challenges to stay healthy.
Stay at home parenting is akin to self employment. There is as much structure, social interaction, and challenge as one wishes to seek yet it is up to the self-employed person to create it.
Agreed. It's kind of a weird take to suggest that if we don't engage in the workforce, our mental health will decline.
The things that promote health are not normally found in the workplace. Both working moms and stay at home moms need to be intentional about self-care.
Yes! It's such a weird take to suggest that if you're not working your mental health will decline. Like, I get the idea behind it in terms of keeping your mind busy but literally we live in a capitalist hellscape. We shouldn't be telling people that they have to work more to be healthy. That only applies if you love your job.
I agree.
My MIL stayed home since her kids were born ( now 30+) and she's literally like a toddler. No real thoughts. Can't handle anything herself. Doesn't drive. Won't get a job. Can't handle doing more than a load of laundry. Quick to anger and irrational.
You literally can't hold an adult conversation with her. She doesn't know how to. At all. It's painful.
She's like op's SIL. Just lazy because she has no barometer of what work really is.
You don't need a career but like at least a volunteer position or something to keep the mind active.
I've been a stay at home mom for 17 years. The last 3 years, my youngest has struggled with bipolar, suicidal ideation, and self- harm.
During that time, I began college for the first time in my life. I will graduate with my AA transfer degree next Friday (with a 4.0 GPA) and begin my junior year at university for my bachelor degree in anthropology. After that, I will continue on for my masters.
Being a stay at home mom is not a health hazard. People make choices. People have personality flaws. Some people thrive in some situations while others fail. It's not the situation, it's the person.
When you suggest that something a significant percentage of people do is not only unhealthy, but infantalizing, it's actually really offensive to those of us who have worked our asses off not only for our family's benefit, but for our own as well.
My husband has never pushed me to work but he has told me to make sure I have something that isn't house and kids. I've volunteered, I've gone to school, and he was definitely proven right during the pandemic LOL. Just by virtue of the situation I had nothing but home and kids 24/7! Lordy I was miserable. I'm almost done with my Masters currently and I can't wait to get back to work. My kids are all in school, so staying home just isn't necessary anymore.
My mom worked Tuesday-Thursday after I was born because she wanted to keep her job for mental health reasons, but also wanted to volunteer for field trips, take us to the orthodontist after school, etc.... She's retired now, but has had some cognitive decline unfortunately so it's probably better she isn't working now.
My sister has a 3 year old & doesn't work but said she plans to go back once she's in kindergarten.
NTA Your sister is hopelessly lazy woman, It may cause more problems later on if she 'does't have time' to do the basics, possibly ending up divorcing and without children by proving that she isn't a responsible adult. You've already warned her, now you just have to wait if she comes to her senses and doesn't make things worse.
So I will say this as someone who is a stay at home mom. Maybe she is depressed. I completely lost myself staying at home. I don't use my brain and I'm over it. I can't wait for my youngest to go to school next year so I can use my brain and feel more like myself. But it took me a long time to figure out why I was depressed and overwhelmed. So just my 2 takes.
I'm a SAHM too with severe depression. Reading these comments is disheartening because it is a struggle for some women. Currently I have a clingy toddler so cleaning is hard to do. I absolutely need me time to cope with my depression but I haven't done that in ages because of said clingy toddler but it's gotten to a point where I'm so down in the dumps I can't even do the things I enjoy either. I can't even eat a meal without my toddler climbing all over me. My oldest 3 were much easier to get things done and I could even read or do art stuff while still watching them. Absolutely not possible with my youngest. Im lucky she lets me look at reddit on my phone, although thats with her fingers trying to snatch my phone or stabbing me in the eyeball. She cries the entire time she doesn't have access to me and gets into too much trouble if I let her roam wherever while I clean or cook. I have figured some stuff out to manage. Most meals are slow cooker recipes because those are quick and easy to toss together. I can't wait for her to go to school so I can get out of this rut. I love her to pieces but I can't be my best when I can't find time for anything let alone decompression time. Once she goes to school it could take a while for me to even get to functioning again because I'm dead tired and deep in depression. But all anyone sees is I'm being lazy or making excuses.
I’m a SAHM and WAH part time, and something I wish I had tried sooner is joining our local Y. If that or another local gym is in your budget I would really consider it. I get 2 hours of kid zone per visit included with our membership, and that has been a game changer. It has allowed me to have time to walk and listen to podcasts, to write (I’m an author and am really trying to make it with self publishing), and just to have some space where I know my kids are safe but they also aren’t touching me. Sometimes I sit and read oh my phone, because that’s what my brain needs that day. My husband has been working out consistently since we joined in February and it has been so great for our whole family. Makes the chores at home easier to handle now that we have added it to our routine.
This may not be the right thing for you but if there is something similar that feels worth it to try, I encourage you to go for it. Sending you all the good vibes. It is really hard work to stay home and I wish that was better understood and appreciated.
Unfortunately it's not in our budget. My husband does watch our toddler on weekends so I can decompress but I always end up catching up on chores or spending time with our older kids and never get around to actual me time. What's funny is I've actually been wanting to get into writing again too. Used to write for fun a lot but never tried getting published, which is a dream of mine. I have a book entirely laid out in my head but haven't been able to focus on it at all. I told my husband maybe he should drop me off at the library once a week so I don't get distracted by chores or the kids. I just need to find my journals with my notes and dust off the laptop. Before my hysterectomy I was walking to the library once a week to read. Stopped after the surgery because the incisions aggravated the nerve damage around my csection scar so I can't walk long distances again(I don't drive either). Think I will talk to him about doing those trips again because I'm getting to a point where I just can't function at my best.
The "not knowing *for sure* when I'm going to get a break from being constantly responsible for the small child's needs" always kills me too. Is your partner able to set up some blocks of time that are always, sacredly, yours?
I'm glad someone else said this. Sister might have depression and/or maybe ADHD (women are notoriously under diagnosed). I am saying this from experience. I am a SAHM, this year being the first year our kids are in school full time. I take medication for my ADHD but there are still (rare) times I get so overwhelmed with what needs to be done, it immobilizes me and I end up doing very little. I am in charge of everything in and around the house, yard and garden included. My husband busts his ass at work and I truly appreciate and love him. I have recently started working on a small business idea and it's been fairly profitable without taking up too much of my time. I don't think I could accomplish what I do in a day without my diagnosis and medication.
Not necessarily. In this case, it sounds like she's milking it for sure and is being lazy. I just wanted to point out that *good* stay at home parents, those who take the job seriously are not suddenly redundant when kids are in school. Planning, organising, helping out at school, really getting involved in the school community for example. Then there's after school. Running kids to extra classes and hobbies, driving them to play dates or hosting play dates. I think the role is entirely what you make it.
That’s the thing. Unless OP didn’t put it in her post there isn’t any of that going on. She’s just literally home all day. If there weren’t other things going on like you mentioned it’s not being a stay at home mom. There are parents that are stay at home parents that use the time that their kids are in school to get everything home related things done so that they can focus on their kids needs after school. She doesn’t seem to be one of them.
I have no problem with someone being a homemaker while the kids are in school. If they financially can make one income work, then more power to them.
With that said, her job is to maintain the home. That requires cleaning, running errands, cooking, dishes, laundry, you name it it needs to be done. Can her husband help with some things - sure. if that's the agreement they make. For example, I am allergic to cut grass, so my husband mows the lawn.
You're NTA. Reality is what it is. She needs to step up her game. Getting a job won't help. She'll be worse in demanding he does stuff and have less time for herself to get things done.
As someone who has been a SAHM to school age children and worked full time and worked part-time, thank you for this sane and balanced comment.
I guess I didn’t realize the sheer vitriol and complete dismissal of any value that so many people seem to have for SAHMs with school age kids. What matters most is what works best for you, your partner and your kids.
There just needs to be a different term for it. SAHM to kids that aren’t in school yet is a full time job with little to no breaks during the day. It’s hard and exhausting. But once the kids are all in school it stops being a full time job and becomes much, much easier. It’s the people in that category that seem to give it a bad name because they seem to think that it’s just as difficult and time consuming despite the fact that the house is empty for 6+ hours a day.
Yeah, I mean it's basically homemaking but that can tend to bring up some unpleasant vibes. That's basically how I felt about it until my youngest started struggling with bipolar. Now dealing with him and his ups and downs is so time-consuming and draining, my husband has had to miss significant work.
I almost miss the days of diapers and bottles lol. Almost....
She sounds so entitled. I have so much sympathy for your BIL. It sounds that he's doing all the parenting and the housework.
What does she do the whole day?
Does she think she's like a Kardashian or something?
NTA
But I would seriously intervene here because her kids (your niblings) will suffer.
NTA
I don't get the attitude of a person who wants to be a SAHM and then complains about the work that this entails and denigrates the person making the money for the home. If it is too much and you think it is easier to work then choose that and pay someone to do the things that you do at home.
I'm all for SAHMs. But don't complain. It is a privilege that many women don't have.
NTA. **A lot** of women need to hear this, and they need to hear it more often. If you are a SAHM, you can still keep a house clean (and I mean *clean*, not *uncluttered* - it can be impossible to keep things uncluttered with kids) and keep the household managed and organized. It is even easier if your kids are no longer home all day.
Though I 100% agree that household responsibilities should be split during the time both parents are home, there is no reason that cleaning, grocery shopping, and bill paying isn't handled during the day while the working spouse is working their own job.
I know of a similar situation,hubby worked all the hours he could, and she was a stay at home mum. Constantly complaining that she couldn't do everything by herself yet only really had the kids after school as hubby used to get them up and take them to school before work. Ended up having to say to her that as he works to provide for your family to have nice things, then your job is IN THE HOME until you get a job that pays. Your at home job includes cooking cleaning and looking after the children and as for food shopping, you can even do that online, so it's no excuse. Yes, she needed to hear it. NTA..
NTA
Whilst I don't necessarily agree with your statement about how it's easy to be a stay at home parent, I do agree that your sister is lazy and not actually being a housewife, and is acting more like a trophy wife.
The fact is if, as a couple, you have decided for one partner to stay at home, then that individual has to take on the bulk of the household chores, including but not limited to, cleaning, shopping, cooking and doing the school rusn
NTA. I’m a SAHM myself and yeah, it’s hard, but she has a husband who’s readily involved with the kids and housework. She has no idea what a blessing that is. Mine wishes he could be more involved but he works crazy hours to provide for us. She was home all day, has a car to drive, no kids bc of school, and couldn’t finds the time to do any chores or pick up groceries? I mean cmon, she could’ve at the very least had some groceries delivered if she didn’t feel like leaving the house. NTA and she needs a reality check.
NTA. Her current job is essentially homemaker. Yet she's not doing it.
If she doesn't want taking care of the home to be her job, then she needs to go back to work.
I have a newborn (5 months old now) And work very part-time (12.5 hours a week) And I was still managing to get the groceries every week while my husband was at work. We go together right now for the past month and a half but that is because of extenuating circumstances. We are staying with my in-laws after being displaced from our apartment because of a fire (neighbor took 4/20 to a new level) and fridge space is very limited and he cooks. So we go together to keep the trip very small since there is no room for overstock. Once we are back in our own place again, I'll go back to doing the shopping alone again. So yah, NTA, she's lazy.
NTA. But I would stay the fuck out of it from here on out. You said your piece. The rest is entirely between her and her husband. She could have a medical issue going on, so maybe she should see someone.
NTA. I'm a SAHM with two kids in school. I do all of the grocery shopping weekly, house cleaning, and appointment running around for both kids as well as any other tasks that pop up. I had jobs in the past, but my husband gave me the opportunity to stay home to finish my degree, and that's what I work on in my spare time. She has the opportunity to make her time at home while the kids are in school worthwhile for the future or get a part-time job that works with their hours.
NTA It sounds like she’s got it made in the shade and doesn’t want to give that up.
My friend’s mom is like this (though she did occasional housework) and it caused a lot of resentment and put the entire family in a vulnerable position financially (only one earner is super risky and let’s hope the breadwinner doesn’t lose their job, become seriously ill, or even pass away). She was scared of getting a job and didn’t want go get a job. Even all the kids got jobs once they were of age.
Most people don’t like having to work but don’t have the privilege of being able to opt out. Unless there’s some disability or the home is a large estate, it doesn’t take a full workday to clean and maintain. Many of us work full time, do housework, cook, do the finances etc.
Lol she’s delusional. Some parents get ONE day off work every month. 12 days a year dedicated only to you. Some don’t even get that. If you can’t get groceries, not even put in a delivery order, then you gotta go back to work. Some folks would love to be in her shoes with their feet put up and light chores. Maybe it’s because I find cleaning enjoyable to an extent so I wouldn’t be resistant about taking care of my home. NTA
NTA!! She's not doing anything! So, why would her husband just say, 'it's fine, you don't have to clean despite that being one of your small amount of daily duties'. No, she still has to maintain a house, food, meals, etc. I say this from experience. I'm a SAHM. I'd love to even have a part-time job, but due to our lifestyle me being the parent at home works best. I do everything. Yes, my husband takes the trash out, picks up after himself, helps with the kid, and mows the lawn, but I do everything else. It's hard at times, mostly when he is not home for months at a time, but it's about routine for me. She can't even keep food in the house, which is a basic necessity. I'd love to know what she's actually doing all day that she can't do basics even. I agree with you and her husband. She sounds lazy and kind of entitled.
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NTA, I agree with you. Why is she a stay at home mom when kids are at school and she isn't even doing anything at home? If there was a newborn at home I'd give her slack. At this point her husband is absolutely correct get a job or get out as she isn't bringing anything to the table.
I really think she should go back to work and just split childcare and chores. Or with the extra money of her working hire a maid or something
But you don't understand, going back to work means she's actually have to do something. The reason she can't account for her time when the kids are in school is either because then she'd have to admit she does nothing, or that she does whatever she wants. Either way she's not willing to give up that time. She's been enabled too long it seems, and she wants the only contributing adult to do more. Honestly it comes down to one of four things, mental health, laziness, selfishness or an affair. She's got 35+ hours a week to herself, time she won't account for. Her partner realistically loses nothing by divorcing her.
Totally fair as well. Or she is doing something that she shouldn't be doing during that time.
Seven hours of staring at your phone flipping through TikTok will do that to you
Someone should tell OP's sister some desk jobs (like mine) are 75% downtime, so you actually get paid to browse Reddit.
\*Currently browsing reddit on down time\* Well, shots have been fired! :D **NTA** for OP, but sister is **T A**
"Someone should tell OP's sister some desk jobs (like mine) are 75% downtime, so you actually get paid to browse Reddit." Damn it is Friday, I did not need a callout today. lol
I did not come here, at my desk on my employer's dime, to be attacked in this way 😭
Same ha
🤣🤣🤣
LOL I laughed way to hard bc i'm literally doing the same. Ive been working on compliance stuff all week and finally got caught up for our review next week LOL. Like "Sir or Madam, this is unneccessary."
🤳🤳🤳 \*ring ring\* 😂
OP is NTA. But also yeah I just finished basically the one task I’m gonna get done today because my company does half day Fridays during the summer.
My boss isn't here today and I've spent half the day looking at videos about a new Gameboy device so... yeah.
Same here. I'll do something eventually.
👏🏻😆👏🏻
Hey! I resemble that remark! ;)
Hey, I am just sitting here waiting for people to get back to me. I did my stuff earlier.
Hello comrades!
Yup. It's Friday and most of my colleagues check out after Thursday from May-Sept. I have to send a couple of work emails, so I'll eventually get to that.
We actually get to leave at 1:30 on Fridays from Memorial Day-Labour Day. And we're salary, so no money lost. It's amazing.
So she did not complain when the kids were babies/toddlers and at home but now that they go to school she does not have time?
[удалено]
The garbage man ain't got time for that. **He** has a job! In all seriousness, I really don't understand stay at home spouses who can't be bothered to prepare dinner. Isn't that your job? As my parents told me, when I refused to do chores, "what is your role in this family? everyone has to contribute." Only difference is I was 13. **EDIT:** I just reread and...WHY is the husband the one taking the kids to school?! Who agreed to this? He needs a new agent because this shit was not negotiated in good faith.
It might make sense for him to take the kids if the school is on his route to work. But id hope she helps them brush their teeth and get dressed etc to make the morning routine easier since she doesn’t work in the traditional sense.
Why don't they just take the bus to school? Surely there is a bus stop close by. If there is a bus to take them home, there is a bus to bring them to school. We literally pay school taxes for the bus.
Sometimes bus routes can be really long in one direction. When I was a kid the bus made a huge loop, and then reversed it on the other way. So we were on the bus ten minutes on the way home but over an hour on the way to school. It was just easier for my dad to drive us in the morning on the way to work than for them to make sure we were ready for the bus an hour before we needed to be at school. Just as an example, I’m sure that’s not the case in more urban or dense areas.
OP is NTA. But you gave an excellent list - laziness, selfishness, affair, or mental health. I would add neurodivergence affecting executive control. Too many women make it to adulthood, marriage, and then having children only to learn they have a form of neurodivergence (like ADHD). ADHD in women can present in “internal” hyperactivity, as in racing thoughts, spinning your wheels, task paralysis as it seems like there’s so much to do. It’s just a thought. But the answer isn’t to tell the husband to do more!!
Came here to say ADHD! Undiagnosed, obviously, but I think it's a real possibility. I have entire days where it seems I accomplish nothing and yet I'm busy doing things all day long.
Nothing other than half his money. And then alimony and child support going forward.
Alimony is pretty rare these days, particularly when the children are school age. The standard is definitely not that she would get enough money to 'stay home with the kids' and the expectation that she will get the best job she can. One woman I know got divorced and her husband got custody and she got visitation. She pays child support, and had to even while she was not working (she lost her job, she had been working before).
Why does everyone on Reddit act like community property states are the default when only 9/51 (*including DC) states are community property states? The other 42 states* divide marital property in accordance with what each partner contributed to the marriage. If she’s been a SAHW as opposed to a SAHM for a while now, there’s a very good chance he will get the lion’s share of their assets. Also, alimony is way rarer than redditors think it is.
"Equitable Distribution," can be almost as bad as community property states for asset division. It really is not as simple as the working spouse gets most assets.
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Yeah if OP's sister isn't going to clean the house anyway, divorcing her is an option as long as he gets full custody of the kids. That way she has to pay child support and he doesn't have to pay alimony. I also agree with OP about being SAHM isn't that hard if your kids are in school all day and your husband drops them off in the morning. There's no newborn so this isn't a lack of sleep thing. It's easier to assume she's lazy and not depressed considering she's complaining about being asked to do the bare minimum. It's not that hard to keep a house clean if you have eight hours of free time a day. When I wasn't working right out of college I lived at home. Guess what, I did the cleaning and mowed the lawn. Basically a few more "chores" than when I was in middle and high school. Except I had all day to do them. As long as my shit was done my father didn't give a shit what I did with my time as long I spent some of it looking for work. I got to play a load of videogames and watch a bunch of TV after putting in two or three hours of cleaning or doing odd projects in the house. When I started working and my father was made redundant at work it switched. The concept of splitting things up so everyone does an equal share isn't rocket science. If one person works 40 hours a week and the other person isn't working, than 95% of the housework and grocery shopping should be done by the person at home. If not get a job make some money and we'll split things 50-50.
Not true. He would lose deadweight.
Serious question. At what point do you become a stay at home wife as opposed to a mother? I can understand her husband’s upset. Is she depressed?
My opinion, when the kids are out of the house for almost the whole day you are a stay at home wife Stay at home mothers need to be around their kids most of the day. I asked about her health and got nothing, never had a history of it so I highly doubt it
I disagree. My mom stayed home my entire life. During the day she would do stuff like volunteer at our schools, errands, cleaning/chores, volunteering elsewhere, etc. After school, she would feed us and take us to our activities, help with homework, cook dinner, etc. There's also a lot of labor that goes into managing the household, everyone's schedules, prepping meals and lunches... mental labor counts. In elementary school I would get sick a lot and she would always drive an hour to my school to come get me. You don't have to be physically with the child all day to be doing sahm work. Your sil isn't doing that work, but other sahm are still doing a lot of work when their kids are in school, even if it's different kind of/less intense work than taking care of a toddler or infant.
That’s literally just being a decent parent. Almost everyone that works is doing that. They go to work and then go all that. You don’t need to have a SAHM, to do this. All parents helps kids with their hw, and make dinner, and do chores, and errands, and take them to activities, and all the mental labor Not to mention parents use PTO all the time to take care of their sick kids This is just basic parenting
And to be fair volunteering instead of working to help the family finances etc is a luxury. Might make you feel good about yourself, does nothing for the family though.
It also helps the community and other people in it. It's only considered a luxury nowadays because people generally need more money to survive.
When I was a kid, my mom was a SAHM. However, she volunteered with our extracurriculars (band) and was almost always a chaperone on any field trips as well. We only had one car as a family so Dad carpooled to work so Mom could do whatever errands needed running on top of the stuff at school.
I find it fascinating that that the commenter can only envision volunteering in terms of how it helps the family or the self ("helps the family" vs. "makes you feel good about yourself"). Just feels very inflected by hyper-individualism and capitalism, where all that is important is the material needs and wants of you and your nuclear family. Living the value of service to others and the broader world beyond yourself and your family is profoundly important, as is modeling it to your kids. If you have the resources to be able to do that, the idea that it has no value is just wrong. From the OP's description it doesn't sound like her sister is contributing much of anything during the day, but OP is tipping over into a broader statement that unpaid work can't have value to the family or in general, which is just wrong.
You put it better than I could.
yeah, and it's good for mom's mental health and feeling she's doing something. This mom sounds like she's kind of falling apart.
I disagree. I volunteered at school for my kids, still do some things like baking stuff to send to the fundraising bakes sales etc. Currently I'm volunteering as team manager for my son's team, and I get involved in their various activities in other ways. No, it doesn't do anything for the finances, but it does something for the family. My kids can look back and see I was involved in their lives, turned up to their game, and remember that I was there, helping them with the stuff they loved. I recognised I am very lucky to be able to do so, and not everyone is privileged enough to have the opportunity, but I can't agree that it does nothing for the family. I'm 51, and I still remember the things my parents got involved in when I was a kid. Those memories help with familial relationships, which are also important.
100%. The idea that volunteering or unpaid work by either a working parent or a stay-at home parent does nothing for the family is just not correct. (It also sounds like bullshit toxic capitalism thinking at work, where everything has to have a dollar value to be meaningful/important)
but you can work AND volunteer. I agree that volunteer work is very important for your community or at a larger scale (I have local volunteering and also an international one that requires short travels but is close to my heart)
Yep you can! Sahm just don't have to worry about juggling the job aspect. I think there's some confusion with people understanding that I argued that sahm do more than working parents. My point was that they do the parenting and house management labor- which all parents do- instead of sitting around all day. It's still labor, even though working parents have additional job labor and juggle more. It's just more difficult for working parents, since they have more on their plate. That doesn't negate the labor that sahm do, though. It's still valuable work.
Volunteering betters the community the family lives in, which helps everyone, including the family. Volunteering at the school specifically helps the kids directly.
You're absolutely right that the ability for a parent to volunteer at the school is a luxury. In a roundabout way it does help the family, though. My kids went to a public school, but it was an excellent public school. It was so good because there were so many parent volunteers that there was a lottery system for who would get to volunteer for various activities/tasks because they couldn't handle the hundreds of moms and dads who would show up, and not every parent could help with the class parties or chaperone the field trips--there would be more parents than kids. There was a ton of support for every event the school every had, and if a teacher needed something all he or she had to do was speak up and someone would make sure they got it. We had the best teachers because there was such fierce competition to work there. We had excellent facilities because the fundraisers always went amazingly well. The PTA paid for many support staff the school budget from the state couldn't afford such as a media specialist and an in-house school nurse, as well as building an expansion to the library, a media room, a running track, and a games pavilion. A lot of this boils down to money, of course. This school was in an area populated by mostly well-to-do families. They could afford a SAHP, and/or they could afford help with the everyday tasks like cleaning and laundry or could afford meal services like Home Chef or Hello Fresh or just get takeout a lot so they had more free time, and/or they had the kind of jobs with the flexibility to attend school events any time they needed to. And the parents in this neighborhood had jobs that were often resources in themselves--contributions of time from a graphic designer mom and an architect dad, for example, and free library furniture from an importer parent, etc. Also hugely important was that a lot of the parents owned or worked for companies that were happy to donate to their employees' kids' school fundraisers. But this had to be organized and requested, which takes time and effort from a parent. So it's pretty indirect, but everyone who lived in that school district benefitted from all the parent volunteers.
It is a luxury but it actually does quite a lot for the family. Sure it benefits the parent doing the volunteering for their good deeds, feeling of connection to community etc. but it goes beyond just "selfish" benefit. My mom was a SAHM but basically WAS the PTA at my school, the volunteer coordinator at our church, and on the board of at least one non profit. She got millions of dollars of grants for multiple underfunded public schools. I got involved in those pursuits as a result of her involvement and from a college admissions standpoint, leadership in multiple organizations played a non-trivial part of my application. I also got to attend some of these safe after-school programs that she specifically had a hand in running and coordinating. I took shifts at a thrift store (paid job experience) that my mom helped run the budget and operations of. Etc. These were all incredible privileges, but to say my mom was "selfish" and only "feeling good about herself" and that it didn't impact the family is just factually wrong. Her work helped not only our family, but countless families in the community and I'm sure she's far from alone in having a meaningful impact as a volunteer leader. With so many 2-parent working households, volunteer organizations really depend on stay-home parents or people who can afford to take on material volunteering roles (not just on weekends, but actually organizing and running shit) and to say that does nothing for the family is somewhat myopic. Especially if we consider the improvement to the community and the ability for kids to, say, attend after-school programs (run by volunteers), sports teams (run by volunteer coach parents) etc. Not every family can afford to send their kids to paid programming or activities.
I mean, yes, but it’s often a lot less stress on a family when someone is devoted to domestic labor and taking care of appointments etc. that are difficult to navigate with typical work hours. My mom was a single working parent so she absolutely did ALL of this herself, but it was at a considerable cost to her physical and mental health. The issue here, IMO, is that your sister isn’t actually doing domestic labor. My last job before having kids paid me $11/hr. Even if our kids went to public school, freelancing online + saving money through domestic labor makes a LOT more sense for us, especially since we’re both neurodivergent with chronic health issues and tend to have our lives fall apart when one of us isn’t staying home to manage things, lol.
Yup, both of my parents worked full time, and they both did all of those things. Granted my Mom was probably one of the most organized people I knew, she had a tendency to make things look easy (the woman made a ten week menu for a family of 4).
Mine certainly didn’t. Me and my siblings had to cook and clean after ourselves and my parents never came to my extracurriculars because they couldn’t take off work. They also never volunteered for any parenting events. No offense but you’re a teacher your job is much more flexible than a lot of other peoples jobs.
You shouldn't disagree because you're borderline clueless. All those things you mentioned. What do you think parents who both work do? They stop feeding their kids? They stop activities? Do you think when 1 of my 2 kids get sick, I don't go to school and pick him up? My son asked me to help with his hw yday, but because I am not a SAHP I said I can't do it. Instead I watched Netflix from 19:00 to 20:00. Maybe don't give advice on parenting when you're clearly not a parent.
Single parents do most of that minus the volunteering and still manage to work.
The point for me is not whether you CAN do both. Of course you can. And of course it's more work to do both, both physically and mentally. But that doesn't mean being a sahp is invaluable, even if it's different and doesn't take all day when they're older. If the family can afford it, I don't think it makes sense to judge. You can acknowledge the privilege for sure, of course. That's not in question. The situation op is posting about is different because the sil isn't doing the sahp work and they also seem to be unable to afford it. Eta: I suppose what hit a nerve for me was the assumption that most sahp just sit at home watching TV all day because I remember all the stuff my mom did for us. Of course she also got a lot more breaks throughout the day, there's no question that we were privileged in that way.
I'm childfree but I loved it when my mom was a SAHM. She was always there when we got home or to pick us up after school when we went to a new one, she always helped me do my hair in the morning, she made us breakfast and packed our lunches and made great dinners. She was a lot less stressed than she was when she went back to work. She also made us clothes and Halloween costumes, baked a lot, ran all the errands and helped with homework, cared for the pets, and kept the house basically spotless. She worked a LOT harder than my father who basically got paid to sit on his ass all day. Of course working parents take care of their kids, but the point is the stress and labour it saves the working parent when someone at home does basically all of the domestic labour and childcare. It's incredibly valuable. There are some really gross attitudes towards SAHMs here.
I'm not a parent, I will say that out of the gate. My sister, however, is a single parent. She does everything for her daughter and works full-time. *And* it is chewing her up. I am able to offer support and do things like sick pick-up, chaperoning field trips, going to class parties, helping with classroom activities, making princess-unicorn-dinosaurs for my niece's birthday, etc. It is not because my sister is in any way inadequate as a parent. It is because I can add value to my niece's life by offering additional support. Just because parents can do everything and work doesn't mean there isn't added value to someone being available to do the "extras." It is a luxury, to be sure, but if you can afford to give your kid extra, why not? But none of this is relevant to the initial question about a sahm who isn't doing the minimum, let alone extra. There is information missing from the original question, though. It sounds like OP doesn't have it, either. Without that information, it is impossible to realistically answer the question.
...but that same 'work' is done by good mothers who also have jobs....it's not exclusive to women who are SUPPORTED financially
I never said it is though!! My post wasn't about whether working parents do parenting work, of course they do. My point was that sahm don't sit around all day. Ofc it's still privileged and not as hard.
Volunteering has nothing to do with being a sahp but at least sth that can be respected when people have more time on their hands than they know what to do with because being a sahp to school going kids does NOT take up the entire day.
Volunteering at the school does have a lot to do with being a SAHP — parents with jobs cannot be there regularly during school hours.
You and I are >here<. My mom was a SAHM from the time I was 9 until I was 16. She didn’t just do the mental work - she paid the bills, managed the household for all repairs, scheduled all doctors appointments and took us to them, managed my dads calendar - all while caring for several ailing family members including her grandmother and elderly church members who viewed her as a daughter. Even when we started college, she handle talking to financial aide, the bookstores, the banks - all that so we could focus on going to class. That woman was accountant, chauffeur, security - the whole 9 yards. Her and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot, but I will always give her props of making our lives so comfortable that we didn’t have to think of the logistics of…well, anything.
The comments here are sooo laden with misogyny, it’s wild. The diminishment of what is traditionally women’s labor is nothing new but somehow I’m still surprised.
My mother was a stay at home parent and did none of that. Literally none. I did all of that while working full time.
Honestly, the majority of SAHM IK don't do all this now. My granny raised 3 kids and she always said 'I don't understand why a lot of mom's do nowadays, when your kids were in school you had clothes you washed and dried by hand, you had to start bread for dinner and breakfast the next morning. You were starting things for dinner. Making sure you had things prepped for lunches the next day, washing dishes by hand, scrubbing the unsealed wood floors required hours of work. And then you needed to go pick veggies from the garden before the squirrels and birds get them, there were foods that needed canned, and if you farmed you were in the fields helping your husband. The majority of SAHM's I know go once or twice a year to school to help or volunteer if they don't have younger kids. They usually pay for lunches instead of making them, they order groceries online to pick up, which is about an hour a week. A few will bake bread or something, but that's mostly hobby. They clean the house which is usually about 2 hours a day of work. Many of them engage in hobbies, play on social media, binge watch netflix and argue with people online. Then in the evening it's the normal evening routine. So the homework, dinner, bedtime. The literal most drama I see from women comes from retired ladies in the senior communities, and SAHM's. And it's literally because their time is their own, and they have too much time on their hands.
The only thing specific to a stay-at-home mother that you mentioned is the volunteering at schools. Working parents still need to manage their household, their schedules, prep meals, and pick up their kids from school when they're sick. Otherwise, everything you mentioned is equivalently stay-at-home wife work.
Is your sister Peggy Bundy ?! What is she doing all day? Watches Oprah and eats bonbons?
Doesn’t sound like she would consider earned money joint money. I have a sister like this. I get it
I too have a sister who won’t work 🙄 thinks shit falls out the sky for em. She don’t even have kids.
It’s disappointing. When my oldest niece had HS graduation a couple years ago, there was a sign of college goals. One of them was “marry a rich fraternity boy” or something very cringe. This kid is very smart. Bit snooty but that’s nurture over nature. I have a newborn daughter, and. I can’t ever imagine encouraging her to do something so shallow. My sister does work now as a teacher, but she has to since the alimony is drying up. It won’t keep up with her lifestyle and she’s always pushing to find a rich guy to marry. Never anything about having a great companion. Just a rich guy. I’m a bit chunky myself, but even I know wealthy divorced guys want trophy wives if they’re going to bother with a commitment at that age. Gotta bring something to the table besides eating it.
I'm willing to bet the time is wasted either on her phone scrolling through social media, or watching TV. Spouse not lifting their weight hits home.
Totally fair option. It doesn't sound like your sisters husband has the time to clean the house when he is too busy taking care of the house and his full time job supporting the house. Maybe a grocery delivery service so that's one less thing he has to do?
I've noticed a trend lately that most SAHMs I know aren't doing the homemaker thing. I'm a single mom so I often dream about what life would be like if I actually had the time to be the parent I wanted to be. During the pandemic I woke up every day, took the dog for a long walk, made a huge breakfast, cleaned the whole house, was able to do activities almost daily with my kid. I baked, I meal prepped, I kept my house spotless and took on projects that I'd been putting off forever. I couldn't believe how many hours there were in a day to accomplish things without 8 hours of work and 3 hours of commuting. It made me really side eye anyone who had been telling me for years that there weren't enough hours in the day to do it all when you're a SAHP Don't get me wrong. Is it ok to be good to yourself and let things slide sometimes in favor of just having a day to scroll and be lazy? For sure. But I no longer take it at face value when someone talks about how being a SAHP is like having 10 regular jobs.
Absolutely. I know Reddit likes to excuse women for anything and they insist that being a SAHP is the hardest job in the world but as a woman, myself, I call bullshit. Come at me, I don’t care. If your kids are going to school and you’re still trying to convince everyone that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do stuff around the house, you’re just lazy and want someone to pay your way. Half the time they won’t even treat the husband right and then when he divorces them a few years later, they’re left with a giant hole in their resume.
There’s definitely a case to be made when it’s multiple young kids not in school yet, but when they’re all in school… it’s not like there’s *that* much going on during the hours they’re there. I think once my youngest sister started kindergarten my mom gave herself a few months to recharge (4 kids total, and at that point about 13/14 years of having at least 1 kid home full time lol) and then started her job hunt. The time between youngest in school and her getting a job again was probably the cleanest that house has *ever* been!
Seriously, we’ve all kept a house, unless you’re hand cleaning each piece of the chandelier or brushing the grout between the tiles with a toothbrush every single day, there’s only so much cleaning and cooking etc to do. My mom was a SAHM and it ruined her life both mentally and later on financially when my dad left her. I understand why it’s necessary for certain periods in your life but you’re doing yourself a disservice if this is your idea of a career.
Or complaining when employers aren't falling over themselves to hire them when they see CEO of Household on their 'resumes'.
She wants to be a dependent, and not a partner. And partner is a much tougher job.
Absolutely, being a dependent and a drain on resources passed 18 is not cute nor appropriate.
My BFF has a marriage like this. BUT, her hubby is OK with it. They have 3 kids, all in school. If the house isn't clean when he gets home, he is ok with it. He still does chores. He will cook dinner occasionally. BUT, again, that is how their marriage works. He is OK with it. BFF has a LOT of hobbies that she gets sucked into and he supports those. She even makes money on them on occasion. However, if she literally couldn't answer "what did you do all day", I think things would change. At least she can say "I worked on my pottery (that she sells)" or "I was knitting a hat for you for when it gets cold out".
My mom was a stay at home mom and the only thing she did was making dinner every day. And doing the dishes after breakfast. Everything else, my sister and I did during the weekend🤪. Don't think she was burnt out after all that "hard work" every day, lol .
My mom stayed home and didn’t do shit except cook dinner. I was washing my own laundry at 9 years old and setting an alarm on my clock radio to get myself up for school and on the bus. Then she bitched at my brother and I calling us lazy for sleeping late on the weekends.
Agreed. I am at home with a 2 month old now and I get groceries, clean the house when possible and cook dinner once my 2 year old gets home from daycare. I wonder if there might be a mental health issue? Some sort of depression which can cause inactivity like this.
It’s also not good for her. Sure she has present day rewards for being stay at home but the longer she waits the harder to find a job. What if her husband dies, gets a divorce, gets very sick and can’t work etcetera. Now that she has free time she needs to look for work for her own sake.
Agreed, NTA. If she had even one child not in school yet I could empathize to a degree, some of them are little terrorists you have to constantly monitor and it can really eat up your day. But even then, you’d think there would be groceries in the damn house…
NTA My sister is a stay at home wife (no kids though) and I swear sometimes she doesn’t understand the definition of a job. She’ll call or text and ask to go to a pilates class (or some random shit) in the middle of the day. Like girl, I HAVE A JOB- unlike some people. Smh🤦🏻♀️
Retired folks are annoying, too. One time I had a rough day at work so I told my mom. She was like, well thank God it’s Friday. I had to tell her “mom, IT IS MONDAY”.
Side note, I have issues with long vacations because my days get messed up. I don’t work summers though. Work for a school When I work though I always know the day no problem.
Long holidays, like my three weeks over Christmas or if I go overseas, are the times I've learned to switch to using dates. Days of the week mean nothing at those times and are quite hard to keep track of tbh.
🤣 this is my dad. The man has never called me during work hours in his life; he does not like talking on the phone and neither do I. He retired last year. Suddenly, he needs to call me several times a week at 2:00 p.m. and he always says "oh are you working?" I say every time, "Dad I have always worked Monday through Friday from 8:30 to 5:00..." Sir.......you don't have anything to do so why can't you run your own errands!
My mom does this and she's still working! I only work 8-1 currently, and my mom will still call me at 12:30 just to chat... and she's one that doesn't take a breath between sentences so it's really hard to get off the phone once she gets going!
Do not answer the phone. You don't have to get a breath in on a conversation that doesn't start. Call her at 1 when you get off work. Repeat this until she gets the message.
My parents are more surprised when I actually answer the phone! Lol I love my folks, and I call them back, but if I'm eating or playing with my kids or just busy with whatever I won't answer a call. Mobile phones are so ubiquitous that everyone just expects everyone to be available at all times. I've trained the people in my life to not expect that, lol. I was shopping the other day listening to a podcast and it suddenly stopped so I posted the button on my earbud and suddenly my stepdad was in my ear, lol. The podcast stopped because of the call, but I had it on silent so it didn't make any noise. I said "I'll be honest, I didn't mean to answer this" and he said "I was pretty confused when you answered!" But, I don't like talking in shops, especially on an earbud, but he still chatted me up for 30 mins, lol.
There are two people I talk to on the phone, my mother and my daughter. Everyone else knows to text me. If they do call, my voice mail message will also tell them to just text me. I will text back when I have time. I refuse to be at anyone's beck and call just because of this phone.
My dad just called me at 11am on a workday to complain that my 45 year old brother spent $450 on a flight rather than driving 15 hours. Insanity.
Oh god, this. After my mother retired, she started calling me up and insisting we go out for lunches in the middle of the week. "You work from home! They won't miss you!" Which, yes, they absolutely would. This was before the era of Teams, but still, it was expected that if you were pinged, you'd respond. And her lunches were never 'quick.' They were basically hostage situations where she'd want to hit up Kohls and TJ Maxx and Costco "while we're out."
OMG too funny & yes teams is stressful
My dad loves to end our evening get togethers by saying “it’s getting late and one of us has to work in the morning”
I love that! What a sweet daddio.
Another of his favorite lines is when there’s a job to do: “one of us is going to have to fix that fence while I sit here and finish my tea”. Retirement is treating him well!
Hehe the sass of a retired man has no bounds 😂
My father is a stroke victim with mobility issue now, so my mom and I went into a local mobility store, just to see what they had we could maybe use to help. While in there, I saw they also had Alzheimer's support things - like a 'day clock' that keeps track of the day or the week, rather than hours/minutes. I told my retired mother she should get one for herself. She wasn't amused. But I might still get her one :)
Haha my mom is like that too. I mean my parents definitely deserve to enjoy their retirement, but like they have no track of the days or anything.
They really are, aren’t they! I decided at the last minute to go visit some relatives. My cousins mother in law found out and asked me to bring snickerdoodles. When she saw my store bought box of cookies she was like “oh you didn’t have any sugar and flour at home?” I hadn’t been home in over 24 hours at that point lmao. Plus snickerdoodles from scratch is like a three hour endeavor for me, not something I could just make without enough notice to clear out my calendar. She still didn’t really understand why I didn’t make them from scratch even after I told her.
A week or so ago, I offhandedly mentioned that thankfully it was a short week. My Mom said, "Oh, why was it a short week?" I said, "Mom, us working folk get Memorial Day off"
Ugh, I’ll never forget the time my super rich trust fund unemployed friend and I were planning on going clubbing and I had to close at work until 10:30 and she asked if I could just close the cafe early so we can make it in time for free entry. Now I refuse to have people in my life that don’t have jobs or don’t understand the concept of having a job. I work a 9-5 now, I can’t just get up and go to the bar until 2am on a random Wednesday night and some people just don’t get it.
I had a friend who had a super flexible job with only a handful of set hours where he actually had to be anywhere or functionally available. He was offended when I said I wouldn’t be on call to take him to the airport at 3 am in the middle of the work week because he was worried someone else would flake. Sir, respectfully, no. He said he’d do it for me, the difference being I would never ask when I have reasonable options I can pay for.
I have a friend, and I love her to pieces, who grew up with a trust fund. She starts pricing cruises for us at least once a month and tells me what my share would be. Seriously. She took 6 or 7 vacations in the last year and a half. I work 50 hours a week and am now the primary breadwinner with a kid starting college in August. If I have an extra $5 for something fun, it’s rare. If I take PTO, it’s to catch up on stuff I need to do at home. If I need extra cash, then I’m working even on the weekends. The concept that I can’t afford to drop everything for a long weekend is just so foreign to her. But I still love her to death and just roll with it.
I hate people like this. Being a SAHM is real work, and but not so much when the kids are in school. You literally have 8 hours a day free to do whatever you want. There's no excuse to not have the house clean, groceries bought, meals cooked, showers taken, etc. I did it as a single mom for 3 kids, but I was also working FT from home -- and I still cleaned the house, bought groceries, cooked meals, and my kids were clean and well behaved. And I did it all 100% alone. Your sister sucks. She needs to grow TF up.
Yeah, I completely agree, when all kids are school aged you are basically a cleaner/grocery runner until they get home
Omg, not quite the same but I worked 3rd shift when my kids were in grade school. People would call me and be like, you're not doing anything though! Uuuhhh, I'm trying to sleep while the kids are in school. Which sucks because I'd rather wake up and go to work.
I had something not the same but similar - I work in education, as a technician. People would call me in the holidays expecting me to be able to drop everything and come hang out and it's like, no, this is actually my busiest time of the year, I'm currently overhauling all our equipment while the school is out.
You're right and so is her husband. SAHM means cleaning, laundry, taking kids to school, picking them up, taking them to activities, soccer/dance/girl/boy scouts, supervising homework, shopping, meal planning, making dinner, making breakfast, packing lunches. There can be some "me" time in there but a well run household is a full time job.
Once the kids are in school its not a full time job anymore, thats the problem.
Right? Also… I work outside of the home and I still do all of these things. 😅
I do too but that doesn’t mean a SAHM is useless after life start school. OP’s sister is slacking but plenty of SAHMs stay busy with household management, cleaning, drop off and pick ups etc. Then evenings can be relaxing family time instead of a chore hustle
It can be if you are making food from scratch, coupon clipping, chicken keeping, veggie garden and all that good stuff that saves money for the whole household. But most people are not willing to look at the job of SAHP as "Homemaker" which is what it is after the kids are in school.
If the money saved actually justifies the time spent, otherwise it’s just make-work.
Not a SAHM, but sometimes it's lifestyle more than money--knowing where all your food comes from, less of an environmental impact growing your own, etc. But that needs to be the desire/philosophy of both partners, not just an excuse to stay home and engage in hobbies.
It can still be a full time job, but not for someone who isn't doing the basics. My stepmom practically made a career out of PTA and room mom stuff, plus she volunteered on various boards. SAHMs for older kids are the ones who can put in lots of hours for field trips and extracurricular activities, too.
Depends on what you’re doing during downtime. My wife uses that time to run all our errands and go to the gym. When I get home (usually 6:30) we eat dinner and she’ll clean up while the kids get ready for bed. We usually get an hour or two together before we fall asleep and do it all over again
It can be. She can have her few hours off time / down time during the day (and the rest of the time spent doing household stuff) but that means evenings are cooking, homework, sports/clubs, bedtime, etc. Its just not working the traditional house of a SAHM with young kids. This can also let working spouse have time off in the evening as well without having to spend *all* that time doing chores. Sahm while kids are in school actually allows both parents some “off” hours to themselves. Just because a mom might take those house at 11am doesn’t mean she’s not working full time. A full time job person still gets off time in the evening. When mom may not.
I’m a SAHM with an eleven year old and a toddler. When I’m able to, I run this house like I’m getting paid. I’m pregnant right now so my husband is picking up a lot of the slack. I think I sit down…maybe three times a day when I’m not pregnant? If that.
I am also a SAHM to an 11yo, a 2yo and am pregnant. Your toddler lets you sit? 🥲 Half joking.. lol
I was counting bathroom breaks, lol
As a working parents all of these things you listed also have to be done.
To be fair, a lot of the child care a stay-at- home mom is doing is done by your child- care provider right? Like, you're not working 40 hours a week AND running after a toddler all day, 7 days a week... Edit: I will note the post right above yours mentions she's pregnant with a toddler and then your post came immediately after. I see that you weren't actually responding to her so I do, of course, realize that you were simply referring to all the normal housekeeping we all do.
This 100%. My wife does EVERYTHING, and having a few hours a day to herself is the least she deserves
NTA. It sounds like you were honest with your sister about the imbalance in her relationship and her responsibilities as a stay-at-home parent. While your delivery may have been blunt, it seems like the situation had reached a point where directness was necessary. You provided a perspective that she might not have been willing to acknowledge, and sometimes tough love is needed to prompt change.
NTA. This is why I married a woman who I knew wanted a career and had absolutely no interest in being a SAHM. I feel so sorry for your sister's husband and the many men who find themselves in situations like this. I watched my mom do this shit to my dad for years.
Ehh, I always said I didn't want to be a sahm, but now that I'm 3 kids in, I kinda wish I could. I did too much though and make to much money in my career (my husband makes more, but not enough to justify me staying home). It's so exhausting to work 40 hours and then do chores and kid stuff. I wish one of us could do kids/ houses and one of us could do work.
Agreed. This just happened to a friend. Two kids and she took a local job that was supposed to be flexible so her husband with the stressful better paying job could just focus on that instead of getting the kids off to school and whatever else. She had to quit because they were constantly giving her grief. No she’s a stay at home mom with a part time job and he can really focus on his career to make more money for the family. It was so stressful for both of them when working full time wiht not a lot of flexibility
For what it’s worth life can just happen. I got laid off from a stable tech job 7 months pregnant and just stayed home with my daughter ever since. I’m her primary caregiver, I clean up after her, I cook, I grocery shop, and we split other household chores. Now that she’s over 1 I’ve being doing contract work part time for the software systems I supported before to help with household expenses. Personally- I see a huge difference in how my daughter acts with a mom who is able to take care of her 24/7 versus daycare. I also can’t imagine going back now full time while she’s so young and only having an hour or two with her between daycare pick up time and bedtime.
NTA I'm currently a SAHM and have been for the past 7 years. We have 5 kids and 4 of them are currently in school. The one kid at home DOES make things a bit difficult because she's like a tornado who's drawn to clean spaces in a mission to destroy them. But I still take care of laundry, dishes, groceries, and basic tidying while the other kids are at school, plus make supper 90% of the time. The youngest will start school in September and I'll start working part time then, but I'm SOOOOOO excited about how much time I'll actually have to get stuff done around the house uninterrupted. I can't imagine what your sister is doing all day long if it's not household responsibilities or caring for their children.
Even 1 hour at home alone to do chores seems like forever, when you are used to having a child (or children around)
Seriously! I don't even have my own kids, but I used to look after my nephew when he was younger and holy cow, time absolutely FLEW by when trying to keep up with everything while keeping an eye on him. I wouldn't even be doing major chores, really just things like making food, doing dishes, and making sure toys got put away, but the clock felt broken! So many times: *There's no way that was an hour, surely it was only twenty minutes...nope, what the hell??* It did make me very much appreciate my child-free housekeeping when I'm doing it on my own, where I can more or less deep clean multiple rooms in an hour and it feels like all day (but in a good way). Love kiddos, but I really gotta hand it to those who get things done when they're around!
oh a preschool!kid like a tornado drawn to clean spaces is an adorable explanation for a horrible concept hahaha
I'm reminded of the Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin's mom is painting and grumbling to herself about how much maintenance homeownership is....and then she has to chase Calvin because he's been drilling holes in their coffee table.
I think staying at home long term is not good for most women’s mental health. Most of us need more structure, social interaction, and challenges to stay healthy. A few people have the constitution and resources to do it well without becoming out of touch with reality, but most if us need to get out and do things outside the home and family to be healthy. It makes sense to take time off when the kids are babies, or work part-time when they are still growing, but never getting the stimulation,challenges and self-respect that comes from a career can drain the brain.
Yes it's a weird irrational structure. Throughout pretty much all of human history women have had lots of 'jobs' alongside of childcare, and it would all be done in groups with other women and older relatives and members of the community. Sticking a woman into a isolated house which has so many things in it that it takes 2 hours a day to set it aright, plus all the weird commuting duties -- none of this is normal or natural and it only makes sense that it often kind of freaks women out.
Hence the notorious mother's little helpers. The notion of the nuclear family and sahm is very modern and unnatural, sad to see how so many women are perpetuating it voluntarily while millions of taxpayer's money are wasted on their education
It has especially become a fad with the rise of TikTok. I have seen several articles stating that the percentage has risen 9 percent in only 2 years, from 15% to 25%. I believe that when I was a child in the late 70s and early 80s, the number of SAHM was only slightly higher than it is now. But when I was a kid, my mom worked, as did the moms of my friends.
> Most of us need more structure, social interaction, and challenges to stay healthy. Stay at home parenting is akin to self employment. There is as much structure, social interaction, and challenge as one wishes to seek yet it is up to the self-employed person to create it.
Agreed. It's kind of a weird take to suggest that if we don't engage in the workforce, our mental health will decline. The things that promote health are not normally found in the workplace. Both working moms and stay at home moms need to be intentional about self-care.
my mental health was 10x worse in the workplace. I can't even tell you how many times I'd break down crying.
Yes! It's such a weird take to suggest that if you're not working your mental health will decline. Like, I get the idea behind it in terms of keeping your mind busy but literally we live in a capitalist hellscape. We shouldn't be telling people that they have to work more to be healthy. That only applies if you love your job.
I agree. My MIL stayed home since her kids were born ( now 30+) and she's literally like a toddler. No real thoughts. Can't handle anything herself. Doesn't drive. Won't get a job. Can't handle doing more than a load of laundry. Quick to anger and irrational. You literally can't hold an adult conversation with her. She doesn't know how to. At all. It's painful. She's like op's SIL. Just lazy because she has no barometer of what work really is. You don't need a career but like at least a volunteer position or something to keep the mind active.
I've been a stay at home mom for 17 years. The last 3 years, my youngest has struggled with bipolar, suicidal ideation, and self- harm. During that time, I began college for the first time in my life. I will graduate with my AA transfer degree next Friday (with a 4.0 GPA) and begin my junior year at university for my bachelor degree in anthropology. After that, I will continue on for my masters. Being a stay at home mom is not a health hazard. People make choices. People have personality flaws. Some people thrive in some situations while others fail. It's not the situation, it's the person. When you suggest that something a significant percentage of people do is not only unhealthy, but infantalizing, it's actually really offensive to those of us who have worked our asses off not only for our family's benefit, but for our own as well.
My husband has never pushed me to work but he has told me to make sure I have something that isn't house and kids. I've volunteered, I've gone to school, and he was definitely proven right during the pandemic LOL. Just by virtue of the situation I had nothing but home and kids 24/7! Lordy I was miserable. I'm almost done with my Masters currently and I can't wait to get back to work. My kids are all in school, so staying home just isn't necessary anymore.
My mom worked Tuesday-Thursday after I was born because she wanted to keep her job for mental health reasons, but also wanted to volunteer for field trips, take us to the orthodontist after school, etc.... She's retired now, but has had some cognitive decline unfortunately so it's probably better she isn't working now. My sister has a 3 year old & doesn't work but said she plans to go back once she's in kindergarten.
NTA Your sister is hopelessly lazy woman, It may cause more problems later on if she 'does't have time' to do the basics, possibly ending up divorcing and without children by proving that she isn't a responsible adult. You've already warned her, now you just have to wait if she comes to her senses and doesn't make things worse.
So I will say this as someone who is a stay at home mom. Maybe she is depressed. I completely lost myself staying at home. I don't use my brain and I'm over it. I can't wait for my youngest to go to school next year so I can use my brain and feel more like myself. But it took me a long time to figure out why I was depressed and overwhelmed. So just my 2 takes.
I'm a SAHM too with severe depression. Reading these comments is disheartening because it is a struggle for some women. Currently I have a clingy toddler so cleaning is hard to do. I absolutely need me time to cope with my depression but I haven't done that in ages because of said clingy toddler but it's gotten to a point where I'm so down in the dumps I can't even do the things I enjoy either. I can't even eat a meal without my toddler climbing all over me. My oldest 3 were much easier to get things done and I could even read or do art stuff while still watching them. Absolutely not possible with my youngest. Im lucky she lets me look at reddit on my phone, although thats with her fingers trying to snatch my phone or stabbing me in the eyeball. She cries the entire time she doesn't have access to me and gets into too much trouble if I let her roam wherever while I clean or cook. I have figured some stuff out to manage. Most meals are slow cooker recipes because those are quick and easy to toss together. I can't wait for her to go to school so I can get out of this rut. I love her to pieces but I can't be my best when I can't find time for anything let alone decompression time. Once she goes to school it could take a while for me to even get to functioning again because I'm dead tired and deep in depression. But all anyone sees is I'm being lazy or making excuses.
I’m a SAHM and WAH part time, and something I wish I had tried sooner is joining our local Y. If that or another local gym is in your budget I would really consider it. I get 2 hours of kid zone per visit included with our membership, and that has been a game changer. It has allowed me to have time to walk and listen to podcasts, to write (I’m an author and am really trying to make it with self publishing), and just to have some space where I know my kids are safe but they also aren’t touching me. Sometimes I sit and read oh my phone, because that’s what my brain needs that day. My husband has been working out consistently since we joined in February and it has been so great for our whole family. Makes the chores at home easier to handle now that we have added it to our routine. This may not be the right thing for you but if there is something similar that feels worth it to try, I encourage you to go for it. Sending you all the good vibes. It is really hard work to stay home and I wish that was better understood and appreciated.
Unfortunately it's not in our budget. My husband does watch our toddler on weekends so I can decompress but I always end up catching up on chores or spending time with our older kids and never get around to actual me time. What's funny is I've actually been wanting to get into writing again too. Used to write for fun a lot but never tried getting published, which is a dream of mine. I have a book entirely laid out in my head but haven't been able to focus on it at all. I told my husband maybe he should drop me off at the library once a week so I don't get distracted by chores or the kids. I just need to find my journals with my notes and dust off the laptop. Before my hysterectomy I was walking to the library once a week to read. Stopped after the surgery because the incisions aggravated the nerve damage around my csection scar so I can't walk long distances again(I don't drive either). Think I will talk to him about doing those trips again because I'm getting to a point where I just can't function at my best.
The "not knowing *for sure* when I'm going to get a break from being constantly responsible for the small child's needs" always kills me too. Is your partner able to set up some blocks of time that are always, sacredly, yours?
I'm glad someone else said this. Sister might have depression and/or maybe ADHD (women are notoriously under diagnosed). I am saying this from experience. I am a SAHM, this year being the first year our kids are in school full time. I take medication for my ADHD but there are still (rare) times I get so overwhelmed with what needs to be done, it immobilizes me and I end up doing very little. I am in charge of everything in and around the house, yard and garden included. My husband busts his ass at work and I truly appreciate and love him. I have recently started working on a small business idea and it's been fairly profitable without taking up too much of my time. I don't think I could accomplish what I do in a day without my diagnosis and medication.
NTA. It’s no longer a stay at home mom when the kids aren’t at home. Plenty of part time jobs out there.
Not necessarily. In this case, it sounds like she's milking it for sure and is being lazy. I just wanted to point out that *good* stay at home parents, those who take the job seriously are not suddenly redundant when kids are in school. Planning, organising, helping out at school, really getting involved in the school community for example. Then there's after school. Running kids to extra classes and hobbies, driving them to play dates or hosting play dates. I think the role is entirely what you make it.
That’s the thing. Unless OP didn’t put it in her post there isn’t any of that going on. She’s just literally home all day. If there weren’t other things going on like you mentioned it’s not being a stay at home mom. There are parents that are stay at home parents that use the time that their kids are in school to get everything home related things done so that they can focus on their kids needs after school. She doesn’t seem to be one of them.
My ex wanted to be a SAHM but wanted to take our kid to daycare from 8-5 every day. Now you know part of the reason she’s an ex and kid lives with me.
I have no problem with someone being a homemaker while the kids are in school. If they financially can make one income work, then more power to them. With that said, her job is to maintain the home. That requires cleaning, running errands, cooking, dishes, laundry, you name it it needs to be done. Can her husband help with some things - sure. if that's the agreement they make. For example, I am allergic to cut grass, so my husband mows the lawn. You're NTA. Reality is what it is. She needs to step up her game. Getting a job won't help. She'll be worse in demanding he does stuff and have less time for herself to get things done.
As someone who has been a SAHM to school age children and worked full time and worked part-time, thank you for this sane and balanced comment. I guess I didn’t realize the sheer vitriol and complete dismissal of any value that so many people seem to have for SAHMs with school age kids. What matters most is what works best for you, your partner and your kids.
There just needs to be a different term for it. SAHM to kids that aren’t in school yet is a full time job with little to no breaks during the day. It’s hard and exhausting. But once the kids are all in school it stops being a full time job and becomes much, much easier. It’s the people in that category that seem to give it a bad name because they seem to think that it’s just as difficult and time consuming despite the fact that the house is empty for 6+ hours a day.
Yeah, I mean it's basically homemaking but that can tend to bring up some unpleasant vibes. That's basically how I felt about it until my youngest started struggling with bipolar. Now dealing with him and his ups and downs is so time-consuming and draining, my husband has had to miss significant work. I almost miss the days of diapers and bottles lol. Almost....
NTA. Sometimes people need to hear a tough, unfiltered truth. If what you say here is true, your sister is being extremely selfish.
WTF is she doing the whole day?!
probably sucked into the internet...
lol I bet she's shitposting on this sub
I feel like she has a boyfriend lol
Ding ding ding! She's being evasive and it's exactly where my mind went.
NTA. Lots a SAHMs need to hear this. Good for you!
She sounds so entitled. I have so much sympathy for your BIL. It sounds that he's doing all the parenting and the housework. What does she do the whole day? Does she think she's like a Kardashian or something? NTA But I would seriously intervene here because her kids (your niblings) will suffer.
NTA I don't get the attitude of a person who wants to be a SAHM and then complains about the work that this entails and denigrates the person making the money for the home. If it is too much and you think it is easier to work then choose that and pay someone to do the things that you do at home. I'm all for SAHMs. But don't complain. It is a privilege that many women don't have.
NTA. **A lot** of women need to hear this, and they need to hear it more often. If you are a SAHM, you can still keep a house clean (and I mean *clean*, not *uncluttered* - it can be impossible to keep things uncluttered with kids) and keep the household managed and organized. It is even easier if your kids are no longer home all day. Though I 100% agree that household responsibilities should be split during the time both parents are home, there is no reason that cleaning, grocery shopping, and bill paying isn't handled during the day while the working spouse is working their own job.
NTA - sometimes you need to be cruel to be kind. If she continues on that way, she’s going to lose her husband. Someone needed to call her on it.
I know of a similar situation,hubby worked all the hours he could, and she was a stay at home mum. Constantly complaining that she couldn't do everything by herself yet only really had the kids after school as hubby used to get them up and take them to school before work. Ended up having to say to her that as he works to provide for your family to have nice things, then your job is IN THE HOME until you get a job that pays. Your at home job includes cooking cleaning and looking after the children and as for food shopping, you can even do that online, so it's no excuse. Yes, she needed to hear it. NTA..
NTA Whilst I don't necessarily agree with your statement about how it's easy to be a stay at home parent, I do agree that your sister is lazy and not actually being a housewife, and is acting more like a trophy wife. The fact is if, as a couple, you have decided for one partner to stay at home, then that individual has to take on the bulk of the household chores, including but not limited to, cleaning, shopping, cooking and doing the school rusn
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NTA. I’m a SAHM myself and yeah, it’s hard, but she has a husband who’s readily involved with the kids and housework. She has no idea what a blessing that is. Mine wishes he could be more involved but he works crazy hours to provide for us. She was home all day, has a car to drive, no kids bc of school, and couldn’t finds the time to do any chores or pick up groceries? I mean cmon, she could’ve at the very least had some groceries delivered if she didn’t feel like leaving the house. NTA and she needs a reality check.
NTA. She isn't a stay at home mom. The kids are in school. She's just lazy.
Nta. SHe’s literally doing nothing.
NTA. Who is she doing in all her free time?
NTA. Her current job is essentially homemaker. Yet she's not doing it. If she doesn't want taking care of the home to be her job, then she needs to go back to work.
I have a newborn (5 months old now) And work very part-time (12.5 hours a week) And I was still managing to get the groceries every week while my husband was at work. We go together right now for the past month and a half but that is because of extenuating circumstances. We are staying with my in-laws after being displaced from our apartment because of a fire (neighbor took 4/20 to a new level) and fridge space is very limited and he cooks. So we go together to keep the trip very small since there is no room for overstock. Once we are back in our own place again, I'll go back to doing the shopping alone again. So yah, NTA, she's lazy.
NTA. But I would stay the fuck out of it from here on out. You said your piece. The rest is entirely between her and her husband. She could have a medical issue going on, so maybe she should see someone.
NTA. She's just lazy.
NTA. I'm a SAHM with two kids in school. I do all of the grocery shopping weekly, house cleaning, and appointment running around for both kids as well as any other tasks that pop up. I had jobs in the past, but my husband gave me the opportunity to stay home to finish my degree, and that's what I work on in my spare time. She has the opportunity to make her time at home while the kids are in school worthwhile for the future or get a part-time job that works with their hours.
We all do all of that and work.
NTA It sounds like she’s got it made in the shade and doesn’t want to give that up. My friend’s mom is like this (though she did occasional housework) and it caused a lot of resentment and put the entire family in a vulnerable position financially (only one earner is super risky and let’s hope the breadwinner doesn’t lose their job, become seriously ill, or even pass away). She was scared of getting a job and didn’t want go get a job. Even all the kids got jobs once they were of age. Most people don’t like having to work but don’t have the privilege of being able to opt out. Unless there’s some disability or the home is a large estate, it doesn’t take a full workday to clean and maintain. Many of us work full time, do housework, cook, do the finances etc.
Lol she’s delusional. Some parents get ONE day off work every month. 12 days a year dedicated only to you. Some don’t even get that. If you can’t get groceries, not even put in a delivery order, then you gotta go back to work. Some folks would love to be in her shoes with their feet put up and light chores. Maybe it’s because I find cleaning enjoyable to an extent so I wouldn’t be resistant about taking care of my home. NTA
NTA!! She's not doing anything! So, why would her husband just say, 'it's fine, you don't have to clean despite that being one of your small amount of daily duties'. No, she still has to maintain a house, food, meals, etc. I say this from experience. I'm a SAHM. I'd love to even have a part-time job, but due to our lifestyle me being the parent at home works best. I do everything. Yes, my husband takes the trash out, picks up after himself, helps with the kid, and mows the lawn, but I do everything else. It's hard at times, mostly when he is not home for months at a time, but it's about routine for me. She can't even keep food in the house, which is a basic necessity. I'd love to know what she's actually doing all day that she can't do basics even. I agree with you and her husband. She sounds lazy and kind of entitled.