Does this require a stay-at-home partner? I don't know how I would ever be able to handle my daily life, stuff like cooking, laundry, sleeping, errands, going to the hairdresser, working out, hanging out with my partner... and I didn't even mention the kids!
Congrats! I have to say, though, that with a stay-at-home-spouse you're facing a different set of challenges than the article. Many things will be easier, some will be more difficult.
A lot of people have a stay-at-home partner who takes care of the kids. This makes a huge difference. My partner is currently studying at university, and whenever she has holidays, I can work a lot more.
But in general having kids takes a lot of time. So I can't do all the things that I used to do before. I go out a lot less, I watch barely any TV anymore, and I rarely code anymore at night (too tired most days), and I read fewer books.
However, I'm still productive. Little projects that I used work on for a few weekends take months now. I just spend a few hours here and there. But once the project is done, it's done, and it doesn't matter how long it took.
Speaking only for my personal situation, my partner is a stay at home parent. They have no career, do not want a career, and only want to be a full time parent (which I fully support). I use my resources to enable that, and make their life as easy as possible (hired help around the house, childcare, etc).
All of those things were part of what I did, as well as cleaning the house in evenings, planning activities/trips, hospital visits, managing travel, bottle prep/cooking, playdates. I would stay for multiple days (typically 4-7 at a time) in a row every time we were together. Often create an environment for my partner to take a day or two off. They are an individual much earlier than you would expect. I concede I would get a ~2 weeks off in between to catch up on work and grad school, in a different city. They were always on, which is way more work.
Hardest part was that I had to relearn everything often, cuz if it's not everyday it doesn't stick with you the same way, and you have to catch up to the kids new preferences.
It's a lot easier when you have a spouse/partner willing to be the homemaker while you support the family financially. I would have a hard time working from home if I had to take care of my four year old myself, but since my wife is a stay-at-home mom she's able to take care of the kiddo and making sure the house doesn't fall apart (I won't blame any woman for not wanting to fit the gender stereotype, but I feel kids these days are missing out a lot on not having a parent - dad OR mom - that doesn't have to work and can spend time with them beyond what their work schedule allows).
If you aren't in a situation where you have someone home with you or they can't comprehend that WFH doesn't mean you have to work your 40 a week then sometimes you have no choice but to just put the kids in daycare - which stinks because it robs you of a valuable perk of not having to commute when you have a family.
Have you ever had a job where you're on call 24x7x365, and nobody else can do it if you're not available? That's parenting.
Every relationship is different, but your spouse is also a person, with person needs. The stay at home parent still wants time to shower in peace, or a day where they don't feel like they play chauffeur, maid, nurse, and chef. It's a lot of work. Sometimes you need help. It is easy for it to feel one sided, and for a partner to feel like it's not much of a partnership.
If you make it through a day where they're just hungry, grumpy, and screaming as they sometimes do, and you haven't had 5 minutes to yourself that day, would you be happy your spouse was "just running a little late at the office" and arrived home 2 hours later than normal? Or maybe just after bedtime, so you did it all that day?
Numbers wise, if you have fifteen children, and five are toddlers, it's likely some are old enough to babysit. One thing I've realized about a lot of those old school big families is that the older kids spent a fair amount of time doing things parents do - walking the younger ones to school, keeping an eye on them at the park, cleaning the house, helping with cooking, etc.
I would think tying your spouse to the couch would be more likely to result in divorce/open hostility. If your spouse wanted to be at home with the kids, you wouldn't need to tie them to the couch.
Being a stay at home mom is one of the most miserable jobs if you're not cut out for it. People understand a bad day at the office, but they seem to think staying at home with a kid means it's like a vacation day all the time. You can't vent to anyone without them reminding you that you should be grateful to your husband.
My husband doesn't see a problem with it, so couples counseling is off the table. Honestly, he doesn't have to worry about another guy - I don't want someone who is going to make more demands on time I just don't have. But If I were him, I'd start worrying that being alone seems like it would be less stressful than staying with him.
I think it's really up to you. If you do not feel comfortable being a sole provider for a stay-at-home-mom and a kid, do not do it. There is no point in doing something you feel forced into, nor will it bring peace into marriage. Resolve your marriage problems before jumping into irreversible decisions.
As a stay-at-home dad with twins, I spend about 2 hours a week shopping and probably an hour a day on average on housework. We cook lots once a week and microwave it; I run the dishwasher every day and do laundry perhaps 3 times a week.
Of course I spend a lot of time with the kids, playing, dressing them up, changing diapers etc. All day basically. But that's more like hanging out than housework.
Holy shit. I'm involuntarily WFH at the moment with two kids in kindergarten age and one in school age I'm "home schooling". It "works", but productivity gets a major hit and my sanity is on the line. Did you have a stay at home partner at the time or are you just a super human? :-D
There’s plenty of time — you just have to focus on the things that really matter. I have a 30 minute commute, so I’m away from home for 9+ hours every day. My wife is a stay-at-home mom and we have two children who aren’t old enough yet for school (not that mamma is ready for them to go). I do most of the cooking (we rarely eat out), she does most of the child rearing. We pretty much split the cleaning. I fix the house as it breaks, and do some home
improvement when I can fit it in (just finished a set of bunk beds for the kids). We do something fun at least one day most weekends (beach visit, fishing, zoo, etc). I have a couple of beers most nights and just enjoy my family as I cook or get the kids ready for bed in the evenings. Before I go to work in the mornings I get in a short exercise routine (stretching and some push/sit/pull-ups for maintenance). Still manage to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I perform regular maintenance on our vehicles.
I don’t watch any TV or mindlessly browse the Internet during the week (OK, I’ll check up on some webcomics once or twice). Honestly I don’t do much of that on the weekends, either. I don’t read fiction much. I don’t check my IRA or 401(k) regularly. I don’t worry about my health — we eat fantastically healthy in my house and I’m not sedentary.
I work to live; I don’t live to work. My family is the most important thing in my life and I enjoy every minute I’m with them.
It would be nice, though, if we were on the galactic standard 25 hour day. I could use that extra hour every now and then.
My wife is a homemaker (and soon to be mother) -- and trust me, she's got a much bigger personal life than I do. I'm not nearly as good at socializing as she is, and it shows. A job is definitely not required for a personal life.
It's kind of amazing what it does for your marriage. I've seen both sides of it, myself. In both cases, my wife was also stay-at-home.
My first marriage was actually damaged by working at home. My wife was an introvert and I think having me around all the time hurt things (we were not particularly compatible to begin with which was exacerbated when I went from working 50-60 hours a week away to working most days at home).
My current marriage is greatly helped by it. There's nobody I'd rather share my time with than my wife and she feels the same. A lot of people will say what I said in the last paragraph applies to them -- they'd hate their spouse if they had to spend every waking minute with them and couldn't get away from time to time, but her and I thrive in the situation. I think it helps that her dad and mom were both small business owners who ran things out of their home and worked together on everything. It helps me because my wife is non-technical and by being around while I'm working/talking on conference calls, she understands more about what I do and the things I struggle with at work so she can offer more support/understanding to me than if I had to explain it all to her (it also avoids me having to spend hours explaining things). My four children love that I'm at home at all times. Even though they're respectful of the fact that I have to work and try not to bother me while I'm busy, they know I'm there if something important comes up. This is especially important since two of my children are step-'s and we're blending a family. The complexity of emotions that kids go through is helped by the stability of the fact that I'm seen as "always present" in the moment and at the time.
I have to disagree with this one. My wife has been a domestic engineer almost since we were married. I wouldn't do her job (actually, I would if she died and I had to).
She does everything around the house. She makes all of the baby food, cooks all of the breakfasts, lunches and dinners and educates our children who -- at their young age -- have three settings: histeric laughter/screaming and yelling.
She doesn't have to commute, but in order to keep the children sleeping through the night, she has a more rigid schedule than I do.
When the kids are older, I'm sure it gets easier, but it's no picnic when you have two under age three.
On the flip side, if you find yourself with a partner at home who isn't employed, you may work longer or harder because you feel less pressure to cook and clean.
My wife understands my introversion and that I need time to myself. We have a sort of agreement, she could be a stay at home mom but she also is going to take the majority of the child-rearing, I make and manage the money in our home.
One of the reasons I love working from home is that I actually spend more time with my kids. It's not a chore and I don't have to set aside specific time to do so, it just happens organically.
What has helped tremendously is outsourcing a number of chores. I've hired people to clean my house, maintain the yard, etc and it's really freed up more time. Now I have plenty of bandwidth to devote to family, along with all my other hobbies and intellectual pursuits.
reply