Men: if you could be a "house husband", would you?
I'm not really looking for advice; I'm just curious as to what other men would do in this situation. My wife just got a promotion, and her salary doubled from $40,000 to $80,000. She now makes twice as much as I do, and has suggested that if I wanted to, I could quit my job, stay home, take care of the housework, and have time to work out and write. However, if I keep my job, we would gross $120,000 together, and be able to put away a shitload of money.
I'm tempted to keep my job. Earning my own salary allows me to retain a measure of independence. Since I'm paying half of the bills, I don't have to ask permission if I want to indulge myself. At the same time, I never particularly liked working for other people, and I am a lot better at the domestic shit than my wife is, since I had to help my crippled mother with the housework as a younger man. And I would have plenty of time to work out and write.
What would you do in my position?
EDIT: I won't be quitting my job, but I think it's interesting to argue the merits or lack thereof of men staying home and taking care of the domestic shit while women work. Given that the current recession has put more men out of work than women, it's a situation that a lot of people have to face by necessity. I'm lucky enough to have a choice.
Posted Mar 9, 2010, 3:55 PM UTC · edited
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That's what concerns me as well. I think that if I were to take on the domestic role, I would be supporting her by ensuring that she has a clean home and warm meals waiting for her, but she might not see it that way. It worked out reasonably well when I took care of the housework while unemployed and looking for a new job, but that was a case of "Since I'm here, and it needs to be done, I might as well do it." She's done the same when between jobs.
WHY ARE YOU ON REDDIT ALL DAY GO CLEAN RAH RAH RAH
Your wife is Lady GaGa?
Rah rah oo la laaaaa
All I can think of during that part of the song is "cock gobbler"
I fucking wish. Secondly because of chaloux's comment.
Great, now all I can think about is "Ulla!".
Today's a slow day; I'm baby-sitting a bunch of data conversion processes that only require my active attention when something goes wrong.
second question: what are you doing outside of the kitchen, not getting me a beer?
Keep your job.
why are you playing xbox all day blahblabhalh
make me a samich, dude
80% of couples where the woman leads in salary end up in divorce, usually the cause is cheating..
Better check the phone to see if she has someone named Theo on it
Citation needed.
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Don't underestimate how completely boring it is to stay home all day. I'm starting a new job in a foreign country next month. In the meantime, I'm staying at my mom's place. Being home all day is dull as hell. Yes, I have some projects I am working on and am trying to be active, but you can only sit at the dining room table working on your laptop for so long. I can't wait to start my new job.
I never get tired of sitting on my ass. Fuck I wish I had a woman that made 80k and would take care of me while I cleaned the house and cooked meals. Sounds fantastic.
Sitting on your ass is fun for the first week. After that, it gets old. Fast. I like to actually accomplish things.
I never get tired of dicking around on the internet and watching TV, either. The complete inability to be bored is under-appreciated. I'm a feminist, but I'm also lazy as fuck, and I wouldn't say no if some dude wanted to work all day so I could sit at home cooking and folding laundry in front of the View.
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It depends on you and your personality. Personally, I've got pretty much an infinite to-do list of writing, music, recording, podcasts, essays, programming projects... oh, and I love to cook serious meals, like a 7-course Indian feast.
and programming jobs at an office tend not to be that much different than working at home. Many days I wind up with no actual face-to-face interaction with co-workers at all.
What I do need to do is figure out how to set up more occasions and excuses for actually getting out, getting exercise, and interacting with people... getting none of that whatsoever is bad for you...
it is strange, because my wife is a total women's libber. i find it hypocritical. men don't resent women doing all the household shit. but she resented it when i was in that role. so i work. and in fact, her goal is that someday she will be a stay at home mom. talk about hypocrisy. alas.
The whole point of women's liberation was to liberate them from socially-defined gender roles. However, while there is a small men's liberation movement, it's more concerned with fathers' rights and false rape accusations than it is with ensuring that men aren't bound by socially-defined gender roles.
Tell me about it. That "mens rights" subreddit basically tries to blame women for every ill known to mankind - they're just the male version of rabid feminists.
Personally, I think this is more of a psychological thing than it is a social or civil rights issue. I'm thinking women would like to have as much rights as a man when it comes to the government; but when it's gets personal, like a significant other, they really want a man that can take care of her and her children. We're animals. Survival of the fittest.
Well, to be fair, there is a LOT more work involved when there are kids at home. If you are just upkeeping a house, that's relatively easy. If you are doing that AND taking care of children, it becomes infinitely harder and more labor-intensive.
nevertheless, there is a huge double-standard in our society. there is little to no resentment from a man when the woman stays home (without kids) to take care of the household, finances, and pets. but there is great resentment from women if the man doesn't have a job and instead does the household, finances, and pets.
I was a stay at home dad for a while both when a dad and not a dad... I did not think having to take care of the kid made it infinitely harder. Read to him, bathed him, played with him, etc. It wasn't too bad, just had a routine his looked something like this:
Play, eat, sleep, play, eat, sleep, play, pick up all toys, eat, bathe, sleep
Pretty easy to play with a little one, read to them, give 'em toys to chew on, make big structures out of wooden blocks they can knock over, chase 'em, tickle 'em, you get the idea. And if you get tired, you can always cuddle with 'em and nap too.
During his naps I'd either nap with him, clean, or play video games/reddit.
I thought it was super easy to stay caught up with all the house work and baby playing.
Sometimes it is distracting to do other work, because even if you are in the mood to do something, the baby is just so much more entertaining to watch and talk to.
Though it went on for a couple of months, these were exceptional circumstances mind, neither one of us are stay at homers. We are poor. My lady wasn't really resentful of me staying home, mainly because I'm a super awesome cook and generally cook anyway. It was stressful for her because I make more money though and she was stressed looking at the full financial burden of the family.
Eventually she wants to just be a stay at home mom. Which is fine by me, eventually I'd like to just be a stay at home dad, I don't know if we'll ever be in a position where that is more than a temporary possibility.
Staying at home, compared to my normal work, it is a lot easier and less stressful. Not to mention fun. So much fun.
their minds say "gender roles can be switched" but their hearts say "WHY ISNT THE MAN PROVIDING!?"
this is also why you should never listen to relationship advice from a woman. they lie to themselves and they lie to you, without meaning it.
dude there are several women on this thread talking about how happy they are with the stay at home arrangement.
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don't let her? well, in this economy it is unlikely that we will be able to afford living as a single-income couple with a kid. ideally, it would be nice to have a stay-at-home parent.
i would resent my wife if she decided to be a housewife. if she was a mom, then for sure, then i would be cool with it. but no work w/ no kids? yea, that would be grounds for a stern talking to...while she makes me a sammich.
You've got it better than me, my wife is a stay at home mom, but would rather be working full time, but also completely rejects the idea of me staying home instead. We both have the same earning power.
I keep telling you -- she's a bitch.
it was strange ... i was in woman's studies course (college senior level course) and I was one of two men in that classroom ...
... and pretty much everyone there wanted a career AND wanted to have kids and be a stay at home at some point.
they want it all.
Sounds like a typical feminist to me.
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Look at the tax situation before thinking it's a lot of money. Tax rates on 120K are a lot higher than tax rates on 80K. I'm not saying it wouldn't be more income, but just that it wouldn't be as big an increment post-tax as it might appear.
If they had kids, I'd say that it might even be a wash, if they had to factor in day care, sitters, or child care expenses. A lot of couples are basically throwing away the wife's income that way.
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man, really, in the long run, money will be an issue.
I'd suggest to keep your actual work, or at least get a part time job so you at least have some money to take her out to dinner, and be you the one who pays.
The fact that she says you can do it, doesn't mean that you should.
Unless that what she really means is that you should quit, and get full-time on some personal project that you might have unattended due to lack of time. That gets reasonable, since you would be doing something that could make you win even more money, doing your stuff. If you go on because of this, be sure to clean every day, to have a meal almost ready when she comes, and to work on that project at least your actual working time minus 1 hour.
But to stay at home, just to clean and workout, it's a no-no.
PS: sorry for my bad english.
I think it really depends on who your wife is and whether you are actually good at the job. One of my friends is clearly better at taking care of the kids and the home, and she clearly knows it. She'd like him to get a job because it'd give them more money and she thinks he'd be happier, but she is actually quite proud of the job he is doing.
Being a woman whose husband is currently out of work, I can confirm that sinnerman is correct...
As I said to sinnerman, as long as you're both pulling your weight, and she's not cleaning up when she gets home, I don't think you'll have problems. Level-headed people are going to keep themselves in check with stuff like this. If she likes her jobs, and suggested that you stay home while she works, I'd trust her word for it.
The problem is that most men can understand that the woman is busy all day keeping the house up and what not. Women don't have this same logic. She will eventually see you as just sitting on your ass all day.
So I think you must work hard to get published and I would leave every day to write somewhere else.
To be fair, no house within reason has 40 hours worth of housework to be done each week (or 45-50 if we're factoring in commutes).
Definitely true with Ortus's addition.
I would remember being home sick from school when I was young, and I was shocked at how little my mom did all day. ...And yet still managed to be stressed out. That's skill.
FTFY
For me it's not the house, per se, but our property. We are on a ranch and just yesterday the wind took our hay tarp off, so I had to trudge around and retrieve it, then put it back over the hay before the rain came.
Then, since the hay was uncovered, our horses broke three strands of barbed wire fence and bent over two steel fence posts, as well as breaking the electric fence wire at the top and breaking off a cedar post so they could get to the hay.
So after the tarp was covering the hay, I had to round up the horses and set up a temporary electric fence to contain them while I dug up and re-cemented the cedar post, removed and replaced the steel posts, and restrung the barbed wire and patched the electric.
This isn't typical, but this ranch and the house can keep me occupied for near 40 hours a week while I'm not working.
You obviously do not have young children. When they are young (I have a 5yo, 4yo, and 2yo) they require constant care and can wreck a room in under 5 minutes. So, to be fair, you aren't being fair.
EDIT: the point here is that children can cause much more than 40 hours of housework a week in ADDITION to the care time they require directly.
No not at all. I keep my house up and work 40 hours a week. It only takes about an hour a week...
I'll agree that there's usually not much housework to do (especially when the kids are in school!), but I do vividly remember my mother volunteering for Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, PTA and the Bridge Players' Club. As a stay at home parent, you're really only ever as busy as you commit yourself to being. Mom was pretty busy with things tangentially related to children.
Taking care of children factors in as well.
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You cook for her? Oh lord. Well, if it doesn't bother you, go for it. No way I think I could or would do that. What's the point of being married? Do you have to ask her for sex, too? For christ's sake. Does she limit you to three sex sessions per week? Jesus christ. Do you realize that a hooker would be cheaper and less stressful?
No, she doesn't, you sexist twit. And yes, I cook. I don't do it just for her. I do it for myself, because I'm a better cook than she is.
Sure, if all I wanted was sex with a stranger.
50 years of women's lib movement try to convince men that women do more work at home then men do at work. The funny part being, women in the male's position think the same thing about men who are in their position
Why do both parties have to do the same amount of work?
I don't know that there is a compelling case that everyone ought to do the same amount of work around the house, but one could see that a fair partnership would imply either that both parties put in equal effort to the "venture", or that there are to be a proportionate distribution of the rewards.
human nature. somewhere along the line someone thought everything should be "fair".
I'm more old-fashioned in the sense that, if I were married, would want her to stay at home. Though I understand that the house doesn't really require a full 40 hours a week without kids.
I personally want to be a provider. If she feels strongly about working though that's OK with me.
its all about being complimentary
my cousin who has 3 kids explained the concept to me... if you do the same exact thing as your wife 50/50 then in her eyes she'll think she's doing more and in your eyes you'll think you're doing more. It just comes down to bias.
So what you do is task yourself with different shit than your wife ... tasks that compliment each other.
shh! we all have to work very hard at being equal until we can't tell each other apart, naked. if you can spot the difference between yourself and your mate, you're probably a sexist neanderthal.
Any feminist worth his or her salt knows that's not the goal of feminism. You just sound like you have a bone to pick.
Well, you are commenting on reddit during what I imagine are work hours. Just cause you're "at work" for 8 hours doesn't mean you're doing 8 hours of work, so don't expect her to do 8 hours of work at home to keep in stride with you.
I would honestly prefer it while my kids are young. I come from a house where both parents worked, a lot. From age 8 on I pretty much managed my own life and saw my parents in passing. Now I am in the corporate world and its a fucking joke. I would much rather invest my time in my childern (if I had any) then in some sham of a company who is going to bend me over and f me in the A anyways.
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That way it looks like him bending over, see those little legs?
Mod up for the glorious radical revelation that, you know, the world of work is often not all that meaningful or rewarding...
lol, even if this is not true it is what I would expect. When she is at home she is working harder than me .. when I am at home and she is out working. she is working harder than me.. fuck I am jokexplainer now ...
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just "cleaning" all day? when i was not employed, and acting as the house husband, i wasn't "cleaning", i was CLEANING. i did her laundry, her ironing, cleaned the bathtub so she could take baths, did all the shopping, all the chores, all the trash, dishes, and finances. why is it that men don't resent wives for doing all that, but women resent husbands for doing all that?
I know men who resent their wives for that
I do 80-90% of the CLEANING, I'm the only one that walks the dog, only one with a license, and I have a kid, and I work (evenings and nights).
(Secret message: my house is a mess 50% of the time :D I'm currently putting off doing the dishes by browsing reddit.)
oh, i get it, you do the CLEANING
um idiot. i DID the cleaning. yes. get your tense right. i was not employed. what should i have done, sit on my ass?
What you said is really about an hour a day.
The best though is people who go to work and dick off all day, then come home to complain to their S.O. about how busy they were. All the while resenting them for being home all day.
You have obviously no idea.
EDIT: I am incorrect.
You know what happened? You were enjoying it too much. The only thing worse then a woman getting what she wants, is seeing her husband happy.
Since we are brainwashed our entire lives to think that any man who is not out at the coalface all day must be lazing, it's not going to be easy to get past that.
But anyway, the old way isn't exactly problem free. Plenty of husbands bitch that their wives are lazing at home.
That's because staying home with the kids is actually way easier than going to work every day.
I have 5 kids. You want to say that again?
That's your crazy choice though.
Choice? CHOICE?!
I'm Catholic! I don't have a choice! God makes the choice. HE gave me 5 kids to raise, and I'm sure in HIS great plan my burden has a purpose...
Fuck you, my mom wasn't crazy
Someone's choice to have kids isn't related to the original statement of "staying home with kids is actually way easier than going to work every day."
PS, I didn't find it way easier. I've been the stay at home parent of one incredibly easy-going kid and I've been the working parent. Working is hundreds of times easier for me than being a stay at home parent. I'm not in an office job, either. My work is pretty physical and rarely affords me time to sit down outside of my dinner break.
5 bottles of extra strength benadryl and 5 kids are a breeze.
I just duct tape them to the wall.
there ya go!
4 kids here... my stay-at-home wife works her ass off...
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yeah, but you live on MARS
Staying home with the kids is actually way easier than going to work every day.
There, I said it (I've done it).
I've done both as well and had the complete opposite experience. Stayed at home for 2 years and have been working for close-to 2 years. Working is easy cakes.
What do your 5 kids do when you're on Reddit?
What does your work do when you're on Reddit?
4 in school, 1 underfoot. Check out my activity. You'll see it's not that frequent.
I hate it when people ask questions like this. It's as though kids don't sleep or ever entertain themselves.
'Easier' isn't a very good comparison. I've tried to be a stay at home mom and I find it infinitely more difficult and less rewarding than holding a job. Different people feel differently about different kinds of work, there is no point comparing them directly.
After a 9 hour day of babysitting my 3 year old nephew I was way more tired than a 9 hour day of my job. I basically played with him, tried to keep him from breaking himself or the house, and cleaned up after him constantly. Is that hard? No. It's tedious. My mom stayed home with my sister and I until we were in school. When I asked her about it, she said she did it because she loved us and thought it was best for us but she was so glad to go back to work and talk to adults all day.
I'm home right now because I go laid off. We don't have kids so I have less to do. Sure, I'm spending time looking for jobs and such. Plus I'm spending more time on cooking to save us money. (If I'm home all day, I can bake bread and make long cooking dishes that maximize cheaper ingredients.) I'm a bit envious of my husband when he gets home. I miss people and projects. I worry if I stay like this much longer I'll run out of interesting conversation. There's only so much I can talk about what I heard on NPR that day. I want to be able to talk about what I did today without boring him or myself.
I hear you. I've babysat my brother's two kids (3 and 1 y.o). I was dead on my feet at the end of each day.
Pssst, go here: TodayILearned. Lots of interesting things for conversation.
Do you have kids? You don't, do you? Not only is it just as hard and occasionally harder (just as going to work is occasionally harder, I know because I've done both), but for some people it's mentally and emotionally frustrating and can be a huge sacrifice. At work you have concrete goals, and you make a direct impact on the world. You talk to other people during the day. You bring home concrete rewards that your family and the rest of the world respect. At home, you're stuck cleaning the same messes, running the same errands, never changing, isolated from the rest of the world, trapped in a repetitive physical world that philosophers for hundreds of years have discussed as something less than fulfilling. Not only that, but you never get a break! Weekend comes, and it's actually more work for you.
"you're stuck cleaning the same messes, running the same errands, never changing, isolated from the rest of the world, trapped in a repetitive physical world that philosophers for hundreds of years have discussed as something less than fulfilling. Not only that, but you never get a break! Weekend comes, and it's actually more work for you."
Sounds like working a backoffice position at a financial company to me.
That's part of my point. Both staying at home and working a paying job have their challenges, and I would never say that one is "easier" than the other. Different people have different needs, too, and I don't think those needs are clearly divided along gender lines.
Or retail.
Or my job right now.
Sounds like every fucking job I've ever had. Except that I didn't get to stay at home, watching my kids grow up and be awesome.
statements like this make me so happy i'm childless
Well, I should mention that I also love my kid(s?) and overall love raising them, or I wouldn't put up with all the other crap. I'd be a full-time author or something. For me, it's worth it. For now. One or two more and I'm done.
Kids are hard, but the upshot is that you really can't get fired and you get to make every decision about how you want everything to go.
Bull. Shit.
Do you have any experience with kids?
Correct. If a woman complains, they aren't doing it right. In fact, if you manage it properly and bring the kids up right, the more kids you have actually makes it easier.
Any man who falls for this 'Oh my! What a day I've had!' crap from his woman deserves to have his head read.
Many years ago my husband became unemployed and I upped my hours to 60 to 70 hours per week to make up the difference. After staying home, running the kids around, and cooking meals his revelation was. "How did you do all this and work, I'm exhausted".
Having done both I would rather work construction than stay home taking care of little kids, cleaning messes, and cooking.
I can understand having that having to work and take care of all the household chores would be crazy, however I think they are trying to compare only working to not working at all and doing the housework. I personally don't think you can really compare the two, knowing myself, I work much better under stress and therefore I would probably work better at a job. It seems like it is much more of a personal preference.
I've worked in construction and I have to say you must be on the easy end of the job if you think running a house is harder. You just have to get the effort ratio correct which takes a week or so.
I'm assuming you have no kids?
That's not a question.
Pulls out squirt bottle
Go away pedant, go away
squirt squirt
Never.
no. and when we have kids, she's the one who wants to be the stay-at home parent, and she doesn't want me to be the stay-at home parent.
how about a AmA on this? sounds very interesting.
I would, but I would also go to college too.
Yeah wife at home = "you work 40 hours I work 24/7" me at home, prioritizing chores better = "you just sit around all day while I'm out working"
Maybe you should take cooking classes and clean the toilet more often
If you could switch gender roles without problems, I don't think that we'd have such a hard time understanding each other.
I like your song.
There's a lesson here. If you find yourself in the reverse situation, and you genuinely think it's the right setup for both of you, you've got to avoid resentment.
If she's not a bitch she won't think this way.
Did you try getting a part-time job, or something to show her that you do something productive?
Uh, that sucks dude. As long as each of you pulls your weight, the other shouldn't get upset, or resent the other one. It shouldn't matter who does what, as long as it gets done, and all the weight isn't on the other's shoulders.
Why would anyone get jealous of the one staying at home? If you go/went back to work, wouldn't that mean more house-work juggling to be done between both of you?
I've done it when we were abroad on an expat project she was given for a year. It was not good. I bored myself stupid. I worked from home, but without an excuse to go into town and meet people, and the interaction with people at work that I'd been used to, I nearly went nuts.
Not good if you're used to interacting with others. Also not good if you're accustomed to intellectual challenges and some sort of stimulating conversation on a regular basis.
I was actually going to post a reply stating, NO. I read an article on role gender reversal and more often then not, the stay at home husband is resented, which often leads to divorce. Do not be a stay at home husband, it does not work.
I'll save that to shut up any stay-at-home moms who bitch at me.
"my wife became resentful"*