Rant: Stay at home parents

[ghostrunner]

I would gladly switch places with my wife.

Talk is cheap. Do it for 3 months and get back to me. Three kids is a crazy insane amount of work and stress. Your wife works harder than you do.

[thrill]

I would gladly switch places with my wife.

Talk is cheap. Do it for 3 months and get back to me. Three kids is a crazy insane amount of work and stress. Your wife works harder than you do.

I babysat my two nieces for three days once. It was horrible. You can't just go anywhere. It's a whole process. Nobody is ever on the same page. You can't explain things logically to a child and expect them to just understand why you need them to do something. It's almost impossible to keep coming up with interesting and fun ways to entertain them. When you do finally have some time to yourself, the specter of them being able to ruin it at any second is constantly hanging over your head so you can't really enjoy it.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Exactly bob. That is what people don't understand who have never been there. You are never alone. But worse than that, you are dealing with something. Most of which is irrational and, by definition, immature. And kids take you being by yourself as "they are not busy" and they will keep you busy. Very little of your time is your own.

Then, when they are finally self sufficient, they turn on you. You are the enemy and/or the dumbest person in the world. Its like that for another 6 or 8 years.

Whoever stays at home, that person is working the hardest.

[Diddy]

My daughter is easy, but there's just one of her. I stay home and watch her some, the worst of it is no pay so it can feel kind of unappreciated. Now when there are multiple children probably be different, but she's easy. Days I watch her I'm generally able to do dishes, do laundry , and have dinner ready when my wife gets home .

[wart57]

I would gladly switch places with my wife.

Talk is cheap. Do it for 3 months and get back to me. Three kids is a crazy insane amount of work and stress. Your wife works harder than you do.

The [expletive] she does. She doesn't lift a [expletive] finger when I get home. I do all the cooking, cleaning and child care when I get home every day after working a 10 hr day. I get the kids baths, read them books and get them in bed every night, and then I clean the [expletive] house and I do 95% of the laundry every weekend. All my wife does when I am at work is take the oldest to school, and keep the other two from destroying the house, and then sits on the [expletive] computer all day - I know, her mother lives with us during the winter and she told on her. If you don't have personal knowledge of the inner working of my house, then shut the [expletive] up. If I was a stay at home dad, I would have more time to get the things done that I do every night. I also take my 3 girls out on my own just about every weekend that my wife works (and she rarely works on the weekend any more,) and I really don't have much problem. I would stay at home with them in a heart beat.

[cardinalkarp]

I would gladly switch places with my wife.

Talk is cheap. Do it for 3 months and get back to me. Three kids is a crazy insane amount of work and stress. Your wife works harder than you do.

The [expletive] she does. She doesn't lift a [expletive] finger when I get home. I do all the cooking, cleaning and child care when I get home every day after working a 10 hr day. I get the kids baths, read them books and get them in bed every night, and then I clean the [expletive] house and I do 95% of the laundry every weekend. All my wife does when I am at work is take the oldest to school, and keep the other two from destroying the house, and then sits on the [expletive] computer all day - I know, her mother lives with us during the winter and she told on her. If you don't have personal knowledge of the inner working of my house, then shut the [expletive] up. If I was a stay at home dad, I would have more time to get the things done that I do every night. I also take my 3 girls out on my own just about every weekend that my wife works (and she rarely works on the weekend any more,) and I really don't have much problem. I would stay at home with them in a heart beat.

That's because your [expletive] whipped & she treats you like a slave, not a husband.

[wart57]

I would gladly switch places with my wife.

Talk is cheap. Do it for 3 months and get back to me. Three kids is a crazy insane amount of work and stress. Your wife works harder than you do.

The [expletive] she does. She doesn't lift a [expletive] finger when I get home. I do all the cooking, cleaning and child care when I get home every day after working a 10 hr day. I get the kids baths, read them books and get them in bed every night, and then I clean the [expletive] house and I do 95% of the laundry every weekend. All my wife does when I am at work is take the oldest to school, and keep the other two from destroying the house, and then sits on the [expletive] computer all day - I know, her mother lives with us during the winter and she told on her. If you don't have personal knowledge of the inner working of my house, then shut the [expletive] up. If I was a stay at home dad, I would have more time to get the things done that I do every night. I also take my 3 girls out on my own just about every weekend that my wife works (and she rarely works on the weekend any more,) and I really don't have much problem. I would stay at home with them in a heart beat.

That's because your [expletive] whipped & she treats you like a slave, not a husband.

Yes she does. It is my sacrifce to make sure my kids are taken care of. My kids come first.

[sighyoung]

My daughter is easy

Train yourself never to use this phrase in a public forum again.

[ghostrunner]

I would gladly switch places with my wife.

Talk is cheap. Do it for 3 months and get back to me. Three kids is a crazy insane amount of work and stress. Your wife works harder than you do.

The [expletive] she does. She doesn't lift a [expletive] finger when I get home. I do all the cooking, cleaning and child care when I get home every day after working a 10 hr day. I get the kids baths, read them books and get them in bed every night, and then I clean the [expletive] house and I do 95% of the laundry every weekend. All my wife does when I am at work is take the oldest to school, and keep the other two from destroying the house, and then sits on the [expletive] computer all day - I know, her mother lives with us during the winter and she told on her. If you don't have personal knowledge of the inner working of my house, then shut the [expletive] up. If I was a stay at home dad, I would have more time to get the things done that I do every night. I also take my 3 girls out on my own just about every weekend that my wife works (and she rarely works on the weekend any more,) and I really don't have much problem. I would stay at home with them in a heart beat.

That's because your [expletive] whipped & she treats you like a slave, not a husband.

Yes she does. It is my sacrifce to make sure my kids are taken care of. My kids come first.

You're right that I don't know your life, but the picture you paint doesn't sound like its a good environment for kids to grow up in. Again, I don't know. But at the same time your girls sound like they're pretty good kids and well-behaved so she must be doing something right during the day. If she were truly on the computer all day, they'd be making your life hell on the weekend. Besides, old people always think everyone under 40 spends their whole day on the computer.

[pioneer98]

i love my kids more than anything, but there's no way in hell i (nor my wife) could stay at home all day. match my salary to do it, and i'd still say no....

i firmly believe myself and my wife are better parents BECAUSE we work...so we're always excited to come home and see them.

plus it's just better for the kids to be at a school/day care to learn IMPORTANT socialization skills. every time we're with a family where the kids stay at home (or with grandma) and they are with other kids, they just are so awkward around other kids. have no idea how to play with anyone...it's sad really.

There is something to be said about getting kids interacting with other kids, but from what I've seen, a ton of this depends on the kid's natural personality. Some kids it doesn't matter how much interaction they get, they could walk right into Kindergarten and do just fine. Other kids could get tons of opportunities for interaction, and still be awkward. I'm not saying the environment plays no role, but from what I've seen I think it plays less of a role than we'd like to think.

My wife used to do daycare out of our house. We saw all kinds of different kids come through. Most of these were kids of friends of ours, so they were kids coming from good situations in general. You could spot which ones were going to be trouble from a real young age, like from the time they could walk, and in some cases earlier than that. You could also spot which ones were going to be smart, nice and fun to play with at the same age, too.