Frustrated Dad

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-09-2009
Frustrated Dad
2943
Wed, 09-09-2009 - 3:28am
I really need some opinions on my situation. I am a 30 year old dad with 3 children. I work 10-12 hrs a day 5 days a week and every other Saturday. I am pretty much a homebody, the only time I really go out is on Sundays during football season to watch the games. I do what i need to in order to support my wife and kids. But I am at wits end with my wife and need some help.
My wifes day is as follows. She wakes up any where from 10am - noon (which means 2 of our children (11 and 7) wake up feed themselves and walk to school) at which point she will got downstairs to the kitchen to light a cigarette and call her sister or best friend. During the 1/2hr to an hour that she is on the phone she will make (for herself)and drink about 3 cups of coffee. At around noon when the baby wakes up (11 months) she'll feed him change his diaper and set him on the floor and mostly ignore him as she calls her mother. Usually around 12:30 she'll head out to do errands leaving me with the baby until 1:30 when she'll get home so I can rush out to work where I'm 20 minutes away from and need to be in by 2.
Heres the thing i have no problem being the sole financial gainer in the house hold but I expect certain things. I guess thats the reason for this post to find out if my expectation are to lofty. I expect her to get up in the morning with the children make them breakfast help them pick out cloths make sure they have their homework and send them off to school( I would even help in the morning but i got sick of waking up in the morning while shes still sleeping when i was the one at work last night). I would like breakfast every once in a while made when i wake up i don't expect it but it would be nice. I would like the baby up before 11am I just don't think he should be sleeping that long. i expect laundry the be cleaned, folded and put away! The laundry in our house gets washed and dried them it usually ends up on the dining room table for half the day then it makes its way over to the living room where its folded and left on the couch for a day or two (is it to much to ask to have it put away). I expect the house clean! Cleaning the kitchen for her consist of of doing the dishes and mopping the floor! Cabinets, frig, counters, stove maybe once a month. Cleaning the dinning room consist of her wiping the table and vacuuming one area of the carpet. Bathroom, living room are cleaned in the same manner and the children's room and bedroom upstairs can go months without cleaning! I expect lunch made before i got to work! No breakfast and lunch not even a packed lunch/diner!I expect a home cooked diner for my children! Not pizza, macaroni or canned spaghetti!!! Is this to much to ask? i expect diner when I get home, real food not something she sends me on yoville or farmtown, which she's on until 2am!! DO I EXPECT TO MUCH? I thought these where to things a stay at home mom did? Are my expectations to old school? I need answers I feel like I'm being taken advantage of and I don't know how much longer I can last.

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Avatar for rollmops2009
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-24-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 8:51am
Another thing I have tried to do over the years, that might also be useful with an ADHD kid, is to make the kid ask for accommodation and consideration herself. First by helping her identify what might be a solution to whatever problem she was/is having, and then by having her go negotiate with the teacher herself. I think the first time I made her do this was in 4th grade. They had a gym teacher who was unfair (in the children's opinions). So, I suggested she make a petition, get everyone who agreed to sign it and then take it to the principal. It helped. But it obviously is more a strategy for slightly older kids.

~o~ ...^^^... ~o~

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

Oscar Wilde

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2000
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 8:55am
Trust me, that wouldn't have solved anything except make her too upset to practice. She cried the whole way to practice b/c she felt so bad about what happened.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2007
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 8:57am
Depending on what they need to advocate. It is good to include the child. We plan on including YDS in his IEP session when he is in Middle school. He needs to mature a bit more before that happens though. I just coached ODS through a consultation with his math teacher.
Avatar for rollmops2009
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-24-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 9:02am
Sure, of course it has to depend on the issue. It just seems like a helpful process, as well as useful practice for the future.

~o~ ...^^^... ~o~

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

Oscar Wilde

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2000
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 9:08am

Any other coach I would have said yes. But they were already required to run a ridiculous amount of laps so anything extra would have killed dd. She already felt horrible for what happened - she cried the whole way to practice b/c she felt so bad.

We actually switched coaches this year b/c of her coach's requirements and style.

I don't know if you remember seeing this on the other board, but her 10 y/o runs races locally (ikat has been in races with her) and she is a phenom in the area. She competes in 10 milers. Her mom, also a runner, doesn't realize that not every 9-10 y/o was capable of running 1-2 miles w/o building up to it. They were not allowed to talk or walk the entire way or they'd have to do extra laps. I could understand this commitment if this were a select team, but it was not. This was the first practice of the season and the coach, rightly so, is a stickler about being late=extra laps. The running has always been an issue with dd so I hated to see her getting started on the wrong foot. The extra lap would have sent her over the edge - she was upset enough as it was.



http://www.runningmaryland.com/component/jomtube/video/2949


Edited 3/10/2010 10:27 am ET by merella
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 9:19am

I hope you know I was only joking.


But, as an aside ... I ran a 5k race this weekend (dd did the 1m fun run), and there was an 8yo girl that ran the 5k in 36 minutes! AMAZING!

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 9:27am
I do that, even with my younger kids.

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Ducky

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-14-2003
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 9:41am

several of the kids at this year's

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-04-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 9:46am
Oh, alright :) I'm a pushover for self-flagellation ;)

************

Kitty

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Kitty

"If you can't annoy somebody with what you write, I think there's little point in writing."-- Kingsley Amis, British novelist, 1971 t .

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2000
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 10:11am

No, I would typically agree with making her run an extra lap. Normally that would have reinforced the fact that she needs to make sure she has what she needs for practice, but in this case, it would have just further discouraged her.

You want to see amazing, here is an interview with the coach's dd last year after she won the LADIES division of an 8K with a time of 35:18!!!! The guy interviewing her has no idea that when she finished this race, she had already completed a 10 Mile Cherry Pit race in the spring. He mentions the Annapolis 10-Miler but that was another race that she was going to compete in.

http://www.runningmaryland.com/component/jomtube/video/2949

In the 10-Miler she ran last spring, she came in 52nd overall with a time of 01:12:05.58. She was the 2nd female finisher in the race and beat her mom by four and a half minutes.

So you can see why her mom, the lax coach, might be a little biased when it comes to thinking girls should be able to run the distances she thinks are appropriate at practice!

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