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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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:24pm

Well yes he was once two, and really TWO, if you know what I mean.

PumpkinAngel

Avatar for rollmops2009
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-24-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:24pm
I usually prepared dd before letting her do things herself (not for dressing, for example, but most things). There was also follow-up along the way, as needed and wanted. No, I do not believe in sink or swim in the sense you present it. However, it was usually a big deal to dd when she got to do something "all by herself," so at that point I did not usually interfere, even if she did mess it up. If she wore a dress backwards, or green polkadot pants, with an orange plaid shirt, that was her business. If she asked for help or feedback, she got it, but I did not volunteer unless absolutely necessary (for reasons of safety, decency or family honor). There were exceptions, obviously, but in general, I tried to prepare her and then let her at it.

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

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

Oscar Wilde

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2005
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:26pm

<>

ANY mistakes? Or most mistakes? I would think that there are at least SOME mistakes that I wouldn't be willing to blithely stand by and watch them make without any attempt to stop it (such as things that could result in severe injury or death).















iVillage Member
Registered: 01-15-2006
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:27pm

that was clear in your posts, and bord's...but not summer's.


of course not.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:29pm

My philosophy on this, and kind of on parenting in general, has long been that:


Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:32pm

Wrong. Here's your first statement:

"The op (and others) choose different times to not supervise their children every waking hour"

Then I asked you "what others?"

Your response:

"Yourself as one, you did state that you we weren't talking about constant supervision every waking hour, right?"

Not "constantly supervising your children every waking hour" doesn't mean you are not supervising them at all.

As for the rest, the op doesn't get up and wake her kids up, and for that matter, I don't recall rollmops saying she went back to sleep. But even if she did, she still supervised what time the kid got up.

Oh, and the fact that the thread you started below doesn't go back to what parents were doing when their kids were 7 and 11 doesn't help you. Even among those with kids older than elementary school, I didn't see anyone reporting that the kids got off to school completely on their own.




Edited 3/10/2010 3:37 pm ET by mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:33pm

...I'm sorry that you aren't happy with my answer.


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:34pm

<<I was addressing your broad statement that there are no mistakes you wouldn't let your kids make.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:35pm

IMO a child should make mistakes, sure but only if the parent is there to teach them the way in which to correct it.

********
Ducky

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 3:35pm

I totally agree.


PumpkinAngel

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