Frustrated Dad
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Frustrated Dad
| 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.
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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Ducky
It seems to me that you are pretty invested in having this problem, rather than finding a solution to it. I live with the issue too, made worse by the fact that my kid has a dog who sleeps in the room. It can get pretty disgusting in there if I am not on him constantly. I am not worried about "order" but I am worried about the issues of bad odors that would seep into the rest of the house and hygiene issues. It's a constant struggle, but it would be much worse if I just said, "Well, that's the way he is, there is nothing I can do about it, he just lives like a pig and likes it."
Shrug. I'm not supervising my kids when I'm asleep. I'm surprised to hear that you think you're supervising your kids when you're asleep, since you told me in our last go-round on MS supervision that you don't supervise your kids anymore except for limited circumstances, such as when they're on the computer. Now you're supervising them every night when they're asleep, and so are all the parents you know?
When you're occupied with something else in the house, you can still check on your kids. (And at least in my house, that often isn't necessary because the kids are in and out of wherever you are). Not so when you're asleep. The other big difference is that when the kids are heading off to school and you're asleep, they're actually leaving the house. You don't know whether they got where they were going or even when they left the house.
And I *did* answer your question, two posts ago: "There were some parents who said they left kids as young as 10 or 11 unsupervised at times, but no one who said anything about leaving kids of that age alone on a regular basis such as every day before or after school. There is a difference between leaving your child unsupervised at home for short periods of time and leaving the child home every morning unsupervised and expecting him to get himself to school on his own without any parent contact at all."
Do you need me to explain that yet again? OK.
1. Leaving your kid unsupervised for short periods of time is different from leaving your kid home alone on a regular basis.
2. Leaving your kid unsupervised for short periods of time when he will not be leaving the house is also different from leaving your kid home alone and expecting him to get somewhere outside the house safely and on time without any parental contact whatsoever.
2. Leaving an 11-yr-old home alone for short periods of time is different from expecting that 11-year-old to be responsible for getting a 7-yr-old sibling to school safely and on time every day. Even leaving an 11-yr-old home alone for short periods of time and expecting him to supervise a 7-yr-old is different from expecting him to get that kid to school every day safely and on time.
But, what leads you to believe
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Ducky
It seems to me that you are pretty invested in having this problem, rather than finding a solution to it.
That's the impression that I've gotten, too.
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Ducky
What difference does that make?
Again, it's an honest question.
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Ducky
Well, for one thing, sometimes kids don't call out because they don't want their parents to know what they're doing. Other times, it's because, as you said in another post, we tend to let sleeping people sleep.
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