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: 04-22-2005
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 5:00pm
My mistake, then. While both parents are at home, they should share household duties. While one is at home and one is at work, the one at home should be working on household affairs and the one at work should be working on their paid job.














iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 5:32pm

"Face value?"

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 5:36pm
yep~

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 6:29pm

I have already been over all of this,


~Yes, and my point was that perhaps the mother IS doing this. Perhaps she is following the baby's sleep schedule, which means that she's asleep when the older children go to school. Again, I'm not saying it's what I would do, but it doesn't necessarily make her lazy/neglectful either.`


The

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 6:37pm

Actually, they really wasn't your point for most of the discussion. PKA and others disagreed with the statement that a sahm with an infant who slept in, while an 11yo and 7yo got breakfast, packed their own lunch and went off to school, was indisputably neglectful.

Are there sah parents with infants who may let their capable older children get themselves out of the house in to morning? Yes. Is it inherently neglectful? Not at all.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 6:42pm

We have been over this time and time agian,

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 6:47pm

Ditto!

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 7:46pm

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 8:38pm

< infant? 11 months is a infant?>

Why yes, an 11mo is an infant. Do you have different definitions of an infant than from birth to a year old?

<7 year olds are not older children. 11 year olds are not responsible for their siblings daily morning routine.>

Many 7 and 11 yos can dress themselves, get their breakfast, and assemble their lunch without supervision. So you want to treat 7yos like infants, unlike actual 11mo infants? The only possible supervision required by the 11yo is an escort to the bus stop.



Ok...There wasn't really a debate to begin with. Just judgments, assumptions, and a closed mind that there is a absolute way to parent, and that all kids are the same, e.g. 11mo are not infants, 7yos are helpless, and 11yos can't walk their younger sib to the bus stop.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-04-2010 - 9:14pm

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