SAHM/WOHD Issue
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| Thu, 07-13-2006 - 4:35pm |
My husband came home the other day with this story:
His coworker, J and J's wife, K just had a set of twins born via in-vitro after 17 years of marriage and infertility. Anyway, the end of the pregnancy was difficult and K was on bedrest and the babies were born (I think) 6 weeks early - one of them had to stay in the hospital for 2 weeks after birth. OK - that's the background.
K got a lot of attention during pregnancy - not being able to move around on her own. Now the babies are 4 months old, but although she is a SAHM, she expects (yes, expects) J to leave work every day at 4. That's the normal time, but at times they are required to work overtime if something has broken and needs to be fixed before the next shift comes in. According to my husband, J comes home every night and fixes dinner, washes bottles, takes care of the babies, and then gets up with them in the middle of the night. The only time K is bothered with them is during the day when she's home alone. (I know, this account is how J related it to my husband, so the story is probably more one-sided than the situation really is.) And K may have post-partum depression and that can explain needing J so much....
K's mom and sister both lives within a halfmile of her and can come to help with the babies, but she expects J to leave work everyday at 4 to do it. She also calls a lot during the day. Anyway, the other day something had broken and J needed to stay past 4, but he tried to leave - my husband's and J's boss told J that he needed to decide what is more important - him taking care of those babies or him working to provide for those babies? Sounds to me like J's job is starting to be in jeopardy and he makes pretty good money for the area of the country we live in. Replacing that income would be very hard.
Just wanted to see what y'all thought about this.

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***Yes, you did say that if you woke your DH to go and get the baby, he would roll over and laugh.***
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Again I will ask you...where did I say that my DH would laugh in my face if the baby started crying.
***If you weren't being snarky, you wouldn't have said anything about the state of the neighborhood. You would have just said that he "goes off to work."***
I explained it to you that I wasn't being snarky. Your argument here is very weak. Like I said...I wasn't the one being snarky here.
*** Yes, he was a cop then. He woke up with DS for the first couple of months. I didn't have to wake him. He heard the baby's cries and was up. After that, we took turns. My sleep was just as precious as his.***
Well I view that differently. I want my DH to be rested and alert when he is at work. I didn't need my DH to get up at night to change a diaper, or bring me a baby to nurse. I was quite capable of losing that extra 2 minutes or so without any problems.
Lets just say hypothetically if your DH had to get up once or twice a month one a work night it would be the worst thing in the world.
Read post 19 again. That's the one where the OP says "who even implied that she doesn't get up also?" So...she does get up with them. And he does too. Because there are TWO!!! babies.
Since the OP herself admits the wife gets up during the night (thus recanting that line from the first post), why do you stick to the claim that she doesn't?
LMAO...Let's examine this. You said that when the baby started crying that my DH would roll over and laugh at me. Post 304 states clearly....<<>>
Please tell me how these two statements are the same?
What kind of engineer?
PumpkinAngel
This post makes me think of an idea- OP? Are you reading?
How about hiring a mother's helper?
Mother's helpers are tweens or teens who come into the house to help. They don't allow the mom to leave or necessarily even sleep, but they can do helpful things that relieve work burden. In this case, a mother's helper could grab some extra bucks here and there (it is summer, tweens may have some free time) by doing chores such as light cleaning. Perhaps fetch some clean clothes for the babies or take out diaper trash. The more that gets done in the afternoon, the less there is in the evening. It might even calm the wife to the point of not needing to make constant phone calls.
Or she might be made more rather than less nervous by a 14yo cleaning the bathroom. I dunno. But it's a thought.
But why would he get up? I never had a time that I couldn't handle it. I was completely capable of handling the situations with the babies. Like I said he did get up in the mornings when he was off. It allowed me to catch up on sleep.
***You must be the perfect wife and your children must have been very quiet cryers because there were times I never woke him but the baby did.***
Oh no the baby did wake him occasionally. However hearing a baby cry and having to get out of bed and care for a baby are two different things. I always nursed the baby in the nursery in my glider. I would simply close the door and that was it.
*** Is Mom/Wife lazy?? not what you did just what you think yes or no!!!***
No. She isn't lazy. She needs help. However like I originally stated the woman I know requires her DH to do this EVERY SINGLE night with every single baby every single time. To me...that is lazy.
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