What do housewives do?

Question

Or househusbands? When the kids have started school and those hours inbetween the school runs become free? I struggle to get everything done with a toddler and a part-time job but I think when he starts school I have no excuse not to get off my butt and do more hours at work. Opinions? I don't understand these people who stay at home or shop/fanny about all day then expect their partners to help with the housework when they get back from work. Just basing this on stuff I've seen on Wife Swap snd some of my associates.

Of course if you have enough kids it is a full time job...

A marriage/partnership should involve loads of teamwork and there is no "mans" or "womans" work in my opininion. I just happen to be the one with the lower paid job so it was economically viable for me to do fewer hours than my bloke...who still does housework when he has time.

And Jules you've got a full-time job AND kids of your own.

Answer 1

They clean the house, pay bills, go grocery shopping, pick up prescriptions, take care of the family pets, take the car for its regular maintenance,do laundry, and run other errands. Basically they do what every other working person does but the difference is that they have all day to do the tasks that we have only 4 hours to do. I would love to be a house wife!!

Answer 2

Maybe they do the mailman. Seriously though, it depends on how much effort you want to put into the tasks and also the size of the household. You probably underestimate the amount a (or two or three) kids make even when they get older. You can spend anything from 15 to 150 minutes on cooking, for example, and that's not counting the time to buy fresh ingredients. The larger the apartment and the more people there are, the longer cleaning takes, obviously. Adding in some garden work, that definitely sums up to a full time job. On the other hand, if, for example, you don't have a garden and the kids and the spouse don't come home for lunch, it might definitely also be possible to work part time in addition to the household, but let's not forget that housewives deserve free time, too (probably more than others).

Answer 3

If wives choose to stay at home and the family finances can support it, I always understood the deal to be that their contribution to the partnership is to maintain the home. So how women can expect a partner to come home after work and then do cleaning is a bit beyond me. On the other hand someone who just chucks their clothes on the floor etc is treating their wife as a slave and I would't put up with that either; the attitude is that they are far too important to do it, thats what the wifes for. It says a lot about their attitude towards the wife.
Looking after the kids, giving them a bath or reading them a story is family life and not housework, and I don't understand how fathers can cut themselves off from a relationship with or responsibility towards their kids either.

Answer 4

What you will find out is that as your child starts school what you used to do is replaced by a whole serious of other involvements. Many stay at home parents become actively involved in their child's school and in their child's extracurricular activities. They also find out that the time it takes to do a lot of the stuff they did when the kid was around still takes the same amount of time because now they are able to concentrate and do a better job and not have to do things half assed. Many of them also take this time to pursue interests of their own since once the kid and husband get home their job as house wife/husband doesn't end. Sure there are those that loaf around and don't do anything but I think you will find a lot of them keep busy doing very important things for their family and their community. Those things just change as their children get older.

Answer 5

So what the kids started school ?? There is housework to do 24/7. So what if you have a few hours while the kids are at school ? When they get home how many more hours of work is there until you can go to sleep ? Dinner still needs to be made, dishes need to be done, help the kids with homework. Its never ending.

Im not married and dont have any kids but I can understand the amount of work it takes.

Answer 6

I can tell you that I am a full time house wife and it is more work than any job/ career that I have ever had. It is exhausting and I cant close everything at the end of the day and nothing is ever finished and people in this house seem to think that just because I stay home to look after our baby they don't have to do anything which has created more work than when I was working and they helped out and I am not talking about my husband because he is the only one that does help me the 3 teens certainly don't contribute in any constructive way only destructive. I feel better now that I have gotten that out.

Answer 7

Many stay at home moms continue staying at home when the kids head off to school. Here are some of the things they do during the day:
Clean the house
Make meals
Volunteer at the school (teacher's assistants, lunch lady, recess monitor etc)
Care for elderly parents
Run Errands (banking, getting books for the kids at the library, shopping etc)
Gardening/Canning/Freezing meals -longterm food preparation
Church work
Sewing clothing for the family
Home improvements and maintenance - Decorating, painting, mowing etc...

There are a million other worthwhile things they can be doing with their time that is not sitting on their fanny or being out of the house working.
Some men appreciate the fact that their wives can be available at any time to pick up sick children at school, fix a nice meal for an impromptu business meeting at home or go to the airport to pick up visitors.
Spend some time with one of these "housewives" and you'll see it's more work than play. Then maybe you'll have some respect for them.

Answer 8

I can only answer from my own experience as a mom of five with kids ranging in age from 5 to 18. On a good day during the school year I wake up at 5am at which point I get my 10 yr old out of bed & pop her into the shower. At that point I either get back into my bed and pray about the day or I fall asleep for the next 20 minutes. When my litlle one is through showering, she gets dressed and we spend about 1/2hr of mommy and daughter time together making luches and breakfast etc. (She needs together time much more than the other kids who are way more independant - including my 5 yr old!) Then we wake everyone else up in stages according to which school they go to and everyone gets off to school - hopefully without too much hair pulling, whining about what's for breakfast or lunch, or throwing up or something. After the kids are off, it's the whirlwind cleaning of the digs. For me this includes at least 6 loads of laundry daily, the kitchen being put back together - it seems that no one else around here knows where the cereal box actually stays when it's not on the breakfast table. It's as if they think that magical cereal gnomes exist just to make sure that their favorite cereal appears every morning at their place setting and then whisk it away to Cereal Land when they catch the bus in the morning. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what they think... Any how, after all the cleaning is done (yeah right) I may actually get 2 minutes to spend studying my Bible or devouring the latest posts on craigslist or freecycle before the first set arrives home on the bus at 2:40. The rest of course, is controlled chaos until after the last one finally goes to sleep...
On a bad day, I may ignore all of my earthly responsibilities and hit the macy's one day sale - what am I talking about??? Every once in awhile a bad day can be pretty good! Good luck with your quest of being the perfect housewife. ~mattie~

Answer 9

I'll tell you what, I am a housewife with 3 kids ages 11,9 & 5. Plus I run a fulltime day care out of my home. Their ages are 9,6,4,&2 that are 15months. Besides taking care of all the kids, keeping the house clean, taking care of bills and groceries my day is pretty much busy. And I don't expect my husband to help with the house chores when he gets home from work. The only thing I ask him help for is with our kids so I can study for school. Yeah, I am also taking classes online after day care kids leave. I get so sick of hearing people say that women who stay home have it easy, I would love to see someone come do my job everyday. My job is just as much work as anyone else's.

Answer 10

well i cant speak for everyone else but as a married mum to 4 kids , 3 actually living at home with me, im allways on the go, when the kids are at school, im washing the breakfast stuff up, hoovering the house through, doing the toilet, sinks etc and then comes the washing, iroining, and by the time ive donw that i have to feed my 17 month old son his dinner at mid day and they so myself and husband a snack, then its time to dash of and pick the kids up and its starts all over again lol.

so its preety full on all the time, especially as we are moving house soon as well so you can imagine lol.

my husband is very good he cookes the main dinner of an evening i can cook lol, but he says i do enough during the day with the kids,and he likes to do it.

i must admit its a great help as i get to feed my son and then i have the time left to bath my 5 year old daugfhter and son, and then my 10 year old gerts to sort her self out, whilst im putting the other 2 to bed.

i dont work at the mo, but as soon as my son starts full time school ill be definately back to work, as thats what ive allways done and i managed to get everything done in doors as well as work , i have a routine everyday and it helps if you stick to that everytime, you know where you are and the kids get to know what they have to do to help you out too.

Answer 11

we decided to homeschool our children, so it remains for one of us to be home. of course, the kids need us a lot less than when they were toddlers, on a minute by minute basis, so i've been free to invest in real estate, write, be politically active, and maintain my family and friend relationships.

i am not the maid. i do run the household, but of course every member of the household helps maintain it. I am not their maid. I have a lot better things to do with my life than all the housework, and they certainly need a better image of what women are for! if I was not so well-informed about current events, and reading lots, i would not be as good a parent, because my children crave knowledge and intellectual stimulation. Another at-home mom with different kids might spend her time developing other interests/supporting them in other ways.

There's no excuse for taking advantage of your family members, but you most certainly do not need to leave your house to do your share.

(Something I've always wondered about is what do people do when they back to work when their youngest is 6, as school is out in summer.)

i have a childless aunt who decided not to continue working because she and her husband had an insane lifestyle where they were too tired to cook dinner, too tired to do yard work, too tired to play on the weekends. With her not working and now available to do all the things that need doing to run a household well, they have a much more pleasant life, a real life, as it were, and she has lots of time to help out family.

Develop yourself and you won't need to work to make a contribution.