That's not feminism, honey, it's laziness.

[Boozy]

Inspired by a customer of mine...

It drives me crazy to hear a woman with no job, no kids, and a husband working full-time to support her, complain about doing the all the housework.

Does she really expect her husband, who has to work all day, to come home and vacuum? What the hell has she been doing all day? Besides standing in my store, spending his money, and bitching about how this is the "21st century", and somehow that means that women can do fuck-all nothing around the house, but still not have to get a job.

The sex is almost certainly not that valuable to him, dear. And even if it were, is that what you had in mind as a child? To become a prostitute?

Yet, if I were to even suggest to some of these women that perhaps they get off their asses and make their husbands a meal - you know, contribute to the household in some way - I'd be the "unenlightened" one.

[siead_lietrathua]

i agree. it sadly seems that feminism lately has become less about equality and more about female superiority. which is unfortunate.
if you're home all day, do the damn work involved in being a housewife and quit ya bitching. if you wanna split the housework, split the income-making too.

[tropicsgoddess]

If the wife staying home with no job and the husband is the one bringing home the paycheck to support the whole house, she has no right to complain about housework at all. She should be grateful he's willing and/or able to support the whole house on only his paycheck alone. There's one or two things the wife should do in this case: either put up and shut up about the housework or get off her ass and get a job.

[guywithashovel]

I'm not saying all women are like this. In fact, I'd say most probably aren't. But from my observation, the ones who gripe constantly about their SO not sharing with the housework usually don't want to SHARE the housework. They want HIM to do ALL of the housework.

For example:

"Wanna know my hubby's idea of 'helping' me with housework? He'll vacuum the living room and two of the bedrooms and leave the other three rooms for me to do!"

Actually, what he was doing was vacuuming half of the rooms in the house (his half) and letting her do the others (her half).

[Peppergirl]

God, I hate this too!

My ex sis in law was a stay at home mom and used to say shit like, "I hope Joe gets home soon, so he can take us to the store!".

Problems with this:

- "Joe" was an over-the-road trucker, gone for weeks at a time.

- She had her own car and he had his.

- Her mother lived right next door and was always willing to watch the kids if she didn't want to haul them to the store alone.

- She had full access (as she should) to all the money and checking accounts, so it's not like she had to wait around on him to pay for the groceries, etc.

Yeah, I'm sure the first thing the man wanted to do when he got home from being gone on a cross country trip is load the freaking kids in the car and haul-ass up and down the aisles of the grocery store

'Course - this is why my ex husband referred to Joe (his brother) as a "p**sy" all the time, because he put up with it. Dan would have laughed me out of town if that had been me, trying to make him haul us all to the store after weeks on the road.

[Akasa]

This is why I'm having some issues with my BF. See I'm disabled. This means I don't work, I stay home all day, but I DO bring in $. Almost as much as my BF brings in. Yet he wants me to do all the housework. I see that as contributing 2x to the household. 3x if you take in my absolute hatred of housework. I don't let the place get gross, but I'm not going to CLEAN. I'll keep the place straightened up. Toss the soda bottles, put the dishes in the sink(HE does dishes), take out the recycling, maybe wipe down the tables and counters. Anything else waits till he's helping me.

[kiwi]

Inspired by a customer of mine...

It drives me crazy to hear a woman with no job, no kids, and a husband working full-time to support her, complain about doing the all the housework.

Does she really expect her husband, who has to work all day, to come home and vacuum? What the hell has she been doing all day? Besides standing in my store, spending his money, and bitching about how this is the "21st century", and somehow that means that women can do fuck-all nothing around the house, but still not have to get a job.

The sex is almost certainly not that valuable to him, dear. And even if it were, is that what you had in mind as a child? To become a prostitute?

Yet, if I were to even suggest to some of these women that perhaps they get off their asses and make their husbands a meal - you know, contribute to the household in some way - I'd be the "unenlightened" one.

While I absolutely agree that the stay at home spouce should be responsible for the vast majority of the household tasks, I do take issue that it is his money. If they have agreed partner A is the SAH then it is THEIR money not his/hers.

If the SAH is not doing their job then fair enough but looking after children IS a job, it might not be a paid one but it is still a job.

[Boozy]

It's not about money, though. I'm never going to make as much as my husband does. That's not a factor. It's about equitable division of labour.

I don't expect my husband to work a twelve-hour day and have to do half the cleaning. That's not fair to him. It doesn't matter how much money I've put in our bank account, if any. It's about time.

If I have a lot more leisure time than he does, and won't share it by pitching in with the housework more than he does, that leads to a difference in our quality of lives. That's going to lead to resentment. And rightfully so.

I'd feel pretty lousy if he decided to go to Cuba this winter and leave me at home, because I don't make enough to afford the trip. How would he feel if I had eight hours that day to watch movies, and then he comes home after work, wanting to do the same, and I tell him the toilet needs scrubbing? Pretty lousy, I'd guess.

Edited to add: Of course we consider his income to be "our" money. That was poor phrasing on my part in the OP.

[AdminAssistant]

Looking after your own children is a responsibility, not a job.

My only issue is that I am home more than Fiance is, but I work 20 hours a week as a TA and then I have schoolwork. So, we split household responsibilities about...60/40, I'd say. I do the grocery shopping, the cooking, dusting, etc. He handles the vacuuming, washing dishes, toilet, etc. It works for us.

[LexiaFira]

Is in the stay at home mom agreement. Since I quit my job to stay home and raise daughter while he works it has been agreed i keep a weekly and daily list of what needs doing, and at least get most of it done.
But I agreed to it. So its not as though I stepped back in time, donned the dress and apron and am stuck to the kitchen. Nor am I expected to work from dawn to dusk either. Only when daughter gets up heh.

I CAN work however no one will hire me and at this point, I stopped wondering why and just hold up my half of the agreement.

YES it sucks sometimes because there are days I feel overwhelmed but its not as though asking for a little help is out of the question. So in the OP wtf is her problem? Yes raising kids is tough and feels like a full time job sometimes yet the only difference is that you are home all the time.
I guess I missed the point? sounds like she needs one day to herself out of the house. Or switch places with her husband?

[protege]

Thought I'd throw this in here...

There are some people--of either sex--who think that nobody works as hard as they do. How do I know this? My mother is one of those people.

When I was much younger, she stayed at home, and my dad worked at a big ad agency downtown. For the first few years of my life, I rarely saw him. He was home on weekends, but during the week? Gone before I got up for preschool...and home well after dark. After my brothers were born, he quit that job, and went in business for himself. He did OK for the first couple of years....

Then the money stopped coming in, and my mom went back to work. She went to work for the health department, and eventually, my dad's ad agency failed His clients were broke, and after the steel industry imploded during the 1980s...he wasn't making money. Mom became the primary earner, in other words.

By then though, my dad was working *multiple* jobs. He'd do some freelance writing on his computer for a few hours, then leave to referee soccer, or work at the hardware store. 3 jobs kept him busy--he'd come home from one job, have some sort of meal, then run to the next job. After 12-14 hours, he was damn tired when he finally came home. Tired enough, that he'd sometimes fall asleep in his recliner.

Where am I going with this? Oh yeah...my mom would come home and *flip* because he hadn't done any household chores. Yeah, he was home...but he was trying to earn a fucking living! He was (and is) a freelance writer...who had some clients and deadlines to deal with. Do you really think they would tolerate getting an article late because of laundry? He did what he could, but there simply weren't enough hours in the week...without skipping sleep, that is.

His point was, that he was working *multiple* jobs, whereas my mom wasn't. She'd work an 8-5 shift, come home, and bitch about having to do housework. Apparently, it's OK for my dad to work 3-4 jobs...but it's not OK for her to have to. How the fuck does that work?

[blas87]

My mom has always had a problem with my dad even just picking up after himself. Of course, he was never raised to do that. He is the youngest of many kids, and to boot, from a very old fashioned family. Even though grandma knew the times had changed by the time my brother and I arrived, she still had zero tolerance for my parents' house not being spotless, despite the fact that my mom had to work sometimes two part time jobs just to help us make ends meet. Grandma always said my dad worked too hard and didn't need to help.

But I agree very muchso with Boozy's OP. I hate stay at home women who bitch about having to clean the house or make the meals, when the kids are gone all day at school, and the dad works long shifts or maybe two jobs. It'd be one thing if the guy only worked part time or was always out partying instead of helping, but if he's the only one working....I have no patience for that.

[anakhouri]

But the OP said the woman in question doesn't even HAVE kids. What the hell DOES she do all day?

[Racket_Man]

This is why I'm having some issues with my BF. See I'm disabled. This means I don't work, I stay home all day, but I DO bring in $. Almost as much as my BF brings in. Yet he wants me to do all the housework. I see that as contributing 2x to the household. 3x if you take in my absolute hatred of housework. I don't let the place get gross, but I'm not going to CLEAN. I'll keep the place straightened up. Toss the soda bottles, put the dishes in the sink(HE does dishes), take out the recycling, maybe wipe down the tables and counters. Anything else waits till he's helping me.

this is what drove me INSANE with my EX. she was disabled BUT still able to do some things around the house BUT choose not to and used her condition to just do nothing and dump everything on me (with a full time IT job). the only difference was she did not bring any $$s to the table at the time. all of her Gfs "encouraged her to "just go into my wallet and/or OUR joint checking account" and spend money IT'S YOUR MONEY TOO. so yo have the "right"". we got into financial trouble several times because of her spending habits. when this was discussed (sometimes heated arguements) I was told "to not treat her like a child about money. she would spend if SHE wanted to." even though it put us into financial trouble. I thank whatever diety that we NEVER really had any credit cards at the time or things would have been much worse.


even after I caught her red-handed lying (more than several times) about what she spent (differing check amounts and ATM withdrawl amounts from what she said when I did the automated over-the-phone check register reconcilliation) she refused to stop which led to further arguements.

my nickname was SCROOGE. YEA ME!!! and there was a reason behind this. I did not make big bucks in my corp type jobs and money was tight.

then to top it off I WAS expected to do ALL of the housework like dishes, laundry, vacumning, etc. after a while it just got to be too much for me with NO hlep from her or our daughter. if was only after CPS got involved (long story) that she decided to get into the "Holly Homemaker" mode and actually DO some things around the house.

now that she is "on her own" she finally gets why I was (and still am) the way I was. she has to deal with limited money coming in from her disability and has to budget like hell to make it through a month.

[Boozy]

But the OP said the woman in question doesn't even HAVE kids. What the hell DOES she do all day?

The woman that prompted this whole thing has two children, but they're grown and have moved out of the home. So I am really quite baffled as to what she spends her days doing.

Babies and very young children can be time consuming. I don't expect stay-at-home parents with toddlers to get a hell of a lot done around the house, especially when you can't turn your back for a second without the little one making another mess. Parents of toddlers just need to abandon any plans for a clean home for a few years.

Once the kids are older and in school, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the stay-at-home parent to handle the cleaning, laundry, groceries, etc. Barring any major disabilities on the part of the parent or the child.