Husband Tells His Stay-At-Home Wife That All Of The Chores Are Her 'Responsibility' And Not His
He claims that her job is solely to take care of the house and their children, even if she is exhausted.
Ground Picture / Shutterstock A husband is being criticized for the response he told his wife after she admitted to being exhausted by all of the household responsibilities.
Posting to the subreddit "r/Parenting," a stay-at-home mother admitted that her husband was not sympathetic and refused to help with any household tasks.
Her husband claimed that all household chores are her 'responsibility' since she stays home.
In her Reddit post, she explained that her husband works 10- to 12-hour days while she is a stay-at-home mother for their two children, ages four and one. She admitted that when her husband comes home from work, he'll help feed and put the children to bed, but during the long hours of the day, it's usually her doing all of the other childcare and household responsibilities.
"Some days I’m so exhausted, I don’t have dinner ready for him when he comes home & some chores aren’t done," she wrote in her post. Unfortunately, when she tried to bring up the fact that she was tired from wrangling two young children while juggling all of the other chores around the house, her husband didn't think that it was an issue.
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He told her that as a stay-at-home mother, all of the responsibilities were hers including making dinner, getting him clean clothes for work, and making sure that the children were taken care of. He argued that since she was home all day, her sole job was to take care of the house and children, regardless of feeling tired.
"Am I crazy? Was he out of line or was he right?" she questioned. "What should the roles of a SAHM be? How do other mamas handle it?"
Many people agreed that her husband should be helping out too.
"My job is to take care of my son, first and foremost. Any cooking or chores that happen to get done during the day are a bonus, not an expectation. Especially with toddlers," one Reddit user wrote. "A lot of days I’m able to get house stuff done, but some days it just doesn’t happen, and that’s ok too."
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Another user added, "I don't think the conflict is that your job is one thing and his job is another. I think the conflict is you have different expectations and he's trying to force his upon you instead of working the issue out between each other."
"You’re not a robot, or a maid, or a nanny, or a subservient baby incubator. You’re supposed to be an equal partner in a marriage and you’re being treated like a subordinate. I’d love to see how he’d handle a few days in your shoes," a third user agreed.
Being a stay-at-home mother is not easy, and often comes with serious mental repercussions. A Gallup poll of more than 60,000 U.S. women found that stay-at-home moms experienced depression, sadness, stress, and anger at a higher rate than working moms.
Just because a woman stays home all day long and takes care of the kids and household doesn't mean that she won't experience high rates of exhaustion. As many people noted in the responses to this woman's Reddit post, she is in a marriage with her husband, not the hired nanny.
In a partnership, both people should be working equally, and when her husband comes home from work, he should be trying to take the load off of his wife's shoulders instead of adding to it.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.