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There is absolutely no excuse for the wife not getting anything done during the day. None whatsoever.
Since the beginning of time, women have attended to children; most of the time, numerous children, and attended to the house and garden at the same time. I don't care how much any of you say 'times have changed'. They haven't. A baby is a baby. A woman is a woman.
A baby isn't any more time consuming than it was 60, 70, 100 years ago. Exactly what does a stay at home mother do all day with a 3 month old? NOTHING. Babies need changing and feeding, and neither take all day long. They aren't exhausting at all. What is there about a 3 month old that 'exhausts' the mother so much? Must be mothers these days are ridiculously empty and lazy to be exhausted by staying home with a 3 month old baby.
I'll tell you what mothers do when staying at home with their babies and small children: THEY WATCH TV, READ AND PLAY ON THE COMPUTER. That's the truth. Deny it all you want, but it's the truth.
I have NEVER known even one mother who stayed home who didn't have hours and hours to herself every day in the last 30 years. Earlier than that, mothers seemed to get everything done without complaining.
My mother, and those around us, took care kids, cooked, took care of gardens, canned, did family laundry and had dinner on the table for factory working husbands when they came home from work. There were 5 kids in our family; 3 girls and 2 boys. We were very close in age to each other. My mother kept us immaculately clean, fed and took care of everything else. When we went anywhere, our dresses were all pressed, our shoes polished (yes, she polished 7 pairs of shoes) and our hair was brushed and bowed.
She ironed all the family laundry, even our play clothes and my father's work shirts.
It wasn't until I was 7 that I was expected to carry my share of chores; my brother before me, and my sister after me.
Not once in all the years did I hear her complain about not having enough time to do what all housewives did; take care of her family. Her WHOLE family, not just one little 3 month old baby and nothing else.
Babies don't really take up all that much time. It's the excuse women make because they are in denial that they waste many hours every day.
There are skills your wife just hasn't learned very well yet. It is possible for a wife to take care of a 3 month old baby AND cook, clean, and be a wife. When (if) you have 4 kids, and the youngest one is 3 months old, you'll look back on these days and wonder why it was so hard. It's just a good thing they come one at a time!
This is one of the most sensible things I have read in this entire thread.
When I had my first, I did not know what the HELL I was doing. I did not even know how to change his diaper in the hospital (obviously I figured it out pretty fast). By 3 months I had gotten into the swing of things, but really it was somewhere around that 3 month mark where the routine started to fall together and the fog lifted a little bit.
By my fourth child, I was at football practices and cub scout meetings with all four of them, including the shiny new newborn. The housework was getting done, children were clean and fed, etc.... The new baby moved into our routine instead of my having to come up with an entirely new way of life, which is what it felt like going from working and being childless to out of work and mom to a newborn.
By three months, she should be starting to get her sea legs. If she had had any problems with feeding or illness (hers or the babys) it might be on the later end of three mos. This going out and lunching or whatever might be her way of trying to avoid getting into a stay at home mom kind of routine, for whatever reason (dislike of staying home, fear, etc...)
Time to have a nonconfrontational "lets get some sort of routine that works established" talk, alone, without the relatives.
There is absolutely no excuse for the wife not getting anything done during the day. None whatsoever.
Since the beginning of time, women have attended to children; most of the time, numerous children, and attended to the house and garden at the same time. I don't care how much any of you say 'times have changed'. They haven't. A baby is a baby. A woman is a woman.
A baby isn't any more time consuming than it was 60, 70, 100 years ago. Exactly what does a stay at home mother do all day with a 3 month old? NOTHING. Babies need changing and feeding, and neither take all day long. They aren't exhausting at all. What is there about a 3 month old that 'exhausts' the mother so much? Must be mothers these days are ridiculously empty and lazy to be exhausted by staying home with a 3 month old baby.
I'll tell you what mothers do when staying at home with their babies and small children: THEY WATCH TV, READ AND PLAY ON THE COMPUTER. That's the truth. Deny it all you want, but it's the truth.
I have NEVER known even one mother who stayed home who didn't have hours and hours to herself every day in the last 30 years. Earlier than that, mothers seemed to get everything done without complaining.
My mother, and those around us, took care kids, cooked, took care of gardens, canned, did family laundry and had dinner on the table for factory working husbands when they came home from work. There were 5 kids in our family; 3 girls and 2 boys. We were very close in age to each other. My mother kept us immaculately clean, fed and took care of everything else. When we went anywhere, our dresses were all pressed, our shoes polished (yes, she polished 7 pairs of shoes) and our hair was brushed and bowed.
She ironed all the family laundry, even our play clothes and my father's work shirts.
It wasn't until I was 7 that I was expected to carry my share of chores; my brother before me, and my sister after me.
Not once in all the years did I hear her complain about not having enough time to do what all housewives did; take care of her family. Her WHOLE family, not just one little 3 month old baby and nothing else.
Babies don't really take up all that much time. It's the excuse women make because they are in denial that they waste many hours every day.
How did you get things done when your baby was colicky and screaming all day long?
Since the beginning of time, women have attended to children; most of the time, numerous children, and attended to the house and garden at the same time. I don't care how much any of you say 'times have changed'. They haven't. A baby is a baby. A woman is a woman.
My mother, and those around us, took care kids, cooked, took care of gardens, canned, did family laundry and had dinner on the table for factory working husbands when they came home from work. There were 5 kids in our family; 3 girls and 2 boys. We were very close in age to each other. My mother kept us immaculately clean, fed and took care of everything else. When we went anywhere, our dresses were all pressed, our shoes polished (yes, she polished 7 pairs of shoes) and our hair was brushed and bowed.
She ironed all the family laundry, even our play clothes and my father's work shirts.
It wasn't until I was 7 that I was expected to carry my share of chores; my brother before me, and my sister after me.
Not once in all the years did I hear her complain about not having enough time to do what all housewives did; take care of her family. Her WHOLE family, not just one little 3 month old baby and nothing else.
Babies don't really take up all that much time. It's the excuse women make because they are in denial that they waste many hours every day.
I'm glad you posted this!
How hard is it to put in 8-9 (heck, even 10) hours at a job 5 days out of the week? How much time to yourself do you NEED after that? Geez!
Men have been getting away with doing far LESS than women for centuries, as outlined by your post.
I think the original poster sounds a tad jealous now that they have a baby and his wife's family and he no longer "likes what his life has become."
This is more about the life stage than it is about distribution of family duties. The couple desperately needs to go to counseling to address this.
Okay, I'm annoyed with your wife -- why? Because I have three month old TWINS who both have reflux and colic and they are making me freaking crazy! But I still manage to do the laundry and keep the house clean and get the grocery shopping done. Sometimes dinner doesn't get made but I have adjusted my expectations and now sometimes just make a crockpot dinner plus some bread. I try to have something for my husband to eat and if I can't manage it, I at least apologize and he understands and sympathizes. He knows I feel bad if I fail in that. There is no way I can iron shirts, but I can keep them clean and hang them up!
A young baby IS hard work, no doubt about it, especially in the first 6 months. Add to that the loss of sleep at night, which means you and your wife aren't firing from all cylinders during the day. However for your wife to expect you to go to work all day and come home and get dinner and do housework, well, hmmm. That's just BS!!!
You need to sit down and get serious with her. Or better yet, you need to go see a marriage counselor so that this delicate situation can get resolved without gasoline being thrown on the fire. So maybe she can't iron, but she can probably take the shirts to the drycleaner and then pick them up. She doesn't need lunch with her friends and family four days a week. She's a wife and mother now -- she has duties. Sorry, but that's reality. They can always come over for a visit, watch the baby while your wife does dishes and cooks dinner. Now there's a thought! That is what women have done down through the centuries -- combine socializing with work.
When you come in the door, there should be a dinner ready for you UNLESS she has had a particularly horrible, unusual day. You should get an hour to sit and unwind. Then you should spend some time with the baby, and maybe giving a bath is a fine way to spend time with him/her and get something productive done at the same time.
I agree with whoever said your wife does not have good time management skills. On the weekends, when you are around to help, she can cook and freeze meals to be eaten for dinner during the week. Shirts can be taken to the drycleaner.
Babies DO get easier after the 6 month point (they actually start getting easier after 3 months) so she needs to be notified that her grace period is up! She seems to not understand that going to work all day is hard too. Acknowledge that caring for a baby all day is hard work, but you go to work too. Something needs to be done. You are right to complain.
There is absolutely no excuse for the wife not getting anything done during the day. None whatsoever.
Since the beginning of time, women have attended to children; most of the time, numerous children, and attended to the house and garden at the same time. I don't care how much any of you say 'times have changed'. They haven't. A baby is a baby. A woman is a woman.
A baby isn't any more time consuming than it was 60, 70, 100 years ago. Exactly what does a stay at home mother do all day with a 3 month old? NOTHING. Babies need changing and feeding, and neither take all day long. They aren't exhausting at all. What is there about a 3 month old that 'exhausts' the mother so much? Must be mothers these days are ridiculously empty and lazy to be exhausted by staying home with a 3 month old baby.
I'll tell you what mothers do when staying at home with their babies and small children: THEY WATCH TV, READ AND PLAY ON THE COMPUTER. That's the truth. Deny it all you want, but it's the truth.
I have NEVER known even one mother who stayed home who didn't have hours and hours to herself every day in the last 30 years. Earlier than that, mothers seemed to get everything done without complaining.
My mother, and those around us, took care kids, cooked, took care of gardens, canned, did family laundry and had dinner on the table for factory working husbands when they came home from work. There were 5 kids in our family; 3 girls and 2 boys. We were very close in age to each other. My mother kept us immaculately clean, fed and took care of everything else. When we went anywhere, our dresses were all pressed, our shoes polished (yes, she polished 7 pairs of shoes) and our hair was brushed and bowed.
She ironed all the family laundry, even our play clothes and my father's work shirts.
It wasn't until I was 7 that I was expected to carry my share of chores; my brother before me, and my sister after me.
Not once in all the years did I hear her complain about not having enough time to do what all housewives did; take care of her family. Her WHOLE family, not just one little 3 month old baby and nothing else.
Babies don't really take up all that much time. It's the excuse women make because they are in denial that they waste many hours every day.
You make some good points, however, I'd like to remind you that a fussy infant or a sickly infant DOES take up a lot of time, that is, unless you believe in just leaving a baby in a crib to cry it out for hours on end. If that is your parenting level, then yes, changing a diaper a few times a day and giving a bottle here and there don't add up to a lot of time. Probably most mothers these days don't believe in leaving their baby to cry, though. After about 6 months, most babies get past this phase and become more manageable and more routine.
Most babies do, but not all. My dd was not much of a napper. She took 3 very brief naps a day and only under very specific circumstances. Getting her to fall asleep and stay asleep was one of the most stressful parts of my day when she was tiny. Some babies are mellow and others are very demanding. It's hard to know what a mother is and is not capable of accomplishing without knowing what her baby is like.
Yes, I agree. There is too much generalizing on this thread about how babies behave. They are little people who can be very very different from each other!
I do think, however, that if the baby is particularly challenging, then the OP's wife needs to be discussing it from the point of view of trying to find a solution so that her husband's needs can also be met. It sounds like she doesn't have expectations of herself, but then again, we are only getting the OP's side of the story.
Everyone also has to remember that every baby is different and every person is not able to handle things as well or as easily as others. Just because some women adjusted easily to being a mother, doesn't mean others have to
My husband got up with our babies when they were little. He fed them, bathed them, changed them and played with them.
And he worked FT and I was a SAHM. I am glad that he understood what a break work actually was and that he didn't look at our young children as a "job" that had to be "done". His break WAS chilling out with the kids.
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