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I don't think people "look down" on women that are SAHM's with kids and household tasks to take care of each day. The side-eye comes when you have a relatively young married couple, and the wife has no kids or parents to take care of. Cleaning the house, paying bills etc., is a job, but it's not something that requires 10 hours of your day everyday (unless your husband is a complete slob).
2 moderately neat people can maintain a clean household with ease. Bills don't need to be paid everyday. Grocery shopping can be done on the weekends. I'd want my wife (before having kids) to use her talents to make money. Even if my income is more than enough, I'd want her to have her own cash to spend or save as she wishes. Relaxing and doing hobbies is great when you're 50, but she can do more at age 25.
You can do more fun things when you're young and physically in ideal shape than when you're 50. Why should she waste her youth working?! Maybe if she's ugly but if she's super hot that's no way to spend your youth
Anyway I work from home too so it's not like my GF would be sitting around all day doing nothing. We go hiking, happy hours, watch movies, go for river walks, whatever we want.
I don't think people "look down" on women that are SAHM's with kids and household tasks to take care of each day. The side-eye comes when you have a relatively young married couple, and the wife has no kids or parents to take care of. Cleaning the house, paying bills etc., is a job, but it's not something that requires 10 hours of your day everyday (unless your husband is a complete slob).
2 moderately neat people can maintain a clean household with ease. Bills don't need to be paid everyday. Grocery shopping can be done on the weekends. I'd want my wife (before having kids) to use her talents to make money. Even if my income is more than enough, I'd want her to have her own cash to spend or save as she wishes. Relaxing and doing hobbies is great when you're 50, but she can do more at age 25.
I'm gonna get slammed by all the feminists for this
But when I got laid off a few months before I got pregnant with our first child (we were already trying and I planned to stay home once he was born), both me and DH had the best time with me playing the trophy wife . I would do things like dress nice and go out to meet him for lunch (we lived downtown where he worked), experiment with fancy elaborate meals complete with restaurant-style presentation, home-baked goods and fancy desserts, set up nice romantic dinners, and, occasionally, surprise him by meeting him after work in lingerie and heels, have candles and music playing, and...well you get the idea
That was in addition to me taking care of all the cleaning, cooking, laundry, errands, shopping (including shopping for all his needs and clothes, which he hates, gifts for his relatives, etc), working out every day to stay in good shape and always looking put together, etc. He didn't have to do a single thing at home except lift something heavy or change a lightbulb once in a while. In short I was like the perfect 50s housewife, and I loved it, and so did he. It also unfortunately was not sustainable once I had my son, I still did all the chores and errands but all the extras had to go, but I still remember those times very fondly, it was awesome.
Yup. Unless it was a job she found rewarding. But somebody needs to be home to pay bills & resolve errors on the bills, spend 2 hours on the phone with the phone company to straighten out errors or fix something with the internet service, address home maintenance issues, wait for the washing machine repairman, take the pets to the vet, take the car in to be serviced and wait around while that's done, shop for plants for the garden, do the grocery shopping, clean (unless they have help, which they can afford with $500,000 income), go to the gym a couple of times/week, water the yard (unless they have a gardner), plan their vacation, and attend to all the other small chores that arise.
Pay bills? All my bills are on auto-pay.
Resolve errors on bills? I've never had one.
Home maintenance? I've replaced my water heater, fixed plumbing. Didn't take that long and these types of issues are very, very infrequent. I've never met a wife that could sweat pipes. Maybe they exist but I've never met one.
I work from home if I need a repairman to come out.
I own 3 vehicles and service them myself because it's a lot cheaper to service them myself than have someone else do it.
When I had pets they didn't go to the vet every day.
I don't kill my plants so I'm not shopping for plants.
Grocery shopping takes me 45 minutes per week. I'm in and out. Not that hard with a list.
I have an automatic watering system for my lawn and plants.
All the things you have listed are so infrequent. I live in a 2,200 sq ft home and find the time to maintain my yard, clean, cook, do laundry, and work out with my 40 hour per week job.
Without kids, a spouse that doesn't work has it easy, and isn't going to be that busy.
I agree. The louder they yell "I really don't care", the more you sense envy.
Well I admit I am envious of wives or husbands who don't need to work, retirees and wealthy people. At this point of my life I would love to able to quit my job and stay home. When I first started my career tho I loved going to work and was bored silly at home as well I dont think I could ever put myself in the position of being dependent on someone else income.
Still I don't care what arrangements others have, I'm envious yes but not resentful or judgmental.
Pay bills? All my bills are on auto-pay.
Resolve errors on bills? I've never had one.
Home maintenance? I've replaced my water heater, fixed plumbing. Didn't take that long and these types of issues are very, very infrequent. I've never met a wife that could sweat pipes. Maybe they exist but I've never met one.
I work from home if I need a repairman to come out.
I own 3 vehicles and service them myself because it's a lot cheaper to service them myself than have someone else do it.
When I had pets they didn't go to the vet every day.
I don't kill my plants so I'm not shopping for plants.
Grocery shopping takes me 45 minutes per week. I'm in and out. Not that hard with a list.
I have an automatic watering system for my lawn and plants.
All the things you have listed are so infrequent. I live in a 2,200 sq ft home and find the time to maintain my yard, clean, cook, do laundry, and work out with my 40 hour per week job.
Without kids, a spouse that doesn't work has it easy, and isn't going to be that busy.
I agree some things I posted wouldn't apply to others. However my point still stands. The majority of the things she posted to justify staying home with no children are so infrequent that they will not keep you busy on a weekly basis.
I agree some things I posted wouldn't apply to others. However my point still stands. The majority of the things she posted to justify staying home with no children are so infrequent that they will not keep you busy on a weekly basis.
Agreed, most of those things aren't done on a daily bases, but I'll tell you when it is you that has to take off work to do those things and you that does those frequent things after a days work and commute it makes you think, man it would be nice to have someone at home to take care of that for me so I don't have to use my leave time to meet the service people, get my car serviced or go to the vet and my lunch break to go to the bank or talk to a representative or spend my evening working in the garden then fix super and make sure my work clothes are clean.
I could use either a SAHS or be able to quit my job just to keep on top of all the things I need to do in a day at home.
Can things be handled with both people working? Of course. You can always squeeze in errands at lunch, after work, and weekends. Is it fun to be go, go, go all day until bed? Not for most. It's a choice couples make if the money or free time is the asset they want.
Everyone's choices will be different.
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