Just wanted to open this up and see what other people think about it and the dynamics it creates in a home.

My own domestic situation is fairly traditional: I work outside the home full-time while my wife stays at home with our two kids. As my children both have learning disabilities, I am grateful that she can stay home and work with them. I consider her contributions to the home to be just as valuable as mine. She has told me on numerous occasions that raising kids has always been her #1 goal in life, and that she is glad that she can be home with them.

On the other hand, this arrangement causes some issues occasionally. Take today, for example. I've been very sick for a week, and was home on paid time off. During this time, my wife has also been sick, but not nearly as severely, and she has continued to perform her usual tasks in the home. Today I felt well enough that I thought I could at least put in a half-day of work from home, and I can't help but notice some resentment, which if she voiced it would probably sound like this: "You're starting to feel better, and now it's back to work. What about me? How come you get sick and can just take time off to get well, but I can't?" I have taken a fair amount of time off in the past to look after her, and I'm grateful that my company is very flexible in this regard. But after having just blown 5.5 days of PTO, and knowing that in two weeks I'm going to be traveling to Colorado and will lose another 3 days, taking even more time is not something I can do very easily. Our family gets sick a lot, and I can't possibly take time off for every runny nose, hers or mine. I want to be sensitive to her needs and feelings, but I answer to a boss; she doesn't. I wish I knew how to balance the work/home thing better in this regard.

Anyway, tell us how you feel about full-time parenting.

My wife is also the stay-at-home parent, which I think has been really great for the kids. However, in our case, having kids was never her goal in life --we had kids largely because I wanted them, which definitely sharpens the dynamic you're talking about.

One thing that I think helps in our case is that I try to give my wife as much time apart from the house and kids as possible. She is a professional artist, so I try to give her time to paint in her studio several nights a week, and most of the day on Sundays. That helps a lot. I also encourage her to go out with her friends in the evening sometimes, although that doesn't happen very often because we're so busy.

I try to help a lot with the housework, which is especially important because I'm a slob and she's a neat freak.

I also have learned to not highlight the fact that I'm the wage-earner because that makes it seem as though the work she does raising the kids is not important. There are definitely sacrifices involved in being the stay-at-home parent. I think the key is just to be respectful of that fact. We also both try hard not to let the kids be our entire lives. We love them dearly but we want them to learn to be self-guided and self-sufficient individuals, and we want them to know we have lives outside of raising them.

Interestingly enough, studies have shown that the woman in a (dual-gender) household almost always does most of the housework even in the case where the man in the household is the stay-at-home parent! So one advantage of being stay-at-home for her is that she doesn't have full time work on top of stay-at-home work.

However, pointing that fact out is probably not a good idea!

I'm the one who tends to do most of the housework. My wife also has the higher income. She'll obviously need to be the one who stays at home immediately after the birth but I expect that dynamic to shift.

This is where people's mental definitions of themselves kick in. I'll bet that in many of the cases where it's the man who stays at home while the woman earns a wage, he doesn't think of himself as a full time home-maker, but as a temporarily unemployed worker. If he doesn't own the home-maker role, then he's not gonna put a lot of effort into it.

I find the stay at home dynamic interesting. It's nothing I was ever raised with, and same goes with Ridcully obviously since he spent half his childhood in a country where stay at home parenting was pretty much illegal and the other half in a country where most people were financially strapped. I think I'd go mad if I was around small kids all day. Ridcully's much more nurturing.

I am interested in the term "full time parent". Aren't you both full time parents? So if you're sick, or if you work, you're still required to parent, right?

No kids myself, but I have a lot of friends with kids, a fair mix of men and women in who are stay-at-home/home-makers.

I have to admit some bias here. When it's the parent I know best, I tend to look down on the choice, mainly because those parents are college educated (many with graduate degrees). I feel they are wasting their potential, and that it is a set up for resentment down the road.

In one case, the stay-at-home parent is an artist and writer (and not the kind who just says it, she has published her written work, and been featured in galleries). For her I feel it makes sense, as it gives her time to work on her art.

One friend of mine is married to a woman who is a "stay-at-home/homemaker", but hires a nanny and maid. I feel like she is a leech, and terrible person.

In general I value the idea of stay-at-home parenting, but I have a hard time feeling the people I know doing it are making the right choice. Obviously it is their choice to make, but that doesn't mean I don't have opinions on the issue I keep to myself.

Actually, if you ask me, the time I spend at work is part of my parenting: I'm fulfilling my obligation as a parent to make sure we have the money we will need to feed, clothe and shelter my children. I used the term "full-time parenting" because it seemed the least controversial of the terms that came to mind when I wrote it, because I was trying to avoid straying into a discussion about semantics. Oops, too late. :)



It's interesting that you bring that up, as it's always me who ends up telling her, "Hey, it's not my money, it's our money." She pretty much runs the day-to-day finances, balancing the checkbook, paying bills, etc. She absolutely hates doing taxes, though, so I do that. Because she runs the budget, I'm the one that ends up asking if it's okay to spend money on something!



In principle, I agree wholeheartedly. In practice, with two special needs kids, that is nearly impossible. We do the best we can, though.

Eh, I think all the terms sort of suck. Housewife/husband implies that they're catering to the spouse, stay at home mom/dad implies that they're catering to the kids, Homemaker is a dreadful term invented to make it seem like it's on the same level as having a full-time job so ladies of the mid-20th century would stop clamoring for jobs, full-time parent makes the other parent seem like they're "part-time" in their parental duties. Unemployed certainly doesn't fit, because it's not a person seeking employment.

*mullmullmull*

Maybe, like, person who does not have a job so that they can deal with the everyday tasks of family life? PWDNHAJSTTCDWTETOFL doesn't really have a ring to it.

Self employed in an admin role.

Domestic manager? Tastes too PC.

Little Heathens Wrangler?

Professional Monkey Wrangler and Domicile Administrator.

I like this one. I feel like I'm wrangling monkeys whenever I babysit for my nephews.

What if you say the same thing without mentioning their relationship to anyone else? "Stay-homer."