'AITA for questioning whether being a mom Is really the hardest job?'
"AITA for questioning whether being a mom Is really the hardest job?"
My (25M) wife (25F) is very apt to complaining about how hard her life is as a stay at home mom, and constantly talks about how "being a mom is the hardest job in the world". While I agree with her that being a stay at home mom is typically extremely taxing, I disagree that she falls into that same category.
I completely agree that for most stay at home moms it is very difficult to take care of their child from morning to night time. It's hard taking care of their every need, keeping up the house, taking care of grocery shopping and cooking while.
Plus watching their child and often incorporating them into daily chores which can drastically slow them down and make the tasks at hand more frustrating. But that isn't my wife.
My wife does not clean the house, she orders groceries maybe once every few weeks, she cooks a couple times in one week before taking several weeks off, she doesn't do laundry, and if she does do the laundry she leaves it in the hamper resulting in us mixing our dirty clothes into our clean clothes and not knowing where clean clothes even are.
If you're thinking "Yeah, probably because she's busy with your child all day AH, why don't you take care of all of that when you get home from work."
It's not, and I do.
Our toddler (2F) wakes up around 8 AM, either right before or right after I leave for work. My wife wakes up around 12 - 1 PM. Because our daughter is use to this, luckily she's good about playing independently from 8-12.
When my wife wakes up she goes and lets our daughter out of her room, gives her apple juice and a snack, and then sits down on the couch to watch tv or TikTok while our daughter plays around her. She sits there until 5 when I get off work.
When I get home sometimes I will ask why the house hasn't been cleaned, why she hasn't bought groceries, why she hasn't started on dinner, why the laundry hasn't been done, etc. (not all at once, not every day) she always has the same excuse, "I was running around having to do one million things today all while taking care of our daughter."
But I can look around and see that the house is in the exact same state that it was when I left for work in the morning. Or worse if our daughter brought toys out into the common spaces.
I can see that our daughters hair has not been brushed, she's wearing the same shirt she wore yesterday and slept in the night before, her hands and face are covered in cheese from her kraft mac n cheese lunch so she hasn't bathed, and her teeth aren't brushed.
I asked if she could list the "one million things she had to do" and she looked appalled and exasperatedly said "I have to make sure our daughter is safe all day long, and entertain her, and feed her, and change her, and take care of her every need."
This is where i may be the AH, because I know being a mother is hard, but I said "That's 2 things. You fed her and changed her and she played independently the rest of the day while you do nothing."
She went on to tell me how being a mother is the hardest job in the world because she doesn't get breaks, she doesn't get thanks, she doesn't get paid, she does it all alone, and she has to solely teach our daughter everything from the ground up.
I disagreed that she does get breaks because she has all morning until noon to herself. After that, she gets any amount of free time she wants by just giving our daughter her tablet for as many unregulated hours as she wants.
I do not like giving her more than 30 minutes of screen time per day, but I'm not home to stop it. I give her thanks by praising the little things she does. She gets checks from the government that are almost as much as I get paid in a month.
I pay our rent and bills; I take care of our daughter when I'm home and my wife isn't the one teaching her most things. She's learning to speak from the YouTube videos she watches for hours while I'm not home.
She tells me she has to work and be a mom 24/7 and I pointed out that realistically, she only actively parents from noon to 8 PM, which is an 8-hour shift, just like my job, if she wants to look at it that way, but then followed it up by saying that the last 3 hours of her shift I almost always cover anyway.
I told her that if being a mom is the hardest job in the world she should go get a different job and I will stay home with our daughter and do this job for her. She bluffed and said she would but it has now been a couple of weeks and she has yet to look for a job.
A bit more context that I wasn't sure where to add:
Our daughter goes to bed around 8, I'm usually asleep by 10 or 11, and my wife stays up til about 4am on her phone.
My wife has ADHD and Depression but is in therapy and on medication to help resolve those issues. I am aware that this is why she seems "lazy" and I do support her through it as best as I can.
My wife stays home most days, but sometimes will leave our daughter with my parents, her parents, or a babysitter while I'm at work if she wants to go do something with her friends. She has this as a form of breaks basically whenever she wants.
The things my wife neglects to do, I take care of, I did it on my own long before she came into my life and I can continue to do it now. I love my wife and divorce is not an option, this is not the entirety of our relationship, and I will not entertain comments mentioning divorce.
I don't think I'm being unreasonable, I do think she has a responsibility to take care of our home, our daughter, and to an extent, me. and we are all being neglected. AITA for feeling this way?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
NTA for *feeling* this way but does knowing that help with much? Your marriage is in trouble and you know it. But an even bigger issue is a 2 y.o. should NOT be left unsupervised for hours.
Its difficult but obviously there are plenty of more difficult jobs.
You leave your 2-year-old unsupervised from 8am to 12-1pm when your wife gets up, and the kid is covered in food and not changed or washed?? You realize that's neglect on several levels, right??
I was a child protection social worker for over 10+ years, and with all due respect, you both need to get your act together before someone else reports you and your precious wifey has nothing to do all day because your kid got taken away. ESH, you are both failing your daughter at the moment. Get your wife help before this gets worse.
RemarkableAcadia9915 (OP)
I didn’t say she doesn’t change her diapers. That’s one of the things she does.
Any job you can do in your pyjamas is not the hardest job in the world. Any job is easy if you don't mind doing it terribly. You are both failing your daughter, but your wife is particularly culpable. ESH.