'AITA for telling my SAHM wife that I won’t wake up early on my days off to get the kids off to school?'
"AITA for telling my SAHM wife that I won’t wake up to get the kids off to school as often as she wants?"
So I (36m) work for a national retail chain as a manager. I make a decent salary (~90k after bonus) the only downside is that my schedule could be better. I am on a 4 week rotation where one week I have sat/sun off, next week is sat/thu next week is tu/wed and the 4th week is sun/mon.
Usually 3 of the 5 days I work I work 7a-5p and 2 days are 11a-9p. I am on call and have to answer emails constantly. I’m salaried and expected to respond to emergencies My wife (30f) is a stay at home mom.
On days I go to work at 7 I wake up just after 6am take a shower, wake up the kids (11,9,6,4) (all of them go to school and are gone from 7:30 til 4)around 6:30, give them hugs and have them start getting around for school.
I leave home around 6:45 (3 minute commute) and my wife wakes up finishes getting the young ones around and gets them off to school on the bus (our youngest doesn’t go to school on fridays) When I’m off work I take the kids to any practices and some appointments where I can. I handle dinner most of the time, help tidy and delegate chores to the older kids. Handle bedtime most nights.
Our argument always comes on my days off or when I have to work 11-9. Each one of those day my wife thinks I should handle getting the kids around solo so she can sleep in. I honestly think we both should get up and take care of it together but she didn’t like that, and always meets that with an excuse either she’s too tired, worn out, she did it all week, couldn’t sleep because I snored, etc.
So of course I end up getting them around myself. I have suggested trying to find a way to split days, and of course when it’s her day she’s tired again. She wants to sleep in any day she can. Yesterday i laid out how it was unfair and she said she saw how it was. Last night i worked 11-9 and I asked her multiple times to figure out a solution before we went to bed on how we could work this out.
She said she was thinking about it and then fell asleep. This morning her alarms went off and I said “I did it yesterday and you got to sleep in. You didn’t come up with a solution so it’s your turn” so now she’s angry with me. She then said “it’s gonna come down to us both waking up early every day” which was my original solution but she never followed through on. I refused and told her it was gonna be up to her today.
AITA? Bonus points if you can find a solution for us.
What do you think? AITA? Any ideas for a solution? This is what commenters had to say:
eilsel827583 said:
Your sleep in days are the two days you don’t work until 11. Her sleep in days are the two days you don’t work at all. Each of you gets two sleep in days a week and two days a week of getting kids ready/parenting solo.
Then, each week there are three days you are working together to parent/get kids ready (which may look like you prepping as much stuff as you can before going to work so that her tasks are get kids up and ready with less overwhelm).
sacarla said:
I’d like to know (INFO) how much you do around the house. She’s a SAHM, that’s her full time job and I get it. But like any job, that’s 40h/week. You also work, albeit on a rotated schedule, effectively 40h a week. Unlike you, she doesn’t get to leave her work environment. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t still “off the clock.” Even though she’s a SAHM, you still share household and childcare responsibilities.
Otherwise she’s working 90-100h a week, and that’s not fair. If she’s asking for help in the mornings, is that something that reduces her primary care labour to less than 40h? If it’s not, then she’s within her rights to ask you to step in. She’s not asking you to do her job, she’s asking you to share the parenting duties that you both have outside of your 40h work weeks.
overZealousAzalea said:
Why is she so tired in the morning? Does she stay up late doing chores? Have you done a sleep study? How bad is your snoring? My wife is a sahm, and I let her sleep in when I’m home. Which sometimes includes 5am wakeups for 6am hockey practices. She 💯does all the kids stuff activities etc when I’m not home, so I do everything I can when home.
So why isn’t she waking up at 6am anyway? Did you push for four children and her to stay at home? Is it not fulfilling to her? What are her plans when the youngest is off to school? We homeschool, so my wife doesn’t get even the 8 hour break of the kids being gone, just lessons and tutors and art projects and classes and practices. So what is missing that that isn’t enough?
And ReclinerBoss said:
ESH - I feel like a lot of these NTA comments are made by men lol. SAHM does not mean you have the kids as your responsibility 24/7. It means when the partner is at work, you take care of the kids. When the partner comes home, you BOTH are the parents and share kids tasks equally.
It is extremely tiring to be at home with even 1 kid, not to mention you guys are juggling 4. Everyone deserves to be able to sleep in. If you guys can manage, do one week on, one week off, were you both at least get to sleep in once every other week. ESH because neither of you are thinking of the other person and compromise.