My husband said he wouldn't mind being a SAHD. He'd make a GREAT one too. He's very organized and loves to clean. And he's very involved with the kids. It wouldn't bother me. But my best friend said she would hate it. She's very traditional and believes that the woman should take care of the house and kids and men should work. She works as well. But she also does everything else! I'm way less traditional. I think it should be 50/50! 
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I don't necessarily believe it should be a certain way for others, but for us it works best for me to be home and my husband support the family financially. He's an extremely hands on dad though, so that's not everyone's definition of traditional.
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Kind of. I really believe that it is a husband's duty to provide financially for his family (if a man doesn't work, a man doesn't eat), BUT I also believe they should be heavily involved in child rearing & help run the house as a whole. (Biblically speaking when a house/children went to crap it was always the dad that was visited by the prophet & reprimanded. lol). I also think that by design, women were created to run the home, but don't necessarily think all the responsibility should fall on them (ie. child rearing).
I don't think that my husband needs to go get 2 or 3 jobs if we need more income though... I can help where I can help, and vise versa for running the home. DH is so much better at some things, despite how hard I try, he would make a fantastic SAHD, but I couldn't bear the weight of financially providing for us long term.
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Not necessarily. We both like to cook, he's way neater than I am, and I'm the primary breadwinner (and probably always will be). I don't really subscribe to traditional gender roles.
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I think my husband believes in them a little bit more than I do ... I would love to go back to work early and let my husband stay home with our baby, but since he makes so much more money than I do it would never work out. We share most of the work though, and he is a MUCH better cook than I am! I grew up with a mum who hated cooking, never made any secret of it, and made the same 5 dishes for dinner every week which were always just meat and 3 veg, so I never really learned to cook properly. My husband's mother is a fabulous cook who taught him loads, so he is great. I definitely want to work full time though, I can't really picture myself as a SAHM.
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I sort of am by default. Things like cooking and cleaning come far more naturally me, and for the most part I enjoy doing them.
I think to have a successful househood and marriage, things need to be balanced though. While I do the majority of cooking/cleaning, DH dabbles in culinary projects and is in charge of trash/litterboxes/laundry.
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Not at all! I would have no problem being the primary financial provider and having him stay home with kids (past the point where it is more beneficial having a Mommy at home to breastfeed). He would totally be a better SAHP that I would.
That being said, neither of us have any desire to SAH, we both love our jobs! We split our household and parenting duties pretty evenly though.
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Definitely not. I am way too lazy and hate cleaning. I like using my brain at work, even though I don't always love my job. It is important to me that I am able to support (and therefore rely solely, if necessary) on myself. It is also important to me that my family has some built-in financial redundancy as opposed to depending on one job/income.
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Yes and no. I do most of the cooking and I am very anal about how certain things are cleaned. But he is neat and does cook and clean. But will always make way more money than me. I will eventually go part time but before we got married we sat down and talked about him wanting to always be the primary bread winner and I am perfectly ok with that.
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I don't believe it has to be a certain way but I sure have enjoyed being a SAHM for L these past 10 months and could see myself doing it a few more years, but alas I'm going back to work. I've always wanted a career and knew that whoever I married would have to support that and that child rearing and household chores would have to be equally divided. I lucked out with a DH who is better at cooking and cleaning than I am though AND he does all the "man" stuff like fixing things, taking car of the car. But I do all the laundry and slightly more of the baby care (in addition to bf that is). So I guess it's a mix with a bias in us sticking to our gender "roles"
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@BabyMats: I really want to go part time in the future if we can afford it and DH would totally support it as well. But it's not something he would ever want to do.
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Nope. I believe in origins what works best for the family. My husband is a SAHD, I'm active duty military. He does all of the cooking. I do laundry and dishes and we share in the rest of the responsibilities.
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Nope. I'll always be the breadwinner and I don't mind. I like being able to afford things that we couldn't unless I was working. Dh stayed at home for 3 months and was amazing. He liked it, but is more fulfilled while working too. He cried when he had to go back to work and leave our lo thoygh!
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We are not traditional when it comes to the fairly narrow, nostalgic version of "traditional" gender/family roles.
We both believe that each of us are responsible for financially supporting our family, we each are responsible for giving 100% to parenting, and we don't assign any roles based on gender. My husband is neater than I am and a better cleaner so he cleans more. We both love to cook so we both cook. We both change diapers, parent and divide tasks based on skill and desire.
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We have fallen into traditional roles in that I am staying at home with the baby, and I like cooking so do most of that and try to keep up the house while he works and supports us financially. But that doesn't mean I think it works for everyone by any means. And he does plenty around the house and with the baby, its just that he is here way less than I am. He's be a pretty bad sahd though- he's go nuts!
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I'm not traditional regarding home roles: DW and split the work that can be split (I don't think that LO, DW or I want to take on the BF responsibilities...) and I do more of the cooking for us and LO than DWdoes, but that's on evenings when I get back from work earlier. And on evenings when I have my college classes, DW gets back on time.
With all due respect to your friend, I think that when one of a couple, or one of a set of parents, is doing all the work, then that's a bit unfair on them, however much someone says that they don't mind. If DW and I have shared a chore, or I have done a job that she hates to do (and vice versa), it makes us feel much more like a family that pulls together.
That said, if anyone is offering money for the "Let's Get @Apis A Butler" fund, then I'll forward on my Cayman Islands deposit account number*.
* legal disclaimer: this is a "joke". So don't bother trying to look for it, IRS.
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Ummmm sorta?
I agree with you that things should be 50/50. Right now we both work and we both take care of the home too. But within that 50/50 at home, I tend to do most of the cooking and most of the laundry. My husband does most of the yard work (including shoveling the drive and mowing!) and all the kitty litter/trash/gross jobs. We tend to split general cleaning pretty evenly although I probably do a bit more because I work from home.
As for staying home though? I would not be cool with my husband wanting to SAH. I don't judge what other people do at all, but part of what attracted me to my husband is his ambition and his drive to be successful at work. I don't really want to SAH either, although I wouldn't mind going part time once we have kids. But I definitely am personally attracted to the traditional masculine "bread winner" type dude. Lucky for me my husband would go bonkers staying home for more than 4 days so it will never be an issue
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@yoursilverlining: totally agree! We split everything pretty equally. I hate cleaning AND cooking though
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Gahh. I'm really torn on this. I was raised in a very traditional household. My dad made it clear he would NEVER pick up a broom. That was my responsibility as his daughter. In return, I never learned how to do yard work. I can't mow the lawn or operate a weed eater.
Both my husband and I work full time...so we split household duties But laundry and cleaning mostly falls on my shoulders. DH picks up the slack on dishes and household errands.
I can't help but feel like it's my duty to take care of the house and DH's to provide for the family. I actually would feel uncomfortable making more than him....I guess because my whole life as I know it would be backwards? If that makes sense?
DH does most of the cooking and grocery shopping. He's good at it and I'm not. I lived mostly with my dad and stepmom growing up....and dad didn't cook (obviously) and my stepmom never did meal preparation so I never learned. My mom was amazing at it but she lived 1000 miles away.
LO isn't here yet but I know I'll take the lead and be the dominant parenting role.
If I end up staying at home after LO is born (still haven't decided) I will take on 100% responsibility of everything at home. Besides yard work.
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Not at all. We both work, so we split all household duties like cleaning and laundry evenly. However I'm a control freak so I'm the "primary parent" for most things related to the LOs and I do the majority of the cooking, but those are by choice.
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@swedishfish: I hate cleaning too! So by default, my husband is neater and requires a higher level of cleanliness - so that's his responsibility to maintain since it's his issue. I'm like "meh, that pile of clothes on the floor is just fine!" and he's over there completely losing his mind.
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@yoursilverlining: Completely agree. I'm taking an extended leave from work to care for DD through the rest of this year, but we've always split the financial responsibility, working similar hours. We divide household chores and baby duties according to skill and preference, and it seems to work well. I don't think anyone's "place" is strictly in the home, or in the work force.
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Nope. Neither of us are assigned any specific duties beyond me breastfeeding DS. My husband is a fantastic cook, knows his way around a toilet brush, and does not feel emasculated by doing what is traditionally 'women's work.' We just both do what needs to get done around the house and for DS.
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We split things around the house and child caring. I'm home for a year so I'm doing more of the care for DS, while for this time period most of the financial responsibility falls on DH. DH is a very hands on dad and helps out around the house a lot. We hope it works out in the future so DH can work shorter days and be home for before and after school.
I think every family has to do what works best for them.
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Yes? And no?
I'm currently a SAHM, and DH works long hours, some nights not getting home until after midnight. It makes the most sense for me to do the bulk of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and child care. When he's home in the morning on a shorter day later in the week he'll get up with E, make breakfast for everyone and let me sleep in (but I still do the night wakings after we've gone to bed). On the weekends the split is more equitable...he spends more time with E and pitches in with the chores (although I still do the bulk of the cooking because I love it).
If I had a job that paid more than his and that I loved (and if he didn't love his job so much) he'd have no problem being a SAHD...before he got this job and before we got pregnant with E he said that being a SAHD would be his dream job. But he loves his job, and wouldn't want to leave it now, so when I eventually go back to work E will go into day care.
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We're about as different from traditional as one could imagine. I'm the primary bread winner. He was a SAHD for 2 years. He does the laundry and the dishes, I do the rest. He takes out the garbage, but I pull in the cans and he mostly mows but I do all the weeding, leaves etc. Our house would not function if he wasn't fully engaged in our home activities or if I had to SAH for some reason. We'd be unable to pay the bills!
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we are traditional, but DH is always game to be a SAHD. he's great at housework and loves DS time/caretaking too. we won't ever do this because he makes more than i do
but then agian, we won't ever have me SAH either so it's pretty even.as far as our life now, we're traditional in our house chores, but we're financially and personality wise very much individual as well which i think tends to stray from "traditional"
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@PurpleUnicorn: why wouldn't he want to do it?
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@BabyMats: he's just not interested in being a SAHD. Not his thing. I think he thinks it would be boring. And he enjoys his career and wants to work/advance in his field. Though I never thought in a million years I would want to be a SAHM till I've been doing it this past year. I also wouldn't want to do it permanently. I really like the part time idea though
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not at all! dh does most the majority of the cooking and usually he does more chores than I do (though I do the big, organizing kind of things). we split doggy care pretty evenly, though I usually am the one to take them to the vet and groom them. our lo isn't here yet, but we will be pretty 50/50, though my career is at a more flexible stage than his is right now so I'll be more of the primary caregiver in the early years. he's the breadwinner right now because I'm a phd student, but my career takes precedence in a lot of ways-- mainly, dh can work from home anywhere, so when I go on the job market we will move wherever I need to go (like we did for grad school).
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