how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse
You may not realize it, but being a good spouse to a stay-at-home parent is a hard job in and of itself. There are few key actions you can concentrate on to try and help each other. I am terrible at almost every single one of these tips, so for once this is not a list where I’m preaching; I’m trying to inspire myself as much as anyone else! Also please note that I did my best to stick with the ‘spouse’ wording, because I’m always very concerned to avoid any hint of sexism in implying that women should automatically be viewed as the caregiver. If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that I have goals to become a stay-at-home dad one day!
Herewith, then, my ten tips:
1. Don’t ‘decompress’ for an hour after you get home. After a long hard day at the office, your first temptation may be to fling yourself down on the couch, or jump in the shower, or go check your emails or any one of a number of ‘decompression’ activities. This behavior is understandable, but it does not help. Your spouse is still ‘on the clock’ while you are decompressing, and waiting for their own chance to relax.
Solution: Take a maximum of 15-30 minutes after you arrive home to change, wash up, and shake off your day – and then plunge into chores, child care, playtime and bedtime activities. You may think it is more relaxing to watch ‘Deal or No Deal’ but in reality you’ll be happier if you have a clean house, relaxed spouse and happy kid(s).
2. Take care of chores without ‘dividing them up.’ Sometimes deals work out well. My wife and I divide bedtime and clean up chores: if one of us puts Little Buddy to sleep, the other one cleans up toys and washes bottles. However, you can’t think of this as a zero-sum game. There will come times when you may come home later than usual and your spouse has to do everything – so don’t begrudge times when your spouse just can’t manage to summon the energy to pick up Elmo.
Solution: Don’t keep score. Don’t say “I did everything yesterday, so YOU do it all today.” Consider each day a clean slate, with no balance sheet of dids and didn’ts. Do everything you can, and do critical tasks first. If you don’t wash all of the dishes, let it go for a day if you’re too tired – but if the last baby bottle is dirty, you have to summon some energy.
3. Give the gift of break time. Probably the single greatest gift you can give a stay-at-home parent is the gift of half an hour to do nothing. Having a child at home, particularly a young one, requires near-constant vigilance and activity. Even during nap times a monitor is usually hissing in your spouse’s ears.
Solution: Let your spouse go take a shower or read a book or whatever relaxes them, and pretend to yourself that they’ve left the house. Don’t go get them when Junior poops, or asks for milk, or breaks a lamp. Give them 30 minutes of uninterrupted solitude.
4. Don’t be selfish with your own ‘me time.’ As someone who is out ‘in the world’ you have quite a bit of freedom. If one night you decide to go for a while with coworkers, remember that your spouse, in effect, is trapped. They can’t do the same thing – their ability to pop out for a drink or whatnot is limited by you and the babysitter.
Solution: Generally, you should never go out on the town without a day’s warning. Don’t call your spouse at 6 PM and tell them you won’t be home until 11. It’s simply not a nice thing to do. “But these things just come up spur of the moment sometimes!” you might say. Too bad. You’re a parent, not a 23-year-old. Go home.
5. Remember you are less expert in your child’s moods and needs. You may think you have a good
understanding of your kid(s), but the simple fact is that you don’t. You may see them for 2-3 hours during weekdays and 2 days on the weekend. You probably only spend time alone with them for a few hours a month, total. Your stay-at-home spouse sees a lot more of your kid(s) than you do, and knows better that when they ask for “raygun” they mean raisin, or that they don’t really NEED another glass of juice.
Solution: Don’t override your spouse’s decisions on food, clothing, behavior, sleeptime, playtime and so on. You have to become a good soldier in this case. If your judgment is called for, or if you’re giving your spouse 30 minutes off, do what you want – but don’t get into an argument because you think you know best. You don’t.
6. Back off. Sometimes the sad truth is that you may just be interfering while thinking you are helpful. If you are crashing around during bedtime getting in the way, keep in mind that you may be making things worse, not better. Two heads are not always better than one.
Solution: If your spouse doesn’t say anything, assume you’re helping. If they tell you to leave, leave. Don’t feel bad about not helping. Your spouse should be comfortable asking for help, and you should be comfortable when you’re asked NOT to help.
7. Don’t bring work home. As immersed as you are in your work life, you should leave it behind. Your spouse will not care for stories of workplace stupidity or evilness, because it’s painful to hear when you’re tired. Your spouse will have even less desire to hear about workplace fun and shenanigans, because it may make them regret being ‘stuck at home.’ Remember that you are not defined by your work.
Solution: Talk about your children, your goals or other subjects that interest you. Leave gripes about Homer from Quality Control at the plant. Incidentally, leaving work at work will make you happier, too.
8. Try not to undermine ‘wind-down’ time. If your kid(s) go to sleep at a reasonable hour – and hopefully they do – don’t come home and start playing ‘swing from the monkey bars’ or ‘jump on the couch’ with them. You can ruin a whole evening by making your kid(s) hyper right before bedtime.
Solution: Keep it quiet. No matter how tempted you are to play, keep things low-key. Read, sing, play imagination games or whatever you can do to stay quiet. Reading is the perfect activity in the evenings.
9. Turn it off. If you have a cell phone, or a blackberry or access to corporate email, turn it off the second you walk in the door. There is no excuse for spending any time on work while your kid(s) are still up and your spouse is home. Turn it all off. Unless you are negotiating the solution to the subprime crisis, chances are good that the email can wait until after the kid(s) are asleep.
Solution: Easy. Turn it off.
10. Remember that this is a team effort. If you are the primary breadwinner and your spouse is the primary caregiver, it’s easy to forget that one couldn’t be successful without the other. Even though the money is ‘yours’ and the parenting is ‘theirs,’ both of you effectively are responsible for 50% of earning and parenting – you just turn around and outsource it to each other. However, starting to think that you are the only one who should spend or make money decisions because you work is asinine. If your spouse starts to think that parenting is too hard and you’re off having a ball at work, that’s not fair.
Solution: Take a look at your kids while they sleep… and that will remind you of what your ‘team’ is all about.
So many things in life are tough. Being a good partner isn’t one of them, if you approach it in the right way!
(photos by powerbooktrance and by M.ADA)
Related posts:
- Rich Mom, Poor Mom
- Teaching risk tolerance
- The myth of the parent that NEEDS to work
- I will not pay for my children’s college education, part 1
Recommended reading:
- Secrets of the Baby Whisperer I can’t recommend this book enough, particularly if you have any trouble putting your children to sleep!
- Happiest Baby on the Block The name says it all – if you have a baby, learn swaddling and rocking!
- What to Expect the First Year I found this book tremendously helpful as a reference, and it made me a better husband to my stay-at-home wife simply because I had something to refer to when I had questions and didn’t want to bother her!
53 Responses to “how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse”
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Great advice! It’s hard for me to remember number 1. I get home and I’m a wreck after my commute. I try to make up for it with #3 to give my wife some time to herself. Here’s one more tip – make sure you communicate with your spouse. That will help you stay on the same page.
Steve exagerates when he says that he is “terrible at almost every single one of these tips”. It’s not true. He is a very considered spouse and I am the luckiest to have him.
I am glad he acknowledges Point #5. I think this is the hardest for him to accept that I do know better when it comes to Little Buddy, most of the time, because I spend more time with him.
Also, this is advice to the parents of brand new babies: the “Happiest Baby on the Block” is a very helpful book on how to sooth your colicky (crying) baby. We did all the steps from the book and it helped us tremendously, made a big difference. The book is short and to the point. Or you could get a DVD on Netflix.
As for the “Secrets of the Baby Whisperer” book, I regret we din’t get it soon enough. It would’ve saved us months of sleep deprivation. This book had other valueable tips on eating and scheduling. I highly reommend to start early.
“Secrets of the Baby Whisperer” – I loved this book. I wish we had read it earlier.
Steve, I think you should write a “How to be a good stay-at-home partner to a working spouse” (if you dare!).
Or maybe Bebulah could write it.
Mike
Excellent post! Maybe I should pass it on to my husband……
Actually, he already does most of these things.
I dont have kids yet, and my BF and I both work but this is a great post! You touch upon all the things I’d want my husband to do if I were to be a stay at home mom one day..
great post – will forward to some friends. but i have to say, that picture is kind of creepy!
Great post, Steve. If you’re managing to at least try to follow these, Bubelah is indeed a lucky gal.
I second the motion of you and Bubelah collaborating on a similar post on how to be a good partner to a working spouse. As long as I won’t have to put on a dress and pearls and meet Hubby at the door with a drink…
Loved the second photo, though I agree it is a tad creepy.
Another great post, Steve! I’m forwarding it on to my spouse. He does a pretty good with these, though, but I think he’ll enjoy reading it nonetheless. Reminders here and there never hurt anyone, right?
Wonderful post! Your wife is a very lucky woman.
I would add, in regard to #7 and #8 that it’s important to communicate with your spouse about their preferences. I actually want my husband to talk to me about work, and I like for him to play rough with the kids, even if it is half an hour before bedtime. In the first case, I like to feel like I know what’s going on in his life–and let’s face it, his work is 50% (at least) of his life right now. In the second case, rough-housing is something I just really don’t do, but I feel like it’s important for the kids to have it. So I rely on him to give that to them. And besides, if they’re squealing with laughter in the next room, I can sneak under the covers for 10 minutes and read a book without too much guilt.
I think the best point (of all these good points ) is that parenting, like other relationships, is not a zero sum game. It’s not 50/50, it’s more like 100/100. Sometimes it makes sense to split things, but it’s too complex a relationship to try to make everything “even.”
have to put on a dress and pearls and meet Hubby at the door with a drink…
That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about!
Mike
That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about!
I had a feeling you might be.
Perfect post. 100%. Oh and I am a work at home mom with children in tow. And all of this is still relevant and even more true. Because not only am I caring for kids all day, I juggle in my work.
Thanks. I’m tearing up over here.
Here thru Stumble Upon and glad I found this! Great post, thank you.
Amen! Be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Great comments, everyone. The second picture is a little weird, but for some reason it just caught my attention! And yes, the pearls and martini advice will come in the followup post….
Heather had a good point, that of course any of these can be modified if you and your spouse communicate about them and agree on changing them. Maybe in your family one person just prefers to be the one who is on bedtime duty … in any case, there are a lot of ways to manage things, and most of them just require good communication.
Good points.
Important to remind your normal working spouse (NWS) not to wind the kids up before bed-time. And work on the decompression thing – both spouses need it at that time and the kids are naturally most active then.
Add in that the NWS does not expect the stay-at-home spouse (SAHS) to be the Secretary Of All Things – and say “you’ve been home all day why couldn’t you get that done?”
Also, there are times the NWS needs to give SAHS time to go have a ‘beer’ with their ‘co-workers’.
From a Stay at home Dad also running a Consulting Business. There are more and more of us – join the crowd
You’re becoming the king of stumbleupon Steve! All good. My husband, who is for the most part holding down the domestic fort at the moment, has just pointed at a couple of these points/comments and said HAH! I can get better though.
Sometimes it’s just plain hard to remember all that advice when returning from work at eight, tired as a rag…
@John: In fact I DO intend to join your crowd, as soon as possible
@Marek: I couldn’t agree more. Like I said at the beginning of the article I have terrible trouble remembering it all after a long day and sometimes horrific commute (up to 2 hours on a bad day, each way). However, I try every day to remind myself that sacrifices I make are not sacrifices – because it pays off in the long run with a better marriage, happier kids and a healthier home. But yeah – it’s hard. Nothing good comes easy!
Where were you with this post when my kids were little and Iwas at home with them?
Thanks for contributing this insightful article to this week’s Carnival of Family Life, hosted at the so-called me on Monday, December 10, 2007! We have many other wonderful entries, so stop by and read a few!
Interested in hosting the Carnival? The schedule is posted at Colloquium.
Excellent advice. You do such a great job of making both parties feel validated, so thank you for this.
Great tips. My husband is pretty good at these, although he could use to do more housework. But we divvy up putting the kids to bed and he has improved on helping out most ways.
I do love this post, but I do dislike the “What to expect” book series. Intensely and with an undying passion. lol
As a SAHM, I LOVE this article. My husband is one of those who comes home and sits on the couch and, for the most part, stays there all night until bed. He won’t even put his plate in the sink after dinner. And when he works late, (pretty much every night) there’s no notice. When I have a migraine, he says, “Suck it up.” (Course there have been times he doesn’t feel like getting out of bed, so he’ll sleep in and then tell his boss that he was late because I had a migraine.) But if he’s got a cold, he’s in bed for two days.
At night, he’s watching tv and working on his computer. Then, when its time for bed (at least now he has a hand in helping with bedtime, before he wouldn’t even do that.) he gets our son all rilled up. (I still have jammy duty and toothbrushing duty. All he has to do is read a book and put the boy in bed but since he decides that’s the perfect time to wrestle with our son, our son is often up past 11 p.m. and asking for drinks, snacks, stories and whatnot.
Oh and on the weekends, he sleeps in — sometimes well past 3 p.m. Because you know, he works so hard! At least today he only slept in until 1. And yesterday he slept until 10 a.m. but took a three hour nap in the afternoon. I have to beg him to spend some one-on-one time with our son.
He does do laundry… That’s pretty much his only household chore. He does it about three times a month.
My husband likes to say, “But you get three hours a day of free time while our son is at school. What he doesn’t realize is that time is used to run errands, see doctors, make phone calls, schedule stuff and whatnot.
(I picked a real winner, didn’t I? Looks like he’s the poster boy for how to do this all WRONG. It makes me feel like I’m the only one in the marriage and the only parent. That’s pretty much why we are only having one child. I’m sad and very disappointed that he doesn’t WANT to be an active part of our family.)
Sorry to write a book there. Its just something I can’t write about on my own blog…
Excellent post! I have stumbled it!
My wife and I have trouble with number two. If one of us does most of the chores one day, there’s almost an expectation that the other will catch up the next day. If the partner doesn’t notice the imbalance because they were, say, busy with the kids, then that can result in something unpleasant for all.
@Trent: Absolutely, and we’re by no means perfect on this one, either. Plus it assumes that there’s (a) some “price” to the chores – does washing the dishes “equal” taking out the garbage? and (b) taking care of the kids is somehow equivalent to the chores. It shouldn’t feel that way but as a parent I’ve found that there are certainly plenty of times when sitting through an extended grumpy bedtime session with a toddler feels like work.
Of course with my (semi-temporary) move to problogging, doing the chores just got a bit easier
This is a dumb question, but is that second picture real?
@wanda: it’s not a dumb question, but I can’t answer it – it’s just an image I grabbed from Flickr, so it might be fake. I would not be surprised if it was real, though – in the later stages of pregnancy (my wife is due tomorrow) the belly skin is stretched very thin!
All very good tips, my husband’s pretty good about a lot of these, but some… Although the number one tip I would have added is “No Honey-Do Lists.” The worst thing he can do is hand me a list of the stuff he wants done in the morning, as if I have nothing else to do all day. Of course, it works the other way, too. When he gets home from work I don’t drop a baby in his lap and tell him to take out the trash. Acknowledge that your spouse is a grown-up, and you’ve both worked hard all day. A little patience and communication goes a long way. And to MOTHEROFBUN: My husband used to think I had no job. One Saturday he took over and handled our (then) one child by himself. He was passed out on the couch by 8 p.m. I haven’t heard another remark about my “easy” days.
As a stay-at-home spouse, all I have to say is, THANK YOU! For once I feel normal for getting mad at my husband for doing the things you mentioned.
GREAT post! You really got me thinking. I'm going to make sure my husband reads this. Great blog as well.
Thanks Heather!
I've come across this article by chance, when browsing aimlessly.
What a wonderful article, especially since it reonates so aptly with my present situation. I am in India. I work while my wife is a stay-at-home mom. Every single word that is written here is relevant to us. The tips here are excellent and they point to all the mistakes I have been making in my life vitiating our family relationship. The mistakes like :-
1. I'm too exhausted. Because I work, I'm entitled to relax once I reach home. Dead wrong.
2. I grudgingly do chores. And ofcourse keep score. See how good I am that I help whenever I can, inspite of my workload!
3. Never even thought of me-time for my wife.
This post is excellent! I am emailing it to my husband after typing this. The points about he cell oops now its the Iphone rings true. Actually I never thought of the drinks out with the co-workers in that way, but that's a great point as well.
This post is excellent! I am emailing it to my husband after typing this. The points about he cell oops now its the Iphone rings true. Actually I never thought of the drinks out with the co-workers in that way, but that's a great point as well.