House Husbands

M

mas2

Likes Bikes and Dirt
My wife has been stay at home for the last 10 years with both kids while I worked full time. Her personal business has boomed in the last year and has now been offered a full time job nearly double my salary. We are seriously thinking to move and switch roles with me becoming primary caregiver, however, where we move we don't know anyone, there is not much work in my industry (but I will I'm happy to do anything that fits within school hours and could even do online work) but the main focus is to look after the boys/house/food/clothes.

What I want to know is if anyone else here has switched roles and what you have experienced both good and bad.
Is there anything we need to lookout for or ground rules to set?

Thanks
MAS
 
Labcanary

Labcanary

One potato, two potato, click
My husband's parents did this when he was young. His Mum earned more and returned to work while his Dad stayed home to care for him and occasionally do some fitting and turning work from home.
@Plankosaurus and his better half also did similar for a while.
 
Labcanary

Labcanary

One potato, two potato, click
Oh yeah, the good: my father in law really enjoyed being able to spend the time with the kids. His house keeping skills didn't extend much beyond making coffee and Vegemite on toast, but he made a big adventure playground for the kids and is a keen gardener. I guess what I'm saying is work with your strengths. Discuss with your wife what her expectations are in regards to house keeping and all that.
The bad: even in this day and age stay at home Dad's aren't too common. Be prepared for questions, especially from older people who have firm ideas of gender roles!
 
Rusty_68

Rusty_68

say no to ooogamaflap
I've been a house husband for the past 14 years. My wife is waaaaaay smarter than me and also needs that mental stimulation that work offers her. I, on the other hand do not!

We have found it to be really good. Some points from experience:

I should say that any of the following can be totally ignored...they are just observations from our own experience.

Don't let your wife feel any guilt for what she may see as leaving her kids.
Don't feel guilty yourself, for not being the hunter/gatherer.
Make your own routine. One that works around what your boys already know, but suits you also.
Don't try and be their mother. You're their father and that's 100% fine.
Don't get shitty after a month of doing the shopping and wifey buys the wrong milk.
Show wifey that you can do it and are happy to do it. It takes the stress off of her.
It takes a bit of time to readjust.
Once you have the routine nailed down, you'll be quicker and better at it, which in turn allows you more time for yourself.
Pornhub is NOT your friend.
Don't get six months down the road and start to resent when your wife being at work. You're a team.
Try to have things running smoothly, so when she gets in from work, she isn't flapping about shit you haven't done?
Don't be an egotist. Some things will go right, some will go wrong. That's life.

I'm sure there are heaps more, but to be honest, it has worked really well for us. But then I don't really likke people on the whole, so being at home suits me....@moorey can confirm the latter.
Hope it works for you guys.
 
S

shiny

Go-go-gadget-wrist-thingy
If you can do it, do it. You really appreciate how much goes into looking after the kids and running the house. Wife and I swapped stay at home roles for a bit and I think it has helped us as a team and also strengthened my bond with the kids.

As @Rusty_68 said and echoing his words above there is some adjusting and working it all out, school lunches, drops offs and pick ups, sports , parties, buying presents for the parties. You will stuff up, you will forget things.

Set expectations before starting, will the wife just work and you do the rest or will you do most of it and she does some?

You do settle into a routine and do things your way. With my kids being younger when I was at home it left little time for exercise (MTB’ing) so that was annoying and squeezed night rides in when I could.

You will get used to the questions and weird looks. So you cook the dinners and do the shopping, yes, I do. Oh.

You mentioned moving to a new area, plenty to do to get to know other parents, school, sports, after school activities etc.

You will get sick of washing and folding clothes but that’s part of it.

It is a great experience and well worth it. Do it!

Hope that makes sense and helps!!
 
Ultra Lord

Ultra Lord

Hurts. Requires Money. And is nerdy.
Rusty_68 said:
I've been a house husband for the past 14 years. My wife is waaaaaay smarter than me and also needs that mental stimulation that work offers her. I, on the other hand do not!

We have found it to be really good. Some points from experience:

I should say that any of the following can be totally ignored...they are just observations from our own experience.

Don't let your wife feel any guilt for what she may see as leaving her kids.
Don't feel guilty yourself, for not being the hunter/gatherer.
Make your own routine. One that works around what your boys already know, but suits you also.
Don't try and be their mother. You're their father and that's 100% fine.
Don't get shitty after a month of doing the shopping and wifey buys the wrong milk.
Show wifey that you can do it and are happy to do it. It takes the stress off of her.
It takes a bit of time to readjust.
Once you have the routine nailed down, you'll be quicker and better at it, which in turn allows you more time for yourself.
Pornhub is NOT your friend.
Don't get six months down the road and start to resent when your wife being at work. You're a team.
Try to have things running smoothly, so when she gets in from work, she isn't flapping about shit you haven't done?
Don't be an egotist. Some things will go right, some will go wrong. That's life.

I'm sure there are heaps more, but to be honest, it has worked really well for us. But then I don't really likke people on the whole, so being at home suits me....@moorey can confirm the latter.
Hope it works for you guys.
Click to expand...
Not gonna lie, wine came out my nose when I read “pornhub is NOT your friend”.
Kinda hard to be productive when your hands full of dick.
 
moorey

moorey

call me Mia
I’ve done/do a bit of each. While we both work FT, my wife’s work is less flexible and more demanding with shitty hours, so I’m the housebitch and kid wrangler more than her.
I look 6 months off work when she came off maternity leave with our youngest, and I was full time housewife. It was just about the best time of my life, doing all the toddler stuff with daughter, but I won’t lie, it was the toughest 6 months of my life also. The house work seemed to never end and kids were demanding. This was the period where I didn’t touch a bike for around 4 years. No regrats though.
 
moorey

moorey

call me Mia
rockmoose said:
I'm the fulltime parent, and eldercare. Fit work in around school and house stuff. Just do it and love it. So much better being a proper parent than wasting your life slaving for the man, and exhaustedly catching snippets of your childs formative life.
Click to expand...
I’ve got mates that earn 5x what I do, but have barely seen their kids grow up. I’d never change places with them.
I’m a lot like you…without the eldercare. School drop offs, pick ups, after school activities, weekends with them. It’s my wife who misses out seeing them more.
 
frenchman

frenchman

Eats cheese. Sells crack.
fuck yeah @mas2 get on that Gravey train. I just finished up having the last 2 years off.
albeit I didn’t have kids on my time off, I spent most of the time doing up the house, riding my bike and taking every opportunity to meet the boss during her lunch break by riding in.
Also spent heaps of time in the woods building massive kickers and rolling blunts.

also fuck what those miserable old pricks say. They’re just jealous they wasted some of the best parts of their life slaving away when they could’ve been in the woods riding a bike
 
Cyclomaniac

Cyclomaniac

Likes Dirt
There is some great advice here. I stayed home for 7 years when the kids were born. Loved it.
I too was anxious about being unproductive but turned out to be the most productive time of my life. If you are self motivated you find that you have a lot of flexibility to do a lot, especially if the kids are at school. In between nappy changes, tea parties and domestic duties I was able to learn Autocad, draw up plans, put them through council and renovate the whole house. You have to be disciplined or you can waste days doing nothing. Give yourself goals and try to take a step towards those goals every day. It motivates you to get the boring houshold stuff done and get on to the stuff you want to do.
For us it worked out great. Our kids grew up in a construction site but we ended up with a house we could never afford to buy. I had the space to learn a lot of new skills too like tiling, plastering and mountain biking.
The cons:
Being called "Mr mum" by stay at home mums. Don't let anyone call you that. Dads looking after their kids are called dads!
Going back to work after years off. The worst Monday morning ever.
Missing the banter and company at work.
For me it was very alienating. I had become an overachieving dad/diy wanker. Taking the kids to birthday parties etc and trying to make friends was hard because I didn't have a job to talk about. The mums I met would want me to meet their husbands because of the work I was doing and as you can imagine they really liked being told what a great husband I was. Having time and flexabilty is great, how others perceive you and what you do can make things hard if you are trying to meet new friends in a new area.
Hope this helps.
 
T

tubby74

Likes Bikes and Dirt
link1896 said:
School pickup duties are the line in the sand for daytime drinking…..
Unless everyone starts riding bikes everywhere.
Click to expand...
i work from home so get to do the school runs. Shops are a mile away the other side of school so i'll often ride there, pick up stuff for cooking dinner then meet the kid at school. People make enough assumptions about you dropping in to get a bottle of wine on a bike, doubly so when you then proceed to the school pick up.

but getting to hear the excited tales from the kid at each end of the school day is great, and being able to be involved in their sports adds to that. so many dads in particular are first out of the house in the morning and kids are already onto homework before they get back.
 
ozzybmx

ozzybmx

taking a shit with my boobs out
It's a modern thing to do, the breadwinner doesn't have to be the man. Good on you and enjoy your kids :)

Though dropping impulsive $10k on bikes or $1000 a month online component orders would probably have to stop without consent... and seeing err face screwed up questioning why I needed this or that would take the fun out of it for me, imagine her even knowing the prices :p
 
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