Whose job is harder?
It’s a bone of contention for many married couples who are parents. Whose job is harder? The stay at home parent or the working parent?
I am the stay at home parent and I love it. I left a job in communications to spend the first year of my son’s life at home with him, and I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to do so.
My husband works full time. He gets up at 6:30am and usually gets home around 4:30pm. He is a hard worker and even takes on some freelance work on the side. And he is a great dad.
So as the stay at home parent I do all the cooking, cleaning, shopping and of course looking after baby. My job is not easy, but I enjoy being a domestic Goddess. At the same time, my job has no quitting time or starting time. I’m on call 24/7 and that’s where the arguments start.
For the past month my little guy has been sleeping terribly, waking up anywhere from three to six times a night. And just last week I took him to see my grandparents which meant that I was the sole caregiver all day and night.
All this waking in the middle of the night has really started to wear on me, and coupled with the trip and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. So last night I went to bed at 9:30. Joshua woke up at 10:30, so I fed him and got him back to sleep. But when the baby woke up again just half an hour later, I asked my husband to try to get him back to sleep. His response, “What do you want me to do? I have to work all day tomorrow.”
I was mad, frustrated, and tired as hell. I got up, rocked the baby to sleep, and went back to bed crying.
My husband apologized the next day, but the experience has left me with the question: When is it fair to ask for your partners help during the night, even when they work full time? How much help should you expect? Does the fact that I can take a 45 minute or an hour nap during the day take away my right to sleep more than three hours straight?
~Michelle
Labels: baby, cleaning, Cooking, job, Michelle, parenting, Relationship, sleep
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