Comments on: Stay at Home….Wife?

By: Blueberries For Me

Blueberries For Me — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:53:32 +0000

I love long replies! I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one in this arrangement, though I think you do more in a day than I do in a week! I forgot to add that one of the main reasons I’m taking things easy this summer is that I’ve been dealing with a chronic illness and figured this would be a good way to rest up and concentrate on my health. Good luck to you and your school!

By: Blueberries For Me

Blueberries For Me — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:51:08 +0000

I guess we are used to defining our purpose by what we “do”. I am grateful that we don’t *need* me to work this summer, but I still feel like I need to earn my keep!

By: Rachel

Rachel — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:07:20 +0000

I am another person with mixed feelings about being at home. I’ll share my rather atypical experience: For the first two years of our marriage, I ran my business from home. My photography business kept me social, busy, and brought in a bit of extra money every year to help pay for luxuries and travel… but it was a lot of work and burnt me out. Then in 2010 we transplanted away from Boston and I took a sabbatical from my business to re-think life priorities. For six months we were living with HIS PARENTS in a new town where I had no friends… I was a SAHW, but not on my own terms at all. That was entirely depressing. Once we moved to Portland I started planning adventures for us and doing much of the housework for our tiny little house when he was at work.

Since we made a gigantic goal of paying off the remainder of our school debt this year (http://143637.com) the only logical move was for me to get a day job in 2011 to help pile up cash toward our repayments – and keep me from boredom trips to Target. Once we’re debt-free in 2012 I expect to be able to go back to being a SAHW with a business. If I were just a SAHW without projects or goals I would probably go a little bit crazy. When we have kids, it will be a different story. We have this funny agreement that I’ll stay home with kids EXCEPT when they are “terrible ages” (2-4yrs) my husband will stay home with them and I will go back to work for a couple of years and re-earn my sanity. HA.

By: Cortney

Cortney — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:58:39 +0000

I’ve been a stay at home girlfriend for right at a year now. When my partner moved up to Colorado, we both agreed we didn’t want to do a long distance relationship. The economy was (and is) terrible, and I had just landed a great job with excellent pay (double my previous salary) and benefits. I had been unemployed for 6 months prior to that, although 4 of those months I was writing my thesis (I went to both undergrad and grad school full time while working full time). My partner assured me that, since I would be giving up a hard won job to move to a much smaller town- Dallas, TX to Fort Collins, CO- where it would be even harder to get a job, that he wouldn’t resent being the only breadwinner. We had originally decided to stay here a year, so I searched for jobs in the month before I moved up, and in the three months after moving up. After that, though, we had an agreement that I would take care of the house and he would work for the remaining 9 months. That means that he goes to work every day, takes care of the bills, and on the weekends he does random chores like changing the oil in my car, fixing my computer, or doing a project around the house like building shelves. I do all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, and any other miscellaneous chores to do with our life. I pack his lunch, I make the bed in the morning, I organize things via our Google calendars, etc. I also take online courses towards a post masters certificate, and I volunteer with two international non-profits, about 20 hours a week, but sometimes more. I should note that many times Bobby will start a load of laundry, unload the dishwasher, take out the trash, etc. He also loves to get up on the weekends and make waffles or pancakes from scratch. And he is chief baker- he makes all the cookies and crumbles and biscuits, because he loves to bake.

Personally, I love this arrangement. When he gets home from work at 5 the house is clean, dinner is ready, and we’re done by 6. That gives us 5 hours to do whatever we want, with nothing on our “to-do” list. We can decide on the fly to go see a movie, or go out to dinner with friends, or take a bike ride for ice cream, hit up the hot tub in our apartment, etc. Both of us are much less stressed. Both of us, in our respective roles, are taking care of one another.

I have to stress, though, this ONLY works because it was agreed upon prior to my moving up. Also, Bobby is a feminist like myself. When he talks of money, he always says “our” or “we”. As in “we’re doing really well this year, our savings are on track”. He never, ever begrudges me anything. He values my work, and considers it just that- work. Strangely, such a hyper traditional, gender stratified arrangement would not work for me without a very progressive, feminist partner. I have worked since I was 14 and I moved out of the house when I was 15, I supported myself all through undergrad/grad school, and I was very independent. I truly have not been this dependent on another since I was 14 years old. But the fact that I’m not freaking out means a lot to me, because, due to such early independence, I always had a hard time letting people take care of me in any way.

We had planned to leave May 2011, but we decided to stay another year. I’m going back to grad school full time, and I’ll be doing a part time teaching internship (unpaid). We plan to keep our current arrangement. (sorry so long!)