My wife frequently reminds me that her job as a mother is much harder than my 9-to-5 job at the office.
My job has a beginning and an end, while her job requires her to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In a previous job, I managed a materials stockroom that required me to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After working several 16-hour shifts and being called in to work at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning, I started looking for a new job. My wife does not have that luxury.
Although being a father requires that I am also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, my wife usually responds to the early morning distress calls from my son (he usually wants his mommy and not his daddy), and is naturally the one who wakes to nurse our crying baby.
Two Saturdays a month, my wife graciously watches our two children while I work a 10-hour shift as a volunteer with a local law-enforcement agency. In December, she acquiesced to my desire to work two nights with the DUI taskforce, one of those nights being New Years Eve. I started my shift at 6 p.m. and was home at 6 a.m. the following morning, sleeping the next day while she watched both children.
On the first Thursday of every month, my wife enjoys one solitary, guaranteed night without children—book club! I am sure the very thought of being around other adults, carrying on intelligent conversations…without the threat of drooling children or foul-smelling pants is sufficiently exciting. Add some food, good friends, desert and conversation about a good book and you get a group of women truly enjoying themselves.
I used to dread the nights when my wife had book club. Being outnumbered (two against one) and ill equipped to feed a baby with a bottle and corral a hyperactive three-year old boy, I wondered to myself: How does my wife do it? I will take tense negotiations with an unreceptive and defensive vendor over nerve-racking negotiations with a screaming baby and a crying toddler.
Tonight is book-club night and I am a book-club widower. I took my children for a ride, with the purpose of lulling my three-year old to sleep. It worked like a charm. After an active day playing around the house and no nap, he was asleep after just a few miles of freeway driving.
My daughter went to sleep about an hour later, drunk with sleep after consuming an entire eight-ounce bottle of formula. I wrapped her up in a blanket, laid her in her crib and closed the door. Finally, with both children asleep, it is time for me to kick back and relax.
Before patting myself on the back for being such a skillful parent, I remind myself that I only had both children for three hours…and most of that time they slept. My wife has the children for over eight hours a day, alone.
Yes, I have it good. I get to eat lunch without constant interruption, go to meetings without screaming children and spend the day generally doing what I want to do, when I want to do it.
I readily confess that my wife’s job as a mother is much harder than my day job. For that reason, and many others that make me grateful for my wife, I gladly jump at the opportunity to give my wife time away from the house and children. I am a book-club widower, and proud of it!
I feel like a cad for being argumentative after such a lovely post, but I’m starting to get concerned over the generally accepted ‘fathers have it so easy, mothers have it so hard’ rhetoric. Yes, dealing with a baby and a 3yo is hard–I’ve done it so I know. But working full time is hard, too, and we don’t seem as a Mormon culture to ever acknowledge that. I’ve met very few men who love their jobs, but they still aren’t allowed to complain about them the way SAHMs are.
/ducking
Julie, no need to feel like a cad by voicing your concerns.
I didn’t mean to give the impression that my full-time job isn’t challenging and difficult; it is. No, I was merely stating that right now, with a 3-year old and a 4-month old child, my wife has it tougher than I do. I guess I didn’t convey that very well.
Also, my wife is extremely understanding of my need to do outside activities, like volunteering in law enforcement, which allows me blow off steam. Book club is how my wife blows off steam.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate it.
Julie: My Job is easy, why do you think I have the time to Blog? I think most people in the Blog environment are in situations similar to me. IT people of some sort or another. And my wife’s work is harder because when the kid cries at night, She gets up because “I have to go to work”, and she has to be creative and think of all kinds of ways to entertain and educate the kid, while all I have to do is code sql. For now, my wife’s life is way more difficult. When I had my old job, different story, but everything is relative.
Ten to twelve years from now will you still think your wife has the harder job?
I have a friend that became a SAHM after working or a few years. When one of our co-workers talked about how she would be watching tv and eating bon-bons all day, I rose to defend her knowning how hard it can be to take care of two children. She pulled me aside and started laughing because her kids are 10 and 13 and therefore are at school most of the day. She says after all your kids are over the age of eight or so, being a SAHM is the easiest job in the world.
Who needs to duck now Julie? 😉
I will not admit my wife’s stay-at-home and take care of a toddler job is harder than mine until much, much later in life when she can’t convince me to take care of the kids when they cry in the middle of the night. (I hope she’s not reading this).
I’m safe. 🙂 My wife doesn’t read this or any other blog!
If you’re a homeschooling (or even just highly involved) SAHM, kids being over 8 doesn’t necessarily mean things getting easier. At least the younger ones don’t generally have appointments and meetings they need to be driven to. My mom was only able to quilt and do genealogy full-time when we were all young (I was under 14, and my sisters were under 8 and 5, respectively.) After that it was a parade of Sea Cadets, Girl Scouts, Fiddler on the Roof rehearsals, Irish Dance practice, volunteering at a historical reenactment village, Seminary, YW, and driving 15 and 16 year olds to college classes. To say nothing of convincing me to actually read boring history books written by men who hate Catholics and get through biology before turning 30, while getting my younger sister to just try reading, and keeping the youngest of us entertained. And my mom lucked out in that neither my next-youngest sister nor I were interested in dating (it doesn’t help when there’s only one male between 10 and 25 years of age coming to church each week.) And we lived in a small town, so she could send us away to the Taco Bell if she needed a break.
To put it another way: babies are demanding, but at least their demands come in a few easy-to-arrange flavors.
I so agree with #7. And that list didn’t even include music lessons or orthodontist appointments. And how about having to let the 16-year-old drive themselves around while mom sits in the passenger seat praying through clenched teeth? (Teaching kids to drive is my least favorite parenting task.)
My husband has been slowly losing his hearing, and never woke up once with our last two babies.
I really love my book club; it gives a dimension of intellectual stimulation that is wonderful. Thanks for letting your wife enjoy that.
I always say, “Happy wife, happy life.” 🙂
My wife also attends a monthly women’s book group (also on a Thursday), and I frankly feel some book group envy. If it were a coed group I would definitely participate; it looks like tremendous fun. But I understand whey the sisters want a forum all their own, so I go in the other room and watch TV.
When they announced the book for this month to the women in primary, I lost all interest. One of Jack Weylands’ early books, I hated that my nose was turning up at it, but Jack Weyland?
My wife has no interest, she’d read the book in junior high.