Trying to juggle being a great parent, working enough to provide for your family and maintaining a loving relationship with your partner can be overwhelming at times. Parents rarely get to take any breaks at all, even if they’re not actually getting paid for their labor.
Below, you’ll find a story that a father recently shared on Reddit, detailing a disagreement he and his wife have had recently about how many hours he should be working.
Having one parent work and one stay at home is a common way to divide labor
Image credits: bernardbodo (not the actual photo)
But conflicts arose for this man when his stay-at-home wife started pressuring him to work less hours
Image credits: AnnaStills (not the actual photo)
Image credits: YuriArcursPeopleimages (not the actual photo)
Image credits: wayhomestudioo (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Head_Ad6803
Later, the father responded to several readers and provided more information about the situation
Surviving on one income can be challenging for any couple
Plenty of people who don’t even have children have a hard time surviving on one income nowadays, so it can be even more challenging for families to do so. According to Gitnux, 61% of married couples with children in the United States have dual-income households. But this dynamic can take a toll on relationships, as couples who both work tend to spend 35% less time together than those in single-income households.
While it’s not possible for all families to have one parent stay home and manage the household, this can actually save money in situations where childcare is a huge financial burden. The First Five Years Fund reports that over half of families in the US spend more than a fifth of their income on childcare, and 43% of parents admit that they struggle to even find childcare. When ensuring that children are taken care of is so expensive and difficult, some families decide that it’s better for one parent to stay with them, rather than shelling out thousands to nannies and daycare centers.
Being a stay-at-home parent doesn’t mean that you’re not working though. In fact, some experts believe that if moms and dads who stay at home were actually compensated for all of the responsibilities they have to juggle, they would be earning between $126k-$184k annually. This is because they often take on the roles of chefs, housekeepers, gardeners, nannies, chauffeurs, therapists, tutors and more.
Even parents who stay at home have many responsibilities to juggle
Clearly, staying at home isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. But both working parents and stay-at-home parents have lots of responsibilities to juggle. When all of the income a household is earning is coming from one person, that’s a lot of pressure for them to bear. The average family in the US with two children will spend around $310,605 on each child by the time they turn 17, and obviously, the more kids you have, the more costs add up.
Having 6 kids means more food to buy, more clothes to buy, more water usage in your home, the necessity of having a bigger house and a larger car, more children to put through college, more Christmas presents to buy and so on. This arrangement can put an immense amount of stress on the family’s sole earner. If they lost their job, the family might not be able to put food on the table or have a roof over their heads. And there might not be any funds to fall back on when one parent’s income is covering everything.
It's key for working parents and stay-at-home parents to be on the same page about their arrangement
It’s certainly nice to have your partner home all day ensuring that there’s dinner ready, laundry done and clean floors. But it can be difficult for each partner to understand the other’s situation, especially when they live such different day-to-day lives.
60% of Americans believe that the ideal arrangement for families is for one parent to stay at home, so as long as there is a fair and agreed upon division of labor, this can be a great set-up. But when resentment starts to build on one end, due to financial stressors or the feeling that the other parent isn’t contributing enough, it’s easy for conflicts to arise.
In fact, Romper says that there are several common battles that working and stay-at-home parents fight, including debating about who works harder, who’s more tired and who deserves more time off. Balancing work and familial responsibilities is something many people struggle with, especially when they have children, but it’s important for couples to find a way to avoid arguments and fight on the same team, rather than against each other.
We would love to hear your thoughts on this post in the comments below, pandas. And then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article discussing division of labor, look no further than right here.
Readers had mixed reactions to the father's post, and some shared suggestions for the couple
