re: Will SAHMs ever quit complaining about how "hard" their lives are?

I am so glad to see that there's at least 1 logically sane woman on this board.

I did the Home Dad thing for nearly 3 years with 2 girls born 1 year & 9 days apart. Also had a boy starting K at the same time. I absolutely LOVED it. After having at least 1 job since age 12 & playing sports year round to that point in my early 30s = pure heaven.

My wife had a great job with great insurance. Day care with 2 in diapers + after school care for the boy was AT LEAST $2000/moth at a place we could get all 3 into at once or 2 places close enough to each other that had pick up until 530/6pm (many people don't realize until they have kids to go into day care just how big of a beating it is to beat the late pick up clock).

After some serious family debate, we landed on seeing 0 point of working 40+ hours/week & giving over half my after tax take home pay to someone else to watch + feed my kids all day?

I slept in until 8 or 9am every day. Ran a load of laundry, fed them some breakfast, they watched a kid show or 2 & I watched Sportscenter. We packed a lunch & I played 9-18 holes at least 2 days a week. Kids fit easily on a golf cart but we had a huge double stroller that fit my clubs on the bottom & a sleeve of balls. The other days we went to the park or drove around to visit other kids/friends.
Got home in time for the bus. Afternoon snack. Finished the laundry. Cleaned up whatever toys. Started dinner. Bath time. Bed time. During season when I was coaching LSU lacrosse, we just traded off when she got home & all she really had to do was finish dinner & deal with bath time. Which worked out great for them to have those binding hours.

Repeat.


Absolutely glorious & I wish I could still do it.

So many of these people stress themselves out with all the outfits & scheduled + structured play time, limited screen time, etc. Heck all that noise. None of that matters. At. All.