Stay at Home Spouse.

A few months ago, I read a post {of a blogger I truly like} about what it means to be a stay at home spouse.  She was lamenting having to pick up her husband’s dirty clothes.  I cringed and paused and wondered what other stay at home spouses think.  Is it seriously expected of her to clean up his clothes?  That post, plus a conversation with a new stay at home mom about her decision to leave her career {hi Karri!} did inspire me to want to share my own ideas and experiences of what it means to be a homemaker, a stay at home spouse, and mom.  This is how I deal on a daily basis and still {mostly} keep my sanity.

1. I am not a maid.  Finn is responsible for cleaning up his dishes, putting his toys away, and doing chores like helping me put clean silverware away or taking his folded laundry and putting it away.  It is my job to teach him these things, not to do them for him.  Dave helps around the house just as much as I do… some days infinitely more.  He is an adult.  It is not my responsibility to pick up his dirty clothes from the floor and throw them downstairs, he doesn’t leave wet towels laying on the bed, he’s QUITE capable of doing dishes and often does.  Being a homemaker doesn’t mean being treated like the sole housecleaner by your family, everyone can and should participate in cleaning up after themselves.  Your children’s future spouses will also thank you for instilling this in your children.  {Thanks Sue + Dave!}
2. It is not his money, it is our money.  Dave and I have only gotten into one argument ever about his bringing home the bacon.  He told me once {to be fair we were in a heated political argument at the time} that I was voting his money away.  His money?  We now laugh about it as one of the most absurd arguments we ever had, but it did open a valuable discussion.  He has never, aside from that moment, ever thought of his salary as his money or treated it as such.  He puts away enough retirement cash for two, we make joint decisions about the big purchases, and we also both still maintain separate accounts in addition to our joint accounts.  I handle the bill paying & taxes because he doesn’t really like the financial detail stuff, but he has access to everything and it’s my job to let him know where our accounts stand.  As an aside, my former boss was a financial big wig, his wife is a stay at home spouse.  They realized at one point that if something happened to him, she would be screwed because she had zero credit in her name.  Even though in the event of something happening to him she would be left with an obscene amount of money and would still not need to work, she had nothing solely in her name, not even a credit card.  Needless to say, they remedied that quickly.  It’s important for you to have accounts and credit in your name whether you have an income or not.
3. I take time for myself.  I go out to lunch or dinner with my friends, I get a pedicure once a month, I read, I have adult conversations, I blog, I do things just for myself.  It makes me a better parent.  It makes me a happier spouse.  It makes me a more complete person to have things beyond my family.  Even if they will always come first in my eyes, I still need things for myself.  This one was the hardest for me to figure out.  I felt guilty. I felt like my entire world needed to revolve around my family and let’s face it, it mostly does, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve things for myself.  I do.
4. We don’t just ‘make it work’.  Most couples can figure out how to swing it so that one spouse can stay home.  There are people with a much smaller income than us who do.  It’s not about the money.  It’s a matter of learning how to make it work.  You can stop travel.  You can pay off all your debt and never step foot in Target again.  You can make living cheaply an art form.  You could live without a car.  You could sit at home all day.  The thing is, ‘making it work’ might make you totally miserable.  You have to enjoy the compromise and only you and your family can decide what the trade off might be.  For us, giving up travel completely wasn’t an option but, cutting back?  Sure, we could handle that.  I don’t have the time or energy to make my own clothes or be an extreme couponer.  We like to go out and I like being able to buy a $200 dress.  And we weren’t willing to compromise our retirement savings either.  So, how do we swing it?   Our mortgage is miniscule and our cars are paid off.  Staying in a smaller house and driving cars that were paid off was something we were willing to do in order for me to stay home.  If both Dave and I would be miserable in a small house or weren’t able to fully fund our retirement or never got to travel, it wouldn’t be worth it for our family.  You have to still be able to ENJOY your life, even with the compromises.
5. It’s a choice not a requirement.  It is a choice to stay home, a choice I am thankful to be able to make.  The tough days.  The easy days.  I choose this every single day.  The day I wake up and don’t make that choice is the day I start applying for jobs.  Maybe it will be never and maybe it will be next week when that happens.  Staying home works for some parents and would make others go batty, you have to make the choice for yourself.   

Look, I don’t pretend to get it right all of the time.  I screw up in the parenting department, my house isn’t always company ready, there are times when sex just isn’t on the agenda and I’ve been in my yoga pants all day.  I don’t even do yoga.  You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to do what you can do.

If you stay home, tell me what it’s like at your house.  If you don’t stay home, tell me what you think it might be like if you did.