Why thank you there Ma’am, I will take your invitation for the last word. But, somehow I think we may be jumping the gun a bit. I could be wrong, and have been in the past, but I have the feeling that you are not quite done with this topic. (And, people puzzle over why 50% of marriages end in divorce).
I guess you must live in Arthur Illinois or Lancaster County PA, or be a visitor from a third world country because the world you describe exists for about one percent of all “housewives” today. Did you notice those little green stores popping up all over the place? You can get a cup of coffee there for about $4, or a glorified donut for about $5, and at 10AM they are busy as can be - with house moms among others. Kids are still out in the car or in tow, but these places are busy. And, there are 15,000 of these little stores. And they alone serve about 8 times as many customers every day as there are home schooled children in the US. And, they have competitors, lots of competitors.
Today, in my house, two ladies come in once a week and for $75 clean every one of the four and one-half baths, the kitchen, floors, linens, vacuum, dust, and trash removal. Everything else arguably “housewifing” is just picking up after myself. A task that does not require any additional time if done when it should be. Your list of tasks: Shopping (prophetically first on the list), cleaning, cooking, errand running, and sewing (I think I had the buttons on my cashmere topcoat sewed back on at the dry cleaners in 2006), make for a busy day if you are of diminished capacity. But they add less than an hour a day to the two hours of child care for a normal person. Home schooling, while laudable, is too rare to consider.
My thesis is and has been that the work expands to fit the time for it for those claiming title to the turf of “housewife.” I’m not against women or men not working outside of the home, I did it for 10 years. It’s the self-righteous indignation women who are lucky enough to have won this lottery have in criticizing the stupid oaf who doesn’t want to take out her garbage after spending 10 hours on his back under a truck all day that has brought me to this thread. And, if you go back and read some of the posts here you will either see what I mean or continue to miss my point.
First, when my kids were babies, I never had time to go to Starbucks. Starbucks is the luxury I have only had the past few year (my kids are 12 & 14).
Let me tell you about my typical day, and my kids are older.
On school days, get up at 6:30am to make sure everyone is up and getting ready.
Every other morning, I have to take my son to school at 7am. Lately, he’s been in a carpool, so I don’t have to do that.
My daughters leave for school at 8am unless they have choir, and then it’s 7:20.
I have to drive everyone because we live in California, and they are all in private schools.
I usually get home around 9am
I then take my shower, and actually get to relax. Then I am doing lots of laundry, cleaning, filling out paper work, going to the grocery store, going to doctors, getting my hair done, etc. I also have to eat my lunch. One day a week I like to have lunch with my husband. I don’t get much done on those days.
Two days a week, I take my daughter to speech therapy starting at 11:30 am. It’s only an hour, but it takes me about 2 1/2 - 3 hours with all the driving. I don’t have time to come home after that.
Now my day starts to get interesting. At 2pm, I go pick up my son and then my daughters are done at 3. We get home around 3:30pm. Now, if they have after school activities, then I have to pick up kids from those activities.
In addition, one of my daughters has trouble with school, so I usually have to spend about 1-2 hours helping her with homework. I have to cook dinner, and then clean up the kitchen. My husband usually gets home at 8pm, so I don’t have any help in the evenings. Just me, and I’m exhausted by 9pm.
Now all of this changes when anyone gets sick, and with 3 kids especially in the winter, it seems like someone is constantly sick. One of my daughters has asthma, so it takes her a long time to get over colds. I’m constantly having to pick someone up from school because they don’t feel well. Then there are doctor’s appointments, orthodontists appointments, dentists appintments, hair appointments for all 3 kids.
Summer is much easier, but that’s when I actually get to have fun with my kids.
This is much fuller than any day I ever had working as a software engineer.
The thing is that now is the slow period of my time with kids. When I had 3 under 3, I was literally constantly feeding kids and changing diapers and doing laundry. It seemed like I hardly ever left the house because there was too much to do. It wasn’t until the twins were around 3, that I actually started taking them to parks and things. Until all 3 of my kids were in school, I never got a break during the day.
I figure at this point in my life I could get some part time job. My husband doesn’t think it’s worth it. We both want me to be home when the kids are done with school. Even if I’m not as busy as I used to be, just the fact that I am home is good. It keeps the kids out of trouble.