Giving a Stay At Home Parent a Break

Staying at home with kids all day is a full time job. That’s not just a saying, it’s the complete truth. Watching a child is not a simple task, and it can be one of the most stressful jobs that is out there. Getting a break from that job is critical to keep any person completely sane and happy.

If you’ve never watched a baby or toddler for more than 8 hours in a row, you may think that being a full-time stay at home parent is like any other job that you leave the home for - you’d be completely wrong. It’s much harder, and certainly no vacation like one many imagine it to be.

There are many reasons that the job is so hard: you get no thanks for the work you’re doing; there’s no interaction with other adult humans; you’re constantly having to be vigilant with what your child wants; there is a lot of screaming and whining; you have to feed the child; you are cleaning up all the time; there’s no 15-minute breaks when you want it; there’s no chatting in the break room; there’s little downtime at all; and if your child doesn’t sleep through the night, you’re probably sleep deprived. And that’s just a start to the list of reasons being a full time parent is a lot of work. Throw more than one child in the mix, and it multiplies in complexity.

For households where one adult stays home with the kids all day, and the other goes to work, it’s absolutely critical that upon returning home from work, you give the stay-at-home parent a break. While your day at work may have been stressful (mine often are), you can watch the kids for an hour in the evening so your partner can actually take a break from the non-stop work they’ve had.

Thinking that you’ve earned a break from doing anything and that your partner should keep watching the kids completely undermines the extremely hard work that they’ve also put in during the day.

By taking the kids when you get home from work, you do a couple of things: you’re able to forget the stress of your day at work, and you’re able to give your partner a break. While watching your child may be stressful, it will help you to not worry about something that may have happened at your regular job. Your focus will now be moved to your child for a bit of time. This has the added benefit of you spending time with your child.

What we’ve found in our home, and many others echo the same feeling, is that the person who has been at home with the child all day simply needs a break from being a parent. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re laying in bed doing nothing - often it means that they’re doing some other task in the home that needs to get done without the constant worry and stress of also watching a child. Rather than the working partner trying to be helpful by making dinner or going to the store, the parent who has been at home all day may prefer to do that than watching the child further.

Additionally, once you have your first child, you’re going to find that many priorities in your life will have to change. This is not going to be an easy change for many, but a lot of the things that you thought were important before are simply going to have to be scaled way back - both parents need to be working together in raising a new child. Home projects, personal hobbies, and more will simply be done at a much slower pace - you’ll have to come to terms with this. If not, you’ll find that your partner is going to have some severe grievances with you, as well they should.

Being a parent is a great joy, even though it’s a lot of work. However it’s a very thankless job. As your kids grow, the screaming will become less (eventually, but it takes several years), and your kids will be able to better communicate what they want. That doesn’t mean it’s less stressful, but it does mean you’ll start to have more free time. With younger children though, it’s an ongoing job that never ends until they’re in bed to sleep at night. Both parents need to be fully involved where possible.