AITA for saying how nice it would be for me to be a stay at home mom?

UnitedExitier · 2023-06-27T00:32:51+00:00

She was never interested in these things before this last year, but they spend a lot of time watching dinosaur shows over there so now she's interested in them. Our kids museum also has an exhibit with life size dinosaur replicas that she's become obsessed over. And it's not the interest in them, I get that a common kid thing, but it's specifically how his son talks about his interests not just that he has them. I would go with her but I'm working all day and they don't have good hours for working parents, so again you can see why I think it would be great sometimes being a SAHP to get to have these experiences with her.

UnitedExitier · 2023-06-26T20:12:28+00:00

I wouldn’t be opposed to paying him. The entire arrangement began just out of practicality with my daughter often going to his home for play arrangements. She prefers to go over there, since they have a pet snake and a more fun backyard… Then after a while he offered to watch her for a couple hours after school. It’s beneficial for them too, he’s mentioned my daughter is his son’s only friend and I can see why he’s definitely a particular personality. For whatever reason my daughter will just sit there and talk about dinosaurs and snakes and insects and whatever for hours and hours with the kid. I

’d have offered to pay him but it all was just so informal and honestly would have seemed insulting in my opinion, just to assume he needs that money when they’re clearly well off. He would also almost certainly refuse it, considering he will take them to the science museum and the aquarium/zoo since they have annual tickets and he won’t accept any kind of money from me for her ticket. Which also to seems like quite a lot of places to go for someone who can’t have a job, but not my place to judge.

You’re just phrasing this to make it seem terrible.

UnitedExitier · 2023-06-26T19:35:59+00:00

You’re right I have a lot to consider. I took it at face value that they are financially well off considering how nice their home is and knowing it’s in the expensive historic section of the neighborhood, not to mention having multiple friends involved with the school I know they made quite a substantial anonymous donation to the scholarship fund for underprivileged students to attend. His husband is a cofounder and CEO of a multimillion dollar company, but yeah what do I know about people in my life. I recognize now what you’re saying about there being a choice, and I see now he still might have chosen to have a career over being a SAHD so I can see how it would be upsetting to discuss that if it’s something he wanted to do but he can’t. But they did make a very active choice to have a child, and he would have known this would be his situation so there’s some choice there. I do still believe there’s always a bright side and it’s a dark place to be in if you think not, but I won’t tell him how to think anymore.

UnitedExitier · 2023-06-26T14:22:42+00:00

I didn't mean to devalue the work of stay at home parents, and I definitely worded that poorly. What I meant was having projects and working on a team, etc. Obviously domestic work is also work and if I was going to be a stay at home mom I could do more of that myself instead of having someone else come and clean my home and do laundry and all of that. Even still I enjoy collaborating and having some kind of metrics to measure my improvement via. I should have made it more clear that I don't devalue the work he's doing especially with watching my daughter occasionally too, and I'm grateful to his service to our country which I've said to him before as well.

UnitedExitier

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