Husbands and Childcare

[bunnyslippers]

My husband is very supportive and loves that I am home taking care of our children while they are small. He helps when he can, and does all the maintenance around the house. He is great with the kids when he is here, and the kids love him. He helps whenever he can.

He is also getting pretty tired of the constant stream of people in and out of our house. He talks often of the day when we can "get our house back." I must say that I agree with him!

Daycare has been great for the past few years - it pays the bills and we have worked with some great families. I do look forward to the day sometime in the next year or so when I can close down, though!

[countrymom]

my dh never complains, but he works all day and goes to school at night so I have to kind of do everything till he's done school. Oh wait, the only thing he complains is when people don't pay me, it drives him crazy.

[beachgrl]

my dh never complains, but he works all day and goes to school at night so I have to kind of do everything till he's done school. Oh wait, the only thing he complains is when people don't pay me, it drives him crazy.

Same here, hubby works third shift five nights a week, never has two days off together and goes to school four long days a week, 17 hours this his last semster...and I work the daycare all week go to graduate school online and this semester i have to go to school on campus two nights a week too..we are just hanging on and prsying to make it to may! I managed to get my final two semesters lined up where i can at least be off from school through the summer!

My hubby encouraged me to do it because he believed in my ability to run a successful business and because he saw what i went through in the school system. He knew how stressed and unhappy i was for a long time..not due to the kids but everything else. Our house is big enough that the daycare is separate for the most part, our house is a fixer upper so the kids cant do too much to it right now. He knows how much i do during a day with kids and he loves that i am home. He is totally willing to help out and ill be glad when he is done w school so maybe he can fill in insread of me hiring a sub. He would be perfectly happy to have a few kids and do an evening shift and not have to work third shift an hour from our home like he does now.

We have great families now and all i need is a couple more kids to ge at my normal teaching daycare pay so i hope i fill those last couple spots by the summer

[Unregistered]

My husband is not very understanding at all. If I am tired or upset he will simply say - Well you wanted to leave your job to be home with the kids and take in kids for your income.
It makes my blood boil.
He refuses to take any time off from his obviously more important job (Ya right) when I am sick or the kids have appointments.
I have to call my mom or a friend to come over and if not I end up taking the kids with me.
He does not understand why I am so tired at the end of the day or why my patience is running thin with my own kids by dinnertime.
He does no cleaning, no laundry, no cooking, no bathing the children or helping with bedtime.
It drives me mad.
He treats me like I am a SAHM who watched television all day or something as opposed to someone who is operating a home based business.
Oh and he is never supportive when I want to stick up for myself with the Daycare Parents. He is always afraid if I terminate a child or get too bossy that it will make us a look bad to the other people in our town. (We are from a smaller town where everyone knows everyone and their business.)
It is hard. I love the extra cash and the fact that I am at home with my kids but having no support from him is hard.

[newtodaycare22]

When I was debating quitting my job (teaching kindergarten), I discussed it with my husband. I aimed to make the same amount I was making then, but it would mean longer hours and no summers off. We have no kids of our own, so kids in the house would be a major change. I knew he would never COMPLAIN about it because he knows it would make me happy. I feel bad for you guys with husbands who aren't supportive in that same way. However, I made sure to warn him about all of the ways it would effect him (ie kids in the early am) and if he seemed overwhelmed, I wouldn't have done it.

When I made the decision official, he secretly took off work one day and one of our extra bedrooms was completely painted when I got home. Bright yellow and green walls, with all of our old furniture moved out and ready for the daycare stuff happyface

I'm very lucky. He helps me clean each night and is great whenever he sees the kids before/after he works. Today he's taking them for a little while when I have a doctor appointment. I can't imagine doing this job w/o his support!

[TBird]

1st husband hated it but what didn't he hate. He was a poopie head.

New hubbie is cool with it. Loves the kids. The kids Love him. But sometimes they talk his head off. He loves that wa can eat lunch together and drink a cup of coffe at nap time. He is wonderful.

Had to laugh at this one Clueless...thank you!::

I'm not sure what my hubby thinks, I'll have to ask him. He's only here a few minutes in the morning & by the time he gets home everyone is 'usually' gone. The only thing he probably dislikes is a little extra mess. BUT...he knows better than to let ME know that.

[renodeb]

My husband is great with the dc kids. He plays with them when he is home and helps when he can. He is super supportive. He hates all the dc parent drama I deal with, he is a really good sounding board to. He hates how tired it makes me. The dc kids love him. Hes definaetly the fun guy. Its hard when he is off on week days and Im off weekends. (he works at homedepot)
Hes wonderful with running our own kids around (15 and 9) for appts and stuff, never complains.
Debbie

[MrsB]

My husband is very supportive. He is my backup and helps when he is home. My husband is messy so I am not sure he even notices the extra mess.:: He has never once complained about being the appointment taxi, meeting teachers for conferences, taking days off so I can go to the doctor, or doing his fair share of his chores.

One time I was complaining about the guilt I was feeling about our own kids. He said "you can't look at it like you are a SAHM, you have to look at it like, you are a working mom that works many overtime hours, but you are able to take your kids to work with you.

I am so blessed. I must be doing something right!

[cheeseheadmama]

I always thought my DH was fine with the daycare and kids running around, but then one day when we were discussing long term plans he said "I want my house back". I was completely floored! We had a long conversation about the options to doing daycare here and the financial ramifications of them. By the time we were done, he was at least a little less hostile to the daycare because he realized that financially it makes the most sense right now when we have little kids at home. He was actually quite shocked when he realized how much money I could bring in if I was full!

As a result of finding out his feelings though, I have been much more conscious about getting the toys cleaned up by the time he gets home and just making it less obvious that I run a daycare. It has meant more work for me, but also makes it nicer in the evening to have my home in "house mode" rather than "daycare mode".

[My3cents]

My husband and older kids both have been a blessing with my childcare.

They have never said they dont like it, but I can tell that sometimes when my husband is off on a week day that it gets to him. I just ask him to have plans for those days. GO play golf, go to a friends house, run, work out, whatever he needs.

My older two enjoy the kids in the summer participating and they get paid by me when they do. It's never a JOB for any of them, it's my job.

My daughter loves it too, because she is 14 and very creative. She painted the walls for me, draws stuff for me and etc.

I have a book on my desk that outlines what needs to be done daily. to open and close the daycare. It also says how much I will pay them if they do it.

My kids will pick one to two of the items on the list each day and then I pay them. They love it. If they don't do it, that means that I have to, but then I dont have to pay them anything.

They take care of the normal parts of the house and this is without payment...

I think that my husband love it....so far no complaints

Could you share with me more on this. I too have a 14 year old daughter who helps me.

[dave4him]

Will avoid making this response to long....

[dave4him]

My darling wife would like her house back but sees the value in not only keeping our own kids at home with me, but also having other kids for them to interact with as well. Right now its just my three and my niece so its not to crazy, kind of would like the other two spots to fill up soon so she will see that i have a real job here and not just getting by. Sure some days im a little lazier then i should be but i try to keep the house from being destroyed and meals on the table when i can. Shes ready for me to go back to work full time though, good thing daycares expensive for three kids

Did a pro and con list for going back to working full time, would be a great plus to be able to quite my weekend and night jb so i could see her more, so lets hope

[themoorethemerrier]

Last year my husband had a FT job as a collector ( ), physically ran a farm and was a deacon and youth group leader at our church. I homeschooled, did all of our farm plans, finances and marketing and grew garden shares. Then I mixed a few more kiddos in with our four.

My husband LOVES it!!! He is my FT assistant and is great with the kids and getting better every day. After 8 years in a collections job, this is therapy. We both did agree that we offer better quality care when we're together.

We had been praying for years that the Lord would lead us to a type of self employment that would allow our family to be together. Never did we think that our "job" would bring us so much joy. Come what may, we have been blessed.

[MamaBear]

My husband was okay with it when I first started 6 years ago because our youngest was an infant at the time. But it grew pretty quickly and then he didn't like it so much. The first year he dealt with it... the second year he was getting annoyed with it... The third year he avoided it... The fourth year he despised it... The fifth year he really hated it and now he is completely OVER it! ::

He is one of the reasons why I'm closing down. It just wasn't working for my family dynamics anymore. When my youngest was a baby it was good because it worked... but now that he's older and in school, it makes it harder because now my world revolves around other people's kids and not really my own. I miss out on school events and outings because of doing daycare. I was getting grumpy pretty often and my husband knew I wasn't happy with it anymore.

He was VERY relieved when I told him that I gave the parent's notice last week. He is still on deployment but says he is so happy that when he comes home, he won't have to deal with hearing babies crying, toddlers having tantrums and daycare parents asking him stupid questions... all while he's trying to decompress from deployment.

Last year when he came back from Iraq after 7 months, I had a full daycare house and so I closed for about a week to give him peace and quiet. He was supposed to take a month leave to decompress but of course I couldn't close that long... so when the daycare kids all came back the next week, he ended up going back to work earlier just to get some peace. I felt really bad about that. The fact that he had to leave home to get some quiet was pretty sad.

So this time when he comes home from Afghanistan, he will have LOTS of quiet. He would get super annoyed with the daycare parents mostly. A couple of the moms have SUPER loud nasally annoying voices and at 7am its very annoying to anyone. My husband could not stand that... and then there were the dads who would want to talk to him and my husband didn't want anything to do with him. My husband is a rough exterior kinda all American big intimidating type of guy who's tatted out & the president of a motorcycle club and not someone who looks very approachable... but there would still be that one random yuppie daycare dad who would try to chat with him... uh yeahhh... that never worked.

So yeah... my hubby never liked it.

[My3cents]

My darling wife would like her house back but sees the value in not only keeping our own kids at home with me, but also having other kids for them to interact with as well. Right now its just my three and my niece so its not to crazy, kind of would like the other two spots to fill up soon so she will see that i have a real job here and not just getting by. Sure some days im a little lazier then i should be but i try to keep the house from being destroyed and meals on the table when i can. Shes ready for me to go back to work full time though, good thing daycares expensive for three kids

Did a pro and con list for going back to working full time, would be a great plus to be able to quite my weekend and night jb so i could see her more, so lets hope

She won't see that you have a real job until you feel like you have a real job! Do whatever you have to do advertise and get your spots filled. Then......you will know you will have a real job, because you won't have time to be lazy! Yes you will have down days, but not lazy days. Where she is out there working a job everyday you have no excuse not to have everything done and a meal on the table to make life easier for her and to boost your self esteem, and make the after work time for everyone happier and less stressed.

I don't know why Dave- maybe I am having an off day.....but your post just rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. Are you trying to not have to work? It sounds like your happy you have three kids so you don't have to go to work- I am probably reading into this wrong.