Hi, my name is Brian. I am an engineer for a large manufacturing company. I work a standard 8hr day.
My wife stays at home with our 3 kids, ages 4, 8, & 9. She is a blogger and home schools our kids. Her blog is her fun thing to do during the day. It is a simple blog and not huge so I can understand some of what she does on the computer and her phone.
But these are some of the situations I am running into for the last year or so:
When I walk in the door in the evenings, she is almost always sitting at her computer. Usually multiple messes in the kitchen.
When home schooling, at times, she stays in her chair at her computer and tries to helps the kids from there instead of sitting with them one on one. (About 20% of the time.) When she does this, if they start to "bother" her too much she gets frustrated with them. Her computer is right next to the kitchen table where they do their work. About 50 percent of the time, she sits at the table with them and helps them while she is using her phone. The other 30 percent of the time she is actually fully engaged with them. On an average day, it take about 3 hrs for our two oldest to get done with their work.
If the kids make a mess, unless it is big, she doesn't always clean up after them, so I come home from work and there are at least a few messes in various places around the house and she likes for me to clean them up.
She says she does the simple housework like dusting, etc. but things usually remain dusty.
She frequently forgets to put things on our online calendar, after her being the one saying "We should use it for everything, all the time."
She is frequently late dropping the kids off to activities due to her unpreparedness of when it is time to leave. She sits in front of the computer until it is time....oh wait, I have to get this/that/kids no shoes, where did my keys go?, etc.
She rarely "comes to find me" for intimacy....I usually have to be the one to initiate. Then it is always: "I will be there in a few minutes." I sometimes thinks she likes her Facebook things more than me.
She rarely finds me and says let do do 'something'.
We usually watch TV in the evenings. If she doesn't like the show she will stay seated at her computer doing things. If she does like the show or partially likes it, she will sit on the couch with me and be looking at her phone ~75% of the time.
When she hears something big happening, she is slow to respond to go see what is happening. Likes kids jumping off their dresser onto their beds....knowing that for the bed to brake like it did, they had to be doing it multiple times over a few minutes.
When she uses the restroom at home she always has her phone with her and it frequently takes 20-30 minutes or an interruption from one of the kids for her to be done.
She rarely has a formal lunch time with the kids anymore. They are now basically snackers all day now. They rarely eat a full lunch and now for dinner they are never hungry or want snack type items instead.
She cooks but doesn't like too. When she does she seems to be in a hurry to get back to whatever she was doing in her digital realm.
She lets other things lax consistently, like:
- Making the kids clean their rooms and make their beds every day.
- Making them get dressed and wear normal clothes instead of pajamas around the house.
- Making them get up and start school at a consistent time.
- Making them following rules like keeping food in the kitchen, put toys away after use, etc.
- Having the kids clean up after themselves.
- Making the kids wear shoes when playing outside, helmets when riding bikes.
- Cleaning up after herself, leaves dirty clothes and her stuff sitting around in convenient at the time places.
- Making sure the kids don't get too many snack from the pantry.
- General un-attentiveness to what the kids are doing around her, even in the same room.
I have to give her kudos though for not using her phone when she is driving....at least she doesn't when I am with her.
When I have mentioned to her that she may have a Facebook/social media addiction, she gets defensive saying it is hard being at home with the kids, you should tell me when I do good things more often instead of complaining about the mess, etc. She says she cleans up messes all the time that I don't see. Trying to put the blame towards me.
So my question is: Am I living in a dream world and expecting too much from her with 3 kids in the house or does she have a problem? When we got married she always said she looked forward to having kids and doing the housework, homeschooling, giving them a structured environment, etc. Where is that? Should I be irritated or not? I have also been browsing the symptoms of adult ADD and starting to wonder if she has a slight addiction but some slight ADD as well which could be making it worse.
I am struggling with what to do next. What should I do? Comments?/Suggestions?/Questions?
Thanks!
My wife stays at home with our 3 kids, ages 4, 8, & 9. She is a blogger and home schools our kids. Her blog is her fun thing to do during the day. It is a simple blog and not huge so I can understand some of what she does on the computer and her phone.
But these are some of the situations I am running into for the last year or so:
When I walk in the door in the evenings, she is almost always sitting at her computer. Usually multiple messes in the kitchen.
When home schooling, at times, she stays in her chair at her computer and tries to helps the kids from there instead of sitting with them one on one. (About 20% of the time.) When she does this, if they start to "bother" her too much she gets frustrated with them. Her computer is right next to the kitchen table where they do their work. About 50 percent of the time, she sits at the table with them and helps them while she is using her phone. The other 30 percent of the time she is actually fully engaged with them. On an average day, it take about 3 hrs for our two oldest to get done with their work.
If the kids make a mess, unless it is big, she doesn't always clean up after them, so I come home from work and there are at least a few messes in various places around the house and she likes for me to clean them up.
She says she does the simple housework like dusting, etc. but things usually remain dusty.
She frequently forgets to put things on our online calendar, after her being the one saying "We should use it for everything, all the time."
She is frequently late dropping the kids off to activities due to her unpreparedness of when it is time to leave. She sits in front of the computer until it is time....oh wait, I have to get this/that/kids no shoes, where did my keys go?, etc.
She rarely "comes to find me" for intimacy....I usually have to be the one to initiate. Then it is always: "I will be there in a few minutes." I sometimes thinks she likes her Facebook things more than me.
She rarely finds me and says let do do 'something'.
We usually watch TV in the evenings. If she doesn't like the show she will stay seated at her computer doing things. If she does like the show or partially likes it, she will sit on the couch with me and be looking at her phone ~75% of the time.
When she hears something big happening, she is slow to respond to go see what is happening. Likes kids jumping off their dresser onto their beds....knowing that for the bed to brake like it did, they had to be doing it multiple times over a few minutes.
When she uses the restroom at home she always has her phone with her and it frequently takes 20-30 minutes or an interruption from one of the kids for her to be done.
She rarely has a formal lunch time with the kids anymore. They are now basically snackers all day now. They rarely eat a full lunch and now for dinner they are never hungry or want snack type items instead.
She cooks but doesn't like too. When she does she seems to be in a hurry to get back to whatever she was doing in her digital realm.
She lets other things lax consistently, like:
- Making the kids clean their rooms and make their beds every day.
- Making them get dressed and wear normal clothes instead of pajamas around the house.
- Making them get up and start school at a consistent time.
- Making them following rules like keeping food in the kitchen, put toys away after use, etc.
- Having the kids clean up after themselves.
- Making the kids wear shoes when playing outside, helmets when riding bikes.
- Cleaning up after herself, leaves dirty clothes and her stuff sitting around in convenient at the time places.
- Making sure the kids don't get too many snack from the pantry.
- General un-attentiveness to what the kids are doing around her, even in the same room.
I have to give her kudos though for not using her phone when she is driving....at least she doesn't when I am with her.
When I have mentioned to her that she may have a Facebook/social media addiction, she gets defensive saying it is hard being at home with the kids, you should tell me when I do good things more often instead of complaining about the mess, etc. She says she cleans up messes all the time that I don't see. Trying to put the blame towards me.
So my question is: Am I living in a dream world and expecting too much from her with 3 kids in the house or does she have a problem? When we got married she always said she looked forward to having kids and doing the housework, homeschooling, giving them a structured environment, etc. Where is that? Should I be irritated or not? I have also been browsing the symptoms of adult ADD and starting to wonder if she has a slight addiction but some slight ADD as well which could be making it worse.
I am struggling with what to do next. What should I do? Comments?/Suggestions?/Questions?
Thanks!