I've been thinking a lot lately about the amount of time and the quality of time men ( on average) are able to spend with their children.
Let's just say one is fortunate enough to be a stay at home mom (and mind you this isn't a discussion of being a working mom or a SAHM it is simply about working fathers) so assuming that your husband is working because you stay at home, how much time does he get to spend with the kids? And what is the quality of the time spent with the kids?
Lately I have been thinking a lot about how little Hubby actually gets to see and spend time with Faith. Not by any fault of his but the fact that he has to work a full time job, Monday-Friday 8-5 ( plus travel time) and at the end of the day that leaves very little time with Faith.
An average day for us now that we are in Austin usually goes like this. Hubby wakes around 6:30am to leave by 7am to get to work by 8am. Faith and I get up around 8 am eat breakfast do our thing play etc. We do lots of random activites to stay busy during the day from story time at the library, to swim, to visit Target. Hubby then leaves work at 5pm to get home by 6pm. Around 6:30pm he is showered and usually ready to relax a little. But by 6pm Faith is starting to get tired and ready for bed so she is either grouchy already or we are doing dinner and getting ready for bath. She is usually down by 7:30pm which leaves Hubby approx 1 hour a day with to spend time with her...Really? 5 hours a week on average is all Faith gets to see of her Daddy?
Now let me just say and clarify Hubby does everything in his power to spend as much time with Faith as possible. He will bathe her at night to get in that time with her but right now because I am pretty much the only face she sees Monday through Friday she wants little to do with him. I do know this is a phase and she is most certainly in a Mommy phase right now so its usually just easier for me to bathe her, feed her, whatever it is so she doesn't scream the whole time Daddy is doing it. And on weekends he wakes up with her, takes her out for some Daddy daughter time and does his absolute best at giving her tons of Daddy love during the weekends.
But I can't help but wonder if everyones life is like this. Has it just become the norm that men rarely see their children during the week and do their best to make up for it on the weekends? But then when does the man get his time for himself too? If he works all week long then gives all weekend to his family when does he get his " man time" to just zone out? Maybe this is why so many men are straying these days. The responsibilty of full time work then full time parenting on the weekends, leaves little time for them to mentally just " get away" from it all.
And the real question ... is there a solution? Someone has to work. Rather its mom or dad or both someone is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to time with the kids. Why do we have to compromise time with our most precious gift just to get by and pay the bills?
I don't have any answers to any of these questions but today as Faith went to bed about 20 minutes after Hubby got home it really got me thinking about these things...
What are your thoughts on this?
* Disclaimer: Hubby is a fantastic father to Faith. He is the best Daddy I could have ever hoped my child and especially my daughter could have. None of this has anything to do with him and his parenting abilities its simply just thoughts to ponder on how much time men who support their families actually get with the children*
* Disclaimer: Hubby is a fantastic father to Faith. He is the best Daddy I could have ever hoped my child and especially my daughter could have. None of this has anything to do with him and his parenting abilities its simply just thoughts to ponder on how much time men who support their families actually get with the children*
10 comments:
It's exactly the same in our house, which is why we don't put the girls to bed early. If I put them to bed at 7:30 he would get about 45 minutes with them. That's not fair to he or the girls, so we start bath time around 8:00 and get them in bed around 8:45. That means they wake up later (usually between 8:00-8:30, but I always get them up at 8:30 if they're not up already), but I think it's more important for them to see their dad than get up early. Jon leaves for work at between 5:30 and 6:30 and has an hour+ drive to work in the morning, and he has the same commute home in the evening. He tries to leave work by 5:30, but at least 2 days a week he doesn't get home until 7:00 or sometimes later depending on traffic) b/c of late meetings. I wish we could afford to live closer to where he worked so he could spend more time with the girls, but we're doing what we can so that I can stay home with the girls. On Saturday mornings he lets me get out of the house to spend some Mommy time alone, so I let him have Sunday afternoons to himself. Once we get the girls down for nap after church, he can do whatever he wants. We rarely have moments to ourselves, which has definitely taken a toll on our marriage. It's a hard situation to be in.
I think it is sad that this HAS become the norm. I am blessed that I am able to be a SAHM but think of how much Steven misses everyday he gooes to work. Honestly, in little lives some pretty big achievements can happen literally overnight and seeing them the first time is simply amazing. Steven came home on Thursday from being gone 11 weeks (I am thankfully he didn't have to ride out the 8 month deployment and sat up last night telling me everything that has changed in the short time since he left so it is pretty amazing that you wrote this and I am reading it. I guess sometimes I take forgranted how blessed I truly am to watch the little success' as they happen.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thank you for trying to understand some of the pressures and difficulties men face.
We often hear about women who "do it all" and rarely consider the men who "do it all" too.
Thats something we have always struggled with. Luckily, Brandon can go in and come home when he wants, so he tries to spend about an hour in the morning and then he has about 3-4 in the evening. And the weekend is pretty much all daddy time!
When LB was a little baby and went to bed closer to 8pm every night, Dave didn't get to see her as much at night because she would be going to bed soon after he got home. He has always done her bath to have time with her each evening. Now that LB is older and can stay up later (late being 8:30 or 9!) we do get more family time in the evenings. Maybe once Faith gets past a yr and can stay up longer, you can push bedtime back too. It really has been nice to have a later bedtime.
As far as the demands on a man and him getting his "down time". Dave has a night a week where he plays computer games and unwinds & I use the time to blog or catch up on things... You just have to schedule it or it won't happen.
My down time is Sat morning. I get to sleep in and Dave gets up with LB to spend the morning with her.
Thanks for this post.
We're right there but worse some days. Some days she doesn't see him at all, unless it's the middle of the night wake up.
Now that we're getting settled in we're getting into a schedule that will work for both of us. Because it's not just daddy not getting much time with the kids for us it's mommy not getting any time to herself. So I'm going to start a weekly bible study next month that is on an evening he's home. And then on his weeknight off he'll have his alone time. That way his other day off, Sunday, is a family day.
I'm grateful to be home right now and hope to be able to remain home. This post is the reason we don't want me working out of the house. We want at least one of us to be the primary care giver and not a daycare. But I don't want to start that debate.
We can totally relate in our household.
I think this is pretty typical...unfortunately. My hubby has Fridays off, but Drake usually goes to daycare so that he can get things done like the lawn mowed, pool vacuumed, etc. I feel bad that he's at daycare when Jason's home, but that seems to be his "down time", if you will. I work full-time outside the home, so I don't really get much downtime. I guess you can count the time after Drake goes to bed at 7pm, but that is usually filled getting things in order. I wish there was a better solution.
I hear you. Hubby, too, does bathtime for more time with our son (who is almost 2) and we also have our bedtime routine--but Andrew screams for me during the night time prayers so even that goes to me. One thing I have picked up on, though, that Andrew doesn't seem to suffer only having an hour with Daddy. Time means nothing to him, and just having 20 minutes to play ball with Dad seems to be enough. As for downtime for Dad, we have the evening after bedtime. Most of the time, we'll spend it together watching a movie, but some nights we'll both read or zone out. I'm lonely after a day with just the little one, but I have learned to let it go at least once per week so that my husband can recharge. He also gets some time on the weekends, at least some weekends. We both know that we're both busy with our young child, that Andrew just takes a lot of work and time but that's what happens. The weekends really do seem to make up for a lot, with us taking turns during the day (he'll play wii, then I'll nap) and having more quality time together as a family.
Fortunately for us Kelson doesn't have a long commute, which I think helps a lot even though he works long days. We both get up at the same time in the morning. He snuggles with Beo while I take my shower, so they get some quality time together in the morning. Then every other day when Kelson gets home he does Beo's bath. He arrives around 7:30 and Beo goes to bed around 8:30, so that's a good hour. Then on the weekend Kelson takes over as the "primary" caretaker so I can get a bit of a break. I feel pretty satisfied with the amount of time they spend together, and I think Kelson does too. So far Beo hasn't started playing us against one another; he gets really excited when Daddy comes home and I'm trying to encourage that. :)
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