CathInfo.com

Quote from: Last Tradhican

Please explain to me how a father of three or more children can come home a have a happy hour, 2 or 3 drinks, then plop down on the couch or vegetate on the computer or watch the news, channel surf, and call himself useful around the house. If mothers did the same thing the children would be alone.

I can't even have a beer without feeling like I wasted time I could have spent doing something productive with/for the family.

1. The way your post is written, I assume you are married and your husband is doing this.

2. Men and women aren't equal, and their roles aren't equal. If your husband is doing manual labor from 9-5, you can't expect him to jump into a bunch of domestic chores from 5 until he collapses at (an early) bedtime.

Your work, your role at home is much lower grade labor. Yes, women work too, I know that. But your work is DIFFERENT.

Some men: 8 hours exhausting labor, with several hours recovery time (during which time he is basically useless for more real work)
Women: 15 hours lower grade work, indoors in the heat (winter) or A/C (summer), but your "work is never done" and you get few if any true "breaks". Oh, and if you homeschool you can harness the abilities of your children to do a LOT of that work.

And frankly, the modern world has made your "role" much easier than it was in the past -- washing/drying laundry, washing dishes, cooking food, even vacuuming the floor have become trivial tasks now with all the machines we have. But if your husband is working a hard physical labor job, then he is living in the 1920's as it were, or at least in a field which the modern world hasn't made "easy" yet.

This all needs to be taken into account.

I would consult A) an older, devout, traditional Catholic couple and B) a Traditional priest about the specifics of your situation.


P.S. "2 or 3 drinks" doesn't make him evil, unless you're a Muslim, Baptist or other protestant heretic who believes that alcohol is a sin. But you sure make it sound like you're "telling on him" or complaining about something bad he's doing.

My husband works about 16 hours a day, hard manual work. Thank goodness he fits it all in Monday through Friday and has a break on the weekend. He has the heart of a servant if there ever was one. The minute he walks through the door he gives me a kiss, asks how my day has been and reaches for his little girl. Instead of thinking of his much deserved break, he immediately sets in to the mindset of "how can I help." He works incredibly hard all day but would bend over backwards to relieve me of the smallest burden that I may have. To top it all off he tells me every day that he is the luckiest man in the world. We are hard up for money, but he makes ends meet every month. He doesn't lament it, he actually thanks God for it. He prays to St. Joseph every day, and he always reminds us that we must always remember that our home is "Our own little Nazareth".  In return he has a wife that utterly adores him, who keeps his favorite beer in the fridge and deals it out eagerly, and meets him as he comes in with an ice cold water, tells him to sit down, and waits on him hand and foot and prods him with jokes and smiles until he's able to cast off his cares. When both give each other 100% there is happiness and contentedness even amidst the many trials of married life.  Both have to be very serious about their duties, and willing to serve the other.
I'll say a prayer for the family you are referring to, that things would get balanced out and things would go better for them!

(Men should not do domestic chores, they should do the man work around the house, fix things: house, cars, tractors, yard/farm work, cut down trees, make additions to the house....)