@katrina2017 That's a great benchmark I forgot to mention in my post. She needs battery pack chargers through the day and charges by her bed overnight. My phone can usually make it more than a day without charging.
@tobyharba Take a day off work, and send your wife to a spa/hotel for 24 hours minimum ideally make it a 3 day weekend. You make 3-5x her salary you can afford it mr breadwinner.
Point is you handle homeschooling, entertaining a 2 year old and do so with a pillow strapped to your stomach. Make sure you drink lots of water so you have to pee every 20 minutes.
Put a monitor on your phone and see how much you use it compared to a day when you are on your computer in zoom meetings all day.
@tobyharba Common problem. My son started calling my wife "blueface" because of her screen addiction. Wish I could tell you how to fix it but I'm clueless. Everything I tried might have worked for a short time, but nothing stuck.
@tobyharba Lurking mom here. Something that helps me escape but not outwardly model my screen use - I listen to a podcast in one ear bud. I turn it on and set my phone out of reach. I can still hear whoever needs me and can touch-pause it when my undivided attention is needed. Sorry but it’s hard to be with the littles 95% of the time when we’ve been conditioned to be entertained. Days are long.
@tobyharba My wife and I would regularly tell each other that we were on our phones too much. We very rarely would disagree with each other saying so.
I noticed it was happening so much that I needed to do something else. So I started reading instead. Starting with comic books because they’re like movies in book form. It brought me to the library, where I got tons of books for my kid. We started going to the library a couple times a month. Greatest thing that could ever happen.
Get your wife a really sultry novel. I’d recommend crime scene at Caldwell ranch. Only because it’s the only one I ever read because my college friends thought it would be funny to do a book club when a bunch were sitting at a table in the student center.
@tobyharba I get really sad when i see my young kids trying to talk to their mother and she will have her face in the phone. They have learnt to continuously repeat themselves to get their message across or just say "mum put down that phone". It annoys me because ill message her about something urgent and she won't see it for hours. We have several personal hours after the kids are asleep but she always has to "check the message" immediately.
@tobyharba I also have a wife with the same phone issue. She knows it but she don’t like it when I tell her about it. So instead of pointing fingers at her I just started doing what she does. Looking at my phone constantly and even when I’m doing the dad thing. She got it real quick. But a clean house with two children? Hmm… I find it hard to believe that your expectation can ever be met..
@tobyharba I completely understand. My wife doom scrolls through TikTok during any free time she gets, and it's like, no wonder why you have low self esteem and high anxiety.
@daelythm Do you think it's possible your partner's behavior is a result of something external to the phone and using it as a mental escape -vs- they feel that way as a result of scrolling on the phone?
It's usually the former but understandable to anyone to feel that it's the latter.
@jmdreamer It's both, but social media in general really brings it out. TikTok especially since the algorithm creates an echo chamber of doom and gloom. But she uses TikTok to "escape" from reality. It's a never ending cycle.
@tobyharba Hi. SAHD except... I also WFH. I'm insane.
Your wife has small person itis. It is basically boredom.
She needs more alone time to be herself and find her grounding so she can be a good mom.
Get her that time and get her a maid. She has 3 kids even though only two are out yet. You'll need even more support. It's more than a full time job being SAH.
If she's getting 10 hrs a week alone time then we can talk what she needs to improve. If she's not, you're providing too little.
@prexioc We have just one daughter of 3, in a kindergarten 8 to 5 and both WFH. 10 hours of alone time a week sounds like some impossible dream. How do you guys manage to get any alone time with more than one is beyond me.
@llewey I don't. That's what I'm saying. OP is complaining that his wife is a drone and, as a drone myself right now (two small kids) he needs to expect less and assist more.
OP says they have high single income. His wife needs part time help bought with some of that cash.
@tobyharba Dunno man we’ve only been through one pregnancy and decided to stop at one. We had our kid in childcare and kindergarten. And it was still rough on both of us. Homeschooling a 5yo while containing a 2 yo and being pregnant seems like something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Even if she’s not cooking or doing laundry. I foresee some compromises to your initial ideas of large family with homeschooling low screen time etc.. and that’s ok. Those commitments were made before you had to live the reality of the situation. It’s madness not to adapt and compromise when faced with the shifting landscape that kids create.
@tobyharba That's a shame, bro. Genuinely don't know how to approach this without offending your wife.
An idea might be to have both of you install an app to monitor your screen times. Perhaps her seeing exactly how many hours per day she spends might shock her into action ?
@tobyharba I’m not sure if you’re in an urban area, but I’d try working from hotel lobbies and cafes to get more energy through the day. I agree with some other folks as well that hiring a maid / nanny is the only way through this.
I think it’s important that you share why you’re making this decision with her before doing it. Communication is key, especially when stress is high, but manage the way you talk to her about it wisely to avoid piling on more stress.
