[Sliver]

I think it is certainly respectable labour up until kids are in full-time school...say once your youngest starts grade one.

Once kids are in grade one and above, I don't get what a stay-at-home parent is doing all day? Make-work projects? If you're organized looking after a home is barely an hour-a-day job responsibility. It's certainly not a job in the way actually going to work is a job. I mean, I can't help but notice a homemaker's "job" is the same job I have when I'm on vacation. I also can't help but notice everything around my house (cooking, cleaning, maintenance, upkeep, etc.) is being done by two parents who also have actual jobs demanding 40-55 hours per week.

I have a really hard time relating to stay-at-home parents because I guess I just don't think they work as hard as literally anybody else. They're an adult dependent and barring any physical or mental illness, it seems like their relationships with their spouses are parasitic. Is it any of my business? Not really, but it's interesting to observe.

I also did some reading on how most feel underappreciated. I read the articles and I'm thinking, you're not underappreciated; you're appropriately appreciated. Sorry what you do doesn't merit that much appreciation.

Also, what do they do when the kids move out or when the husband retires? I remember when my uncle retired and my aunt - who was a homemaker her entire life - complained that she didn't get to retire, too. BTW, they didn't have kids. Her job was to cook and clean (they had a cleaner - another thing I notice as common with stay-at-home people of a certain socio-economic bracket and above). How could I have sympathy for her? You still have to cook? Okay, well you didn't earn anything more. My uncle worked 50 hours per week for 35 years. You watched Ellen.

Say you are a homemaker, what do you do about gifts for your spouse? Hey here's a thing I bought you with your money. What does the receiving partner say? There's no way "thank you" is appropriate. Do they have to say "thank me"?

There are going to be exceptions for sure. I'm talking in generalities here.

This scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm always resonated with me: