What do you do when you are coming home from work exhausted?
It’s something that our family talks about often. While I’ve been figuring out this whole stay at home mom thing, my husband has had to figure out the whole work full time and support the family financially thing. I don’t know how many times we’ve seen or heard this stereotype, but it kinda goes like this: a working parent comes home {exhausted} to a house full of crazy kids and a VERY exhausted partner who can’t wait to finally have help in the house. Sounds cliche right? Well, it’s a cliche for a reason…because it happens. To our family? Yep. A lot? Not necessarily, but it happens and we’re starting to learn what to about it. That’s why my husband wrote this post today about the ways he rethinks coming home from work exhausted. He feels like it really boils down to three simple things…
Written by my husband, Michael:
I work a “typical” 8-5 job and Katie “stays home with the kids,” which translates to “she gets them to school, feeds them, takes them to doctor’s appoints, organizes playdates, runs errands, and answers meaningless texts from yours truly.”
When I come home from work, I’m often pretty tired of focusing all day long.
Sometimes I want to just sit down on the couch, grab my proverbial beer (sometimes it really is beer), and turn on the game. Because of this, I can get crabby when Katie asks me (understandably) to help finish dinner, or when my kids jump on me and want my undivided attention.
When That Happens I Try to Remember This:
- I work hard for our family. I do not work hard just to come home and relax (right away – that comes after the kids go to bed, am I right?!); I work hard so that I can come home to a happy, well-provided for family. This is my time to experience what I work for.
- My wife works hard for our family. She has a harder job than I do and one that doesn’t come with an hour-long lunch break, a nice paycheck, and opportunities for promotion. My boss is fantastic about telling me “thank you” and “job well done” but it’s my job to do the same for my wife.
- My kids work hard all day long. I know what you’re thinking: at this age, they play all day. True, but playing is hard work, physically and mentally. But what I’m really thinking about is the experiences they have to work through. When L is dealing with conflicts in preschool, she is working hard on her emotions and interpersonal relationships, and when M is running around crazy before naps, he is working through his feelings of exhaustion and reconciling that with his desire to stay up and spend time with his mom. They work hard, too, and I can give them something when I get home: attention from their Dad and time to play together (we base most of our parenting on this book <–affiliate link to what helps us on the tough days), who they haven’t seen since he through a plate of scrambled eggs in front of them before heading out the door in the morning.
When you are coming home from work exhausted, remember that you are getting home at the absolute toughest time of the day.
We are all tired (you, the kids, your partner, the pets…) and we all are struggling with different needs.
Here’s 3 things that we ALL try to remember:
- Have patience and understand that we are all tired from working hard all day.
- Communicate about what exactly we need from each other, whether it’s help with dinner (for Katie), ten minutes sitting on the couch when getting home (for me), or a quick book or play (for the kids) – it’s okay to say what you need.
- Love each other by forgiving one another for being tired, snappy, and more “crazy” during this time of day and hugging each other anyway – you can never get enough of those, right?
What’s most important to our family is that we are role modeling to our kids that it is okay to be tired, grumpy, snappy, and overwhelmed because the skill we want them to learn (and that we are still practicing ourselves) is how you handle those feelings.
What do you try to focus on during this tough transition when everyone gets home?
Head over to our Facebook page and share your best tips – we’d love to hear from you!
And, don’t forget to check out these fun Daddy/Daughter dates as a fun way for Dads to connect with their kids!
About the author
- More at
And don’t forget that in some families it is the mom who works and the Dad who stays home and this is equally true–and not so different when both parents work.
Absolutely! This is just written from our perspective right now – but, we’ve had many different family dynamics over the years.
What a lovely way to keep things in perspective, from everyone’s point of view! Everyone in the family is working in one way or the other, and everyone is coming together as a family after work. Love the encouragement to focus on your family members’ needs, as well as the reminder to ask for what you need. Just a wonderful post – thank you both!
Thanks so much, Mary Catherine! Keeping this in mind has really helped our family connect after all of us have finished our work days 🙂
Interesting article… but I feel you may have missed one issue: The stay at home Mum/Mom is not that only – she is a stay at home wife (In ancient times they were called housewives). Never to sure which has the priority. So, it is not ‘her’ sole responsibility to look after the kids during the day, but also to look after her husband, including preparing for his return from a place of work. One could say, at points in the day she is looking after the children, and pre-leaving and returning from she is looking after her husband, and also also sorting the home out. I felt that aspect was missing from your article. (And yes I know parenting is a joint role…)
This has come at the perfect time. My husband is just about to start a new job with a long commute. We have all been worried about this type of thing and how to balance our upcoming change.
The good thing about a long commute is you get the chance to de stress from the day at work. By the time you get home, you should be ready to conquer dinner or kids….
Maybe – or the commute can be just as stressful as working. We both work and I get home first – 15 miles away is a 50-60 minute commute. Our children are now 6 and 9 so my rule is that mommy gets 5 minutes alone after the nanny leaves before I suck it up and put my mom hat on again, until dad gets home anywhere between 1-3 hours later. Not saying a commute can’t be relaxing, but it may not be. You just have to figure out what it takes to switch hats. Good luck!
Very good read!!! My husband is wonderful at helping out, even when I know he is exhausted. He understands me and knows I’ve got my moments! 🙂 when we should be enjoying each other after our kids have grown and left the nest, we adopted four more, so it’s going it all over again!!! But this time we both realize it doesn’t last long so enjoy them while we can! Even if the dishes don’t get done, or we eat sandwiches for dinner!!
really enjoyed this article. since both my husband & I both work full time & have two school age kids, I would love to see an article written from that perspective. maybe I’ll write it!
It reads “A Dad’s Perpective.”
Is it written by who I assume is the mom?
Hi Rocco – no, the post is written by my husband. I wrote the intro because my husband has never written for the site before. Everything after the first image is in his words. 🙂
I hope I can get my husband to sit down & read this. what a great post!
Thanks so much, Jess!
That was well written and expressed and a great reminder for us all
Love this post, thank you for sharing it. As a Dad that works full time and really only sees his kids on the weekends (I leave for work before they get up and come home as they goto bed) it can be tough on everyone, but we manage. To hear it like this is refreshing from the usual beating Dads get so thank you very much for sharing this with us!
sounds great! Unfortunately my husband leaves for work before the kids (4of them!!) get up and returns when they are in bed, and sometimes works weekends
Great post! We deal with the same thing with our family. It’s really great to see a husbands perspective on it. It definitely is the hardest part of the day!
I work hard for our family – great stuff
My wife works hard for our family – true
– she has a harder job? may be, or may be not; but yes, it is a hard job
– she doesn’t get a paycheck; well, but after house and household expenses, she does spend the majority of the paycheck I receive
– not everybody has as nice a boss as you seem to have, but certainly the wife needs more praise than she usually gets
My kids work hard – true, and again credit goes to your wife because she works hard to help them to work hard
Great article
Wish my husband would read this.
From a different perspective, I work full time 5 days a week. I am up by 5am, gone by 6:30am and get home between 6 and 6:30pm, and still have to do all home duties by myself. I receive no help from hubby.
I get our 5 yr old son showered and ready for school, do breakfasts and lunches before getting myself ready and leaving for work. Then get home at night have to cook dinner, do dishes, washing, sweeping etc. My Saturdays are spent doing 4 or 5 loads of washing, ironing, all other houseswork, school baking etc etc and it is hard and exhausting.
I have done the stay at home mum thing when our son was much younger, and to be honest found it much less stressful being at home with him, as I had more hours in the day to do my home duties and could spend a lot more quality play and learning time with our son, I miss those days.
I love it when I have a rare day off, to do washing and pick our son up from school. We walk home and chat about our day. I make him a snack and we do homework or play together on the trampoline. A little off topic I know, but I think we working mum’s forget the simple pleasure’s that being lucky enough to be a SAHM allows you. Would do it again in a heart beat if able to ☺
And not to forget the families with 2 working parents. Whether part time or full time you still both come home drained each day. You still have to fit it all in. Soccer practice. swimming. Homework. Appointments. Housework…. You have to work together. Great article about your focus for that time of the afternoon.
If I really need help with something I ask my husband and he is kind and helps but to be honest I hardly ever need his help, I’m quite self sufficient, I guess help means taking the little one out of a leg or something while cooking?. What it’s true tho, is that while he is at work (sometimes he works 10 hours), our daughter is at school 8 hours. That means that I have 8 hours all for myself, yes I clean and all that, but I do it so fast I still have hours free. So I really can’t complain if he comes home and feels extra tired and has almost no energy for anything other than breathing. Generally he is happy, but mostly cause our daughter greets him with a big hug and kiss and tells him how much she missed him, they might watch a movie together or play rough daddy games in the couch haha. It would be a completely different reality if I decided to work again, then he would have to do the other 50% household.
It’s a nice article but I think the article is stating something that it is almost obvious, or at least should be.
Love this. Complete resonates with my and pretty sure all my friends. Thanks to your husband for writing this.
Thanks so much for saying that, Janet. I’ll let my husband know 🙂
My husband would arrive stressed from his day and the drive home. He enjoyed washing the dishes – I did not. So we developed a brilliant system that I would stack all the day’s dishes neatly by the sink and he would roll up his sleeves and spend twenty minutes dealing with them – in peace and quiet: I could occupy the children (and my mouth) meanwhile. By the time he’d finished he had made the mental transition and was ready to enjoy his family.
Love this tip, Beverley!
I love this. I really like #1. My husband feels so much better about coming home when dinner is ready, the kids are happy, and the house isn’t a disaster – at least the part he can see. 😉 I’ve shared across my networks and liked your page on FB!