Supernanny and the SAHD

Listen up, ladies, here's the solution to all your troubles if you're a SAHM. Go out and get a job and have your man stay home with the kids. Problem solved, right? WRONG! At least in the case with last night's episode of "Supernanny". This guy really gave SAHD's a bad name. He was totally hopeless. And the parents admittedly "gave up" on their children. Wait a second, did I hear that right? Gave up? How do you give up? I can relate to being fried from parenting, but certainly I cannot relate to just giving up. How does one do that? Do you say one morning, "Well, I've had enough with parenting now, time to move onto something else. Kids, you're on your own..." They even admitted to when they supposedly gave up -- something like, 2 months ago. And this dad was totally clueless about what he is supposed to do. And get this -- the mom owns a pre-school! Who in their right mind is going to send their kid to a preschool where the owner doesn't even know how to manage her own kids. I would have kept that information to myself if I were her, rather than share that tidbit with the entire country. And her oldest son is the bully of the school. A real terror. He is 7 years old and he's telling the parents to "kiss his ass". So here she is, doing double duty by working full time and then coming home and dealing with the kids. She's just "exhausted" she says, which I would be, too if I had her life. Things were a lot like that at first when Dave became a SAHD -- I felt like I was doing all the work. But we soon found a balancing act and this is how our chores are now divided up:

Dave: Grocery shopping, cooking meals and making the bottles, kids during the day, PT job 20 hrs/week, dishes, and sometimes baths for the kids.

Kate: FT job 40 hrs/week, general housecleaning and bathrooms, clothes shopping/reselling, general organization, bill paying/financial management, and baths for the kids.

BOTH: Car maintenance, house repairs, diaper duty, laundry, and playing with the kids

Somedays I get really stressed out when Dave is working at night since I feel like a single mother, but on the days he is not, we have come to a good understanding of who is in charge of what. This did not happen overnight. Dave and I have been through a lot in our marriage, but after watching last night's episode of these fumbling, clueless people, I feel like a pro. Nothing like an episode of "Supernanny" to make me feel like a great parent who has really nice kids.