what is it with my wife?!

Sweetie, I'm going to be cutting back on my work hours so I can catch up on the housework. I know you're busy and all darling. Unfortunately to accommodate our new, spiffy clean lifestyle I'll be disconnecting the cable, the cellphones, canceling the health club memberships and limiting the grocery items to generic only. Also, no more take-out or dinners out. It's a good thing! You'll lose the baby weight! Oh and the cars. We'll only have one now. I'll be taking it to work. Don't worry. I'll only be working 30 hours a week! You'll have plenty of time to use it when you need to go to the Laundromat. Yes. The washing machine and dryer won't be fitting into our new budget. I listed them up for sale on Craig's list. Sorry honey.

Also...

You can take the wifi router to work in your car with her car keys so she doesn't get distracted by the internet all day.

She'll be so bored the house will be spotless and you can give back her luxuries!

But set that precedent!

She's setting a precedent right now, so you're going to have to show her it is not OK or it's not going to change.

Wow, a topic like this brings out all kinds, doesn't it?

There is, of course, the possibility that she is just lazy or milking the "mommy card" as some women surely will.

There is also the (more likely) possibility that she is the first time mom of a crawling mess creator and at the end of her frustrating and hard working days, her husband comes home and sighs with dissatisfaction because his wife, who doesn't produce any income, didn't do as much as he thinks she should have.

Two things:

1. It is a lie that she produces no income. In my pre-child job I brought in about 40k a year. After careful and honest calculations, we discovered that sending me to work produced almost no net value for our family. Between child care, work clothes, gas, parking, lunch downtown, take out dinners because I work too late to cook, and paying a premium for most other purchases because there is barely time to shop- let alone comparison shop. In the end we realized that we were paying a huge price to keep me "working". So at the very least, be realistic about the value that she provides at home.

2. Do you have any idea, because you provided no details, what it looks like to be an inexperienced mother to a baby? For one thing, her body spent nine months being robbed of nutrients and energy to create this little girl you love. Experts have recently determined that it takes more than a year for a woman's body to fully recover from pregnancy and childbirth. And that is if she doesnt breastfeed. Breastfeeding trouble opens up a level of stress and exhaustion that cant ever be understood by anyone else. After she was completely depleted physically, she came home with a small creature that requires almost 24/7 attention for the first six months. She wakes up every two hours and stays awake for at least 30 minutes each time. Your wife is NEVER able to enter a productive sleep cycle because it is being interrupted. She likely hasnt slept well in a year and is living on such a sleep deficit that she could be declared dangerous to herself. I seriously hope that she is napping when your daughter does because she simply won't make it otherwise. The amount of extra laundry, trash, and dishes that are created by feeding and changing and bathing a baby is extraordinary. Not to mention that once they start crawling you can't let them out of your sight. They can destroy an entire room in five minutes and injure themselves in even less. Trying to fold laundry with an eleven month old is like trying to organize papers on a desk with a fan blowing on it. Adding to all of this is an inevitable level of "mommy guilt" about the fact that she just can't manage to pull it all together and please the judgmental people that act like she "doesn't work" and want to know why the house isn't sparkling and there isn't a pot roast on the table since she was just sitting at home all day. If you come home in the evening and the house isn't falling down and the baby is fed and clean and in one piece and your wife can manage to keep her eyes open long enough to put a frozen pizza in the oven, consider yourself a lucky man and try to understand what it took out of her that day to make it happen. Instead of spending your time complaining to strangers and seeking sympathy for how overworked you are and that your wife doesn't pull her weight since that kid came along, try spending the time supporting your wife emotionally. The first two years of parenting is a crazy team effort. Nobody should ever be "off" for more than a few hours and the expectation of a clean house is ludicrous. You have two options: Come home from work and make your wife feel guilty for not meeting your expectations while doing chores until you are resentful and your marriage fails. Or, come home from work and genuinely care for your wife. Forget about the house being totally clean, and just be glad you get out of the house for 8 hours a day.

Tell her to do it or you'll take away all luxury.

Money, credit cards, CELL PHONE.

She has one job.

She can do it.

If not, don't reward bad behavior.

If she's going to act like a child, treat her like a child.

[sarcasm] Because that's certainly a reasonable way to behave with another adult person you claim to love. [/sarcasm]