Figuring out Husband and Wife Roles as a Freelancing Dad

If you’re a dad freelancing at home, how do you figure out which roles you take on vs. your wife in managing your life responsibilities? 

I want to talk about what we do and would love your experiences and insights as well. 

I’ve been freelancing at home for 5 years now and it has allowed me to share more of the responsibility with my wife in taking care of my kids. The burden isn’t just on her while I work all day, all week. 

Because I work about 25 hours per week there is more weight shifted to her when it comes to some house stuff and with the kids, but much less than the traditional mom whose husband is only around at night or weekends. 

Here is a typical day for our family so that you understand how we’ve divided roles. 

Because of the phase of life we’re in, the baby phase, my wife is more tired than I am. She is currently pregnant right now with our third. Since I work at home, that has allowed her to sleep in and take care of herself. 

When she’s nursing with a new baby she also gets woken up a lot more. She’s also had to deal  with morning sickness which is actually all day and all night sickness. So I’m definitely wanting to help her prioritize her sleep. 

Typically, I wake up at 5am. Since it’s the only time I have without any other distractions, I do some personal development things, and I do some business brainstorming. Around 6am, I start work, and do that for about an hour and a half. My morning work is more content creation and planning, not client work. 

Then around 7:30 my kids wake up. I help get them breakfast and get dressed. It’s just me and my 2 boys until around 9am when my wife Tira wakes up. 

At 9:30 I go back to work until I take a lunch break at noon. I try to go back to work around 1, and work until 3pm, when I finish my work day. If I have a longer lunch break and don’t go back until 2, I’m done at 4, it just depends. 

My goal is to work 6 hours per day Monday-Thursday and then 1 hour Friday morning before kids wake up to wrap up the week and plan for the next week. 

It won’t be this way forever, our schedule has changed many times and will change again as our needs change. 

When we’re done having babies and all our kids are sleeping through the night then Tira will be able to wake up earlier. For now she takes the brunt of the physical stress that comes with having kids and I’m glad to give her more time to herself than I get so she can stay healthy and less stressed. 

While I’m working, she’s the one responsible for the kids. 

Does that mean I never see or talk to my kids during those work hours? No. Sometimes one or both come into my office and play Legos or talk to me briefly. 

I limit the interruptions and I don’t actually spend time with them unless I’m on a break but my door is open even while I work. The only time the door is closed is if I am in a meeting or on a call or shooting a video - something where I can’t be interrupted. 

I want my children to feel welcome in my world so that they don’t feel as if Dad is out of contact while he works. I want them to know I can and will always put them first. That doesn’t mean I just drop what I’m doing with work and play with them all day like they want me to. 

I have to hit my minimum hours for the week in order to keep my business going but 25 hours is very reasonable and doable and it’s in small chunks of no more than 2 hours at a time. 

My role is to bring in the income. My wife currently does not have any responsibilities for the business. 

She is my most trusted business coach and I talk with her a lot regarding the direction of the business. She also helps with all the financial planning but she doesn’t do any actual work for my clients or to run operations of the business. 

She’s 100% devoted right now to being a full-time mom and when our kids are older, she may have more time to join in the business ventures more or pursue her own thing. 

We are 100% on the same page with our roles. 

She doesn’t want to have to work right now and I am perfectly okay taking on the burden of providing for our needs and wants. 

It was very difficult at first when I wasn’t earning enough money but I got through it. Now I have proved to myself that it’s possible (very possible), to support a family on one income only working 25 hours per week. 

Our oldest is barely starting school. We homeschool and my wife will lead in running our school and I will assist when I can. She’ll be the principal and main teacher and I’ll be one of the teachers. Since I work at home and don’t work 8 hours per day I can be a part of it more, but she will take on more of the weight of that. 

She also takes on more of the weight of managing the house. 

I do a lot because I’m here and able. My morning chores are to put away the dishes that were cleaned the night before, and to get breakfast all sorted. 

I also help in keeping things in order throughout the day such as cleaning up after myself, and helping clean up kid messes that I’m involved in. 

She does the laundry 100% though. That is something she won’t even trust me with and I don’t have the brain space for it. That’s her thing, she’s good at it, and she wants to do all of it. 

Other things I help with throughout the week are chores like vacuuming and house projects, and daily maintenance tasks like taking out the trash. 

Because she doesn’t work, she can take on a bit more of the house management. But just because she’s not working a job doesn’t mean she has a ton of free time - she has kids home all day needing stuff. 

She’ll often get some things done while I’m not working during my breaks or she’ll get the kids involved in helping and they enjoy doing what adults do. 

There’s definitely quite a bit of alternating during the day: I have kids and she’s doing house stuff, then she has kids while I’m working at my job, but we make sure to have family time with all of us together. 

Financially, I do all the bills and accounting since I already do that for the business and our business and personal finances are all connected. It’s “separate” as in separate bank accounts and balance sheets of course, but it’s the same process. 

I spend 20 minutes per week moving money between accounts, making sure expenses are paid for, and that I get paid etc.. 

BUT she is 100% a part of the financial planning. 

We discuss together our financial priorities and goals and I do the actual work to manage the money and earn the money. But we both decide how it’s spent and budgeted and what goals we have with it. 

She takes on more of figuring out our health plan - what to eat, and how to stay healthy. We are big on cooking and eating nutritious whole foods and she leads in learning about how we can improve there. But I’m still very much involved in it and helping but she leads. 

Much of what we do is one person leads in that thing but the other helps execute and is a partner in it. 

There’s very little where I take on 100% of all tasks associated with or she does, except earning money, and laundry. Everything else is shared with one leading in it. 

So that’s the gist of it. That’s how we do it. 

There’s no one right way to do it because every family has different needs and our needs will change over time and how we balance roles will change but that’s where we’re at now. 

If you don’t yet have this figured out and you’re a freelancing parent, you cannot wait to figure this out with your spouse. If you’re a dad like me, stop compartmentalizing the stresses in your home life and open up the conversation with your wife and get these roles figured out, don’t just assume the other person knows. 

It has to be discussed and agreed on. Lean towards whoever has strengths in certain areas. 

If you’re currently an employee thinking about leaving your job to freelance, then start talking about what this will be like after you start freelancing and get it decided now. It will be a shock for you if you’re used to being away from the house 40+ hours per week but oh the benefits are so worth it. 

And if you’re a hard working dad that enjoys spending most of your time in your career, take some time to dig deep to figure out what your priorities are. I know what it’s like to have passion towards your career but I had to learn that my primary passion right now is my wife and kids, business second. 

I’ve had to put the brakes on a bit with certain career ambitions that I simply cannot pursue in the way I first imagined it, while my kids are young. 

What’s more important to you? Applause from strangers who are congratulating you on your career success? Or applause from your children thanking you for being a part of their daily life and caring enough to make them your top priority.

You don’t have to sacrifice a good income to spend less time working and that’s why I’m here to teach you how to do it. 

Your kids will grow up in the blink of an eye. Don’t miss it because you were distracted by shiny things in your job and career. The praise of your wife and children is all you need right now. 

Learn to enjoy taking on more responsibilities with raising children and housework. You will have a happier wife, I promise you because she’ll be more balanced as well. 

You may be thinking, ”but work is so stressful, I don’t have the energy to take on so many house and kid things.”

Once you get your freelance business going, you’ll find work becomes enjoyable and fairly easy when you click into your strengths and get a system going for your business. I have momentary stresses and times of focus and challenges in work but I don’t feel burnt out at the end of my work day. 

My kids wear me out way more than work does, and that’s the best problem to have.

See you around.