If you have the luxury of choice
For school age DC
Which is preferable
- Both parents working, in "lesser" jobs but close to home so both able to see more of DCs in morning/evenings, able to attend school events, jointly able to cover holidays and sickness, both parents maintain their position in the job ladder, security if one parent is made redundant/taken ill/leaves the family, however potentially more stressful in terms of juggling
OR
- One parent working in high powered job so potentially silly hours, long commute, often away from home, while the other parent is SAHP. So one parent is always available for the DCs, but the other may have limited time with them, the SAHP has effectively sacrificed their career for the other, may be less security for the family long term. But ... more relaxed lifestyle.
DH and I fall into the first bucket, DB and SIL into the second. I'm happy to take the "more juggling" which means that we both can jointly pursue our careers and both spend lots of time with the DC.
I can see that SIL (she's a SAHM) has a much more relaxed lifestyle and it's great for DB that she just handles anything child related, but think it's sad for him not to spend more time for his DC and not great for SIL in terms of one day she may want to go back to work and struggle to do so.
(ought to point out that we could have pursued the one parent in high powered job option, but have chosen not to - equally DB and SIL could have gone with both of them working)
To turn this into an AIBU ...
AIBU to think both parents working in "lesser" jobs is the better option?