AIBU to stay part-time and cut costs instead of working full-time

As someone who worked part time when my kids were little and went full time once they went to secondary, I’d say stick it out as part time if you’re happy to sacrifice financially as a team.
mine are teens now but I feel they need way more support than we can currently give them (also caretaking elderly parents) and I feel guilty daily that I’m letting them down.
yes it’s great that I’m now paying more into my pension and we can afford to spend more / save more.
my husband really struggles with having to pull his weight with dental / doctors appointments and I still do all the life admin / gardening although we have a cleaner now.
we only got through school holidays because at the time we had friends and family who would share childcare. Otherwise it would have cost us a fortune.
but I wouldn’t exchange the chatty after school walks home with those little hands in mine, for all the money in China.

Ive been Part time since I had a breakdown 28 years ago

Not once has DH asked me to go back full time, indeed hes the one who keeps a check that I dont do too much

However , no kids , and we are now of the age where mortgage is paid and there isnt such a strain on the money , so he too has now gone part time

However we have never been able to save big pension pots, had world cruises or long haul holidays nor employed a gardener or cleaner. We have made do and mended most of those 28 years. Its not been a hard life, but then as I say , no kids to bring up and we live a simple life

I would imagine that you DH is worrying that the money doesnt go as far as it once did, and the pension pots are not being serviced as he would like

There's also the fact that you do have two children who are going to be needing financing till their 20s - uni fees, driving lessons, cars, deposits for homes - etc etc

You really need to have this conversation

Because she has a diagnosed mental health condition so is a lot more vulnerable to poor mental health?

It is one of those things that is neither reasonable nor unreasonable.

Obviously your posts are trying to put your version of events, to try and get us on your 'side', but I would be interested to hear his.

I don't think you should underestimate things that have a longer term effect. So, whilst your dc are 4 and 6, everything may be walkable, but once they get older, the distance you travel to things get further, and later at night - Scouts, sports fixtures, orchestras (try getting on a bus with a cello), camps. etc.

Then longer term things like effects on your pension.

Then all your household finances - both the obvious like the difference in income, but how close your income and expenditure are each month.

Then your medium term plans in terms of potentially wanting to move house or extend, or if there is work that will be needed on your house in the next few years just to keep it nice.

It isn't a simple YABU / YANBU question - it is something the two of you need to sit down and look at calmly, with all the detail that effects you as a family, and find a way to compromise.

Why does only the ops mh matter? The dh has to
keep on plodding on working ft, despite how it might affect them? Their needs can never ever ever be anywhere near that of op.?

Having been in a similar position, I would be very wary about going FT if you think it will be bad for your MH, by which I mean jt will make you unwell enough to then be off sick or that the family unit falls over under the strain.

Good luck OP. I know what I would do and it wouldn’t be going FT

Well he obviously doesn't think you're going to cut the grass (he'll end up doing it) and almost certainly that the house is cleaner with the cleaner than when you're left to do it (or not)

If ya want to really do this you'll have to prove you can, start by dropping the gardening and cutting the grass yourself-> this is easiest being seasonal

You don't have to immediately give up your car but you could stop using it and actually DO STOP using it to show that you can economise

When you established these and importantly can sustain them then suggest going PT and giving up the cleaner

Check who challenges the research….

@KitTea3 if your dp came to
you and said. “I can’t do this anymore, I need to work pt too.”
Would you agree?

Check who funds the research

I sorry to read this and hope you are able to find another more suitable job soon - being miserable at work is just awful…

I'm part time and it's just above nmw.

My partner works full time.

My partner slaps understands how bad my mental illness is and that I work as many hours as I can cope with and doesn't judge me for it. He knew when we got together I was only able to work part time due to my disability and has always been supportive in that regard.

We are currently buying a house and he's still fine (as is the bank) with me working part time. He understands that I'm doing as much as I can. We know from me previously upping my hours and ended up in crisis and off sick that this is the only manageable way for me to work and contribute (and to be fair I have contributed a large chunk of the deposit) . And tbh once the house is paid off he'd be happy for me to give up work if it's better or my mental health. Granted that's a privileged position to possibly be in but I'm lucky in my choice of partner and circumstances 😬😳

It would be different if you weren’t working at all but I think 3 days a week is not unreasonable with such young DCs. It makes life easier for summer childcare and after school care - remember to factor the additional cost of that into your equations if you were to go full time.

I would be very cautious about trialing full time in case you can’t get your part time hours BA, 3 days a week is almost impossible to find now in employment.

Definitely cut the cleaner down to 2 hrs or nothing. I have no idea what’s going on in your home that you need 6 hours a week.

can you compromise and both work 4 days and split the outsourced services

Your mental health is completely fundamental to the well being of your child and also to your family unit OP and you are right to prioritise it and to try to establish how best to manage it. Not everyone will understand this but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
When one partner works part time it typically benefits the other partner too ime if they have less domestic and childcare responsibilities plus it will benefit your DH if your MH is better and you are happier.

I don't think my former boss understood the benefit of my Wednesday off Vs the more classical Monday/friday. It was a bit annoying as there were project review meetings on Wednesday so I either needed to attend for 2-3h once every 6-8 weeks when my project was up for review or get a colleague to present my aspect of the project.

Then we had an all day event with travel where I agreed to attend for a day in lieu on a Wednesday. By half 9 on the Thursday when I hadn't barely been able to open an email. I had to ask to use my day in lieu as I wasn't in a fit state to work. He then suggested that I automatically take the Thursday off if I ever had to work a Wednesday, more actively tried to avoid all day meetings on a Wednesday and when there was an opportunity to rejig the project review process the meetings were moved to day that everyone in the company worked.

The midweek break meant I got to recharge before I needed to recharge which allowed me to be more functioning in my free time.

My partner has said given the choice he would only work 4 days too and I know quite a few families where both parents work 3 or 4 days but his role is one where there the amount of work couldn't be adjusted so he would be doing the same amount of work but in 4 days instead of 5 and for 20% less pay.

I work pt, you don't need a gardener or a cleaner, my day off is used to clean the house and have a morning run. Are you struggling financially? I would think twice about giving up your car. I would say to him you will canx the cleaner and gardening and try doing it yourself for 3 months then you can discuss it again then. Personally I would hate to work full time. Having a day off is really good so I can swap days around and attend my child's events. Being a parent and doing school runs and pick ups is a big part of being a parent even though it seems it's not valued on mumsnet, it's all about how much you earn. As pp have said if you both work full time he also needs to pull his weight with childcare and house chores. I wonder how he will feel once he realises this.

Personally I would:

• Up my days to 4 days a week and save the extra 1 days pay.
• Cut cleaner to 2 hours a week - ive never heard of anyone needing a cleaner for 6 hours a week.
• Sacrifice the gardener and cut the grass myself.

That way you're still upping hours and saving money - but you aren't going fully full time.

Before you agree to even a trial, you need to ensure that your DH is agreed to up his input for all life admin & everything else you don't currently outsource eg: shopping, meal planning, cooking etc. If he wants you to increase your hours then he's going to have to increase his input so that it doesn't all fall on you and your MH suffers.

Kindly OP, your husband is perfectly entitled to change his mind.
Neither of you have the right to insist on one particular way or the other and asking the opinions of random internet strangers is completely irrelevant- you both need to be on side with whatever arrangement you make. Just expecting him to forever roll over and work longer and harder than you is completely unfair.

What about cutting costs now, but increasing to 4 days a couple of weeks after the youngest starts school. Kind of a compromise.

I know a few people who work 4 days due to either MH or other medical conditions. Both take Wednesday as their day off. I thought that sounded like a bad deal, but both love it. Their reasoning is that when they do go to work, they know it's never for more than two days before they get a day off. Also, one is older with thyroid issues, she says for her it's a great recharge day. She tackles her house in the morning and enjoys her mid morning and afternoon in her clean and quiet space.

I've always worked full time. Even when each of my 4 kids was small. There was no paid maternity leave, so I was back to work pretty quickly. This means my pension looks great and now people tell us how 'lucky' we are to afford some of the extras we have. I worked bloody hard to be in this position, but it has paid off for us.

Maybe your husband is feeling resentful of carrying the financial load, maybe he's starting to think longer term, with both university costs and pensions. You could cut back on costs, but that won't boost your lifestyle as a family.

Not for the time they’re both in school, and it sounds like they’re already using wraparound care three days a week for the elder child.

I’m not saying OP is unreasonable, but there are too many factors involved for us to decide. If she’s working a low paid job, it won’t be a financial incentive from her husband but an emotional one. He’s the one she needs to convince, not us.

But she already is working part time, the way I read it? So that wouldn't apply, or would it OP, as assume you're already working at least one day a week.
Having the time with kids would be a really good thing, so if you can afford it, why not get the best of all worlds? Being part time often means you can support the whole family/friends, and from older people who have worked all ways, part-time can be the best,. as relationships matter as much as money. Depends on your job, but some jobs are very full on and leave little time for other things.

As you're youngest is 4 it isn't wild that you're still part time for the moment. In school holidays, you only need to find childcare for 3 out of 5 days, it's easier to juggle around days if a child is ill, when they're that young a lot of after school clubs are earlier in the evening.

I hear you on needing something that enables you to look after your mental health too. Without asking too much detail about your current job, I'm assuming it's a 3 days of standard office hours out of the house? Rather than ramping that same job up to 5 full days, could you discuss an alternative approach with an extra job which is something you can do from home, or something you can have more control over the pace of? Or that's just term time?

I've never had a cleaner or a gardener, those are luxuries to me. I understand that he employed them to help you when you had a MH crisis. His argument that it's helping the economy is maddeningly decentralising you his wife from your own life decisions.

When your youngest child it is not at all mad to still be working some reduced hours. I can see some people mentioning your pension contributions and there's a bit of a vibe from some posters implying that you're some sort of lazy bum who's coasting by on your husband's generosity while actually with young children and mental health issues you've shared out the needs of your whole family household as a partnership.

Has he costed up the school wrap around costs and school holiday childcare costs if you were to return to 5 full days. How flexible is your employer? Would they be open to you increasing your days? Do you have any options for taking on some freelance work or some more casual work or home working you could do to supplement your income without going to a full 5 office days?

I went p/t after my first baby, had our next when he was three and a half so it made sense to be p/t 3 days in the office for several years. As I've suggested, rather than ask for my original role to increase back to 5 days, I took on freelance work in the same industry which I was able to do while they were in school or in evenings/weekends and really helped my career longer term. I built my network, developed some really interesting and useful contacts, gained valuable experience in other elements of the sector I work in. I got a WFH p/t job about 10 years ago and then started doing 2 days in person at another place. I left there when I went full time in another wfh role a few years ago. I've never not worked. I don't have MH issues but my employers are very flexible and understanding about removing barriers for colleagues with health needs or disabilities. It doesn't have to be a world where you have to do 5 full days in an office because your husband demands it. You can increase your income in other ways while still looking out for your personal wellbeing and having the flexibility we often need as parents of young children.

This was going to be my question too. Has he thought through how much extra he’ll have to do in terms of childcare and daily tasks if you’re back at work FT?

I’m not sure your plan is wholly feasible though. Six hours cleaning a week (that’s at least one full school day) and then the gardening on top. Sounds like it’ll be too much for you.

I think you should stay part time, get rid of the car and keep at least one of the cleaner and gardener. I bet you still look after the kids before and after school so you’re hardly contributing nothing.