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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to feel unhappy at DH remark?

172 replies

lolaflores · 13/09/2011 16:48

Sunday jaunt into the country past some v. nice houses. "OOOhhh" I cooed to DH,"thats a lovely house". "Oh," says he "you go back to work and that could happen"!
dark silence from me. When I suggested retuning to work when DD2 was much smaller, it was deemed as "benefit neutral" given the childcare costs. DD2 started school this week. So now it is all change. Not a question of career, but just job. Now my position as scullion and dogs body is over, i can make myself useful and get a job. And while I do understand that he has been the sole wage earner, his career has not been on the hard shoulder as mine has.

I am not sure to have the arsehole or not. My heart says I am. My DH was in another room when God was handing out the sensitivity bits.

OP posts:
Bogeyface · 13/09/2011 23:31

H does the night shift of bad dreams/glass of water/baby needs feeding. I do the night shift of anything involving bodily excretions as poo and puke dont bother me at all, but he is a right wuss with! Fair trade off as far as I can see!

MrMan · 13/09/2011 23:31

Speaking of which DW needs some attention. Ttfn.

weaselbudge · 13/09/2011 23:34

Yay Scared him off .. right - back to man bashing then!

fedupofnamechanging · 13/09/2011 23:34

I don't think I 'suffer' more than dh tbh. We both have made choices and sacrifices in our lives. We both work hard, just in different ways and there are good points and bad to both our lives.

I do take issue though with people who think that you can just waltz back into work after being a sahp for a prolonged period of time or who think that a woman should just do any kind of low paid work, that she can fit in around the dc. Why should she do a minimum wage job and all the chld care/housework? God forbid she should have some time on her own once the dc start school. The husbands in these situations wouldn't do it - they have careers, yet think that less than that is good enough for their wives.

The school day goes quite quickly. My youngest started preschool this week, and I intend to do all the DIY that I couldn't do while she was at home during the day. Not sure when I'm going to get all this 'me' time tbh.

Bogeyface · 13/09/2011 23:36

they have careers, yet think that less than that is good enough for their wives

Very good point, well put.

AnyFucker · 13/09/2011 23:50

karma there is a solution to that for women

don't give up your careers in the first place Smile

Bogeyface · 14/09/2011 00:00

But being a SAHM is a legitimate choice AF, not all women want to work when they have small children. The problem is not women taking a career break to have their children but how their husbands (some husbands, ok MrMan?!) and employers view them because they have chosen to do that.

True feminism isnt about having it all, its about being able to choose the life that is right for you without being discriminated against because of it.

Bogeyface · 14/09/2011 00:01

And when I say "discriminated against" I mean in the home aswell as in the workforce.

scottishmummy · 14/09/2011 00:15

you want goodies you gotta work for them
so shift from your ethos of someone else work and you take-as your partner he made a valid point. time to lose your sense of entitlement and contribute

so snap to it if you want a bigger house.

Proudnscary · 14/09/2011 00:18

What Scottishmummy said

Bogeyface · 14/09/2011 00:24

Well our dream house is a lottery win job in the next village, so should I go back to work and spend all my money on Euromillions tickets?!

time to lose your sense of entitlement and contribute
She hasnt objected to working! did you actually read the OP? It was what he said and how he said it that she objected to, especially as she wanted to go back to work when her DC were younger!

scottishmummy · 14/09/2011 00:27

shes boo hooing about working now isnt she. "dark silence" hardly screams wheres me work shoes and bag

lesson to be learnt dont give up your career.commit that to memory and dont sling in what you do

Bogeyface · 14/09/2011 00:41

When I suggested retuning to work when DD2 was much smaller, it was deemed as "benefit neutral" given the childcare cost

That to me suggest that her DH was the one who was saying it was benefit neutral (wanky phrase in itself imo), so the OP wanted to work but was discouraged. Is she not allowed to be pissed off at his insinuation that she should be contributing when he was the one who put her off doing that very thing?

Bogeyface · 14/09/2011 00:47

Dont give up your career? Ok, just farm the kids out from birth to whoever will have them on the offchance that your partner will decide 5 years down the line that actually you have had a bit of skive! And God forbid that you should remind the working partner that the reason their career has been so successful is because they havent had to give their homelife a seconds thought, or what it would have cost them if they had outsourced all the jobs the SAHP does!

Proudnscary · 14/09/2011 01:02

Jesus H Christ, Bogeyface

Proudnscary · 14/09/2011 01:05

That is such a bitter, narrow, unrepresentative, whingey, offensive ('farm your kids out' - seriously?), juvenile, hysterical point of view.

CheerfulYank · 14/09/2011 01:24

Bogeyface I wish I could knee him in the balls for you and DD. Just once. Angry

OP I think you're maybe being a bit sensitive.

On the other hand, people in my particular bit of the world don't stay at home once their children are in school full time; it just really isn't done. Some do volunteer work, etc., but it's just sort of a given that you'll go back to work (if you can find a job in this crappy economy of course!) once the DC's are no longer at home all day.

CheerfulYank · 14/09/2011 01:29

Um. Hmm

Parents who work while they have small children do so for a variety of reasons, both of desire and necessity and it's okay. It's okay to work, and it's okay to stay home. Staying home with your children does not make you lazy, and leaving your small children with a trusted caregiver to get back to a career you love (or have to be at in order to support those children) does not mean you're "farming them out." Different choices work for different families.

Bogeyface · 14/09/2011 01:36

I "farmed" mine out at a very young age, something that was very hard on all of us (not Ex obv Hmm ) and the suggestion that the OP should "just" get a job is ridiculous in the current economic climate. And to say that she should not have given up her career in the first place is incredibly insulting, as it suggests that the work she has done since she became is a SAHM is meaningless and further compounds the original insult from her husband!

Bogeyface · 14/09/2011 01:42

I should say that the "farming them out" comment was made in response to a frankly appalling suggestion that the OP has contributed nothing in her years as a SAHM. OK so it wasnt particularly well thought out but I am really fucking mad that someone would say that she had basically done nothing for 5 years! I am bloody certain that her DHs career would not have been very successful if he had had to make sure he was out of the office in time to get the dinner on, or had to miss a week long business trip due to childcare issues or had to call in because his kids had D&V.

time to lose your sense of entitlement and contribute
Or time he lost his sense of entitlement to an unpaid nanny and general skivvy that now it seems should also bring in a wage!

Thumbwitch · 14/09/2011 01:49

I think I can see why you are half inclined to get the arse - is it because he has sort of told you to go back to work, rather than allowing you to choose to do it? I know that DH said something similar to me (DS is still only 3 so not relevant yet) and I got the arse because it was all about what he wanted and nothing to do with my choice.

However, I could be wide of the mark there and purely projecting my own ishoos! Grin

Thumbwitch · 14/09/2011 01:51

Arse. Only read the first page, didn't notice the other 4 Blush

fedupofnamechanging · 14/09/2011 07:50

Being a SAHM is not a question of someone else working and you taking, scottishmummy. It's more about division of labour - it's very hard for one person to do everything, so if there are two of you, sometimes it makes sense for one to be responsible for the financial side of things and one to take care of dc/home. One is not important than the other - both are necessary and enable the other to take place.

The fact remains though that SAH can come with consequences for that persons career and so when a couple make the initial decision, it should be in the knowledge that it may well be for longer than it takes for the dc to go to school. Once they are in school, they still need to be taken/picked up, looked after during holidays. I feel like I live in my dc school sometimes as I am there so often for school events (4 dc). All these things continue to need to be done. If the WOH parent is fully prepared to do half of them, then it's fair enough to consider going back to work, but if not, then that's a different matter and he should stfu about it.

AF, I know that if I'd remained in my job, I would have had fewer children. I know my own limitations and there's no way I would have managed 4, plus my job. I know my dh wouldn't have been able to work as he does (and earn what he does) if he had to do his 50% at home. We would have both ended up working full time, to bring in what my dh brings in now and would have only had 2 dc.
I know that working would have brought me some personal advantages, but truthfully, I'd rather have 4 dc than 2. I don't regret my choice (except when the little 'darlings' are bickering Wink ).

AnyFucker · 14/09/2011 07:50

Advising women not to give up their careers does not equate to saying that SAHM's contribute nothing. Of course they do.

But I worked damned hard to gain my qualifications and my experience. No way would I give that up and take the risk of some man dumping me for a younger model down the line, leaving me dependent on his good will to support my children and keep a roof over my head.

Some women are happy to do that. that is their choice. This isn't a SAHM/WOHM argument. It is a choice that you make.

It wouldn't be mine.

Tortoiseonthehalfshell · 14/09/2011 08:13

But he didn't tell the OP to go back to work! He said, if we're all wildly paraphrasing, 'if you want that lovely house you are cooing over, we'd need two incomes'. The OP, I suspect, has a lot of resistance to getting a job, some of which may well be down to fear, and is reading WAY too much into a comment.

And Bogey, your ex sounds like a grade A asshole but I think you're projecting here. These two haven't even talked about the split of chores. The OP has expressed a desire for an Expensive Thing, the OP's husband has said that they'd be able to consider it if they were dual income again.

My husband's a student at the moment, on scholarship, and until recently we've split the SAHP role. Both things are now coming to an end. And he's been known to say things like 'you know, I really wouldn't mind an Aston Martin model blah blah whatever' and I have been known to reply 'well once you're earning fulltime again we'll talk'. Not that we could afford an AM even then, but it's not meant as a dig, just - right now we live up to our income, so if he wants to fantasise about status symbols he'll need to get a job.

If the OP had replied with 'that's a bit more complex than just waltzing out there tomorrow, but do you want to have a proper talk about it sometime soon?' it's absolutely unclear what her husband would've said. It might have been 'Well, when you feel ready, it is nice having someone at home for the girls', you know?

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