to think, if you're going to be the sole breadwinner...

[Dovahkiin]

then you might have to be prepared to work a bit harder?

DH and I are both teachers with management responsibilities. I took a year off work to look after 1 year-old DD and am now doing a bit of part-time, mainly to stay sane. We're looking to move back to Europe to be closer to family. As we're thinking of trying for a second, we're only looking for jobs for DH. Trouble is, he's reluctant to apply for jobs that look like they'll be "too much" work e.g. a great opportunity has come up, setting up a new school, and they want the new management to put in some work before their contract starts. This is, apparently, unacceptable. It really isn't - it would just cut into his evenings of slaying fictional beasties on the computer. AIBU to think, if we agreed that I would stay at home and he'd bring in the money, he should be prepared to unbalance his work-life balance a bit more?

And yes, I'm totally the uptight (I prefer 'conscientious'....) one in the relationship and still not totally reconciled to crapping on my career to look after DD, even though I'm loving staying at home with her for the most part. And yes, I fell for DH because he's my polar opposite and he cheers up my otherwise gloomy take on life...

Do I just need to accept that this is who he is, that management isn't really his thing, and go with that as long as we have enough money coming in to be comfortable, or AIBU to expect him to put himself out a bit more? He really does think he works hard...

I've got one of these...Laid back, unambitious, never grown up, messy and thoroughly decent bloke while I'm the anal retentive, got to get on, how bigs our house, über competitive, main breadwinner.

We swapped roles for roughly 7 years. Yes I have enjoyed career success and we have had nice holidays etc but it does all come at a price.

It was toughest probably when eldest moved to secondary when you start to realise life is slipping by and you no longer have babies but where has all the time gone and they are closer to their dad who has shared more of their lives.. But due partly to the thoroughly decent bloke part and the sudden death of my best friend at a young age which very quickly put all of this into perspective, I moved past that and I learned to be more compromising, make my family and relationship with my girls the priority.

No one ever lies on their death bed surrounded by family saying I wish I'd spent more time at work. Your DH probably feels this way...it took me a while to really accept this truth and listen to this voices

Swapping roles may work better for you but you may end up with a new resentment/ sadness ... as you will be the one that ' has to work harder' you will have to sacrifice the depth of relationship with DC and DH will be enjoying that side of life you as you get more and more knackered.

In the end I didn't want that for either of us.

You seem fortunate in that you are both professionals and could have a decent standard of living even if you do move into the slower lane for a while. Remember they do grow up and you can pick up the pace later.

Get him off the computer though and doing more stuff together.

How would you feel if he took the same approach to your role on the new partnership? How would MN react to a sahm who came on and said 'DH says that if I am to be a sahm I must up my game and increase the amount of home cooked food I produce in order to save money and that the house needs to be cleaner and I should stop relaxing in front of the tv in the evenings and make new curtains'?

I think the two of you need to plan your future and how you each contribute to it, long term. If he gets locked into a huge job and long hours you will never be able to return to a career because he will lack the flexibility to take on emergency child care or school 'pick ups. You are suggesting that your respective roles polarise your work life balance between you. His approach naturally brings them potentially closer together.

Talk about it, together, and decide what you both really want.

Lots of people have suggested swapping roles, but have you considered doing one job between you and job sharing if you are similarly qualified? That way you both get a good work life balance, and your career doesn't get dropped.

You need to be realistic about the state of play in the teaching profession in the Uk if not in Europe. The days of going home at 3pm are well and truly over (and it sounds like you were never like that anyway). I was picking up from after-school club last night at 6 and my dd's teacher is always there, and later, she got locked in last week!

So, even an ordinary class teacher's role will, in the UK at least, mean a lot of admin and possibly weekend working.

Just something to think about, it sounds like your husband has got used to a rather cushy number and I wonder how realistic it is that he will get that elsewhere and you will just do a small amount- in Europe and certainly in the UK most families both parents work otherwise it is not financially viable.

You're an organised person. I can quite see that it's a rational solution- I will do the parenting and DH can work harder and earn more so we are comfortable. Sorry, but it's a bit exploitative.

Why don't you go back to work and do all the senior roles and overtime that you can manage, and let him be the one bringing up the kids with no paid work?

The only argument against this, is you don't want to do that. Fair enough. Nor does he.

And agree, have you checked out the cost of housing here? Two teachers? You will probably both need to work.

Curious, why do you assume you were better at your job because you worked more hours? Having managed lots of people I have never ever found effort and time worked in that fashion. In fact often ones I wondered if were slacking were actually very efficient and from that perspective better!

Work is there to earn enough money to live. The majority of waking hours is spent at work so it has to be enjoyable if possible.

I just want my husband to be minimally stressed with his breadwinner role as that's one hell of a responsibility. We do ok on his wage and no doubt he could chase for more money but there's more to life than money and I'd rather he was happy in his work. Doesn't sound like you want the same for your husband.

Oh and if I ever returned to being an employee or if he presumed to impose his expectations on my work life over my own wishes he would be left with no doubt of my feelings on it.

You both need to look at your finances, choices about where you live and how and talk it all through.

If there's a need for more money than he's earning to support the family, you need to talk through how that will be addressed. If you're going to to be a SAHM long term, you need to factor in pension payments for you.

Is the issue not having enough money, or that you'd like more? Does he want the benefits of more money too, or is he happy living a lower income lifestyle? Does he appreciate all your costs as a family, so what that lifestyle and its limitations really are?

Sounds like you have lots to consider, explore the options.

Also sounds like you want to work PT or FT in the long term, which means that being a SAHM has risks. If you are more driven and have higher earning potential, it'd make more sense for your DH to be the part-timer, or for you both to work 4/5 days and get better childcare.

If there are no senior opportunities for your DH in Europe, and he isn't ambitious, then unless you're prepared to work too then moving there is unlikely to work.

YABU. There are some jobs which make unreasonable requirements in return for very little. There are other jobs which pay well for what you do, and value you. I think your DH has spotted one of the former, and realised its not a good long term bet. Why shouldn't he get to relax in the evenings after work for a bit as long as he helps out too?

It sounds like you have frustrated ambitions and are living them out through him, and almost expecting him to take two jobs to balance you out as a family.

How odd - most people b@tch and moan about their management, all the petty rubbish thats been developed by a bureaucrat that knows nothing about teaching.

Your DH is being offered the opportunity to totally shape his own working environment in a new better paid job, at home in a region without many opportunities to teach his subject and isn't interested. Assuming we are not talking months of unpaid work here, that's not lack of ambition, thats just laziness imo.

Apply for a job yourself. Anything else is going to drive you batsh8t crazy. You can still have another child and take a year off, and return to the job THAT YOU DEFINED!

YABU. You can't unilaterally decree that he should earn more so that you don't have to earn.

It seems that you think a SAHP is important, so I think you need to find roles where you can both do some work and both do some of the childcare. The parent at home doesn't need to be the person every day.

Yes the husband is facilitating the wife being a SAHP but she is also enabling him to do his job by doing what she does

It always irritates me when someone says this, as my brain always files it in the "obvious nonsense" bin, then I have to expend mental effort retrieving it. My instinctive response when I read that is that without work there is no money, without money there is no food, without food you die. Working is not optional. Having children is. Even having had them, work is still a higher priority than arranging for some adult to be in charge of the children. If you leave your newborn at home alone for 12 hours a day it probably won't die. If you don't earn money to feed yourself/it, it definitely will.

I know that, given I live in the UK, I'm wrong. I grew up in a country without a social security system. For me "not working" implies "death". Even after 30 years in the UK I have not adjusted to the mentality here that "not working" implies "dole," and is no big deal.

Fraidycat - wtf? Of course you can't leave a newborn alone for 12 hours a day. That's child abuse, it would starve. Even in Cameron's Britain, that's still more frowned upon than being on handouts I believe.

It's not "obvious nonsense" as with everything it is entirely dependant on circumstances.

It's very much appreciated by my husband that I look after our daughter during the day and go out to work in the evening. For us, anything else would be financially unworkable at the minute.

I appreciate that he is bringing in the most money at the moment and he respects what I'm doing and considers it valuable.

We're both happy that we're working as a team.

There's no problem. How other people choose to arrange their family life doesn't worry me, and I wouldn't be arrogant enough to think my view of it should affect their decisions.

If I went back to my old full time job at the minute and paid for child care we'd have less money coming in than we have now.

It isn't always so "obvious" to know what other people should be doing ;)

If you leave your newborn at home alone for 12 hours a day it probably won't die. If you don't earn money to feed yourself/it, it definitely will.

And I'm filing that under "nonsense" but I won't be wasting any mental effort by retrieving it

Agree pianodoodle me either!

It is total bonkers. No society ever in any part of the world advocates leaving newborns for 12 hours to work. there are countless ways of managing the issue of children needing care and adults needing to earn, formally and informally, but no society has ever advocated just not bothering to care for the babies.

It might be the case that in some industrial / post industrial societies, a mismanagement of resources has caused some people to be forced to do that. but it is not ok. It is not how humans work. In this society, thank goodness, every time this happens, with predictably horrible results, there is a national outcry

FraidyCat, there is a point in there but you've over-egged your pudding so much you've drowned it.

In this country children have to be looked after by someone, by being taken into care if necessary. Making a point that relies on us accepting child neglect and endangerment as normal, or as one kind of reality, was not going to fly.

So, a child has to be cared for but that could be through paid childcare, relatives, older siblings helping out, parents working different hours, or parents working while looking after the child. Lots of people do live with these sorts of arrangements and many manage to pay nothing for childcare by juggling their work.

For many families one wage would not be enough but the children are still cared for. It is true to say they need to be cared for, somehow, in order that either parent can work - that is just indisputible fact, there's nothing 'nonsense' about it.

But, yes, having a parent devote their time to caring for a child and not doing any paid work, is a luxury. It does rely on the other parent having a reliable income (or considerable inherited wealth). It is essentially a middle-class phenomenon (in the sense that the one wage has to be a reasonable one). Often exaggeratedly so because the second 'sacrificed' wage was a good one too, more than enough to pay for childcare. (Though also often not, especially with more than one child).

So, you may have a point that a FT SAHP has made a choice (jointly with their partner) and is enjoying the luxury of being able to devote all their 'working' time and energy to their children. The counter-example though, is a parent who has to work at night and juggle shifts with their partner, who they may hardly see, or someone who childminds or does other work compatible with childcare.

Though, you seem to be describing a single parent, who needs to work to feed their child as no-one else is contributing. That's where the safety net of benefits comes in if they cannot work but is beside your point about childcare being needed to enable work.

Thus, 'needing someone to care for your child so you can work' is a universal truth in the UK but does not contradict your idea that work is a necessity if you're poor.

Fraidycat is reporting from her childhood spent in a much more brutal society. Some parents do have to leave children unattended or face starvation. Look at that little girl in china last week who fell out of the window while her parents were at work. (She survived, unhurt as she got stuck hanging by her ears from some railings 100 foot up, she was 2, she was always left alone all day).

We should be proud that we have managed to wipe that out in this country. As late as the 1960s children were routinely left alone after school.

It's a red herring though. Fraidy was replying to the idea that a SAHM allows a WOHF to work, and saying that the father can work regardless. I think that argument is a bit meh, because the father can work either way, whether the mother is at home or out at work with employed help for childcare. But obviously, being a SAHM is one good way to do it.

Xpost with lottie

beastofburden I don't know if that story about the little girl in China represents a cultural norm. I think normally grandparents would be caring for the child, as is often the case here.
But, yeah, in no society ever has work been seen as more important than caring for your child, except as an ugly by- product of unchecked capitalism.
Actually, this whole idea of being out at work, and working for someone else all hours, is a relatively new one (i.e only the last 180 odd years) as previously in England at any rate, lives were more fluid; family plots would be farmed (children in tow), things would be made in the home to sell etc. The working day would probably last longer, but both parents would be around more, and the children would be part of the family workforce early on. (Not saying tha'ts better, just that what we call "work" now is not neccessarily the only way to put food on the table.

And of course a man with children would need to pay someone to look after them if his partner wasn't willing to stay at home with them. He at least would need to pay 50% of childcare costs, which in some places can be £££ a month.
OP, I think that you may be grateful for your husbands un workaholic attitude in future years, as when the dc get older he will have more time to give them, and you will have more time to re build your career, and things between you will be more equal. Let it be!