aibu to think husband should help in morning when working from home?

[deeedeee]

I have two kids, 5 and 2, and the oldest is in school. Eldest has a disability, youngest does too but less severely. Neither can dress, organise, feed themselves.

Husband works full time. He leaves the house at 730am , gets home about 6pm each day. So I usually do the school run each day on my own. Which I struggle with if Im honest. If i'm well rested, organised and calm, and the kids too then it can be ok. But normally it's stress, fights and hard work.

I'm self employed, trying to get back into my field after maternity leaves and young kids etc. So two days a week youngest is in nursery so I can work, and one of these days eldest is at after school club. No availability for other day, so husband works from home that one day a week so I can work the full day, as he picks up eldest from school at 3 and puts a film on for him, Youngest at nursery till 6pm.

On this day he works from home in the morning, he gets up and logs straight into work, usually by 7am and refuses to help me get the kids ready and me ready. He says that it's a work day for him, so therefore he wants to get started. I find it very difficult, as him being there changes the dynamic, makes it harder, and also I feel that he should be helping. (i.e. Watching the kids while i have a shower. Dressing one of them. Helping me get them both down the stairs. I say I don't understand why he can't start at 820 when we leave the house, and help us get ready . That's still earlier than he starts in the office. He says he doesn't understand why I just don't get on with it and treat like the days he's in the office.

Who is being unreasonable?

[Littlef00t]

Does he do anything to help on other day you work, before he leaves at 7:30. DH and i both leave at 7:45 and it's a joint effort to get dd ready and us out the door.

Could he start but stop for say 30 mins for your peak pinch time?

[RunRabbitRunRabbit]

If I read your OP correctly, this is your one full day of work per week.

He should be doing all the childcare in the morning while you are locked away getting on with your work, not the other way round!

I'd say rebuilding your career after being out for a while means you have to have priority until you are back up to speed again. Or is your career regarded as optional?

[winchester1]

If he says he finish early at 3pm does he then use those two hours to do housework, or batch cook or anything to do with running the home?
I'd just say he can't have it both ways he is either starting early to finish early or he helps in the morning a bit and finishes at 5pm with a short break to pick up the kid.

[JapaneseSlipper]

Oh christ, are people still trotting out the "there are many misconceptions about working from home" line? Yawn. I actually don't think there are. In fact, it sounds like the OP is bending over backwards to protect her husband's working hours. He is not meeting in the middle.

We don't need to hear how hard it is to work from home. I'd say most people's default opinion is that people working from home are working, and can't be called on to help with housework.

Please keep us updated OP! x

[Charley50]

And sorry hadn't read the whole thread just the OP. So don't know if a compromise has been reached or if he has sorted his sorry shit self out and started looking after his own kids. Hope so though.

[Charley50]

Ugh he's being unreasonable. Mumsnet is making me hate some men.

[LibrariesGaveUsP0wer]

Top - but he is not supposed to be working at 7 am. He is a manager who can set his own hours. He is choosing to. Because he'd rather duck out of this 1 hour 20 than any other slot of the day or week. Because he sees mornings as optional helping.

[deeedeee]

thanks everyone. some great perspectives for constructive conversation and hopefully compromise x

[Topseyt]

I would agree that there are many misconceptions about working from home.

i work from home for several months of the year. I have to be disciplined about it, and when I am working I am working. Nothing else. I can take the occasional interruption if the postman knocks etc. but that's where it ends. If my DDs are at home then they have to amuse themselves during my working hours, no questions asked. If they try to push it they are firmly told "no, unless it is a dire emergency". In that, I can see where your husband is coming from.

If he works 9 - 5 in the office, is he perhaps adapting it to work 7 - 3 when he is at home so that he can actually take a break then and do the afternoon school run? Does he have an agreement as such with his manager? In some offices you can see whether or not the party who is at home is online, and occasionally what they are doing. Mine is like that. Your DH may or may not have the flexibility you are requiring without negotiating it further.

However, I was a SAHM for many years when my three were very young, so I also have some sympathy for you too, OP. Getting young kids out of the door on time can resemble a military operation, and mine had no particular special needs. If he could get the kids dressed then that would help, I guess.

Good luck with speaking about it. Remember though that he is supposed to be working even if he is at home. Maybe he could spare half an hour for you, but maybe he needs to run it past his boss too, as it could be spotted if he was not online when he was supposed to be. Approach it from that angle so that you don't put his back up and make him feel cornered.

[trollkonor]

Yanbu

Both my husband and I have worked full time from home before and our boses knew that we would be doing school pickups too. I used to have my time booked out daily in my outlook calendar for all colleagues to see. If they called me during that time they knew that if I answered it could be noisy!

I used to start earlier, take a very short lunch break and work a bit later. 6.30 I had coffee whilst sending out a barage of emails, or running reports. Somehow I still managed to do my fair share of getting everyone out the house, putting a load of washing on, making sure the kitchen was cleanish. Having no commute freed up loads of time.

I even managed to tidy up after myself, do the odd load of laundry and start off an ocassional casserole during my working day too. It aint hard! I am going upstairs so I will bring down those dirty towels at the same time. Certainly took less time than going to the office kitchen and getting into chats with those around me.

[ChickenTikkaMassala]

Is the husband finishing early when he works from home? That's one of the reasons why I log on earlier than I would do if I was in the office.

[LibrariesGaveUsP0wer]

Fair enough if you take no break at all. You are pretty unusual though

[IceBeing]

cassie that is exactly what I think. He needs to work X hours during that day but there can be no reason at all why it has to be the ones that the OP needs help with.

[ChickenTikkaMassala]

I don't drink coffee so no I don't stop for it

[IceBeing]

urgh boffin that's horrible....

[CassieBearRawr]

HIBU because he can quite early be flexible with his hours when he wfh. He just chooses not to use that flexibility to the benefit of the family.

[myotherusernameisbetter]

My wife also seems to think that when we have children that I can work from home and look after the baby whilst she goes to work to save on childcare. I've had to explain that I'd be sacked if that happened, she's still adamant that I can do it though.

There's a lot of misconceptions about working from home.

And about looking after babies........ :o

[LibrariesGaveUsP0wer]

ChickenTikka - Totally and utterly different! He has chosen to structure his working day so that he 'can't' help out in the morning. 7-8.20 am is not his normal working time. He's chosen tot make it so. That is different to being asked to look after a baby or cook the dinner whilst working

(Though, incidentally, unless you never stop to make a coffee, I don't see why it's impossible to put a wash on or load the dishwasher whilst waiting for the kettle.)

[BoffinMum]

At this point I feel I should share today's convo with the Ocado man.

For context, DH has been made redundant and I am chief breadwinner at the moment, in a senior job.

Ocado Man "So no female at home today then? You have to deal with the shopping? My goodness, what is the world coming to?"
DH (neutral) "No, it's just me dealing with the shopping."
Ocado Man "Well, that's quite a situation when you have to sort out shopping, isn't it?"
Me (from study) "Actually I am the one with the job and I am earning the money around here, so it makes sense for him to deal with shopping while I do that"
Ocado Man and

(What's sad is that DH would much rather be at work, but it's the principle of the thing).

[MerryMarigold]

ChickenTikka, I don't think she is expecting him to hoover, mop, clean the bathroom and cook dinner!

She is expecting him to help out a bit until 8.20am, which is well before usual office hours. He could even be doing bits and bobs, AND helping out.

Somehow, my super amazing very average dh manages to help out and check the laptop from time to time, for all of an hour before they go to school.

[BoffinMum]

YANBU because getting young children is more tiring and demanding than most bits of early morning office work, and he's cherry picking what he does without thinking enough about the consequences for the rest of you.

[ChickenTikkaMassala]

if I work from home then I'm working and I can't do housework etc like my wife seems to think I can so I can see your husbands point really.

My wife also seems to think that when we have children that I can work from home and look after the baby whilst she goes to work to save on childcare. I've had to explain that I'd be sacked if that happened, she's still adamant that I can do it though.

There's a lot of misconceptions about working from home.

[CatMilkMan]

Chaz I absolutely do need to get more done when I work from home, not because I owe it to my employer but because if I didn't it would change the rest of the working week for my colleagues and our clients.
Im not complaining about it at all, it's the way we work and it works very well.

[MerryMarigold]

No, YANBU.

I think it would help, rather than telling him he is BU (he is!), to ask for help with specific things. You can say life is different now you're back at work, and it is hard to get yourself ready for work as well as them. My dh works long hours, but he often gets the kids breakfast if they are up before he leaves. And when he works from home, he would log on around 7.30 and then he sometimes takes a break at 8.30 to take them to school (even though I'm not working), so I can have a break from the school run driving (which I hate) or picks them up for me.

Try and get to the bottom of why he feels he needs to start so much earlier than when he's actually going in to work and why he doesn't want to help out in the morning. Does he feel like he can't do it as well as you? Does he feel intimidated by how good you are at it? What would he feel able to do and what would be most helpful to you?

[NoSquirrels]

I think you just need a good chat about it, OP.

Compromise is King (or Queen ).

Both my DH and I work from home a fair amount. But it is really really easy for the person who usually goes out to the office to fall into the trap of just seeing to themselves, and not taking responsibility for the rest of the stuff that has to happen.

Work out what you need between 7 and 8 am (for him to do breakfast while you shower? For him to dress the kids while you shower? etc.) and ask for a defined closed-ended task he can take care of. (If you can make that something that he can also help with on his days in the office, even better.)
He's probably stressing that he won't get things done, and the idea of "help" is so open-ended that he's worried it will eat into things too much. But if you have defined areas of responsibility, that should help.