to think that DP should contribute a greater part of his salary to our joint/family finances?

[ScandiCinnamon]

Excuse the rambling and the exact numbers but wanted to give as full a picture as possible.

Backstory. Been together with OH (not married) for just over 9 years. Two DC's (one 5 and one 7) both in school. We live in co-owned property. He is working full time in a fairly stressful job and earn (I think) about £4k/month after tax. £2.3k of that goes into joint account for mortgage bills etc. When we met I had a decent job with a good salary, but now I work PT so I can collect the DC's after school. I earn a pittance, but still contribute. So, pretty much at the end of the month I am left with £70 'pocket money' for myself and I don't manage to save money/put anything aside for a pension. He has after commuting costs etc £1.3k to play with. Our joint account regularly goes overdrawn due to car trouble/emergency house stuff boiler/roof etc and so on.

I am starting to feel increasing resent and almost feel trapped. And that I am simply filling a function in the family. AIBU to think he should share more of his money and that it is astounding that our joint account goes overdrawn but he still has his little money pot for himself?

What boils my piss is that everyone knows that women earn less for the same work as men. Add to that the fact that they also tend to do jobs that are more poorly paid, suffer a greater drop off in wages after children and are more likely to be poor in divorce and old age. Whilst having greater caring responsibilities.

But yes, every person should contribute the same amount to the family. Which means that women will almost always have less money to spend on themselves and they will be kept in poverty. The default parent is normally the woman so children will suffer as well. But let's ignore all that and pretend the playing field is even.

When wages are equal, roles are equal and 'women's jobs' are paid as much as men's, we can talk.

I think Yabu - what would you do if he decided to give up work and go PT? Where would the money come form then?

As someone else said he already hands over nearly 2500 a month, I think if you want more money then you need to go and earn it.

Why do people think OP is providing child care. They are her children, looking after your own children isn't a job In any way shape or form.

Because she is providing childcare peggy. This is not a matter of opinion. She just is. Nobody said it was a job.

No she's not providing childcare she's looking after her own children - they aren't the same thing. Someone who provides childcare needs qualifications and has to follow certain rules - OP doesn't do that.

Someone who's providing it professionally does, yes.

Anyway peggy, while your belief that the term 'providing childcare' can only apply to people who aren't looking after their own children is backed by nothing at all, let's not get bogged down in that particular tedious discussion. Instead, feel free to substitute whatever term you like for a person who is looking after children of the family whose care would otherwise have to be paid for if they weren't doing it. Said person may actually cost the family more by working during those hours than they do by doing the whatever the delicate amongst you wish to refer to their care as. This is why, when we haven't been told how much OP would earn from doing more hours and how much the relevant childcare would cost if provided by someone else, it's very, very silly to make assumptions.

In real life it's called parenting and you just get on with it. On MN it's childcare and you bill the other parent for it

He wouldn't get the chance Peggy, the OP made it quite clear she won't work full time so he just had to get on with it. It's tough if he'd like to see the kids more or have somebody else share the full responsibility of the family costs.

Women will never be seen as equals in the workplace whilst they opt to take years out or so just a few hours.

On the one hand child care professionals who are qualified and follow rules. On the other hand a loving mother who loves her children and wants the best for them, doesn't do it for the money but because it's her life.

I once went diving with my mother as my buddy. I joked that unlike other buddies, she would give me her air if mine failed. Luckily her and my DF shared resources even though he earned about 10 times what she did. Because he's not a cunt.

I think there are two issues here.
I agree there are the financial aspects of her working and them paying someone to provide care. Do we know that her oh works until bedtime though?
Then there's the issue which I think I assumed you meant (wrongly) that the op is working (as if a paid childcarer) from school end to bedtime. Point I was making that if it's true for her then it's true for slightly shorter hours for those who work full time.
It's like when sahms say their job isn't 9-5, they are on call 24 hours. Well those of us who work full time on the whole still look after our dc between about 5pm and 8am.

I agree with what HedgehogAtHome said

I don't get some posters claiming the OP is being subsidised by her DP. It's usual when kids come along that somebody's career takes a bit of a back seat and for the majority of families it is usually the woman. If he knows that the OP is sorting childcare he can then obviously give his job the full attention so I think she is subsidising him. At the end of the day she isn't some random person it's the mother of his kids and shopping at Aldi while he has over a grand spending unaccounted for each month is a gross inequality.

Wow, good to know how some people view things.

Our family working set up is similar to OPs - I reduced hours and grade when I struggled to cope with doing majority of household stuff, childcare and working practically full time in a stressful job.

I finish up most days at school finishing time - I collect DS bring him home, help him with his homework do a bit of housework, laundry and mumsnetting and prepare the evening meal. If I worked f/t DS would be out of the house from 8-6 every day and homework etc would be squeezed into a tired and irritable gap after dinner which currently he uses to play with his friends from the street. Oh and we'd need to pay for additional childcare as contrary to popular belief on this thread childcare has a monetary cost if not provided by family.

I've actually looked at upping my hours and grade at work from time to time as I'm a bit bored now and could do with a challenge - but in the end, we as a family decided that it would be better to wait until DS is in senior school as then he can get the bus home and isn't dependant on lifts.

Anyway sorry I got side tracked somewhere. DH and I pool both our wages jointly and take out a similar amount for spends. This is because he is not a twat.

You clearly missed the post where OP said DP prefers her to work part time cookie. What a terrible victim he is!

Stealth, I don't think OP or anyone else has said her DP works until bed time. He may not. It was me who mentioned that to refute a poster claiming that looking after DC who are at school isn't full time- in actual fact, it may well work out to the same number of hours as a full time job would, particularly given that there are 13 weeks of the year when they're not in school at all. But that was a general point rather than one related to this particular family, who don't have a SAHP in any case.

Oh I see thabks.
Do I get that nanny? ;)

At the end of the day she isn't some random person it's the mother of his kids and shopping at Aldi while he has over a grand spending unaccounted for each month is a gross inequality.

Agree completely.

Some real odd bods on this thread.

If only I had one knocking around stealth, I'd gladly post them over to you!

I wonder if he wants her to work part time so he gets a bye when it comes to most of the kids stuff, school, being there when they are ill, all the doctor/ dentist stuff, their hobbies, the housework, the shopping, cooking etc. Meaning he probably has a much easier life than if they were both working long hours and travelling and having to share all the house and kid stuff.

Unless a I missed it earlier, maybe the OP can clarify what he does away from work.

OP, your DP sounds either an arse, or very much head in the sand. On the assumption it's the latter, would strongly recommend setting aside an hour or two to work through a proper budget before your chat on Saturday - putting the actual figures in front of him may help the penny drop.

This seems to have a lot of good advice: www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning

I'm with you lisel!

We have no wraparound care at DS's school. I do the school run and look after the children 6.30-9.15am and 2.45-8pm. So 8 hours a day plus any night wakings. DH works a long day 6.15am to 7.45pm (with a lunch break). He briefly sees the kids at night, eats tea, potters for half an hour, watches a bit of a box set and then goes to bed. While the kids are at school I often work for a couple of hours, spend an hour in the gym or walking with friends, an hour cooking tea and preparing lunches (we eat healthy homemade meals), an hour or two cleaning/tidying/food shopping/doing DIY/washing cars/washing clothes/organising dentists, organising play dates, organising various clubs, paying bills. I usually have a cuppa mid afternoon and then head to town to do errands before picking up the kids. The kids and I do various regular activities including reading school books, playing games and meeting up with friends. I feed the kids, bathe them, read stories, put the kids to bed alone, then load the dishwasher and clean the kitchen. I usually sit down at 9pm. I really appreciate DH's hard work and financial support. He really appreciates my support at home too. Two of the DC are infant aged and I know it won't always be this way.

at the memory of entertaining pre school children.
So much easier now they take themselves off on their bikes, or inform me that they're watching some educational tv (we bare bears and logo ninja go usuallly)

Entertaining preschool children is even more fun when one of them is teething like a bastard. I'm almost looking forward to the end of ML. Maybe if I ask nicely, work would let me go full time. DH is part time, so I'm quite sure the usual suspects would queue up to defend my right to loads more spending money than him even though I don't have a penis. Perhaps I'll even be considered suitable marriage material for their sons...

Sounds about right mini, particularly as you have several children. DH and I each work part time and share both the childcare and earning duties, which works for us. But my parents had a similar division of labour to yours. They both seemed to get about the same amount of free time (which was not a great deal, admittedly).

Did the OP update as to what happens when the joint account is overdrawn?

OP I really don't understand this... you are a family, you have 'family' costs and you have made decisions about how each (adult) member of the family spends their time vis a vis looking after kids/earning money. User you don't have family money?! Ehh.. Your oh is taking the piss and you are letting him

" All money should be 50/50"

Why?

All money should be 50/50

Why?

Why not? I certainly still don't understand why it is not the default.

I don't even understand the concept of paying bills and keeping spending money in line with a ratio of how much each person earns:

If partner 1 earns more because the family has made a choice to benefit the whole family and one of the results has been that a) the family is best served by partner 2 bringing in money part time, or b) partner 2 can now work full time again but their earning potential has been affected by (a), why would partner 2 deserve less personal spending money than partner 1?

Even if none of this applies and partner 1 simply has a higher paying job than partner 2, due to industry chosen or whatever, why would partner 1 automatically 'deserve' to have the extra money this involves to themselves? Is it the same MNers defending this type of thing that insist on claiming that their six-figure-salary-earning DHs are in that position purely by virtue of hard graft, and everyone else is just jealous and didn't work hard enough/made bad choices and deserve their lower pay because of it?

I will at some point be out-earning DP by a significant margin. If I make a complete U-turn on how I think about this later, purely out of greed, and decide that I can live with having, I don't know, £500 frivolity money to myself each month while my DP has 'just' £100 or so, I will be very surprised. And ashamed, I would hope.