To prioritise my husbands job

[Yellowsun11]

Back ground is I have a decent degree , but due to mental health issues proberbly haven't gone as far as I could . I'm
Not particularly interested in a career . Iv had jobs I like but my priority is balancing my home life while children are secondary age and younger . Part because husband earns a fair bit more than me but also because the strain of us both doing full time with my health and family is to much . A couple of friends are horrified by this and have hinted it's not the done thing in this day and age ! Just wondered others views -and situation . I surely aren't the only woman to work round her husbands job? If I could earn as much as him I'm sure he would be part time , - but I can't. And we want one of us to be home for them ( the majority of the time )

But you say it's not about the hours- so how exactly are these men doing their colleagues a disservice

No, I didn't. I said it shouldn't be about the hours in the office.

And actually it's the managers who encourage this sort of workplace behaviour who are doing everyone a disservice - including the business, given study after study showing that longer hours do not lead to a commensurate increase in outputs and can actually decrease productivity.

But there are plenty of men out there who don't need to be at their desks until whatever time is necessary to get out of the heavy lifting of parenting. Both they and their lazy managers are perpetuating an unequal system.

There's in fact, enough evidence that long long hours are unprpductive that a software development methodology called Agile has "sustainable pace" as a goal to aim for as a sign that you're working effectively. Which means - don't regularly work 40+ hour weeks because tired people write shit code which is then buggy, insecure, and bloody costly to maintain. "Heroics" is a bad word.

So men that put in long hours are at no advantage.
Which means women who have to curtail their hours because of childcare compete as easily as men in the workplace.

What's the beef then?

No. Men who put in long long hours may be ineffective. But in an environment where senior management haven't really much clue what "good" is, then they tend to fall back on what they can see.

My DH is sat beside me right now nervously putting together a flexi working application with five workable options

His company operates on oresenteeosn. He is penalised half a day's pay if lunch break takes one extra minute. He is penalised half a day's pay if he swipes in at 8:46 instead of 8:45.

Unions are banned and grounds for immediate dismissal. People get fired quicker than you can say fired.

We earn equal amounts with me slightly higher but with a massively better pension plan than him. We also moved from near his work to be halfway between our workplaces .

My job is performance based. Publish or perish. Whether I publish sitting on a toilet in Timbuktu nobody gives a shiny shit. I do need to show up to lecture though.

Anyway these opposing job criteria means it's hard to divide housework equally but DH is trying his best in every way - shared par teal leave off for three months on crap pay, working on his boss to agree to the flexitime, doing dishwasher preparing mine and baby brekkie and bin duty and laundry before leaving for work at 6:45 am and all washing up and groceries after 8 pm.

Equality needs a lot of work at times but the effort needs to be on both ends

My DH is sat beside me right now nervously putting together a flexi working application with five workable options

His company operates on oresenteeosn. He is penalised half a day's pay if lunch break takes one extra minute. He is penalised half a day's pay if he swipes in at 8:46 instead of 8:45.

Unions are banned and grounds for immediate dismissal. People get fired quicker than you can say fired.

We earn equal amounts with me slightly higher but with a massively better pension plan than him. We also moved from near his work to be halfway between our workplaces .

My job is performance based. Publish or perish. Whether I publish sitting on a toilet in Timbuktu nobody gives a shiny shit. I do need to show up to lecture though.

Anyway these opposing job criteria means it's hard to divide housework equally but DH is trying his best in every way - shared par teal leave off for three months on crap pay, working on his boss to agree to the flexitime, doing dishwasher preparing mine and baby brekkie and bin duty and laundry before leaving for work at 6:45 am and all washing up and groceries after 8 pm.

Equality needs a lot of work at times but the effort needs to be on both ends

Sorry, hit post too soon.

Which comes back to Jassy's point: shit managers in a shitty culture value what is visible over what is valuable. Propping up that culture does discriminate against people who don't have the privilege of spending their evenings at work, often not actually working but killing time.

Plenty of women own companies and work as they choose. I find I earn more and have a happier life if I work fairly long hours so that suits me. Not all women want short hours of course.

Good luck to your DH Jemappelle! DP's company isn't as inflexible as your DH's sounds, but his group have never employed a woman and are fairly conservative. They were clearly boggled at the idea of him taking emergency leave to look after sick child (HR had to look it up, got it confused with parental leave and told him he needed to book in advance), going first to compressed hours then part-time. He's dragging them into the 21st century gradually. Once they get their heads around something, it's okay, but it's clearly been terribly alien to them

As a teacher I was promoted whilst working far less than other teachers. However the senior management team was dominated by men who could put in long hours as they had stay at home wives or women without children. I was the only senior teacher who was female and had children.

FWIW I do think that as a feminist I have failed or let the team down by giving up my job to stay at home and that was a motivator for me to earn some money for myself.

In my career as a teacher it was hard for to continue working at a senior level with a large family. I asked to go part time and my request was refused. I was told that to go part time I would need to give up all responsibility and work "just" as a classroom teacher. I soon realised that I could earn the same if not more by being at home with very little effort. A horse in full livery earns me about £600 a month and I have no childcare fees. I am also not marking books once the children are in bed. If I could have worked part time in a similar position I might still have been working in the traditional sense.

Mn is packed with alpha females who can balance work and home life, I just don't have that capacity and it was easier to let the "sisterhood" down than my children. I am not proud of that but I know what my capacity is and I suspect the OP does too.

My husband has also made compromises. He has sold a business and now takes on less work than he could if working at full capacity. He had far more flexibility than me and therefore his compromise was not as drastic.

There's in fact, enough evidence that long long hours are unprpductive that a software development methodology called Agile has "sustainable pace" as a goal..

In fact, jira uses 6 hours for a day.

It varies from work place to work place and from manager to manager and couple to couple.

Before kids DH and I were almost equal. Both put in extra time, effort, work etc when required. However when I went back after ML DH''s hours were restricted due to nursery pick up drop offs due to my longer commute. Unforseen to me I lost the spark for my job once I had DS. I stuck at it for a while. But as soon as an easy opportunity to leave came up I took it. Best thing I ever did. DH could focus more on his work, not restricted by nursery runs and could now easily travel for meetinga etc which presented more opportunities for him. I now have a lot more flexibility to take care of family life without stressing about being late pick ups etc.

I do feel a bit of a pang of guilt for not utilising years of uni, training, post grad courses, exams etc... My job involved a lot more study and acquiring qualifications than DH... but I'm happy and so is DH. But it's definitely more guilt of 'wasting' money and time on training that I'm now not using and feel a but bad that I'm not bringing as much money to the family pot as I have the potential for. I don't regret it or feel pushed or even really feel like I personally made any sacrifice, it was a joint decision we made together as a family.

Mn is packed with alpha females who can balance work and home life, I just don't have that capacity and it was easier to let the "sisterhood" down than my children. I am not proud of that but I know what my capacity is and I suspect the OP does too.

You haven't remotely let the "sisterhood" down! If anything, your story just sums up what I think many of us have been saying on this thread - that choices to stay at home or not prioritise mothers' careers are not made in a vacuum and are affected by societal norms and expectations that we hope will gradually be challenged. But nobody is very interested in attacking individual choices.

As I said earlier, I think it is male attitudes that need to change just as much as (if not more than) female attitudes. It isn't - or at least shouldn't be - a question of women fighting among themselves or questioning each other's individual choices. It is about a much wider set of assumptions that pervade society from the schoolyard to the workplace.

Of course, with full equality, there will still be women who choose not to work once they have children. There will also be men who make that choice instead. It's just that we are so far from that level of equality that I think it is almost impossible to separate out those individual choices from the wider social context.

So men that put in long hours are at no advantage.
Which means women who have to curtail their hours because of childcare compete as easily as men in the workplace^

Pearly, I'm not even sure you're reading what I'm writing. I said that part of the problem is the attitude you expressed - that going the extra mile is rewarded, where 'extra mile' is equivalent to extra hours in the office. It's an attitude shared by many many many managers because it's what was modelled to them. There is an assumption that working longer = working harder or doing more which simply isn't borne out by the evidence.

As others have pointed out, it's an attitude that is terrible for productivity as well as disadvantageous for those who might be achieving more, or putting in the same number of hours but from home late at night. The culture that rewards time in the office more than other more meaningful metrics is a huge part of the problem.

I agree with much of that; however, on the brink of divorce and facing the stark reality of the paltry amount that is specificed in law as regards maintenance for sahms- 12% of his gross salary for you and 2 kids to live on, yippee! He gets the remainder for his 2nd wife, city breaks, famcy car and bachelor pad
Beware! If you're going to be a sahm for a while, go in with your eyes open! Wish someone had warned me.

Slightly, I'm nicking this, it's a brilliant way of expressing it:

shit managers in a shitty culture value what is visible over what is valuable

Jemapelle, good luck to your DH - his workplace sounds grim! DH's have been much more supportive though terribly muddled as he was the first man to take additional paternity leave under both systems.

There is no good answer. When I was 30 I would have agreed with you.

As my thirties have gone on I have watched the effects on separate families of divorce, affairs, cancer, sudden unexpected death, and very serious long-term mental health problems. All have led to dramatic and unexpected changes in circumstances. For the women in these situations who gave up their careers, changing economic circumstances have made it harder to get back into the workplace after a gap of 5yrs or more, and in some cases the sahms have ended up royally screwed.

I think it's worth thinking beyond the early years and trying to find a way to keep a link to the world of work. Even if you have to stop for a while.

I also completely recognise the feeling of being so exhausted and overloaded you might explode. And, if you share things evenly between the two partners, you can end up damaging both careers...

pearly you've given a classic example of the advantages of working long hours to your DH.

As intothefire says our choices are not made in a vacuum.

duck- so he shoulld work fewer hours and put in less effort so colleagues are promoted instead of him?

Unfortunately we do live in a western Capitalistic patriarchy. But for the immediate future we have to deal with that as best we can.

your description just neatly described some of the advantages those who are privileged within the established system enjoy.

Divorce and affairs can also be a result of I life that's too stressful and too little family time. Metal health and cancer-this happens and many people who don't work actually care for and support these people.

I thought it was a good point the poster made about capacity- I feel like that, and many just don't have the capacity to spin all plates as good as they can.it is human relationships that are essential for our survival and enough money to live and if OP s family can live as a team with her husbands career then good for her.

duck- you are being unrealistic.
Why don't you sell your laptop and house and send the proceeds to the developing world?
I am hardly privileged by many standards, I grew up in a rough council estate, we lived in poverty, no phone, no fridge, no central heating. Food was scarce.
As an adult I have been homeless.

I have now the opportunity to nurture my family in a secure loving home, albeit within the constraints of fractured society.

Are you about to live in a hut in the woods to benefit the rest of human/womankind?

whatamidoinghereanyway absolutely.

I am a SAHM, and I nurture myself partly so I can be a firm rock for others. My OH has a stressful job and he is grateful that he can come home to a loving ordered home and find me calm and happy. He knows he wouldn't be able to carry such a burden and have such a good family life without me here.
If I worked ft I would be frazzled and our family would not be such a happy one.
We are a team.