AIBU To expect my wife to actively search for work now DC are at school ?

[Fortnum]

My wife hasn't worked full time in the 12 years of our marriage, I have always been the principle earner. Previously there were some part time supermarket hours despite a reasonably professional clerical career prior to marriage and moving to another area of the country. Now our DC are 7 &10 respectively I would expect her to at least search for some work within their school hours if possible , I have even offered to invest in a business start up for her.

I earn a good wage and we can afford to live reasonably well, but now with age 40 not far around the corner , I feel we should be working very hard to bring in whatever we can to plan for the future, its all very well us owning a nice home but with another income we could pay the mortgage down even quicker and it is always worth both partners having a decent pension arrangement.

She does not seem too bothered, she has applied for precisely two jobs in 4 months. I had a period of 6 months unemployed a few years ago, (with savings) and I spent 6-8 hours a day networking where possible and applying for jobs and canvassing potential employers.

So AIBU ?

YANBU in my opinion. I work part time around school hours in an office and there are a lot of other part time mums. All of my friends work part time now their children are at school.

If you are prepared to do a share of the jobs she does at home now once she is at work then fair enough.

I instantly took offence to your first sentence OP that your wife hasn't worked fulltime for 12 years.! WTF do you think bringing up YOUR DCs
You took offence. Really? FFS,

I think even someone daft could see the sentence was in context to paid employment.
Are you always so easily upset?

This thread has led me to think about every parent I know of school age children, and tbh I don't know a single one who doesn't have a job of some sort, however part time. The vast majority have one full time worker plus one part timer.
Not that I'm suggesting that being a sahp to school age dc isn't already a lot of hours, it is, just that I don't know of anyone who doesn't have a job as well.
For me, it's an mn thing, so it's possibly regional?

OP coming back at all?

It's a regional thing,really??? You men women in the South WOTH and women in the North WOTH. The difference being what exactly?

If you have to work or want to then that's one thing, but if it isn't a financial necessity or a desire then I can't see what is wrong with sah just because it makes life easier. I think we have to move away from this idea that the only valuable use of time is to be in paid employment. Seemingly, even people who have gained from all this unpaid labour (looking at you OP) have taken it for granted.

open to the fact that he is likely to be the highest earner as he is not discriminated against from the off for being of child bearing age, or having a child. Whereas we all know women usually are.

Garden I think that you need to be a bit less passive on this. The world is changing very fast re:parental leave - most people I know who have had babies in the last year have shared the parental leave. When we had ds just over 3 years ago, Dh took 6 weeks off and that was seen as pretty unusual.

If there is discrimination against child bearing age women then it will soon also be against able to procreate men. Ie all men.

You need to see your twenties as the time to build your career - so you do have a good job to go back to post mat leave that is "worth it". You need to build up your reputation so that your employer is desperate to keep you and is therefore willing to make compromises. (Ie part time / flexible working if that is what you want.)

You also need to agree with you Dh that you will both need to make career sacrifices in order to help the other one progress. It may be that neither of you can have your "dream job" as you need to live somewhere where both of you can get a "decent job". Big step forward for one, only small step back for the other was our rule. (We moved 3 times altogether - twice for my job, once for his.)

If a more equal balance is what you want - it isn't for everyone and we had the advantage of starting out with very similar earning potential to each other which made the decision easier.

I'm amazed by some of the comments here. Doesn't everyone take some kind of paid employment these days unless they are trustifarians? How do you manage without 2 incomes? What does she do all day when the kids are at school or playing minecast? Gardening? Good works? I get that 12 years is a long time and some brush up of skills or a rethink of strengths/preferences might be a good idea. Try the job centre for 'back to work' or training if necessary.

of course they do all the housework tasks, but they probably don't do all drop offs pick ups etc if they work full time, which is what I was referring to

Right....and this world you live in is where exactly?

Of course you're not being unreasonable.
I hate it when people suggest that one partner has to be at home for sickness, illness, errands etc.
No they don't.
We both work ft AND manage all the house stuff, share time off if anyone is ill (rarely) etc etc, and have a fab relationship with our kids.
We haven't found it harder since they started primary - it's just about being organised isn't it?
Of course she can work.

Is the OP ever coming back?????

I HATE it when an OP posts a thread that garners lots of quite strong opinion and/or advice and then three pages later they still haven't come back.

So rude.

Exactly what mumoftwoyoungkids says.

If a couple want to have as equally balanced approach as possible, the legislation around in 2016 makes it easier to achieve that than any time previously. Blimey, my children were born when there was no paternity leave at all, yet dh and I always strived to keep things as equal
As possible, with me returning to work 3 days a week when Dd was 3
Months old and then stepping up to full time when the youngest started school. Of course it would have been easier to have one person home all the time... but you have to make these decisions as a couple, taking into account the kind of relationship and life you want. If you are determined not to work then you'll find all sorts of reasons not to, even in 2016 with shared parental leave and greater maternity rights. As for the assumption that the OP would expect his/her life to carry on
Without increasing their share of domestic chores... again, this depends on what you want as a couple. Dh and I have always shared cooking, running the house, nursery pick ups when the kids were little.

To go back to the OP, I wouldn't be happy at all with a partner who wasn't prepared to do paid work with kids the age yours are. But then I chose a partner who actively wanted things to be more equal from the outset. We were both equally skilled at earning a living, running a house and raising children.
I can see it's hard though if one partner has spent 12 years out of the workplace - that's going to seriously limit job prospects.
You need to sit down and have a proper discussion. It's entirely reasonable to not want the responsibility of sole earner any more, but this is a tougher nut to crack than if you'd always wanted to share earning responsibility because your family dynamic is set quite firmly after 12 years

Is there a case of clippity clop here?

Just to point out though that if a couple decide for one to sah and the other to woh it doesn't mean that the relationship is unequal. It just means they have divvied up the labour in a way that best suits them.

Returning to work is not just a question of organisation. Much depends on the nature of the jobs each partner has, the availability of child care, support systems etc. There is no right or wrong but it would be massively helpful if some posters could remember that the school day is only 6 hours long and it is actually possible to be doing something other than eating bonbons while watching Jeremy Kyle when the dc are at school!

It's not at all unreasonable to be thinking about the future and securing pensions, paying off mortgage, etc. What you need to analyse is how much more stressful your life, your dw's life and your children's life will be if she goes back to work; whether or not it will limit or enhance your children's capacity to enjoy after-school activities they have chosen, or their chosen social activities and completion of homework; how you can both minimise the increased stress; whether the increased stress now is worth the future gains. It's more likely to be a gain if your DW can find emotionally rewarding work, not just any old crappy, tiring, boring job she can fit in. Then she will be wanting to get out to work. This might require some retraining, first, and thus a financial outlay initially. Anyway, it definitely requires more discussion and understanding of each other's point of view!

Surely it's about what works for the family concerned.

I haven't worked full time for almost 14 years and have no intention of "getting a job" even though my youngest is 8. DH has a job which often requires foreign travel, working late, overnight stays in the UK and dealing with emergencies - he simply cannot be flexible in terms of picking up children or getting them to school. So that falls to me. I would need to look for a "job" which would accommodate different hours each week depending on DH's schedule. Impossible.

He earns a massive salary for the inconvenience so it's not a matter of splitting childcare 50/50, we are relying on his salary to pay the mortgage and other bills so of course his work takes priority. I work for myself, from home (and not selling aloe vera shite either). I do this because of the flexibility.

It works for us because a long time ago we both agreed that this arrangement would work best for our family. There is no right and wrong, parents can do what the hell they like to manage their family life and for some families that means both parents working, othes it means one parent working part time, or both parents part time, or one parent not working.

Ps with whom do you suggest someone who has been out of the workplace for years should network and canvass for 6-8 hours a day in their job quest?

Roundaboutthetown - not impossible. Old school friends, former colleagues, friends, family. A friend of mine got back into work through someone she met at an NCT class.

If a man did this he would undoubtedly be castigated on here. Why is it OK for a woman to do it? confused

So where are all these threads where SAHDs of primary aged children are slagged, then? The most recent SAHD thread I can think of is this one:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2745314-Aibu-to-expect-my-husband-to-either-earn-some-money-or-give-up-sky-bloody-sports?msgid=63971105#63971105

Nothing of the sort happened. Perhaps you could furnish us with some examples, though.

Of course families can do what they want. My point really is that in this day and age, with as many women as men graduating from higher education, and with a culture which accepts that men can change nappies, push prams (plus cook, run a house etc) then it shouldn't come as a surprise that many couples don't want to polarise into sole earner and sole carer. Whatever decision you agree as a couple should take into account the long term view as well as short term, and ideally should be reviewed periodically anyway- because someone who is comfortable being sole earner at age 30, may be burnt out, redundant, fed up or just wanting a different balance by age 40. It's not a case of right or wrong. The OP is quite reasonable in not wishing to be sole earner while the other half doesn't do any paid work and has school age children: however 12 years is a hell of a time out of the workplace and I suspect it won't be easy to get back into work. It's also highly likely to mean organising and paying for childcare- the idea some people have that you can pick up a decent job which will enable you to drop and collect your children every day is unrealistic.

PeachBellini123 - all worthy ideas, but not likely to take 6-8 hours a day, especially if you don't live anywhere near family or old schol friends. It might take that long if you just go for a scattergun approach of any business whatsoever in a 20 mile radius, but that wouldn't be very focused.

peach

I think round was saying that it was impossible to get the type of incredibly flexible job she would need

I gave up work 18years ago with ds1, would i recommend that my daughter do this?

Nope, not in this world

In our household we both work opposite hours, passing like ships in the night. When he comes home, I go out to work (evenings and weekends). If we could live comfortably on one salary, we would. It would be so much easier!