Husband wants me to go back to work (ideally full time) after my mat leave

[shewhocannotbenamed]

I've never really planned on being a SAHM but I also never voiced a wish to go back full time post baby. In principle I don't really agree that LO should go to nursery before he's at least one but I was willing to do it for 2-3 days a week for the sake of my job (I've got a feeling they might want to replace me with my mat cover longer term, and if I come back after 12 months they are not obliged to give me the exact same position I occupied previously whereas this is guaranteed if I get back within 9 months.)

Also following my husband's recent (massive) promotion he is now on £55k and we have savings (to which I have very largely contributed as was previously earning more than him) so it's not like we really desperate for the extra income.

So imagine my surprise when we were viewing nurseries and he asked for full time rates. I told him I was only thinking part time and he accepted this but I could tell he was a bit... I don't know, disappointed?

AIBU for feeling a bit upset about this? Considering the costs of childcare it's not like I'd be bringing home much anyway whichever option we choose. I can't even exactly specify why this makes me sad, perhaps makes me feel less like a woman and more like just his mate? It's especially so as his mother never worked post children and also in the past he had a girlfriend who just chose not to work (no kids or anything) and as far as I understand he was perfectly fine supporting her.

We've just had his friend nip over a few days back to announce his wife was pregnant and my husband gone into giving him financial advise straight away including to factor in for the extortionate costs of childcare, and his mate just said "I'm not worried we have savings and I'd be happy for her to stay home with the baby." That just really did it for me - how nice that he didn't have some inherent expectation that the wife needs to constantly perform both at home and at work.

Can't believe the Daily mail has reported on this thread now !! Can they not find their own stories?

www.google.com/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4484936/amp/Man-55k-salary-asks-wife-work-time.html

Oh my god, some of the comments on that article 🤣🤣

The sheer inanity and vacuousness is astounding.

he replied (with some indignation) that taking care of LO will be "much easier" at 9 months (thus he'd still expect me to do it all?!)
oh dear...he really doesn't have a clue does he

I don't think you need to justify it OP. You want to work PT and spend more time with DC. Perfectly understandable if you can and it sounds like you can afford it. The impact on your job is your own decision and one you have to weigh up.
I can't remember sitting down and setting out in stone the work plan before kids either! Anyway lots of people have work plans when planning a family but change them once the baby was born. I realised I didn't want to send my DC to nursery full time so a I drastically cut my hours and we budgeted to make ends meet. I don't regret it and have increased hours as they got older. Luckily my job allows that flexibity though and Dh was on board - and he isn't a big earner unfortunately!

Blimey01, if her part time salary covers her fifty percent of all the bills and she doesn't expect to be subsidised or access to his income then of course it's her choice.

However it's not her choice if she needs her partner to fund it. It has to be a joint agreement and her partner isn't in agreement. He has every right not to be.

A man would be slaughtered on here for daring to cut his hours or change jobs for lower pay etc without asking his partner for agreement as when it's a mans money it's family money ....

The DM ignored all most posts and did not report them! What a shame.

YABU - You should of discussed this before having a baby surely

DH works full time and does 70% of the housework? Sounds like you've got it good to me!

You need to discuss this with DH not MN and come up with a solution that you're both happy with.

Ok so, you chose not to discuss going back to work or not which was stupid but it's done.
No issues with you choosing to be a stay at home mum, but you are planning on putting a lot of pressure on your partner without prior warning.

he replied (with some indignation) that taking care of LO will be "much easier" at 9 months (thus he'd still expect me to do it all?!)
As for that, you have read him completely wrong, as you have done with everything else he has said to you. It's almost like you are looking for ways to have a go at him.. making sure that he is a bad parent so that you can feel less guilty about taking over and doing it all. I think you may have control issues, I have them myself just not as much as you, by a long shot.
From his comment about it being easier at 9 months, (he is so wrong bless him) I took that to mean that it will be easier for you both to be working and doing childcare as things will be easier with the child being older having more routine and less bottles etc. Which is true. If you want to get back into work school age (from what I've read on here) is the hardest time to do that due to such flexibility needed.

In short, YABU and I feel quite sorry for your partner.

The reason you make a plan is not to keep to it at all costs but to get used to communicating about these things and wondering what practicalities you need to think about.

Before kids DH and I ran the numbers and the feasible options were both work full time, one work part time or me SAHM (couldn't afford him SAHD).

Not talking about it at all is crazy...but then where I live the waiting list for nurseries means you should start phoning them when TTC so planning is kind of forced on you I guess.

Staying at home with a small baby can be pretty nice. I took five months maternity leave--it was mostly blissful (apart from a three-week bout of colic that was not much fun). I hung out with my mat leave friends and strolled around in the park with the pram.

Staying at home with a toddler over 1yo looks like a bloody nightmare. Based on what my SAHM friends have told me, a toddler's day at home basically consists of---they make a mess with something (chucking toilet rolls down the stairs, grinding play-do into the carpet etc.) and you clean it up, and while you are cleaning it up they go and mess up something else, and you clean up that, and then.... rise and repeat. For hours.

So the mum tries to "get us both out of the house" except that everything you do out of the house costs money. And when the mum made the decision to stay at home ("I would just be paying for childcare, after all") she probably made that decision based on the thinking that the costs of being with her child all day long would be zero. They aren't, of course. So you end up feeling guilty about every penny you spend on french fries or a balloon or zoo tickets or that toy they were whining for, and trying to eke out your days on as little money as possible. It's not a fun feeling.

And it gets lonely because most of her mat leave friends are returning to work. So she ends up putting her kid in Gymboree or Tumble Tots or Let's Make Music Mummies and Kids Class, so as not to go round the bend. And then feels guilty about the money that that is costing, too.

I was in the "my earnings will earn zero after childcare and tax" situation for quite a while. I still preferred to work (part time at first, then full time) because I felt that it was better for all of us. I was happier having a job. My child got a lot out of nursery and benefited from not being with a cross bored mother who was fed up with picking play-do out of the carpet all day long. And pretty soon, your childcare costs go down, your income goes up, and work starts to make immediate economic sense too. Meanwhile, some of my peers who left the workforce for years are now trying to get back in and it is harder than they thought. They have lost some of their confidence, they have big gaps in their resumes, and their households have drifted into a pattern of "mummy takes care of all the household stuff," and it is difficult to break out of that.

Great post Mary, and makes me feel reassured about my upcoming return to work (PT).

Nobody can tell the OP whether or not she'd enjoy SAH just like no one here can tell whether she would enjoy being a dentist, or a pilot.

Listing pros and cons is one thing but SAH seems to be the one thing on MN that guarantees posts that are either totally pro or against.

The point is not what being a SAHM is like. Communication is so important between parents - especially as kids get older. OP and her OH need to get practising now and discuss this properly!

He's probably read MN where women who have been SAHM are portrayed as victims of men who have denied them a career and damaged their pension. He's getting his defense in early.

She can't expect her DH to fund her decision to stay at home if he can't afford to/they didn't discuss it before having kids. It seems like Op has just changed her mind after having a baby and well if I was her dh I'd be angry too.

As for people saying you can't have both. Of course you can. But you need a DH who will split household and childcare stuff 50/50 with you. Not all men are arseholes. This often means working parents have to cram 100 per cent more into their day than stay at home parents - with careful planning, prioritization etc that can be done.

100 per cent more?

Are you also the cleaner at the childcare your child attends?

Either way the DH will be funding childcare of some description, it's not like it's her expense alone. If her salary is exactly equal to childcare costs, he's either paying half the childcare costs or he's funding her (working) lifestyle.

Congratulations, you made the paper

www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/family/new-mums-fury-husbands-hint-10387373

Daily Mail is unhinged. WTAF screenshotting the thread?

DAILY MAIL YOU SUCK

I feel like we've actually taken the heat off the Royal Family. Twenty odd years ago, with nothing to say, poor Lady Di would have been hounded in the gym/in a restaurant/wherever until they got something to fill their pages with - DM, Mirror.

Now it's like- bit of white space, "what shall we do, what shall we do?" Oh I know, quick, CUT AND PASTE!

I know. Whatever happened to research, interviewing people yourselves, writing your own article? Lazy fuckers

**100 per cent more?

Are you also the cleaner at the childcare your child attends?

Either way the DH will be funding childcare of some description, it's not like it's her expense alone. If her salary is exactly equal to childcare costs, he's either paying half the childcare costs or he's funding her (working) lifestyle.**

There you go, the same old ignorant comments. My DH and I took it in turns to work from home in the week so someone was with our kids until they started school. We didn't use childcare or daycare. Dh and I both clean and we also worked full time (for both of us full time means more than 45 hours a week). At a certain level of seniority in some industries full time workers don't have to turn to key time contracts to fit in housework and childcare - the job can work around your family.

YANBU. We tried both working full time with very busy and demanding jobs with two small children- it was not fun. In now work 36 hrs a week- still a lot but less than bedor and it is much better. I would reduce it if I could. I love my job but I also want to be present for my kids. However I have also been a fully SAHM and I didn't love that either. I missed working. There is no perfect solution!

That Mirror article is one of the weirdest things I've ever read. It's like it's been written in a foreign language and translated into English using one of those dodgy online translators

Except, run, if this was the case her OH wouldn't be asking for full time nursery hours, would he? Your assumption that their jobs can be flexible like yours is more ignorant than me reading the OP and identifying that they need childcare!

Prior to a child starting full time school, I would have thought that most families would assume that there needs to be a choice after the child is born (primarily made by the parent who will be the primary career) about how much that parent works or not. I think the situation changes after a child is in school full time, and then there shouldn't be an automatic assumption that the main carer has the right to choose to stay at home all the time (instead it needs to be a joint decision based partly on family finances and circumstances etc). But it surprises me slightly that the OP's DH is making an assumption that the OP will go back to work so soon. As several PPs have said, it is impossible to know how you will feel. It is also impossible (perhaps for men in particular) to know when any individual woman is ready to go back to work following childbirth and the exhaustion and emotional demands of caring for a baby.

I speak as somebody who fully intends to have a career and earn my own money even if I have children. But I think it would be naive of me to assume that I would feel exactly the same way after they are born. In fact, that uncertainty of how to combine a career and childcare is partly why I am not sure if I will ever have children of my own. Isn't it partly why employers have to refrain from asking pregnant women what their plans are to return to work - not only to avoid discrimination but also because many women simply won't know their plans until some time afterwards?