Angry with husband

[NewMummy0818]

I’m a new mum to a 3 month old. I doing the lions share of looking baby as well as most of the housework and cooking dinners from scratch every night for hubby getting home from work. He’s a teacher and leaves the house at 615am to get in for 7 (school starts at 8), then he works late most evenings as he’s trying to get a promotion. Usually home at 7/8. We had a row this evening as I told him I want to go swimming in the morning so he needs to go to work later. I plan to be at the pool for 6 so he can leave for work at 7. The pool only opens late a few nights a week and he can’t settle baby for bed time routine so that’s out. He thinks I’m being unreasonable asking as it’s not like he’s gallivanting, he’s working. But I honestly think he’s probably pretty inefficient at work and it hasn’t clicked that he has a child he needs to come home and help with.
I’m also concerned that he won’t cope when I go back to work in a few months. One of us needs to do drop offs and the other pickups from nursery, neither of us can do both. I earn double his salary so my Job has to come before his.

workreturner
I'm not sure why you are querying my husband's work hours but your calculations are wrong. He works at home evenings and mornings and weekends.

@smartiecake

Because whilst I have huge respect for teachers and think they work long hours, I think, in my experience at least,teachers sometimes overplay the situation. I don’t think intentionally.

I think you're unreasonable regarding the mornings, the sooner he goes in the more likely he is to miss the traffic.

Not unreasonable at all however to ask him to be back earlier a couple of nights a week. He needs to settle the baby by himself.

Also you need to quit with the meals from scratch. I don't know how you do that with a baby tbh mine would never be put down and never nap either. Pizza and salad or pasta with jar sauce fine a few nights a week.

A couple of the male teachers at DDs' school have used the shared parental leave provisions recently. I also have toddler club Dad friends who are teachers and did this.

This thread seems like an excellent illustration of why the provisions make a lot of sense. Perhaps if the Dad in this case knew he was about to take over for 3 or 4 months he would be looking at ways to be more supportive and involved now.

I'm an academic with lots of teacher friends and the only people I know who work these exceptionally long hours are- men! Not one woman I know, from assistant to Professor works like this. Even the really dedicated ones often block out most of the weekend as family time.

It's not possible for most women to work like this and raise a family, and few if any men will support them to work those hours, so they don't.

A lot of lesson prep is done in the mornings at schools as well as departmental meetings etc. The mornings are important for teachers. So it is unreasonable to expect him to go in later, especially if the commute is long.

Teachers do have long hours, but then do have longer holidays, during which you can delegate most of the parenting to him !!