“He wouldn’t be where he is if I hadn’t sacrificed my career”

[BooFuckingHoo2]

I am expecting a flaming for this .

AIBU to think this is often untrue? I know many men with stay at home wives and kids who, in all honesty, whilst happy to have kids (because the wife does all the wifework) would probably have been equally happy with either no kids or extensive wraparound childcare and an equally high earning wife.

I often see it trotted out on here “I sacrificed my career to look after our children” - but the for the majority of women (aside from some exceptions e.g. husband working abroad) I’m sure it was a welcome choice and not something they were strong armed into. In my experience (unless childcare costs eclipse the wife’s salary) the husband is usually indifferent (aside from the wankers who want a trophy wife) as to whether the wife works or not.

Equally “he wouldn’t be where he is in his career if it wasn’t for me”. I’m sure there’s a small minority of women who’ve accelerated their husbands career but I think for most, they’d have been the same with or without their wife, although granted possibly with no children or higher childcare costs.

AIBU?

Good for you @RosesAndHellebores

Some SAHP do NOT want to work/have no real 'career' to sacrifice/do not want to relinquish the 'parenting' to the other parent/don't want to use childcare.

Don't people do the sums before having DC? Doesn't the SAHP make an informed decision regarding their 'career'?

If it's not their choice then the relationship is one to leave and benefit from the high earners monthly maintenance payment.

Well in our case we both wanted to get married and have children.
We both decided that it is better to have one parent at home if possible, at least until they are established in primary school.
My husband earns triple what I do. This isn't because I haven't worked hard but because teaching is so badly paid. Therefore it makes sense for me to be the one at home.
Some days are amazing, some days I do resent it. That's life with two under two.
We have a joint account and all money is family money. I have contributed a lot to the "pot", from salary and property, as have my parents. He hasn't had that family help. There's no financial abuse, but I do feel guilty if I want something like expensive make up, purely because I am not earning.
I am saving us shit loads in childcare costs and the children are positively thriving.
It works for us.

Know v few mothers who have been able to sustain FT work / career progression, largely due IMO to fathers being unwilling to change their working life much at all.

But do they not have this sort of conversation before they decide to start a family?

But the fact remains @jillypill that I did sacrifice my earning power at the age of 35. Not just to support DH's career although I did and continued to do so but to ensure optimal existence for our family unit. And because it's what I wanted to do.
Even now, I don't earn what I did in 1994 although I do earn 6 figures again.

Women can have it all but as they also have a biological clock and and many have strong maternal instincts they probably can't have it all, all of the time. More honest conversations at the outset would probably be helpful. I honestly don't know a single couple where both have maintained high profile, high earning careers throughout the lives of their children.

It’s not because you have a conversation about it that it actually happens....

DH miraculously was moved to a job requiring 2~3 days away from home on the month I was due with Dc1....
My job involved been able to travel at extremely short notice (think arriving at work at 8.00am and needing to be on the plane at 11.00am. The airport was 1h00 away).
Guess who had to step down from their job??

Guess who had to step down from their job??

I'm guessing you, but - a genuine question - why?

But if parents are working very long hours (out of the house from 6.30 am to 8.00pm minimum) with overseas travel included at less than 48 hours notice, what kind of childcare would cover this? Particularly if there is no extended family near by. Clearly, plenty of people work very regular hours , so paid childcare may be a good option, but for people who work long, erratic hours with a commute on top, paid childcare isn’t available to cover all the time needed. So the logical step is for one parent (either one) to stay at home.

I’m the breadwinner, DH gave up work when DD was born. I’m senior public sector and absolutely could not have got where I am today if he had also been trying to do a ‘career’ job. I’ve had the flexibility to stay late, go in early, travel for conferences. I do a lot more at home than a man with a SAHP generally would, but the bottom line is that I’ve never had to take time off for a childcare emergency. Over the years, that perceived reliability makes a difference, even in a sector that makes genuine effort to be family friendly. (I’ve also been careful to the point of paranoid about being seen to be a parent, I changed jobs after returning from mat leave and no-one in the new employer knew DD existed for years.)

I also have several very talented friends, all still in paid employment, who haven’t advanced as far as they should because they’re carrying far more than half the domestic load. They’ve definitely sacrificed for the good of the family and their husbands have done well out of it.

There was a very good thread in FWR about ‘facilitated men’ a few years ago. I’ll see if I can link to it.

@dontdisturbmenow

When mothers being in the matter of sacrifices, they refer to bring a single parent so not able to have a career, or not able to work because of the kids illnesses and holidays.

I can't see how these are not excuses when they are 100 thousands of mother's in this situation who do manage to work ft and have a career. Where does the impossible come in?

Hard? Yes. Demanding some adjustments, definitely. Stressful? Without a doubt. Impossible? No.

I totally agree with OP that in the very cast majority of cases, it is purely a choice that makes their lives easier.

All choices come with constraints. Just because a choice is not impossible, it doesn’t make it healthy or even right. You mention ‘stressful’ so casually, as though that’s just something people should accept - and if they don’t, they’re weaklings who are after an easy life.

If your ‘choice’ involves sacrificing your mental health and well-being to make everything work, to keep juggling all the pieces — as it is in some highly demanding roles - then no, I wouldn’t call it much of a choice at all.

That’s not true for all, or a lot of, full time work. But it is for some highly demanding jobs in the likes of investment banking, say.

So the logical step is for one parent (either one) to stay at home.

Yes, absolutely, but in 95% of cases it seems to be the mother. I've often seen the justification that this is because the father is the higher earner. What people don't seem to grasp is that that is still a choice - the parents are choosing the better lifestyle afforded by the father's higher wage. So the mother gives up work and never progresses to the higher wage, and this becomes self-perpetuating.

Another reason given is, as with pp, that the mother struggles to leave her baby. Yet this is also a choice - mothers who have to work outside the home have to leave their babies, however emotionally hard this might be.

I am not saying either reason isn't a valid one, but both are choices - the choice of a better lifestyle, the choice of time with your child. It is not something forced on mothers - they are doing what they want to do.

There’s also the question of DC with additional needs. I’m thankful every day that DD is NT and very healthy- I’m almost never ill and she has inherited that. And of course a very common reason for marriage breakdown is that the man walks because he ‘can’t cope’ with disabled DC.

I definitely facilitated DH's career but that facilitation had very positive impacts overall on our family. Realistically I could have carried on earning £100k to £150k but if I'd continued with that DH would have had to be more present at home and his earnings probably would have stayed similar but instead they peaked about 15 to 20 years ago at significantly more than that for many years - then he went sideways and we earn similar salaries now in our twilight years.

I love being at SAHM, my partner works long hours and so I make it possible. But maybe if he had to assist with childcare and pick ups then he would of changed jobs and we would be in a more equal place and he would be more involved with the kids ? I do not know. He does bang on about money, but putting a baby in nursery is costly.

I personally think wrap around or all 10 hours a day nursery isn't ideal full time. I don't have parents or PIL that could or would want to help.

I did enjoy my career and I was earning the same if not more than my DH. I will go back to something, but I want to be with my kids, so probably school hours if I can get it.

I wouldn't say I've helped my DHs career though.

My dad was in the army and we moved every 2 years. My mum never had a career as a result of this - jobs yes, but never a career. Some of our postings were remote and she didn't work.

They're divorced now but she doesn't begrudge him for it. She openly admits she knew what she was getting herself in to when she married him.

@TonMoulin

It’s not because you have a conversation about it that it actually happens....

DH miraculously was moved to a job requiring 2~3 days away from home on the month I was due with Dc1....
My job involved been able to travel at extremely short notice (think arriving at work at 8.00am and needing to be on the plane at 11.00am. The airport was 1h00 away).
Guess who had to step down from their job??

My husband has just stepped down from his super demanding job to a less stressful one because I asked him to, and we don't even have children.

After yet another holiday where he was stuck working from his laptop on the sunlounger, I made it quite clear that I wasn't prepared to stick around, let alone have children with him.

If the answer to your "guess who" isn't "he did" (given that he changed the variables involved), then surely you had a conversation and agreed between you that you'd leave your job? Or decide for yourself that you didn't want to be whipped away from your family at no notice?

Lots of job combinations do not pay enough to cover the type of childcare required. I mean - how much would 2 full-time nannies cost?

Hard? Yes. Demanding some adjustments, definitely. Stressful? Without a doubt. Impossible? No.

I agree with this and yes working single parents do manage. However I'm not a single parent and don't want to live like I am. DH is a child of a single working parent, who was was passed from pillar to post all through his childhood and quite frankly it sounds shit.

I have 2 primary aged DC and work 2 days a week, in a good and job and earn decent money. I have also built a small business that I run from from home. DH works full time running his own business.

If I needed to I could start working full-time again and have considered it. However, DH is rarely home before the DH are in bed. It would be me running around like a blue arse fly dropping the kids off, working in a stressful job, rushing home to pick them up, cooking/clubs/homework/ bedtime. Why would I do it to myself if I don't have to?

In 10 years time I'll be in my early 40s with two older teens, so I'll work not my heart's content then.

I find some people have very stable lives so find it hard to consider the impact of things that are less under your personal control. We had conversations about children that went along the lines of we will both work 4 days a week and work hard but focus on not needing extended childcare. Just standard 8-6 for the 3 days we both work. We did this. I felt smug. But then there was an economic crash. We were both made redundant in quick succession and scrabbled for jobs and employers didnt give a fig that either of us had caring responsibilities or wanted to be equal. Then our child turned out to have complex SN and we couldnt get any childcare or a nanny. In fact he only goes to school part time. Im not a sahm. I work part time but i have met many sahm at our SEN school and sahds because its time consuming. I dont know many high flier, high status sahm spouses and its odd how conversation focus on a tiny group.

You can have all the conversations you like, but sometimes the other person isn't being entirely honest with you or themselves, and sometimes (especially if you are early in your peer group to have children) you simply don't know what you should be discussing. There's also the stereotypes you grow up with. Those can be hard to escape. By the time I had a DC at 40, I'd observed a lot of other couples making mistakes. I managed to avoid some of them, but some of the issues caught me by surprise too.

I remember that facilitated men thread. It was interesting. One of the things that took me by surprise was how most of what you do as a mother is taken for granted but men are really lionised for doing way less than 50% (I know there are downsides for men too, when they're perceived to be acting in a different way to their peer group). From the outside DH and I have a pretty equal relationship. From the inside I know a) it isn't and b) the equality we have requires me to be absolutely on it to make sure it doesn't slip and c) I have about 90% of the mental load.

I’d love to know what jobs these high flying men do which require travel at extremely short notice? In Tech and Finance the high flyers tend to have a lot of notice regarding international travel. These trips are planned to the nth degree with PAs booking hotels, organising meeting itinerary etc. Any decisions which need to be made at short notice will be done at emergency board with people dialling in if they aren’t present. The tech for this has been there for years. Top level people are not forced to jet abroad with 2 days notice. They have too much to do and can’t rejig diaries that easily and as it’s their decision making and not physical skills which are required, a video call will suffice.

The only people I know who have to make unplanned trips are engineers and sales people. I’m just going by my personal experience.

Both DH and I have maintained FT jobs. We both do drop off and picks ups, have no family help and juggled it so we would only use wrap around care twice a week until Covid made us WFH full time so we got rid of that. We found that top employers in tech and finance offer attractive packages to attract good people so they offer flexible working, WFH etc as they are competing for people who can pick and choose where they will work. If our employers started telling us we couldn’t go to one of our kids dentists appointments or watch them in the nativity we’d first laugh then start looking to move.

I do kind of do a bit of a when people on here talk about their high flying DH who could be called to travel at 24hrs notice, which means they need a SAHP and think they can’t be the at high flying as in my experience that doesn’t happen as the top people have diaries sorted weeks and even months in advance and use tech in emergencies.

You can have all the conversations you like, but sometimes the other person isn't being entirely honest with you or themselves

But in this scenario, why it is the mother who caves in when the father reneges on what he has promised?

I do kind of do a bit of a  when people on here talk about their high flying DH who could be called to travel at 24hrs notice, which means they need a SAHP and think they can’t be the at high flying as in my experience that doesn’t happen as the top people have diaries sorted weeks and even months in advance and use tech in emergencies.

Equally, I might 'do a bit of a ' when people tell me they couldn't get on with running 10k a day because that's what I do and find it easy. However, that would be unfair of me, wouldn't it?

I do kind of do a bit of awhen people on here talk about their high flying DH who could be called to travel at 24hrs notice, which means they need a SAHP and think they can’t be the at high flying as in my experience that doesn’t happen as the top people have diaries sorted weeks and even months in advance and use tech in emergencies

Home standbys. On call. There's lots of jobs that require last minute notice.