“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?

I often want to ask quite what high flying career the mum has sacrificed, having shown no actual career goals or drive before hand.

Maybe they just mean gave up a job.

If he didn’t have a child then he could work all the time - having a wife or not doesn’t affect that.
However, once he has a child then that child needs to be cared for 24/7: so he has a responsibility to sort that out. He could use paid wraparound childcare (technically for half the time and the other parent could decide how they want to approach it the other half of the time) or he could reduce his hours to do it himself. If he takes a third option of having a relative volunteer their time to cover his childcare duties/responsibility, then he is directly benefitting in either working hours or money from their labour. He literally could not have both his money and his time at work without their unpaid input.

I think things are changing though. Virtually all the DHs I know can wfh (pre covid) & help with drop offs etc. DHs firm do 3 months paid paternity leave.

I agree op. I've always been the primary breadwinner and taken a lead on childcare. I could never understand why some women make such a big deal of running the home. That's something I have always done on top of work.

I've always wanted my own independence though. I couldn't bear the thought of being left financially insecure.

This thread makes me laugh. The blinkered privilege is off the scale

You do all know that in many families, both couples work full time. No one is on mega bucks, no one is sacrificing their careers. It’s two adults having to a work a 50 hour week each to pay the bills. Alongside that they pay for wrap a round child care, and juggle.

Not everyone who struggles with childcare earns a fortune you know.

I too agree completely. I’d not want a partner who wasn’t able to do their job without the help of another adult .

Millions of couple both work, likewise so do many single people with children. Childcare is more abundant than ever and if you truly can’t fit in housework then you can hire a cleaner.

Lots didn’t have careers to sacrifice and don’t want to work.

I’m a single mum and HAVE sacrificed my career for DC and ex DP hasn’t put in any physical parenting or support and career is on fire (CMS payments going up with significant pay increases) shared care I’d have been able to continue with my career and would be on a pretty decent salary. DC also has complex mental health needs to carving out career time was always difficult.

We both worked, we are separated now for the last 10yrs but I’ve definitely sacrificed my own progression in my career (incidentally the same organisation) so my ex could progress in this. This has meant him working overseas for a few years at a time. Clearly someone needed to be at home, for me it was a given it was me. That said he did do his own share of children sick days, a lot of it though when he fancied a day working from home, and it always felt like a favour

Me and dh both worked full time with young dc.
We had reliable childcare.
But we still had to make sacrifices career wise. There were times dh had to call in absent to work because a child had vomited. There were times I had to. I could not get in to work early to make an important meeting when my colleagues could, to disapproval of boss: "Pete's got kids and he can come in at 7..." etc ("Pete" had a sah wife to pick up his domestic slack).
Dh used to work away sometimes, but there were occasions when he had to explain that he couldn't do it that week because of my work commitments.

We made it work between the two of us and tried to share the load fairly. But we could not give as much to work as a man with a wife who did took care of the tricky kid stuff. Often some of the men I worked with did have wives who worked... but they still didn't really share the load 50/50. One parent's career was prioritised, and from my observations it was usually the man's! But I don't think they could even see it.

There are so many variables that it is not possible to say

But we see on MN daily that many men don't want to do childcare and see it as the women’s role, so I think saying men are ‘indifferent’ is giving them too much credit.

Unless you hire 24/7 nannies even while the kids are in school, someone has to be available to take the sick calls and random emergencies. Someone has to be up in the middle of the night to calm a nightmare. Those calls and sleepy days mean a career hit so yes, unless he has round the clock nannies or truly does 50% of the parenting, he owes his ability to have career and children simultaneously to his wife.

I disagree with the OP. My career has limited my husbands. He’s a senior director but the top level of the business above him are all men with sah wives and they get really shirty with dh when he has to do school pick up or this year to take his turn at home learning.
He would probably rise higher if I’d given up my career but I have no intention of that and he wouldn’t ask me to (my work is quite publicly visible even though it’s not a highly paid field. and he’s proud of it/me)

I found the frequent demands for weekend and international trips was the problem for me.

A SAHP is often as close as it gets to having an unpaid 24/7 combined nanny and housekeeper. With no entitlement to holidays or sick leave. So of course it facilitates the other partner's career.

We both work full time and whilst it is really hard it is doable. I would say that DP never has to consider childcare etc as I take control of it all even whilst working full time and shifts and an on call rota. He still thinks he has it hard though 🤣

I said YABU simply because of my personal circumstances - don't agree in general. DH's job took him abroad Sun/Mon - Fri for years while the children were small. His pay was vastly better than I could ever have made in teaching and I/we got the benefit of loads and loads of opportunities to travel. Amazing.

But yes,I had to put my career on hold. Sadly now it's all the fuzzy end for me. At 60 and with the pandemic, his contracting has not been so regular (though he's in a longer term job right now) so I trundle off to my little job as a primary school teacher day after day after day... He says he's making up for all the time he had to work away when he switches off at 5 and watches the fucking Chase. Yes, in 5 star hotels while I juggled 4 children and a terminally ill mother. Bitter? Me??

whoever is earning the most has to have a full night's sleep to concentrate on their job while the one who earns less goes to work dog tired.

This just isnt universally true. DH and I both earn high amounts in senior roles and you just manage. You sleep train. The period when they are up at night a lot coincides mainly with when you are on maternity or SPL.

Dh and I split the sick days and we didnt take the piss by counting it as sick because we weren't - you use annual leave to cover when children are sick, not sick leave!!

We never had a nanny but chose a childminder instead of a nursery, as she was much more pragmatic and didnt send a child home just because their nappy was mildly loose due to teething, or who had a runny nose but was otherwise well in themselves.

Yes some people refuse to share the load of parenting. But plenty do. I work for a company with loads of senior women, all with kids and high earning husbands. They juggle, time for themselves takes a back seat when kids are tiny, but loads manage it.

It’s a massive privilege to be able to work and to not have to think about pick ups / what’s for dinner / do we have any loo roll.

My friend gets a park and rude bus to the city centre. A fellow commuter asked her baffled “why do the women run” as at the end of the day as the Huss rolled into the car park the women ran to their cars to make pick up deadlines. Men didn’t 🙄

Bus not Huss 🙄

I don't think it's that they can't but having 1 SAHP makes life a hell of a lot easier for the WOHP.

I say that as the woman and higher earner. My male colleagues with SAHPs or wives who work PT and have made career sacrifices have it a lot easier than me and DH who are trying to run things 50:50.

They never have to consider child care when invited to speak at international conferences. Some of them suggested shite like keeping up with reading scientific papers over breakfast. What bloody breakfast I wanted to say! My mornings involve charging round
like a blue arsed fly sorting packed lunches and PE kits not leisurely reading over coffee and croissants.

I owe various of them return dinner party invites but my house is a pit of shit because I have no-one to clean it for me and I would have to shop and cater it myself so it's not happening. This probably loses me brownie points.

DH isn't particularly shit. He does his share of shopping, child care etc but he works FT as well and I think we would both love someone full time at home taking care of everything and making it all lovely but we don't want to be that person so we muddle along with it all being a bit of an afterthought.

I have one friend who is a particularly Uber fabulous SAHM and I've often joked how I'd love to be married to her. Amazing cook, excellent mum, house beautiful and all interior designed. All holidays, kids parties, celebrations planned and hosted to perfection. I absolutely think she is worth her weight in gold and that her husband is a very lucky man. As a woman you pretty much don't have that choice as men are not socialised to a SAHP role and most I know are just not very good at it.

If I had the choice of being able to have a good SAHP partner I'd be really happy to take them up on it

SO TRUE OP

I don't think a man taking some time off to look after a sick child for example has to stall his career.

I switched careers after dc1 & started from scratch. DH earns more but my job is still considered important so we share the slack.

But it's often true...

Very common for both parents to work full-time in 9-5 ish jobs, and that can work perfectly well, with some childcare.

However, it's less practical for both parents to have the kind of demanding job where they often have to work late into the evening, travel abroad at short notice, and find it difficult to book holiday far in advance.

Couples who manage this tend to have a live in nanny (often an au pair too), and don't spend much time with the children themselves.

In practice, it's much more common for only one parent to have a highly demanding job, and for the other parent (typically mother!) to take a step down and work part-time. They could, therefore, be said to be supporting their partner's career.

What always amazes me is how men are apparently blind to the amount of unseen /'women's work' that goes on.

If you had a single dad, high-flying career, with no wife, he'd have to pay not only for a nanny but also a cook and probably housekeeper.

If you paid each of those people a measly £10 per hour the amount would be shocking.

It would take the wife to walk out to demonstrate that.