“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 agree. It's very rare now for a "career" woman to give it up to raise children purely to facilitate her husbands job.....but they sure do like to use that line when a divorce comes along...no mention that they chose to give up the career because they wanted to stay home 🤷‍♀️

@burnoutbabe

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.

I have noticed that on MN every SAHM would apparently have been a CEO who travelled the world drinking cocktails if it weren't for those pesky kids... I think a lot of them, especially those who had children young, underestimate the many other reasons that people don't achieve their full ambitions, and so assume they would have done if they hadn't had children. I noticed this with the Unmumsy Mum - she has written quite a bit about how she gave up an amazing career for her children but she worked for about three years after graduating before having her children so I think there's a lot of assumptions there about how smoothly it would have all gone otherwise.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland I agree I think it's quite an outdated view.

It's impossible to broad brush it. One friendship group i have, the women all had careers and actively decided to give up to stay at home with the dcs. In all of those cases it also happened to suit their dhs very very nicely. A decade on from having our first dcs all of those women now lament having made those sacrifices while their dhs act oblivious to the impact on their careers (also sniping that their dws don't bring any money in!). There's some serious resentment building in those relationships.

Another group of friends i have, the school mums, we're all women who took short maternity leaves and are the higher earners in our marriages. I would say resentment is still there as we're all still also the higher mental load carriers, but maybe we at least have the stability of knowing our careers and finances can't be whipped out from under us.

The happiest friend i have had a career but didn't really care for it, gave it up when pregnant with the first dc and 13 years later still just stays at home keeping things ticking over. The dh mostly acknowledges that he likes the fact she did that and holds no resentment because she actively and genuinely wanted to do it.

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

I know some very high flying women (on £350k pa) who started as PAs and worked their way in the company.

You dont even need to be high flying, Careers in academia are a great example.

I was never a SAHM but went part-time after having first DC, reduced hours further when DC started school. 11 years part time and I feel like I’ve sacrificed my career.
If he didn’t have a ‘wife’, not sure he’d find a childcare provider that could just provide overnight care with a couple of days notice and be happy with DH returning from work at 9pm minimum up to midnight every night.

It took a massive toll on me and my confidence. We’ve split up this year (now the kids don’t need looking after). He just couldn’t see that money (when you have enough) is not a priority over relationships and a family.

The thing is most top level CEOs are older? Secondary school age teens etc simply do not need -want- parents around as much and certainly not during the sort of hours that form most of the working day. So you dont have the same time conflicts as someone with young kids juggling school runs, childcare, cooking, etc. A 14 year old can get their own school uniform washed and hung up, can cook dinner a couple of times a week etc and pitch in a lot with chores around the house.

Agreed but I have 3 under the age of 11, I’m just really good

But from your point, I will get there, but when as you say the DC hit 15+ but that means I’ll then be 50, there are younger CEOs now.

I do still do the travel abroad but only with supportive family, planned well in advance and a shit load of pressure. I also do the 2ams but accept that means I just don’t slee as have to do the night/morning with the kids.

I need a good wife!

My DH definitely wouldn’t be doing what he is now because I paid for him to study and for us to live in that time. Now he financially support us. It’s not tit for tat but we support each other as a team. Life is long.

Why are all these men having children they supposedly don't want?

I'm child free but thinking about my partners job pre covid, he works away for days at a time. If we had kids how would that work? I'd do the childcare? But how could I be away at the same time? So one of us would be making sactafices.

DrizzleandDamp

In the nicest way, as some one up thread said, there could be loads of reasons you might not get to CEO (because you know, hardly anybody does... there are loads of bright, ambitious, hard working people out there) and it might have nothing to do with the limitations of having kids.

An exec i work with a lot has 3 kids. She doesnt actually do long hours - shes really, really organised and efficient in how she uses her time.
.

I have to say that perhaps if men and women were a little more open and honest with each other before TTC, no one would be sacrificing anything.

It is completely ok to be a very high earner and your spouse be a SAHP if you are financially able and you both want that. If you both want to be very high earners and put in all the hours under the sun, then you research childcare options and costs. If it looks possible then go for it.

If you don’t agree on how and who is going to take care of the children then really are you not storing up a whole load of trouble?

If your spouse leads you on a merry dance saying they want X but actually they want Y, and you then have to ‘sacrifice’ what you wanted to do, then IMO you have been deceived and I wouldn’t blame you for seeking divorce. Of course this works both ways, I know women who would gladly give up work, and do everything in their power to ensure they can be SAHM much to the annoyance of their DHs, who often feel enormous pressure to be the sole breadwinners and fund a lifestyle that is almost always impossible to maintain over the long term.

I don’t know any men who force their wives who be sahp, but I suspect that’s because I don’t know many wealthy people who could afford to do this.

I would say though that even the best laid plans will have to change to unforeseen circumstances. Ill health and redundancy for example. I can never forgive my mother whose bitter vitriol I had to endure as a child, she used to complain that she had to work because my father had the audacity to lose his job in the coal mining industry back in the 90s. Like he had any choice.

I too think it's mostly nonsense.

@stackemhigh

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

I know some very high flying women (on £350k pa) who started as PAs and worked their way in the company.

Trophy wives might be a thing in some quarters but at my local toddler group (not running now!) I know women who had careers as HR execs, bankers, nurses, doctors, businesswomen, senior teachers, solicitors. It’s not that rare for women to find it really tough to balance the emotional and practical needs of the kids around a career especially with no Grandparent help or a child with a disability or additional needs. It doesn’t mean she didn’t have any brains to start with. That’s just ignorant.

I know three SAHM (very well) and none sacrificed their careers. None of them were capable of working outside the home really and whilst I think they find being at home with the kids hard - they found the workplace infinitely harder. But I wouldn't presume to know that this is true for other SAHM and I know if my DH refused to pull his weight I would sacrifice my career and it would be a huge and miserable sacrifice.

I think it's more the extra stuff that happens after 5pm. Who picks the kids up, who will be home to cook for them or take them to their hobby. There are plenty of women with kids who are working and even breadwinners but when you have kids these are the things you have to decide how to deal with.

It’s rather depressing to see how many women don’t have a career of any sort before they have children. Then once they’ve had them they have no “work” to get back to and are pigeon holed as a SAHM.

my dp would probably have done very well in work without me or the kids, but he definitely wouldnt have been able to manage the kids and work if I fucked off and left. He wanted a family and ours arent the sort of kids that just settled at school. Theyve all got additional needs and needed someone at home, and I sacrificed my career and he didnt sacrifice his particularly

@Notthe9oclocknewsathon have you quoted the wrong person?

Yes Sorry!

@Plussizejumpsuit

Why are all these men having children they supposedly don't want?

I'm child free but thinking about my partners job pre covid, he works away for days at a time. If we had kids how would that work? I'd do the childcare? But how could I be away at the same time? So one of us would be making sactafices.

I think it's normally not that they actively don't want kids - they might quite like the idea of having some little people around - but that they're not prepared to make any sacrifice to do so, so wouldn't have chosen to have kids if they'd been told beforehand, and then actually been made to stick to (this is the tricky bit), that they had to do 50% of all parenting including juggling childcare. Which isn't wanting children badly enough in my eyes, and it's not a father I'd have picked for mine, but then I knew I didn't want to set up my life like that, while a lot of women genuinely do - and I don't think that's wrong, it's just not what I'd choose.

I know women who would gladly give up work, and do everything in their power to ensure they can be SAHM much to the annoyance of their DHs, who often feel enormous pressure to be the sole breadwinners and fund a lifestyle that is almost always impossible to maintain over the long term.

This. I know loads of SAHMs like this in RL yet few admit to it on mnet

It’s a cop out OP, YANBU.

They marry & duck out of working as soon as children come along.

Because you can’t work AND raise a family.

Men will still get on in their careers whoever looks after the kids because that’s life.

The interesting thing is there are many careers or jobs that require spousal support for raising children that arent 'high flying, 6 figure sums' its really hard to get affordable childcare if you do shift work like a police officer or nurse for instance.