“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?

Oh women staying at home.....yes happens relentlessly here in my corner of London. Hardly any couples with both having a high flying career, almost impossible... not necessarily a bad thing but often woman who take the back seat. I could never be financially beholden to anyone so would never be me. We must teach our daughters never to compromise.

There is another pattern. A very large number of new fathers start to work longer hours suddenly. Part of it may be that they feel that they have to give their very best now but exactly how much of it is down to the work waiting at home? We will never know accurately but I can safely say it is a lot because there are a huge number of women posting on here every few days about it.

From my experience YABU.

DH and I were both plodding along in middle management jobs, sharing the wrap around childcare and earning about the same salary. But because we were doing the wrap around childcare and housework 50:50, it meant that neither of us could really put in the effort our jobs required to progress to the next level. So we were both kind of stuck in a parent career rut. Ticking along nicely, it all worked, but no decent prospects or chance of a pay rise until DC were at least at school.

Then on my second mat leave, DH was offered an amazing opportunity. It was double his salary, and he would get to do really fulfilling, interesting, meaningful work in his specialist field. It was one of those opportunities that you can’t really turn down. But it meant that if he was going to do it, I would have to scale back my own career to enable him to be out of the house 7-7 every day and often more hours than that.

So I dropped to part time and tried to make it work but my job was the sort of job you can’t really do half the time. (And my company were really unsupportive and unhelpful.) It all became too much for me to juggle, so I quit work to be a SAHM and we prioritised DH’s career.

Without me doing that, he definitely would still be plodding along in the boring job and wasting his potential. And same for me too actually.

Him earning more money and me being at home has meant we could afford for me to retrain. By the time my youngest is in school I’ll be qualified in a new profession that I can work around our family.

He would’ve done the same for me too if it had been me that had the amazing opportunity (but that was sooo unlikely to happen to me, a mother of two young children in a male-dominated industry, let’s face it).

I’m pretty career driven but after I had DD I was surprised by how strongly I felt about not wanting to return to work fulltime. I instead do two days a week so I can spend the majority of it with DD. She’s nearly two now and I’d like to spend this much time with her until she goes to school.

DP was happy for me to do what I wanted but I think he would have felt a lot of pressure if I’d become a SAHM. He’s a high earner but that puts him in the firing line a bit - you never know what’s round the corner so I think keeping my hand in was sensible.

My husband has advanced during my two mat leaves. I don’t think that’s a confidence as he was able to focus, do silly hours etc without worrying about pick-ups. He earns enough that I could be a sahm but neither of us have ever been that keen on the idea because while there would be short-term benefits, the long-term opportunity costs feel high as does the risk of relying on one person’s income. I have been part-time - not to enable his career but because I wanted to have more time with my children.

When we were sorting out our life insurance, we deliberately made sure that childcare was included. If either of us died, we’d need a nanny, we couldn’t individually do drop-off and pick-ups. So effectively yes If I wasn’t around, I’d be replaced by a nanny.

@GreenlandTheMovie

This won't go down well on here, but yes, I get a bit tired of reading about how so many posters "can't work" because they have children. When all the women in my workplace have children...

It's nearly always a choice isn't it? Even for those very low earners there are tax credits to help out if they are single.

I wonder how many women nowadays choose to be a SAHM long term.

@Thewithesarehere

There is another pattern. A very large number of new fathers start to work longer hours suddenly. Part of it may be that they feel that they have to give their very best now but exactly how much of it is down to the work waiting at home? We will never know accurately but I can safely say it is a lot because there are a huge number of women posting on here every few days about it.

It will also be interesting to see how much worldwide travel is needed moving forward.

Some people like to be at home to be a major part of their children's daily lives and to enable their children to be at home after school and during holidays. I do not care whether other people think it a waste. I love it and I did not enjoy having children and being away from them for most of their lives when I worked. We can all make our own decisions and we all end up making the ones we can live with most comfortably. It profits no one to point out what they think is wrong with someone else's life each family is different. I would imagine most people think they have done the best thing for their own family's circumstances. If they didn't believe it they would have done things differently.

Lol totally agree
Virtually everyone I know has a high earning husband and is a higher earner or successful themselves and also has children

All sensibly live near resources (nursery, babysitters, tube/ good motorways, school holiday camps .. ) and all are fine and dandy!

The only two women I know who don't work basically retired early (age 48 plus first time mother, too tired honestly to work..) and the other is under a lot of pressure to return to work from her DH and is now a school TA (he doesn't buy the BS about it possible to work as err every other mother does ..)

YABU - there is no question whatsoever that my husband's career is enabled by my role as a SAHM. Have I sacrificed anything? No, not really. This was my choice and we work as a team. Your comment about men not being bothered about having a family is just weird.

I think YABU because it’s not just about physically being present for the children & replacing with wraparound childcare.

It’s about the man never having the leave work early because his kid is sick at school/nursery, never rushing home, never being late for work because of drop offs not running smoothly, not having to remember world book day/parents evening, not having to battle with homework or extra curriculars. To cover all of that in childcare, you’d need a really amazing live-in nanny probably, and that’s out of reach for most working couples. So then someone needs to take on the mental load and if both parents work then both parents need to take on that mental load. I think women stay at home because then their job can be that mental load and the man can “outsource” the parenting to the woman. I think when women say that, they mean that their husband does not appreciate how much the woman does for the family.

It was important to me to keep ip my career. I used to earn less than DH so I was part time (I know I would have wanted to anyway). I now earn more than my DH and wouldn't of had I given up work.

I get that it makes sense that the person who earns less than childcare doesn't work but also I think in those circumstances you should spread out your children.

Dh and I both worked fairly equal public sector jobs, had kids, 2 with disabilities, no wrap around care, no holiday care, I stayed with the same employer who were willing to be flexible up to a point, dh did the same.

We limped along for 10 years taking all our AL separately until my employer pushed me out due to my caring responsibilities.

I am now self-employed and work very pt from home and dh is in a position to apply for a promotion for the first time in years.

Having disabled children out our careers on hold. Becoming a SAHP allowed dh to further his career and hopefully, we will be financially better off too.

It’s nonsense trotted out by women who wanted to be housewives and seized his career as an excuse to stay home
It’s a mn perennial. Male high achievers who need a woman home. Couldn’t manage otherwise. Men who apparently problem solve,kick ass but cannot manage any level of domesticity or buy their own clothes. So domestically incapacitated that they need a sahm. Bullshit of course

In actuality people plan,buy childcare and don’t need an adult to give work for them to progress at work

I’m sure my h would be in the same job now if he was single and never had a wife. But he’d not have the children he so desperately wanted (and is still lobbying for a 4th) at home. He doesn’t care if I work or not but he has made it clear he will not be able to be relied upon for any childcare or domestic input. He’ll never cook a meal or do a wash etc. So if I wanted to work and put the kids in childcare and still do everything else then that was up to me. There was a point when he didn’t want me to work as it would have put the family pot in the hole by £400 per month. But as long as we break even he’d not object, although he thinks it wouldn’t be as good for the children and would rather me be at home for them. I also agree for personal reasons that the children are best not in childcare.

As I never had a career to go back to, it’d just be min wage jobs. I have no intention of working for no money and doing all the children and house stuff. I do work now but it’s part time from home around school hours. If I wanted to work out of the house ft hours we’d get a divorce because I’d be fucked if I’m doing everything.

My husband could have earned more money (as I could have ) but it would have meant I would have had to sacrifice my career to enable him to be available for travel etc. We discussed it together and as their Dad he didn’t want to miss out on sports day etc they only young once and these are the special moments for our children. We share pick ups 70/30 but I know if I was stuck on a meeting he would step up - it involves us both communicating what our children need first and what work needs are and working it out between us - both sometimes fairly pushing back at work to enable the other.
We both could have earned more money but we went for a balance we have an ok life successful careers and a pension pot (not loads but ok) - maybe not at the top, But we have BOTH been present at every sports day , nativity play and any thing else the school throws at us :) lockdowns and nursery calls when they poorly whilst holding down FT work.
But parents need to do what’s best for their children with inputs and expectations from both.

Since he didn't help with the kids basically at all she was unable to return to work properly and her career never really got restarted (although she has always continued working). They divorced when the oldest had just started secondary.

I think that a huge part of the problem is that when relationships break down it's often when the children are a bit older, and so when realistically it is a lot easier and nicer a life to not work. A lot of men with SAHM wives to teenage children look at their wife's current life and conveniently forget that it stems from a decision to be at home with babies and toddlers, a rather less enviable thing, and so feel like they have always had the harder deal.

I think part of the problem is that both men and women are given unrealistic expectations of how easy it'll be to return to work after an extended period at home - 'your children will only be little for a short while, a career can wait!'. I think a lot of men never thought their wives would still be at home a decade or two later, but they're also completely unrealistic about how curtailed their wives' employment options would be at that point and had some idea that they'd just step back in where they left off once the children were at school.

If people want to believe that then let them. Does it matter if nobody else does.

Maybe some of us actually want to stay home and look after our children and don't give a toss about a career, why is that wrong
And actually why bother having kids at all if you both have to work 12 hr days and travel / weekends etc
Many one parent will take a less demanding job so the other can do the hrs
If both parents work 7-7 5 days a week when do the kids get to see a parent

I would not say I sacrificed my career for children but my husband worked erratic hours so all the childcare was on me and prior to children my career would also have meant long hours if I was to progress further. We both earned the same prior to children but no way would my husband have wanted to stay at home to look after them and I was not keen on having them in nursery for 10-12 hour days so we compromised and I went back part time. That inevitably meant a lower salary and less progression although I did eventually return to full time after 10 years. My career definitely suffered for the break and going part time but I accepted that and was ok with it.

I agree with you OP in that the mum's 'self sacrifice' is more a personal choice and has little bearing on the husband's career either way. Most mums, including myself, are not career-minded after having children.

More women are on lower paying career paths and more women (than men) find fulfilment being full time caregiver to their children, which is perfectly fine, but they seem to masquerade it as sacrifice rather than choice.

In most 'high flying' careers, e.g. medicine or law, you really have barely scratched the surface when you have child #1 let's say in early 30s. In every field, it's a pyramid, only a handful make it to the top of the food chain. Theres luck, hard work and new skills involved that havent been tested at all pre kids.

The truly career minded ones wouldnt have given up what they've worked for.

@ShirleyPhallus

I haven't sacrificed a career as such, more the potential to have one. DH is 9 years older than me and was already on an established pathway when we had DC. I've had alternating periods of being a wohm and sahm, none of them careers - just jobs I could do for a while then drop during periods when family life was too demanding.

So this is interesting @OvaHere because this is exactly what I’m talking about. What were you doing job-wise before you met your husband and decided to have children?

I was still at university. I then spent a year or so working for a charity before our first DC arrived. So as not to drip feed I was already a 20 something single mother with one child when we met. My original plan was to have a public sector career which half worked for a few years until it didn't. It might have blossomed into a career given time but really they were just jobs. The most I ever earned was about 27k pro rata which was decent 15+ years ago but was eaten up by childcare costs.

You're saying that when my husband worked away all week for ten years that he could have done this without me with excellent wrap around care? And my children would have been equally loved and well cared for by a patchwork of childcare than with their mother?

problembottom I felt similarly, but DH and I both worked part time.
I suppose in your situation you seem to view it as maternity leave changed your focus, you didn't want to return to work full time, and were fortunate that your DH's role gave you options. Whilst it's only a post online, you don't come across as someone who would claim their DH's success only happened because they gave up work.

Imagine you are privilaged to never think about anything else except work for all 9hrs and not to think twice when sales dinners happen... wouldnt you ride faster than others who stop for few things in between?
Sahp gives mental ease to other parent... I wont comment about if they think its a scarifice or not.