To not want to be primary caregiver?

[ttcissoboring]

Not got kids yet but planning to. I don't know any woman that's not the primary caregiver IRL and it's starting to panic me. I don't want to be primary caregiver. Is this going to be enivitable?

Is it impossible to go back to work as soon as I am feeling physically able to and split the parenting at that point? A year off work seems the default but there is no way I want and could do that. Men go back after a week and there is no judgement as to 'how could he leave the child so young' woman does it and the judgement is like she has committed child abuse, I find it very sad and frustrating. And the judgement seems to come from other women as much as it does men.

Does anyone who has children consider themselves not the primary caregiver and completely equal with how they parent with their partner?

The idea of parenting doesn't appeal to me unless it's 50/50 ( of course I understand anything could happen tragically to DH where I'd have to be full caregiver and I'd have no choice)

Is primary caregiver inevitable because I'm a woman? And am I being somewhat naive to this experience?!

Please tell me your experiences of switching this narrative if you have kids, are a woman and not the default parent but share the duties equally from very early on.

@ShimmyYay

Why are you considering children to only put them in care of someone else (nursery)?

And another idiotic post to add to the growing tally. Keep them coming folks, it’s exactly what women need.

I went back to work two weeks after my caesarean as I ran a business and couldn’t afford to take time off. My partner also worked in the business but I needed to be there more so he did a lot of the childcare. I snatched my moments with my baby when I could. It wasn’t an ideal scenario but we made it work. My bond with my DD wasn’t damaged but she is very close to her Dad too. I think it was good for him to play such a big part in her upbringing from the get go. Our business folded in the end and I went back to work full time in an office when she was about 9 months. She was then cared for by a combination of nursery and time with him and I saw her outside office hours. I never felt I missed out as every minute with her in the evenings, weekends and holidays was special. Working full time and having a good career was equally important to me as being a mother however. It is possible to do both if your partner is on board and willing and able to be a good caregiver.

You can definitely do 50/50 but check your maternity policy at work if you have one as they don’t always allow husbands / partners shared maternity leave

In the UK shared parental leave is a statutory right as long as both parents meet the eligibility criteria. www.gov.uk/shared-parental-leave-and-pay

I returned to work f/t when DD was 8 months old; her DF did nothing ever. I relied on paid childcare.
She is now in school, I work an avg 50hr wk, use wrap around care & have finally ditched the cock lodger!
We have an amazingly close relationship...
What i'm saying is you do you...ignore societal and peer pressure, its your life!

@RollWithThePunches

You sound very selfish OP. Sorry, not sorry. I tried very hard to have children but couldn’t. I’d have been very delighted to bring my children into the world with the traditional nurturing a mother brings. I would suggest you reassess your situation and consider yourself privileged to give birth to the next generation. Following your return to work (when baby is fully weaned) I would expect DH to share childcare 50/50. But there are things only mothers can do in the early days.

Someone else who hasn't read all of the OP's posts. Or horrible comment if you have.

@RollWithThePunches

You sound very selfish OP. Sorry, not sorry. I tried very hard to have children but couldn’t. I’d have been very delighted to bring my children into the world with the traditional nurturing a mother brings. I would suggest you reassess your situation and consider yourself privileged to give birth to the next generation. Following your return to work (when baby is fully weaned) I would expect DH to share childcare 50/50. But there are things only mothers can do in the early days.

I can almost see you wagging your finger with your head tilted down and looking up through a flat top round bottom framed glasses. How very naughty of any woman to want what OP wants.

No it's not inevitable.

It depends a lot on the attitude DH has.

How is he already with tasks around the house?
Do you share housework equally?
Do you both put the same importance on each other's career aspirations and free time?

I was the primary care giver but once dc started school our roles became 50/50. From my experience there’s an initial bond through baby and early toddler stage between a mum and dc but from that toddler stage onwards it’s much more relationship based and dh became an equal in dc eyes (although this took work as dc would walk past dh to find me in the shower to open a pen lid!). This is my personal experience and includes my experience of stay at home dads who were absolutely fab but they would say themselves that the toddler point was when they became more equal when both parents were around. Maybe that was due to “mum guilt” rather than what the baby wanted. Essentially, you have to do what’s right for you and your partner and both have to be aligned. People will judge your parenting whatever you do so don’t stress about that.

@Christmasfairy2020

Well when 2 days after having a baby and all you wanna do is cry as hormones are everywhere. You have a fat belly and afterpains. Heavy blood loss for 6 weeks. Your breasts hurt and go rock hard (unless you bf). Your fanny us sore if you cut etc. Your absolutely knackered from the birth, baby waking up, been scared to sleep incase baby needs you. I really don't see why you would want to go back for at least 6-8 weeks. If you don't want to be in the house looking after baby then you share leave?

Of course. Because this is all a woman is capable of. Why aspire for more? Honestly, these women, getting above their station. Tut tut.

Are you suggesting that women who work are just working for luxuries

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

LOL

Roll around the floor.

Of course, that's exactly what the pp is suggesting. if you are female and work once you've had (a) child(ren) then you are only working for luxuries! And of course you let yourself be kept by a man (or benefits).

There are some really really stupid attitudes. And the really sad thing is that they are held by other women.

Of course child-rearing should be 50-50. Not in the very early months but the OP said she didn't want to stay home for a year. I had 7 months off work and it was fine. If shared leave had been around then, DH would have taken some. As it is, we "outsourced" the childcare to nursery and let someone else bring our son up. He is 18 now and seems to have turned out ok despite not having a doting mother with him 24 hours a day.

To the op. Life is full of surprises. Some people have issues with fertility. Or miscarriage. Or relationship breakdown. Or job loss. This, like all of life, is not one you can schedule to suit your preferred outcome. Go with it, if you do want a child.

OP, I mean this kindly but you sound quite stressed by your circumstances and worrying about what hasn’t happened and what might go wrong. I’m sorry to hear that you’re having a difficult time getting to where you want to go. It isn’t easy getting pregnant and giving birth at full term, that’s for sure.
I’m not sure MN is the right forum for the answers you want as there’s such a huge divide in opinion, not just between SAHMs and working mums, but literally every child rearing issue from BF, to nursery, to sleep routines….and they all have an opinion which they believe is right. The only opinion that matters with your child is yours (and DH!) and I agree with the people who’ve suggested flexibility in your expectations and plans as children have a habit of changing all your best laid plans.
I’m not going to share my experience as I’ve been roundly criticised for my choices many times by other people, but I have absolutely got a life that works for me, DH and DC. If I’d have given a flying f*ck about anyone else’s opinion, things might be different.
Go with your gut, trust your instincts and honestly, don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. There’s always a solution. Good luck and I hope you have some good news soon 💐.

@ShimmyYay

Why are you considering children to only put them in care of someone else (nursery)?

Go back to your bridge.

I went back to work after 6 months my dh stayed at home. I didn't feel any judgement and if there was I don't care it worked for me.dh and most importantly dc.

@HotPenguin

For many people 50/50 is not realistic, because jobs that give you flexibility are generally lower paying. So many families end up with "main wage earner", who is higher paid and can be fully committed to work, do the unpaid overtime etc, and "second earner" who needs very specific hours to fit around school hours and tends to be the one who takes time off when kids are ill. Where parents are genuine 50/50 it tends to be they are both in low paid jobs or run their own business or have some other set up that allows them more flexibility than traditional jobs.

I do know families where the woman is main earner and the man does more childcare. A common issue is that the man does not do housework and the woman then spends her weekends doing laundry and cleaning. Obviously it shouldn't be like that but I'd suggest you agree clear expectations early on.

Not necessarily true! I am the main earner in my household. We both work full time and our son goes to a childminder 3 times a week with our parents doing the rest.

I think until you have that child you don’t realise how much you would want to be the primary caregiver, something inside definitely changes and for some people it’s very hard to let go or even want to leave that child, I think your post is very matter of fact and doesn’t allow for the possible emotional repercussions of that decision. I’m not saying it’s like that for everybody though and also understand that there may be PND to deal with etc but I truly don’t think you know how you will feel until it’s really happening

@RollWithThePunches

You sound very selfish OP. Sorry, not sorry. I tried very hard to have children but couldn’t. I’d have been very delighted to bring my children into the world with the traditional nurturing a mother brings. I would suggest you reassess your situation and consider yourself privileged to give birth to the next generation. Following your return to work (when baby is fully weaned) I would expect DH to share childcare 50/50. But there are things only mothers can do in the early days.

OMG are you for real? You are totally projecting your own loss onto others here. Just so totally unhelpful and unnecessary.

One of the female equity partners at my firm had a stay at home husband. It made sense as she earned wayyyy more money than he did. He was very happy with the arrangement and I always envied his laid back life

@Scottsy100

I think until you have that child you don’t realise how much you would want to be the primary caregiver, something inside definitely changes and for some people it’s very hard to let go or even want to leave that child, I think your post is very matter of fact and doesn’t allow for the possible emotional repercussions of that decision. I’m not saying it’s like that for everybody though and also understand that there may be PND to deal with etc but I truly don’t think you know how you will feel until it’s really happening

Well said.

@HotPenguin

For many people 50/50 is not realistic, because jobs that give you flexibility are generally lower paying. So many families end up with "main wage earner", who is higher paid and can be fully committed to work, do the unpaid overtime etc, and "second earner" who needs very specific hours to fit around school hours and tends to be the one who takes time off when kids are ill. Where parents are genuine 50/50 it tends to be they are both in low paid jobs or run their own business or have some other set up that allows them more flexibility than traditional jobs.

I do know families where the woman is main earner and the man does more childcare. A common issue is that the man does not do housework and the woman then spends her weekends doing laundry and cleaning. Obviously it shouldn't be like that but I'd suggest you agree clear expectations early on.

Not necessarily. Neither of us are in a low paid job (or run own business). We do consider both jobs equal though and not a 'main wage earner situation. In that situation I cannot see how 50/50 can work. And I have just been promoted to a managerial position in a big company working 4 days a week. So it is possible.

@ShimmyYay

Why are you considering children to only put them in care of someone else (nursery)?

Yey!! More misogynistic bullshit!!

Even earlier months the parenting can totally be shared. I breastfed at night then my DH took DCs over, burped them and put them back to sleep so I could fall back to sleep. Any tasks can be shared and sharing makes the overwhelming role of being new parents more enjoyable.

What is exactly 'traditional nurturing mother'? Mother who wants to single handedly look after the babies? Mother who can't value anything equal to rearing children? Why? Didn't we fight hard against this kind of societal prejudice and pressure to achieve the choice we have now?

I always wanted children but I have always wanted an equal partnership too which is what I have with my dh. On forums like this you realise how incredibly rare it can be, so many women for example on my birthing board or on a Facebook group I am on complain about how useless men are as if they all are. They aren't, my dh most definitely isn't and I wouldn't have chosen to have kids with a man that was or had inherently different ideas about raising kids to me. This is important and should be discussed prior to having kids and then you should be able to pull your partner up and discuss it of they are going back on their word.

I work part time so my career has taken a knock compared to my dh's but I have the kind of job where there is a ceiling wage and I had already hit that working full time. Being part time allows me the balance I want. My dh did adjust his working pattern too inorder for us to reduce the amount of childcare needed he has worked from home 2 days a week since our eldest was born. This too works well for our family, he didn't need to be cajoled into doing it and did so because he recognised the benefits of working for me and our children. Our relationship is reciprocal and respectful of each other.

I would enjoy parenting a whole lot less if he wasn't prepared to do his fair share of the work and don't think there is anything shameful in saying so. If he hadn't been an equal parent I wouldn't have had anymore children after our first. Thankfully he is and I have no issues and do not feel guilty when at work because he is just as capable a parent as I am (probably more patient).

I don't think yabu to spell out what you want your family set up to look like and make sure your oh is fully on board. What I would say is that noone has a crystal ball that they can use to look into the future, so saying you wouldn't want to be a parent if you ended up being the primary caregiver is daft in my opinion, you simply can't put conditions on becoming a parent like that. With parenting you simply don't know what the future holds, what your baby will be like the challenges you will face, how you will feel etc.

@lockdownmadnessdotcom

Are you suggesting that women who work are just working for luxuries

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

LOL

Roll around the floor.

Of course, that's exactly what the pp is suggesting. if you are female and work once you've had (a) child(ren) then you are only working for luxuries! And of course you let yourself be kept by a man (or benefits).

There are some really really stupid attitudes. And the really sad thing is that they are held by other women.

Of course child-rearing should be 50-50. Not in the very early months but the OP said she didn't want to stay home for a year. I had 7 months off work and it was fine. If shared leave had been around then, DH would have taken some. As it is, we "outsourced" the childcare to nursery and let someone else bring our son up. He is 18 now and seems to have turned out ok despite not having a doting mother with him 24 hours a day.

It's quite worrying how often you see this attitude.

Men work to to provide for their children where are women work for luxuries.

Uttter misogynistic crap.

For many people 50/50 is not realistic, because jobs that give you flexibility are generally lower paying.

Not true. Quite the opposite in fact.