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.

I was the primary caregiver for the first few months but once I returned to work full time and breastfed less it was 50/50 possibly a bit more my husband and he has more patience (he's a teacher). As long as the child has one parent with them till they are old enough for childcare it is up to you who in your family that is.

[quote ttcissoboring]@SimonedeBeauvoirscat thank you for reading.

Yes at the moment we do 50/50 with household things if even say DH probably does a bit more if anything.

When it comes to emotional load however it's definitely me. He never even registers birthdays etc. If we attend a social event he doesn't remember the dates even when it's his side. He never organises holidays etc. So I'm aware the mental load is likely to be me but that's probably for the good because I like things doing a certain way!

In terms of household cook and cleaning though we are down the middle currently [/quote]
This might be the part to work on, as the mental load is much higher with children and you may get fed up with doing it all. Many women don't mind doing it all before kids and get extremely annoyed afterwards as kids take so much out of you, as lovely as they are. Get a shared calendar/to do list app like To Do and post everything shared in it and share the lists with him. Get him to take on his part in this.

I'm a SAHP after second baby, after being p/t with the first. My DH is great and shares the childcare when he's not working, I still do most of the mental load.

Very old book but I found it useful:

How to Avoid the Mommy Trap: A Roadmap for Sharing Parenting and Making it Work by Julie Shields

biblio.co.uk/search.php?author=&title=how+to+avoid+the+mommy+trap&keywords=&stage=1

I'm so sorry for your losses . It's very hard, I had several before my children. Every pregnancy was like Schrodinger's cat, I felt pregnant / not pregnant as I never knew if it would work out, even post-12 weeks. I would be six months pregnant and still not feel pregnant, probably as a protective mechanism from the losses.

@AlexanderArnold he isn't putting anywhere near that level of thought into it. I don't even think he knows what collick is!

You raise very good points though / he is definitely in a dream world about children - he has no idea what it entails. I am the realist of the two of us. Though one thing I do say is he is probably more domesticated than I am so while I think he will do 50/50 in some aspects, I think a lot of researching options etc will fall to me so I agree with you thanks for insightful post.

@sunshinecats thank you so much for the book recommendation I will check that out.

And yes, I too use a protective mechanism for the losses / sorry for yours too

Another book that is probably more applicable to women who are already pissed off with their DHs, could be used to stop you from getting in that position in the first place is the slightly provocatively titled How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids. I wasn't keen on the title but remember it being quite useful. I'm guessing How to Love Your Husband After Kids and Work Together doesn't sell so well. To split the parenting more equally, you need to be on the same page from the beginning and not fall into the trap of doing everything with the baby and the house because you are on maternity leave.

This is entirely a conversation between you and your partner. Yes you are the one who is pregnant, no changing that. If you feel fit and well, many women work until 36 weeks, or even more. Most don’t, of course, this is hard. Breast is best, but, millions of children have thrived with bottle feeding and so in theory you could go back to full time work as soon as you feel physically able. This whole question should not be about society’s opinion. Only you and your partner and your division of labour. There is absolutely no reason why you should not be the primary worker/breadwinner.

I am a little bit disappointed by the comments to this post that assume the work, the mental load is going to be all on the woman. Assume it’s on the man (assuming a hetero relationship). What if op just got on with her job. Got up, went to work full time. Only occasionally thought about stuff. Her husband sahp/work part time and sorted the house/baby/dinner/school shoes/holidays/mil birthday/world book day/parent teacher evening/friendsoverfordinner/monitoring firstboytriend/schoolprom/alevelchoices/ucasapplication. The theme STILL seems to be that this won’t happen and that the woman isn’t simply going to get up and go to work, like the men did 30 years ago. I am 55 and feel quite depressed reading this thread

It's very difficult.

I've returned to a decent career after a year off with each of 2 kids. DH does a lot but its probably 60/40 me to him. My career is fine and if I wanted to progress in it i really could but honestly? Becoming a parent has changed me. I assume it's the hormones, the bonding created by breastfeeding and very physical care.... I just don't care as much about my job anymore. Its hard to explain until a baby arrives..... I never thought I would relish being a primary caregiver but I do.

Also. I note you say you want to take 2-3 days off a week and would like your DH to as well etc

I think half the issue for many women is they do want to balance a career and a family, and to do that they need their DH to want to too. And honestly, many men just... don't want to. And when push comes to shove and the woman is faced with a choice of doing their half, and using a lot of childcare instead of their DH dropping to 4days a week etc, they find that that's not what they want and they prioritise differently. Most men when faced with that choice, seem to prioritise the job.

I know an element of that is cultural and social but I do believe an element is simply biological prepares to be annihilated for this view. There are hormone and biological differences between men and women and I do think they impact upon our emotional responses to child rearing. There. I said it.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland
Thank you for saying it! I believe that too, with exceptions of course, but yes! Nice to hear it!

I agree with everything @JassyRadlett said but would add that your DH has to be willing to do all this.

I am a little bit disappointed by the comments to this post that assume the work, the mental load is going to be all on the woman. Assume it’s on the man (assuming a hetero relationship). What if op just got on with her job. Got up, went to work full time. Only occasionally thought about stuff. Her husband sahp/work part time and sorted the house/baby/dinner/school shoes/holidays/mil birthday/world book day/parent teacher evening/friendsoverfordinner/monitoring firstboytriend/schoolprom/alevelchoices/ucasapplication. The theme STILL seems to be that this won’t happen and that the woman isn’t simply going to get up and go to work

This comment is how it should be, but it isn't. As Jassy says , sometimes you have to accept that if your DH is in charge things will be done differently, and that's absolutely fine. But unfortunately, what happens too often is that while a man might take on 50% of the actual physical care, they're not doing all this other stuff. So your child goes to a birthday party without a gift (or misses the party completely because DH didn't clock the invite, RSVP to the invite etc and the woman will nonetheless be seen as "flakey"), they don't get a World Book Day costume, they don't attend the sport group they've been desperate to attend etc.

I'm sorry, it shouldn't be like this. And if you're lucky, your DH will step up and will listen when you point out that x or y needs to happen and he needs to be in charge. But it seldom happens spontaneously.

Hey there, I am single and trying to become a single mum by choice so I will be the primary and only caregiver, but I do agree that the female shouldn't be expected to be the primary.

Have you discussed this with your DH? If you two are in the same pace, then why do you care what all the others are going to say? People are going to talk and comment no matter what you do, so do something that makes you two happy.

Some of these comments make me very sad. Disappointingly, many of the judgemental, negative comments we received came from other women. Sneering remarks about my husband being a ‘househusband’ as if there was something wrong with him.
Yes, it is possible to parent 50/50 but it is still unusual enough that people comment. You just have to ignore them or come up with a few glib responses!
Bare in mind, that it’s very hard to really anticipate how life changes when a baby arrives. We thought we were prepared for the shock, but we weren’t. My husband wasn’t particularly supportive once he went back to work because ‘he was working’.
Due to him being made redundant soon before I returned from maternity leave in about February that year, we decided he should go back to college and retrain from the September. It made sense for him to take over primary childcare responsibilities until then as I returned to work. He rang me and apologised profusely on the first day for not being more supportive.
Those months that he was at home with our daughter changed everything. They bonded much better than they had.

Once he started at college, we used a nursery but we split our lives much more equally - dropping off & collecting from nursery, dealing with sickness and holidays, appointments, shopping, housework etc, and it was the same later when we had our son and throughout school.
The only thing you can really do is talk with your partner about it, share your concerns and discuss what sharing the parenting actually means and looks like in terms of day to day life.

I simply don't get why men at work are completely capable of organising his own workload, meetings, supervising teams and undertake complex tasks at short notice without fail, but at home they are just useless or don't remember anything so the kids will go to birthday parties without presents or never complete homework if these tasks are given to them? Why don't I see these super incompetent men at work?

Aren't we enabling them saying they are not built for home or kids tasks?

This discussion reminds me unfortunately of this quote:

“A woman knows her children's friends, hopes, dreams, romances, secret fears, what they are thinking, how they are feeling and, usually, what mischief they are plotting. Men are vaguely aware of some short people also living in the house.”

― Allan Pease, Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do About It

Yes, of course, #NotAllMen, but I'm afraid in my circle of acquaintances I can think of few (any?) where the DH genuinely shoulders 50% of the parenting if you include the mental load. It might be an age thing (I'm mid-50s).

Before having kids I was partly guilty of thinking a baby was an item to be 'managed' without really understanding the impact that a child's own wants and needs might have on me. After birth I was shocked by the intense, visceral desire I had to defend, protect and care for my child.
DH was a '50% parent' on the shopping, bathing, reading, school run etc practical stuff but when it became clear our DS2 had a learning disability it quickly became clear that I was going to have to shoulder the mental load of supporting and advocating for him in the future - DH wouldn't even acknowledge it existed for a long time.

Aren't we enabling them saying they are not built for home or kids tasks?

Yes.

They are entirely capable of it if it matters enough to them. But like most of us, if someone is always doing it for them, they'll probably just let it happen.

I know my setup is pretty rare, but it's not unique. I know a few others, as well as quite a few where there are equal practical inputs but the woman does the lion's share of the mental load, and where the husbands get more and more comfortable in the kids being her problem to sort.

My brother and his wife do 3 days a week each, and have done for the last 7 years. She's a corporate lawyer, he works in family law. I know a fair few families who do 4 days a week each or even 9 day fortnights where they alternate 'childcare' days fortnightly.

It only ever really works if the father takes on some jobs and domains as totally 'his' from the outset. For example, my husband was still on shared parental leave with youngest when eldest started school. So school settling was his domain and he's remained the primary contact for school. He did all the nursery settling-in as he was on parental leave at the time with both kids, and so nursery were more used to him than to me. Holiday clubs are entirely my domain, which was a total fucker in summer 2020. He does pretty much all their laundry and keeps on top of lunches, uniform needs, etc. Otherwise the wife invariably ends up the project manager for the household.

This is why you need those discussions and agreements made before TTC. Getting someone to “step up” is one heck of a prayer.

"Allan Pease, Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do About It"

Don't think I'll be running out to buy that. I'm very capable of reading maps, thanks despite the obvious disadvantage of having a womb.

@Rainbowpurple

I simply don't get why men at work are completely capable of organising his own workload, meetings, supervising teams and undertake complex tasks at short notice without fail, but at home they are just useless or don't remember anything so the kids will go to birthday parties without presents or never complete homework if these tasks are given to them? Why don't I see these super incompetent men at work?

Aren't we enabling them saying they are not built for home or kids tasks?

Well, I have to say, in a 20+ year in the corporate world, I'd say that actually, men are often bad at all kinds of things at work too.

At home, they decide (consciously or unconsciously) that worrying about the presents for parties or noticing that school uniforms need to be replaced is not their job and/or not "important enough" for them. At work, many of these same men will simply choose not to do all sorts of tasks that then inevitably fall to the women and/or junior team members.

I've lost track of the number of men who simply don't step up for all those other tasks at the office, who claim incompetence so that someone else (usually a woman) does much of their drudge work (from diary management to word processing), or who simply ignore tasks that they know aren't relevant to their personal career/promotion prospects. And they get away with it, time and time again.

I have to say, I’m a nanny for a family with two full time “high flying” business people. The father has always been, IMO, my employer as I report everything to do with the kids to him. I don’t know why really he just took the lead with that. He will say “dc2 needs new underwear could you please buy some” so he is delegating tasks but he is the one that does and will know about inset days coming up etc, Mum doesn’t. He is German if that makes any difference but I’ll say in my career of nannying I have always had Mum know everything and dads are a bit clueless.

I worked for one family where, due to Mums job as a doctor, Dad would be the one home to do baths bedtime etc. But still on her downtime Mum would be the one to email me all the important things, dates etc. Dad was clueless in terms of life admin for the kids and that seems to be the norm. But I know it is completely possible for a man to be a successful business person AND do their part at home (don’t get me wrong, they also had the luxury of a full time nanny and a cleaner! So not like he was stretched! ).

[quote ttcissoboring]@sunshinecats thank you so much for the book recommendation I will check that out.

And yes, I too use a protective mechanism for the losses / sorry for yours too [/quote]
One thing about this - researching options is most often something women do, but it's worth taking a page from fathers on this. Most of the time it's unnecessary. So yes, you might want to look into the local nurseries to see what would be best fit, rather than choosing one. But you probably really don't need to research push-chairs, or even spend too much brain power on how to feed a toddler. Kids of parents who don't think about that stuff do just fine.

A conscious decision to opt out of certain elements of modern parenting can reduce mental load significantly. It's not always easy though because it feels like you are going against the grain more than you might expect.

I feel in our situation the mental load has been the most difficult to share but area where it is most needed.
Yes DH could physically look after the children 50% of the time, but I still had to manage him to do this, remember pe kit, doctor's appointments, homework, clubs, playdates.
This was the stuff which reduced my capacity to work more hours, study and advance my career. It takes up a lot of head space and is exhausting.
In order for me to retrain there were a lot of tears and tantrums and me having to actively allow him to fail so he realised what he had to do to step up.
Now we are truly 50/50 but it was traumatic. And 1 of my children is now an adult. So has been a long haul in our parenting journey

It's possible to split mental load, but it has to be done carefully, or it won't work. It has to have clear areas of responsibility that remain consistent, and make sense, or it quickly falls apart. And you also have to respect that the other person basically gets to make the operational decisions in that area and just let them, even if you would do it differently. It's also more effective if they play to people's strengths and there are some - people with ADD for example, who are often quite poor at admin/management tasks.

There is a trade off for career as well. If you split 50/50, it's likely to impact two careers, if they are full-on types. You can decide instead to have one full on career that goes as far as possible, and one that you treat more like a job. That may have long term financial benefits, or may be preffered by either parent, but there is really no option where there are no trade offs.

There is a trade off for career as well. If you split 50/50, it's likely to impact two careers, if they are full-on types. You can decide instead to have one full on career that goes as far as possible, and one that you treat more like a job. That may have long term financial benefits, or may be preffered by either parent, but there is really no option where there are no trade offs.

That's not true. It is possible for both parents to maintain and thrive in their careers. You just need to ensure that both of you fully support each other and are committed to the 50/50

@SkinnyMirror

There is a trade off for career as well. If you split 50/50, it's likely to impact two careers, if they are full-on types. You can decide instead to have one full on career that goes as far as possible, and one that you treat more like a job. That may have long term financial benefits, or may be preffered by either parent, but there is really no option where there are no trade offs.

That's not true. It is possible for both parents to maintain and thrive in their careers. You just need to ensure that both of you fully support each other and are committed to the 50/50

Surely it depends on the careers you have chosen. Some careers just aren't family friendly. If you both had careers requiring you to be absent for extended periods eg military, you can't both disappear for 2-3 months leaving the kids at home.

Someone needs to stick their head up above the parapet and say they'll take responsibility. For us it was DH as he worked closer to home. It was the simple things like taking unplanned time off because they had upset tummies, colds, doctor etc. I worked away from home quite a bit when they were little so he did these things, the result being he ended up with very little annual leave left over so his holiday as such was time at the allotment or a day at the seaside with the girls.