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.

Surely this is a conversation you need to have with your partner? If they are committed to 50/50 then that’s all that matters, right?

Is it him you doubt? Because no one else’s opinion matters and you can split parenting however you both want to. But you need to be aligned.

(Plus you may be surprised to find you feel differently when the baby arrives. But if you don’t, that’s no one else’s business either).

My DH went part time after I went back to work full time after the first. He became a full time stay at home parent after the second. After both DC started school he went back to part time working. It was predominantly a financial decision but on the whole it has worked very well for the whole family.

I work full time and DH is the primary care giver, does all the cooking and must of the housework. It was a wrench going back to work tbh - I put it off as long as I could. The pandemic/lockdowns/WFH have helped a lot, I don't feel I'm missing out kiddo's childhood as much.

DH often comments that he feels a lot of mental load. We've lapsed into those stereotypical roles but reversed, where I work long hours while he struggles at home and doesn't catch much of a break. It's always hard tbh, unless you have childcare, but that has not worked out for our kiddo.

@RedHelenB

Nurseries and childminders will take babies from a couple of weeks if you want to go straight back to work.

Very few 6 months or increasingly 9 months

We've done all sorts, both part time, one full time, sahm, sahd,... there's no reason not to share parenting in whatever way suits you. My best advice is leave the other parent to it when they're in charge. Let them make mistakes and muddle through. As long as your child is safe, well fed, has interaction and is clean enough it's all good.

I would say we parent pretty equally. But that has not been 50/50 all of the time.
There have been times over the last 20 years where one or other of us has picked up more of the day to day for lots of reasons. Health, work, other children's needs ( we have 3) financial circumstances etc have all impacted the split of responsibility. But I would say we are a team and can equally pick up the slack whatever it is and the reason for it.
So my advice would be start out as a team, play to each others strengths but share the load.

Some of the attitudes in this thread show exactly why there will never be gender equality because we are typecast into the "little woman at home" role. No wonder there's a gender pay gap!

I thought very much like you. I wanted children but I also wanted a career, equal earning power and a decent pension. I went back to work full time when my first was 4.5 months. It was fine. I loved him to bit but as I predicted I was going loopy with boredom at home. I'm just not an earth mother type. We shared all pick ups and drop offs, household chores and baby care. I would say that nevertheless I was the primary parent, like it or not, and I've always borne the mental load. I've tried to ignore it and school uniform doesn't get purchased, party invitations are not responded to and school trips are missed. So I do it so my children don't miss out. I think it's fairly inevitable that the mother becomes the primary parent as it kind of gets set in stone during maternity leave. My husband does do more cooking and all laundry though so it kind of balances.

A few years later we had a second child and the law had changed and we shared the leave, 20 weeks each (I earned more by this point so it made sense). H having sole charge of the kids and house while I was at work did open his eyes to the fact that it's not all one long weekend! He now takes on a bit more mental load ( will buy children's winter coats, make dentist appointments, prompt them to do homework without me telling him, though I still bear 80% of mental load I would say, though he still does all laundry!)

So I do have two children, a successful career and a good pension and I'm still happily married. It can be done. It helped that both my children loved nursery- both very gregarious and "busy" children. (I do wonder how they would have fared if shy and clingy but I digress...) But if push came to shove I'd probably have to admit that I am the primary parent.

You asked about SAHDs. I've seen a few households where this has happened and to be honest it doesn't seem to work that well. I'm sure there are exceptions to this but the SAHDs I know have not relished their role as much as they thought. One of them refuses to cook, ever, as he's been looking after kids all day so my friend does everything when she gets in from work. Another couple have just split up because the dad got increasingly resentful about the smallness of his world. Guess what he is leaving the family home and the kids are staying with FT working mum! Maybe these are bad examples and maybe society is to blame but niggling at the back of my mind is the notion that men aren't biologically programmed to be primary parents.

Hope this gives you some things to mull over, positive and negative.

For those saying to re-think kids I reckon it will soon be the majority of women who feel this way... add that to the already dropping fertility rates worldwide and we may have a bit of a population crisis!

I would say you sound a bit panicky, OP - just from the tone of what you've written. You've acknowledged that you know anything can happen but you need to really internalise that and make sure you are actually happy with that scenario. If you are, sit down with your partner and be really clear about (all being well) what your expectations are and confirm you are both in agreement.

If you go ahead then I wish you the very best of luck and hope you have a happy healthy family.

Speaking as someone who started back to work early I will confess it was difficult (a year on, despite being the full time worker, I still wake multiple times a night to breastfeed our baby). Pumping at work was not as difficult as I thought (actually nice to have a 15 minute break twice per day + lunch, agreed with my employer) as long as you make a plan. Number 1 tip - mastitis is a big risk for returning to work mums!! Look it up and make sure you know how to prevent, treat and when to get medical help - honestly the most I'll I've felt in years and hit during the space of a one hour meeting.

Modern feminism can make you feel a bit like you're owed the perfect family and the high flying career and that you are some sort of failure if you struggle with this. Actually going through it has been an eye opener for me and for a while I felt a bit disenfranchised about the whole thing.... but now our family is in the rhythm of it all it's going pretty well and I've discovered I am capable of bossing it after all (ok that last part is a bit tongue in cheek).

Why are you bothered about what you perceive to be the 'norm'?

Surely you do what works best for you as a family without giving a thought to what others may say about your decisions.

You may recover in a week and want to go back to work, you may well decide once baby arrives that there's no way you want outside childcare.

Plenty of dad's are stay at home parents, if your husband is showing inclinations that this is what he wants then let him do it rather than decide he's only saying it for the sake of it?

Some fretting about the so called norm and do what works for you. Just bare in mind what you feel right now may go out of the window once the child arrives

My spouse was the main carer for about 7 years when our kids were small, many of those as a S/WAHD. There were judgements here and there, more rude remarks to his face while I got faux innocent questions of why I also wasn't at certain things, but most of it was fine.

I had similar fears to you - my spouse said all the right things about wanting to centre things around family and things, I wasn't entirely sold on the idea of kids when we met and I wouldn't call myself maternal, but he convinced me even though I knew what's said and what happens can be very different things. He was a man of his word though, but it can be hard to tell that upfront even with the many many conversations we had on it. I do recommend having those discussions, but also keeping adaptability in mind.

We 'switched' when our youngest was 2 because I became very ill, he also had to be my carer for a bit and we decided since my career was in flames and I was already making plans to consider other options that he'd WOH while I recovered and figured things out. He works night in part so he can be here during the day if there is an emergency and always around when the kids come home from school and to make dinner.

I'd still say we're 50/50 when it comes to household care though it tends to be more he does 90%+ of some areas (like cooking, meal planning, grocery shopping) while I do 90%+ others (like laundry and clothes management) with a few areas like general tidying split between everyone. In most parenting things, he's still a very active father though I've become the main contact for many things and when it comes to school and education, I run the show though he gives as much support as he can, but like with the cooking it's more how our interests align with each other.

Those first year or so after we switched were rough for many reasons, but we refound our rhythm. I think being able to make those adjustments and refind that over and over is important.

OP you sound very similar to me before I had children - I had a great career and fully expected to bounce back to work, full time, after 3 months. My job (and the life I had) were very important to me and I assumed that I would be back, firing on all cylinders, just as soon as possible. We planned for both my DH and I to take on the caregiving together as equally as possible.

What I hadn't anticipated was how I would feel once my baby arrived. My priorities literally flipped 180 degrees - I couldn't bare the thought of returning to work and leaving my baby. I wanted to do all of caregiving, not because it was expected of me as a woman, but because that's just how I felt (thanks Mother Nature and those pesky hormones!) Three children later I have my work job but in my head my 'real' job is raising my kids and I'm very happy that's it that way. It's tough to do both but it can be done.

I suppose what I'm saying is try not to get too worked up and make too many concrete plans around the caregiving because you just don't know how you are going to feel when your baby arrives. There's no right or wrong with who looks after the child, only what's right for you and your family.

In the Netherlands we get 16 weeks in total fully paid. You need to take at 4-6 weeks before your due date so usually you go back to work after 10-12 weeks.
I went back after 12 weeks with both my children. DH and I both went down to 4 days working. I never regretted it. It means I still have a great career and I love being a mum. But to stay at home for a year is what would be a nightmare to me. I need work to be able to be me and therefore I'm being the best mum for my children.

If you feel this way it may be best to not have any. Why put yourself and them through it??!

OP I work in an area where its very uncommon for women to take more than 4-6 months off after giving birth. Must women in my field are very driven by their work, have children in their mid 30s or early 40s, have partners who work in the same field and benefit from a decently supportive work environment for parents. I see many families who work 4 days each, nanny share, get promotions on maternity leave etc.

I've no idea the exact realities of people's lives but it's very common to hear discussions of equal parenting, fathers bringing babies in to the mother for breastfeeding throughout the day or leaving work to collect sick children etc. So I don't think 50/50 or something like it is inevitably impossible.

I think posters are saying to consider if parenting is for you as you sound quite clinical about it. It’s easy enough saying you don’t want to be the main care giver and having DH agree to take the lead but in practice it can be different. Baby may be born early, have difficulties, might be all for mummy, as many often are after only knowing you for 9months.

Just be aware that babies don’t work to our schedule or plans, you talk about a 50/50 split like it’s a business deal but in reality it’s very different.

Ds1 was a textbook baby, easy and as I was returning to work, he was into a routine fairly early on. I did have a year maternity leave and yes it does vary woman to woman but my body had been through hell with meds and surgery to prepare my body for conceiving, it needed time to recover.

Ds2 was poorly, under a paediatrician and basically attached to me for a year. I cannot imagine a childminder or nursery that would have taken him. He had severe reflux, screamed in pain, vomited all the time and
was on a prescription formula. Luckily at this point I was a SAHM.

It is great to have intentions and ideas about how things will be as a parent. I don't think anything quite prepares you for the sheer exhaustion. I know there will be someone on here who says they had triplets, returned to work 4 minutes after they were born, held down a full time job and had time to write a book. Everyone is different.

So what if someone judges you, tell them to fuck off.

@ttcissoboring

You really do need to consider if children are right for you though, because it comes across like you would view them as an inconvenience. That's not s nice way to grow up.

See - this is the judgement I am referring to! I have already decided I would like children.

This statement is completely unnecessary and judgemental.

And no-one ever applies this to men, even those who spend no time with their children.

Formula feeding is fine if that’s what someone chooses to do, but there’s no getting away from the fact that from a medical point of view, breastfeeding is better for mum and baby.

Not always.

My husband is self employed now but day to day is a SAHD. I have just had my second and am taking the year off but my DH and I are definitely a 50/50 team when it comes to being the primary carer, my DH moreso when I am at work.

@SkinnyMirror How so?

After my ML DH did become a SAHD. I earn a lot more than him and so it made no sense for me to be the one who stayed home. Its relatively unusual but not so uncommon where women are higher earners.

My one piece of advice would be whatever happens, you both have exactly the same time off after the birth. No excuses, whether or not whoever gets paid more or whose job is more big and important. If your partner makes excuses like you'll be worse off, or even if you have those excuses in your mind, then that tells you what the problem is.
Yes you'll likely be worse off "financially", but otherwise you'll be worse off as a family for the rest of your lives.
You and your partner have a legal right to have over 6 months each off as shared parental leave. So it's perfectly possible, if your finances are tight then do 3 months each, but whatever the constraint, apply it to both of you, not just one.
Then you are both muddling through together and there's no precedent where one parent is more experienced therefore the default parent.
Good luck though, it's tough!

Thanks for all posts - I have read all of them thought may not have responded to all but to see all perspectives is very helpful,

I do sounds clinical in my approach perhaps - I think because what I see IRL in my circles no one seems to have the 50/50 balance so I was posting to see if possible or if I am indeed deluding myself being naive.

The fact that many posters have done this and said it's achievable makes me hopeful - if after giving birth I WANT to be primary caregiver then I'm fine with that. Of course if my DH something happened to him and I had to, I would step up, but I really want to go into it with the intention and a realistic one of it being 50/50 where possible.

I posted to see if and how others have done this as in my circles it is not the norm and I don't see anyone IRL with this arrangement personally so it's good to hear others perspectives and arrangements.

@ttcissoboring why do you want DC? If your DC will be under the care of nursery workers for most of their waking hours, what’s the point? Could both you and DH go part-time to ensure 50:50 duties?