To want to stay home with our daughter

[Autumnmoons]

My husband has landed a new job whilst I am on maternity leave (I am due to return to work in March 2023) and it has more than doubled his income (which was more than my full time wage) - is it unreasonable not return to work? We have survived off statutory mat pay so far and I think it’s manageable financially. My mother and father in law would be our childcare so no additional costs there. My husband is concerned with the cost of living crisis and bills and energy bills rising that it makes more sense for me to return to work so we can be more financially secure. I think we will be fine and I could simply get a new job if not. AIBU?

What I'd do

Doubling salary doesn't usually mean double disposable income because of scaled tax bands, so you might miss your salary more than you think.

Go to work, save your salary to try living off just his, and see how it goes and make a decision after 6 months.

Every mother on mat leave feels like they want to stay at home, and cries when they go back and have to leave their baby (at least yours is with family so you dont have the settling in at nursery guilt!). But being at home with a toddler is a bit different to a baby, they need a lot more stimulation and lots of people have gone back to work. Personally I didnt realise I wasnt feeling myself until I went back to work and settled back in after a few months, and realised I felt like 'me' again.

If you do decide to stay off, make sure your husband is on board, talk about how finances will be set up and how you split spending money, and put some money aside from his salary into your pension. Also talk about how much he will help with house chores and how much hobby time you will have. Lots of men seem to assume that it's their money if their wife isnt working, so they dont have to lift a finger and they can spend all weekend playing golf and make all the financial decisions

@Autumnmoons In terms of career and maintaining a senior position, my line manager is a very senior director and she works PT. She has done since her first child was born and he is 10 now. When she took the role at our place she specified she wouldnt be doing 5 days - initially they were reluctant but she's been there 3 years now and manages it perfectly. It can work.

I work 4 days per week, I have done since my first son was born. I have fridays off and I feel it really gives me a good work/life balance. I've had 3 promotions in the time I've worked PT. I think you could make it work without any detriment to your career. The drop in salary is something to adjust to but it doesn't feel like you're being short changed when you get a long weekend and more time with your child. A friend of mine used to have Wednesdays as her non working day to break up the week.

If anyone can organise their working week into 4 days then its a mum!

Do you only get statutory maternity pay?

Sorry I’m finding my feet with replies!

I meant he will be on board with doing more of the CC and around the house if I return to work, it may be confusing as I hadn’t quoted the message I was replying to who was asking about household workload

I wouldn't go into negotiations with work with that mindset.

I have had promotions working part time.

Go to them with a proposal for how you could make it work.

Think about compressed hours, maybe a jobshare partner etc

Part-time works great for me/us as a family, but I've never wanted to be a SAHP. I think when you're in that newborn bubble you can't imagine leaving them but with DD1 I was absolutely ready to get back to work when she was around 9 months and expect I'll be the same with this one too. I'm back in April 2023 but actually already looking forward to doing my keeping in touch days later in the year!

I’m in my fifties and looking at all the women in my family or close friends I have known for many years the way our lives have turned out is so variable. I would say a third have ended up in decent long term marriages or partnerships where money is not an issue. The rest is a mixed bag of ok to really terrible struggles with money and awful men of varying levels.

Its an unpalatable truth but the only person you can truly rely on is yourself and I say that as one of the lucky with a really lovely DH of almost 27 years and no money worries.

Please remain working at least PT, even if partners are a positive delight I have met a few widows in my life and some of them were widowed at tragically young ages.

I wouldn’t be financially dependent on another person, man or woman. You need to think about pensions and savings.
if you go down this route I would speak to your DH about paying into a pension for you.
if you retire together, he still benefits. If you split up you have your own pension.

I received enhanced mat pay, if I don’t return I would need to pay this back and I would from savings so not an issue if it came to it. I’d be happy to pay this from my personal savings even. Perhaps a risky decision but there we are. I’d have to return for 12 months to avoid paying it back.

You should consider PT - so that when you are ready to go FT you give yourself the best chance of doing so…

Its natural to get upset at just the thought of leaving baby at first.

Your DH isnt comfortable, and I think that would lead to resentment.

I also would hate to rely on someone else for money.

I think find some middle ground and ask work if you can return part time?

Ah, OK, thales for clarifying, OP, and apologies for the misunderstanding.

OP - this is MN. You are not going to get a balanced view about SAHMs on here. Just know that.

There are women drawn to these threads who, to put it bluntly, know they are not cut out to be SAHMs themselves, so they find the fact that other women are, and that some families highly value the SAHM role, to be bewildering and even threatening.

There are even more women who can't afford to SAH even if they wanted to. So this sort of thread is always going to provoke a degree of angst and jealousy from some (well, quite a lot, to be fair).

There are women on these threads whose husbands won't even have shared finances with them. No wonder they can't comprehend the concept of a SAHM!

There are women who have been brainwashed into thinking you can't be "equal" in a marriage if you don't both work. In other words, they have come to equate "value" with income. Again, that is about them, not you.

There are women in here who have been with horrendous men and who have been left very bitter following divorce. Their sentiments are understandable but, equally, not everything needs to be viewed through a doomsday lens - nor does everything need to be a race to the bottom either.

Anyway, amid all the projection (which is 95% of these threads), there may be the odd poster who is genuinely not projecting and has an actual salient point - ie. think about the impact on your pension; ease of getting back into the workplace etc.This however, is not rocket science and it sounds as if you are eminently capable of considering these issues as they pertain to you. All the anecdotes about so-and-so's cousin's neighbour who struggled to get back after x years is neither here nor there. They are not in your role or industry!

In the real non-MN world, of course millions of women take a few years out to care for their children pre-school - to great success and to the benefit of the whole family. It's hardly compulsory to put your kids in daycare, or with other people. Not should it ever be.

I agree your DH needs to be on board but, the point is, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It's your family. Of course your feelings count. Talk to your DH. Point out the benefits of your child having his / her mum around for a few more years. It's not as if you're saying you will never work again!

You will work out what is best for your family in YOUR circumstances. But no, in principle, of course YANBU to want to be with your own child!

Thanks...flipping autocorrect!

I don’t mean to discredit PT work or the ability to do it and do it well, My company has a bad habit of throwing PT workers to the wayside. Im willing to tackle that culture and push back but ultimately, it’s a bit uphill. Ideally, 2/3 days is palatable for me. 4/5 isn’t right now.

Thank you so much @fizzythedog

this has really cut through the BS for me and aligns with the advice I would give others (and myself now)

Do what you think is best, what feels right for you.
I took out a part time job in the evenings, approx 3 evenings a week so l could be at home in the day with my sons and l never regretted it.

In a situation where you have enough income to pay for Childcare and your dh wants you to work it's unwise to not go back.

Women are definitely punished financially if you don’t go back to work- unless your DH can transfer you the equivalent of your salary so you personally can still pay into a pension & savings in your name.

There’s nothing wrong with looking after your own DC if you want to and if you’re fortunate enough to have the choice to have one adult with more time at home it’s an option not all families have. We have chosen that because my DH couldn’t do his job and have a family without live in childcare really due to lots of travel. As a team it makes better sense to support that job because of the financial gain overall to our family. Me going back to work would be a ‘less efficient’ choice because we’d be working more hours collectively for less money. With our current set up we have a far less stressful lifestyle which I also think is important to everyone’s health & well being. My DS will be going to nursery 2 days a week from September so I can work on our house renovation which also makes financial sense as we will be increasing the value of our house - there’s probably a years worth of work left and the increase in value would be more than my annual salary.

I also have a few things that I feel give me some protection- I am not in the UK - I have good savings in my own name which I continue to contribute to & I could go back to my job quite easily as I worked really hard to secure my place before I left.

Its a really personal choice - I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer. It’s not a free ride being a SAHP - I feel many of the comments here suggest it is. If you’re really a team, then it makes very good financial sense to capitalise on the fact you have some ‘freedom’ during this time and you could do some training or a course that boosts your earnings long term. That way you’ve economised childcare, made the most of it and are better off long term on all counts. xo

I would do this,I'd just go part time.

I think you'd be sensible to consider part time work, even if just to give you a focus outside the home. It's a lot of pressure on your child to be your sole focus, especially if you're fairly driven anyway. I've been the child in that situation and would not recommend.

Part time would also take some of the pressure off your husband. I'm the main breadwinner in our family at the moment and, whilst it's the right thing for our family for now, it is a lot more pressure than I anticipated. That's even more the case at the moment with projected rises for, well, everything. Don't forget that with inflation your savings are also shrinking. If I'd been forced in to that situation I'd be pretty resentful of the person doing it.

The last thing I'd suggest you think about is if you'd actually be properly fulfilled longer term as a stay at home parent? Because I don't know anyone who is, but plenty of the mums I've met are when working a couple of days a week. This is predominantly those with children on reception age and below, it seems like most people enjoy it the first year or two. Obviously this is a limited sample size, and it's important to note that the full time ones aren't any happier.

It’s unwise to do it if your husband isn’t fully on board.

From his perspective, he’s just got this pay increase and it’s removed a lot of stress from him in regards to income and being able to weather the cost of living crisis that’s underway. However, you’ve now turned around and put a new financial stressor on him by wanting for give up your job and have him fully financially responsible for the family.

if it’s a decision you make unilaterally/pressure him into agreeing with, then it’s very likely to result in resentment, which in turn can send a relationship spiralling.

it’s one thing deciding between staying at home and going to work when both are options you’re fully supported in, but that’s not your situation.

I agree that there's absolutely nothing wrong with it if both partners agree. If that's how you choose to organise your family life and it works for your family, great. The problem here arises because the OP's DH doesn't want to be the sole breadwinner. The OP cannot force him into that position and it would be wrong for her to try.

This has nothing to do with other women being jealous or bitter or any of the other nonsense spouted by @fizzythedog above. It's simply about saying that there is no absolute right for anyone to SAH with their kids if their partner/spouse is unwilling to support that arrangement.

The default position is that both partners are equally responsible for earning a living, taking care of the children and managing the home. It is fine to negotiate an arrangement whereby those tasks are divided between you so that one person takes on more responsibilities in one area while the other takes on more responsibilities in another, but nobody gets to make those decisions unilaterally. This is just common sense, surely?

I’m a SAHM (trailing spouse) it’s quite boring tbh. You may enjoy it but if I were you I’d try for part time as a compromise. That way you can also see both sides and make a more informed decision.

I'd really put your energy into a plan to make your job work as a PT role to present to your work. Ten years ago, I applied to WFH when no one else was doing it in a section of over a thousand staff (the director was very anti). Everyone told me not to even bother applying. I applied, got a renewable trial period of three months, really high targets that I had to meet to keep my "privileges", but I was the most productive team member, had a good reputation for quality and in the end they came round to the idea. It just takes one or two people in the organization to change their minds about these things for the culture to tip the other way.

If it doesn't work out in your current job, you can look at something else PT, but it sounds like it would be worth your time and energy making the current job work better for you.

Give some consideration to whether it wouldn't be better for you to do a compressed schedule. Everyone I know who does PT as four or five half days really struggles to keep to their hours. Not the case for those on compressed schedule. If you did two days compressed for example, with your DH doing pick up and drop off and your DD with DGPs the rest of the time. Also, I know someone who does compressed Monday and Thursday so that problems don't build up/hang around for ages while she's not in the office.

I am sole earner at the moment through no fault of DH's, but it is really stressful, especially with the current climate and my health is starting to wear down because of it. I have every sympathy with you too wanting to stay with your DD, but I just can understand that he might not feel able to cope with the worry of being sole earner.