Who is in the wrong - me or DH? (Child care related)

[fedup198r]

I’m a married mum with a young DS. I recently got a promotion at work, which DH and I were delighted and relieved about as we’re about to renew our mortgage and were extremely worried about the interest rate rises. My promotion will give us a good amount of extra financial cushioning which means we won’t need to sell our house (as we really feared we might have to) and can afford the increased payments for a good while yet.

But… (there’s always a but!) the issue is that because I’ve had this promotion, I’m having to spend quite a bit more time at work, doing meetings and just generally being more present on site. My workload has also increased.

As a result of my increased earnings and time commitment, DH and I agreed he could give up his current job, which he has said for years he doesn’t enjoy at all, and become a SAHD (which he’s always said he would love to do) whilst pursuing a passion project of his and trying to make a business out of it.

Anyway, two weeks into my new job and I got home tonight after a stressful day. DH was in a grumpy mood and complaining he was exhausted after a day of looking after DS and needed a break.

I totally get we need to share the childcare responsibilities, but I feel like I’ve had no break at all today - I got up with the toddler, changed and got him ready and did his breakfast. Then I left for work, spent all day at the office in a stressful role (though I did at least get a half hour lunch break!) then as soon as I’m home, it’s my responsibility to take DS again.

OTOH, I’m fully aware of how draining it is to have sole responsibility for a child all day. But I feel like DH got to switch off when I got home, whereas I had to commute, then work all day in a high pressure job, before getting straight back home and spending several hours playing with DS before putting him to bed whilst DH relaxed. Where is my free time?

Am I in the wrong?

That's because this is a board for women having problems in their relationships. So the posts will obviously skew to bad behaviour from men. The fact these men aren't mentioned in posts here doesn't mean they don't exist

Lol you’re gonna get cocklodged. Business will come to nothing and once your child is at school he won’t return to work.

Good luck.

Ermmmm, there are threads like this all the time where the woman is at home with the child and the husband wants a break when he gets home from his big stressful job and everyone says he should muck in and do the childcare and where is the woman's break when she's been looking after the kids/baby all day. Interesting when the shoe is on the other foot.....

I think a short break after you have had a little time to adjust to being back at home is fine. But not switching off and handing over

I don’t think you’re wrong but on threads where the genders are reversed everyone always says the Dad needs to take over childcare as soon as they xlme home because childcare is a full time job.

They really don’t.

Can you give any examples?

Every thread has the odd extreme view but in general SAHMs are also expected to
shoulder most of the household work.

I don’t think it’s reasonable for you to be working all day then doing everything at home while he relaxes unless he’s up all night with DC or there is something else going on like sickness. Generally speaking, weekends, evenings and mornings need to be shared with each of you getting equal leisure time.

Realistically, though, if he’s going to be building a business with a toddler at home, you’re probably going to have to be pulling significant child care shifts when you’re home so he has some space to concentrate on it because he’s unlikely to be able to do that with a toddler to look after. Is this what you both envisioned? And do you really think he will build a business or will all the time be about pursuing his passion in a more hobbyist manner (which is a lot easier and more fun)? Because it’s probably a lot more work between you than you were covering together in your previous set up.

In my opinion, nobody should get a break until toddler is in bed. So for example one of you makes dinner and the other looks after toddler. One of you does bedtime routine and the other washes up etc. How you split that between you is up to you.

When I was on maternity leave DH got in from work and completely took over looking after the baby so I could cook and clean.

Now I'm at work and DH is at home the majority of the days. I still cook and clean when I finish work and he continues to look after the baby. DH also tried to offload all childcare on me when I finished work until I asked him if he would be cooking and cleaning then...he quickly changed his mind.

In terms of mornings, we take it in turns to look after the baby while the other person showers and dresses.

2 things,

1 - you should generally share the load when you get home from work
2 - why are you playing with your DC for several hours before they go to bed? If you are working normal full time hours you’d probably be home around 6ish, just an estimate, but with a toddler that’s time for bed time routine and bed, otherwise yes you will be tired and so will the toddler.

He has full responsibility for childcare when you're at work then it should be completely shared when you're back from work. He doesn't get to chill for the rest of the day. Equally you don't get to chill when you get home. I know how hard it is. We have 2 children a 4 Yr old and 1 Yr old and I've just gone back to work and know both sides of the coin. Everyone wants a break but when you have young children you both have to be in the trenches together and it's full on.

You arriving home should mean that you start looking after ds too but shouldn't mean that your h relaxes for the rest of the day. Looking after ds is tough so he may prefer to do more household chores alone like cook dinner or tidy - that way he doesn't having ds follow him around wanting attention. Relaxing time is after ds has gone to bed.

Why not sit down with him and work out between the two of you what is reasonable to expect?

for example I don’t think it’s unreasonable that:

• he gets toddler up and dressed and breakfasted (unreasonable to expect the parent who is off to work to do this also)
• he does all laundry during the day/ stripping beds, keeping house tidy after himself and surfaces wiped (but not necessarily deep cleaning)
• he is responsible for meal planning and food shopping (online if easier and delivered during the day)
• he preps supper during the day so ready for evening meal
• when your child is big enough he is responsible for school drop offs/ collections, school uniform, shoes, school events, daily reading etc.
• he looks after dc during this and schedules in some groups/ park visits/ library visits/ activities at home.

A lot of this he can get DC involved in (it takes longer but pays off when older!) eg ‘can you match the socks’ when doing laundry. ‘I bet you can’t carry this loaf of bread to the side’ when unpacking shopping. Giving DC a cloth to wipe something with whilst wiping down the surfaces. He’s still interacting and playing whilst doing so.

This still leaves a lot shared, being with DC when you are home, life admin, more thorough clean, house maintainance etc.

when you are home it should be 50:50 so long as whilst looking after the toddler he’s doing other stay at home duties. That might mean you take over the toddler and he cooks food/ finishes jobs.

there are tough days with a toddler and he may not always be able to do it all, but staying at home doesn’t equal only looking after DC during ‘work hours’.

I struggled massively on maternity and when I was staying at home. But once I got myself into the mindset this was my ‘job’ and that it wasn’t ‘free time’ or equivalent to what used to be my time off I found it much easier.

You still need to do your share of parenting and looking after the house.
but…. Downtime needs to be shared, and it doesn’t seem to . So you’ll need to sit down and discuss what works, what doesn’t work.

There’s a difference between taking over for half an hour so the SAHP can catch their breath, and basically doing all childcare during the child’s waking hours except while at work. It’s reasonable to share the non-work hours so both partners get some time off, it’s not reasonable to think being a SAHP to one toddler is so impossibly hard it absolves you of any other responsibilities. I am a SAHM and I’d say the same to OP if the sexes were reversed.

Looking after one toddler is sometimes boring and annoying and occasionally stressful - but that’s the nature of the job. It’s not really that hard, especially when the child still naps, and then when they turn three they start being eligible for free nursery hours. If he doesn’t enjoy being a SAHP he should just go back to work. That said, he’s been doing it for a fortnight, he probably needs some time to adjust, find his routine and rhythm and activities and stuff.

You’ve not really said what your hours are, how old the child is etc but my general view is that mornings are hard work and the person with the least stressful start needs to be doing the morning stuff. And in my mind that order tends to be ‘working with commute, working at home, staying at home. ‘

You have one child that is of an age they don’t actually have to be anywhere on time. You have a job where presumably you do. We both work- husband full time, me 4 days. The only circs where I wouldn’t do morning routine on my nwd is if I was really sick. Slightly different if you’re still breastfeeding but otherwise I’m not sure why you’re doing it.

When I was a SAHM as soon as DH walked in the door I wanted to give him the baby. If he wanted to shower first it would piss me off Seems funny now but I can vividly remember counting down the minutes to him coming home so I could get a break. I did do pretty much everything though, all cooking, cleaning, night wakes, the lot so on balance I don’t think I was unreasonable.

Exactly.

Being the sole earner isn't a 24-7 job and neither is being a SAHP. Both parents need to split everything 50/50 when they're at home.

I’m quite surprised at some of the answers here.. why does a SAHP have to do everything home/child related 24/7??

surely you both work your ‘jobs’ and share the rest of the time, I do think the sahp should be doing the chores as part of their ‘job’ though, it’s not fair for the working parent to come home to a shit hole and have to do everything that could have been done during the day?

we both work FT but when DH comes home I give him 30-60 mins to decompress from work, have a shower, go on his phone whatever, then he takes over everything while I go out to work. He gets his downtime after our DD is in bed.

I think the crux of it is making sure you BOTH respect each other’s roles and are considerate to each other, if you don’t have that it’s really breeds resentment.

He’s not being fair to you at all.

I’m sorry, but I have never seen this work out the way the mum thinks that it ought to. We had a couple of dads at the NCT group who, where going to be the stay at home, primary carers, what they actually did was dumped the kids on the other women at the Playgroup, while they messed around on their phone, running their very important business. again local park, identical scenario. Half an eye the kid, no engagement. Essential equipment, missing water, hats, snacks, coats rain gear. Those who joined in with the mums visiting each others houses relied on the other Mums to provide all of the above.

When we met Mum’s at a few summer events, the general gist of it was she was run freaking rugged, basically a single parent, but with none of the benefits.

Weird take. I wasn’t particularly interested in being a SAHP, I found it pretty dull and unfulfilling, so I went back to work at 4 months PP. doesn’t mean I don’t love my child.

The thing is there are two ways of looking at this.

One is that you get to further your career while your husband has to stay at home and do the vast majority of the parenting.

The other is that you are having to work harder to provide for your family while your husband gets to stay at home and spend time with your child.

Whether you are being unreasonable or not depends to some extend on which of those viewpoints you take.

That being said, I’d argue that he got to give up a job he didn’t enjoy so he needs to accept that parenting is his job now and to commit to it fully (that “passion project” may have to wait) - and that means he does the parenting in the mornings, not you. On the other hand, you’d think you’d want to spend time with your child once you were home from work, now you’re seeing less of them because you’re working longer hours - but you’re right, it’s unfair that he gets to relax all evening if you don’t get any down time at all. So he does mornings, you give him a short child-free break when you get home, and you both accept no-one gets any proper free time until your child’s in bed.

*extent (thanks autocorrect)

I think either view can work, you just have to agree the balance between you really.

I'm a sahm and DH is a top ratr tax payer so his job is high pressured (though he's easy going so doesn't tend to get stressed about it). He's always offered to get our 2 dc dressed and given breakfast before work so I can get myself ready, partly to make the mornings easier for me but also because it's a nice opportunity to spend time with them before he's away from them for 9 hours. He takes DC1 to school on the way to work. When he gets home I'm definitely ready for him to muck in with helping the dc, as spending all day with a toddler is hard work! He helps with the chores around dinner and feeding, then we take one child each for bath and bedtime. So both of us are doing childcare as soon as he walks through the door. We both get a chance to relax once the dc are asleep and the kitchen is cleaned up. But being able to split the burden is enough of a break for me. That's an arrangement that we just fell into and has never been an issue, the dc rush up to DH when he gets home so he'd never get a rest even if I offered to give him a break! He's delighted to see them after a day in the office too.

But that's just what works for us. Other couples take turns and do alternate nights but take the whole responsibility on their nights. For me I think I'd really miss my dc if I was at work all day so I'd look forward to doing dinner and bath times with them.

What working women need is wives.

I swapped my ex-husband for an au pair. It was bloody fantastic, life changing.