To wonder if there comes a point where you just have to give up work?

[Bluewatersummer]

I’m hopefully not there yet. But while I wish I could be very feminist about this the fact is DH earns a lot more than me and he always will, his talents lie where money is.

With one child we have managed through a combination of part time, taking turns to take time off when needed, and some good luck as well - haven’t had a lot of sickness to contend with. However, I’m due my second any day now and I’m wondering about a whole host of stuff.

It’s going to be so difficult when DC1 starts school and when DC2 is in nursery, reliance on wraparound care and rushing from A to B to C. I don’t honestly know if it is just easier for everyone - not just me - if one parent gives up work and just has their ‘job’ the children and house. Which isn’t very feminist but would potentially make a big difference to stress levels! Honestly wondering what others think: I’m not making any big decisions just yet.

You haven't acknowledged any wisdom from the women who are ahead of you in this and have said it's not inevitable, it gets easier. Or who have said, be careful, there may be more to this decision than it appears. Or have said, you know you don't have to structure your set up in black or white, there are lots of options in the grey. If you just wanted to (very legitimately) complain about the difficult juggle we would all have been in sympathising with you! But you asked the question and are putting a very negative slant on any answer that isn't encouraging you to become a SAHM.

Part time could be the magical answer! I went to 4 days for a year after each were born and it made a huge difference. I'd have done 3 if I could. Now I'm back 5 days and they are older primary school age and it's so, so much easier. One even has some additional needs and honestly having the cash for private therapies has been amazing.

have only read most of OPs posts and frankly? if your DH wanted to make it work he could.

I was the higher earner but my DH couldn't really change his hours to suit. So we made sure that we had watertight childcare (paid through the nose). And then we arranged who was doing what, and who would sacrifice either a work day or some free time, to fit round what needed to be done around school or whatever.

And it's a struggle.

But blimey, even if i wasn't the higher earner, i would have insisted on the same. I wouldn't give up my financial independence for anyone without watertight financial arrangements to compensate.

yy to this.

i was so stressed and burned out by being a SAHM when the DCs were tiny that my DH took over the 2nd 18 months of DC2s parental leave.

Best decision we ever made.

i wonder how many new fathers with higher earning wives are having the same doubts and wondering the same things?

hmmm

If you would have a good social life for yourself and your children and you enjoy home based crafts which could become a business in future then might be worth giving up work.

Otherwise a standing still career which gets you adult company while your children develop social skills at nursery might be better

What I am saying is that there is obviously a need to think long-term and take steps to financially protect yourself. However a) this is OBVIOUS and b) everyone's 'risk assessment' will be different. Make the point, by all means - it's an important point - but pages and pages of personal doom and gloom anecdotes just come across as 'overcooking the pudding' and verging on patronising. The OP is best placed to make her own assessment in HER circumstances. She doesn't need to hear about various husbands of today and yesteryear who did whatever. This is obvious! Of course women factor this in. And it is simply not true that being a SAHM means you are doomed to an unequal dynamic in your marriage; boredom or resentment. Not true at all. But, as I said, people tend to not post that kind of thing because they will be accused of being smug. So it's not a balanced perspective on here.

I am the higher earner too. If my DH had given up work I could have really pressed ahead and shot up the ladder, into a ' big job'. But I didn't because I didn't want to miss out on so much family life. One uncomfortable truth I see (and maybe in this case I am bitter 😁) is that many of the 'big job' men I work with, both in my company and the professional services firms we work with, love working more than being with their family. They talk the good talk about how important their families are to them, but in terms of time and effort it doesn't stack up. It's not all of them but it's a lot! There are loads of us women in middle management and we're always side-eyeing each other when they bang on about things knowing there's a wife at home making it all possible.

I became a SAHM after my first. It wasn't financially worth it to continue working and I wanted to be home with my DS. I'm pregnant with my second now.

I am worried about my career, but equally the pay was obviously not that great (circa 30k). I didn't see a good enough reason to go back. If wages were better then it would have been a different story. I worked my arse off and got multiple promotions to get to that salary believe it or not!

I did decide to set up a small side business to keep some of my skills up to date and to have something on my CV.

All this said, I would never have taken this financial risk if I was not married and on the property ladder. It's still a risk, but one I'm willing to take.

I think part time can offer a lot of advantages and is pretty different to being full time or a sahp? Seems like you are saying otherwise op but I'm maybe misinterpreting.

I feel like being part time does protect me in that I'm keeping my skills up and keeping my hand in at work in a way that I wouldn't if I was just at home. And 3 days of drop offs and pick ups and taking time off for absences is easier than 5.

I stayed at home when my 3 children were small as I had 3 under 6 and just couldn’t earn enough to pay for childcare (this was in the 80’s).
As I claimed the child benefit I got the HRP for the maximum amount of years. Which is a big chunk of the years required for a pension.
I worked part time, then full time when they were older.
I’m now eligible for my pension and has enough contributions for a full pension, which is now around £200 a week.

This.

DP’s earnings far outstrip mine and he works somewhere that’s been doling out payrises every six months recently. I am part time by choice – I wanted a day with DC, and a day to pursue an alternative career with the idea I’ll gradually reduce hours at my day job and increase my freelance work that I do on that day.

But we split nursery runs, sick days, school transition sessions this month, bedtimes, washing their grubby little clothes, all of that, 50/50, because he’s 50% their parent, regardless of earnings. Society happens to value what he does more highly than what I do, but we both work equally hard – actually if anything, I’m more exhausted at the end of each day because I’m billable by the hour so I’m glued to my desk, whereas he has a more loosey goosey “I’ve just set this experiment going so I’m off for a walk and a haircut” job.

I’m currently on maternity and trying to plan my return to work with a kid in school til 3pm in one direction from the house (wfh) 5 days a week, a kid in nursery in the other direction 4 days a week, a partner who commutes 2 days a week, and all the usual household gubbins to consider, plus finding ways to cover the 13 weeks and inset days and sickness. And initially I did have the same “this is insane, the only time for me will be 10pm after everything is done, by which point I generally like to be comatose, wouldn’t it be easier if…” thought: staring at spreadsheets of it all like confused math lady meme. But I showed DP my prospective hours I planned to suggest to work, which meant sacrificing my freelance day to spread my work into school hours, and he rightly pointed out I’d be covering everything on his commute days, so why should
I also do the burden of pickups and schedules on his WFH days? And that he wants to do the school run and nursery run. When they’re not being devils it can be fun, and it’s where you meet their little pals’ parents to arrange playdates, of course he wants to be a part of that.

I think it’s a short season of life where you rush everywhere, but a much longer season later on when you’re playing catch-up to a crap pension and behind in your career and wondering how you’re going to help your kids at uni, and you look back and think “maybe a cleaner, robot mop/hoover and making DH do 50% of drop-offs would have been the better plan”.

oh it is absolutely a thing. There were a few occasions (usually quarterly closing) where i had to take my DCs to my office on a Saturday (DH was a chef - you can't take Saturdays off willy nilly) and was roundly criticised for being badly organised... (it was fine, the logistics manager let them play with the toy trucks she had, took them out to McD for lunch and bought them ice cream. All good

until a random tuesday when one of the male sales manager (paid more than me, with family locally) brought his toddler in one tuesday because his wife went to london shopping. And was a) lauded as an involved great father who then b) tried to fob kid off on me, subsequently on the office assistant.

You have to decide as a family how to handle things, when to roll with the punches, when to share, when family comes first or when job comes first (with one parent, not with both at the same time). My mum used to fly over from UK when i had long business trips, thankfully she could afford it and wanted to, and so on and so on.

Result? I have gone as far as i wished, pretty much, and have done the things i wanted to do career wise. As has DH. My DCs are adults and are aware, through seeing friends fall into it, how the "mommy track" or being "forced" to go part-time or be a SAHM against your will can happen even to the most feisty of their friends in one case.

It really can be too easy to say "he earns shedloads, it makes sense". If you consider yourself as an economic unit, maybe. But if you go on the relationships or step-parenting board and see how often it goes tits up leaving the SAHP (let's face it, usually the woman) high and dry, facing a shit pension, it gives me pause for thought.

you asked the question and are putting a very negative slant on any answer that isn't encouraging you to become a SAHM.

@BlurredVision I entirely agree that that's what the OP has doing.

It's also interesting that the OP thinks it's overly pessimistic to think about divorce but she takes the worst possible view of how often her children will be ill, talks about the very unlikely possibility of facing disciplinary action for taking time off work as a reason for her to prioritise her husband's career, it's not like she is generally an optimist!

I think it is difficult when you have two locations to pick up and drop off to and I think many toddlers go through a phase where they are ill a lot when they start nursery. But the OP thinks that there will continue to be frantic charging around all through the primary years and it just doesn't have to be the case. As most PP have said.

I think it’s a short season of life where you rush everywhere, but a much longer season later on when you’re playing catch-up to a crap pension and behind in your career and wondering how you’re going to help your kids at uni, and you look back and think “maybe a cleaner, robot mop/hoover and making DH do 50% of drop-offs would have been the better plan”.

so much this!!

The thing is though OP, it is generally a lot easier to get another job or increase your hours if you are in work already.
Whether it is fair or not, employers tend to value paid work over being a SAHM and long gaps in CVs are viewed in a negative light.
Obviously it depends on the field you work in but for many people, particularly anyone who is required to do CPD and/or retain a professional registration it is hugely better to stay in part time work, do the minimum you need to do to keep things ticking along and then pick things up when the children are older. If you give up altogether it may not be theoretically impossible to restart but practically speaking it can be. If I had stopped work altogether I would have had to undergo significant retraining to get back into my field,even at a more junior level and I wouldn't have been able to do it where we live. So though there is a route to do it, it is to all intents and purposes impossible for most people to get back into my field after a career break of any length.
And its not just infidelity to worry about. I've been happily married for over 30 years and I think it's pretty unlikely that either DH or I are going to run off with anyone else at this stage. But we have both genuinely nearly died in the last 5 years - me in an accident and him from complications of Covid. When stuff like that happens you realise how vulnerable you could be if fully reliant on another person.
I still don't live my life worrying about potential disasters even though I have had a number of very negative things happen in recent years but I do plan ahead financially and practically. I never thought I'd need my car insurance, legal cover or my income protection insurance either, but I am really glad I had them.
We all have different thresholds of what we consider acceptable risks in life. If you want to stop work and the risk is acceptable to you then just do it. But it is a risk. * *

@BlurredVision i think I have acknowledged it, but I have to admit I don’t really see how! I realise childhood illnesses stop being perhaps as much of an issue but there’s still the juggling act between work and home and school which is dependent on so many varying factors I don’t think anyone can confidently say ‘it gets easier’ - what they mean is it got easier for them! Without knowing the details of schools, care provided outside those school hours, no one can say oh yes it is easier.

Likewise I am not intending to answer negatively to anyone but when people keep insisting part time is the answer and I know it isn’t because I am part time, that’s not being difficult. I don’t think I will be going down the SAHM route in fact! But the sort of ‘huh just go part time’ isn’t entirely accurate (or fair.) What I have actually experienced is because I am part time there is very little tolerance to me having any other time off at all because I’m only in three days a week as it is. But that’s by the by.

Schools differ, workplaces differ and childcare differs.

@Brefugee perhaps they do. It isn’t my situation so I can’t comment on it. What is more common is for women and men to earn a similar amount so there isn’t a clear one triumphs over the other (or shouldn’t.) I think the aggravating factors for us are absolutely no external backup or support - to the point where if I go into labour outside of nursery hours I’ll be having this baby alone - and DH working away a fair bit. We shall see!

it boils down to one question, tbh: do you trust your husband 100% that he won't have some kind of mid-life crisis and fuck off leaving you high and dry?

In the meantime: the very least i would expect, in your shoes, OP, is that i get an allowance of discretionary spending for me alone, he contributes to my pension, that there are times when he will come home/be home and be a parent/partner and do the things that need doing. And that you have access to joint family finances.

call me cynical, but i have seen it in my own friendship circle. It's not being suspicious or pessamistic. It is being sensible.

I don't think the full answer is going part time, but the thing that worked best for us was a combination of being part time and very good childcare for when I was working. Like you we had no support (my DM died between DC 1 and 2, my DF lives 2 hrs away, my in laws are all young and all work full time) so we had to make up the difference somewhere.

There are lots of ways to achieve this; we did it via a really flexible childminder (and a cleaner!) but a nanny could also work well (albeit expensively), if you decide that the advantages for you of continuing to work outweigh the costs involved. Of course it isn't as 'easy' as one parent being a SAHP, but there are other advantages including your mental health if that's something which helps you keep your own identity - I needed to work, I felt really lost when I was a SAHP before DD1 went to school.

There are absolutely other choices than 'having' to be a SAHP. None of the options on the table are obvious winners though and there are compromises to be made with all of them 🤷🏼‍♀️

I would look to take 18 months out unless you have an amazing part time 'career' type of job- after that I would look for something part time that can be done from home until they are both in school. Re evaluate after that- but as others have said, keep your hand in at something!

You say the "rushing around" falls to you, so it's the worst of both worlds. The rushing around is awful, it is honestly the hardest part of having small children - everything is so bitty and interrupted, you are always on the verge of being late to something or somewhere, never really getting into something and concentrating on it and enjoying working through problems to fully realised creative solutions. It's horrible.

If you give up work, you risk being stuck there for ever. you just become a resource that people dip into at their convenience. Long after the kids stop being small and everyone could divide their time up into chunks such you could support them in a more structured way that also allows you chunks of time to do your things.

I think you should hang in there at work, however part time, however much rushing around - but you should do a deal where one day in 7, or 30, your husband HAS to do the rushing around, because symbolically you must protect yourself from this thing where everyone else's imperatives are immovable and you are just the permanently flexible, frazzled gopher.

Ok so you have a three year old that needs to be picked up at 6, needs to have a hundred questions a day answered, and a breastfeeding one year old who wakes in the night, while your boss wants what they want and all the house is covered in crap and the car needs an MOT and the laundry is overflowing - it's miserable.
But.
Do you still want to be there when it's a 10 year old and a 12 year old and everyone just walks around doing what they want and throwing their questions and admin at you moment to moment? Make them appreciate you. Have a study into which your kids or your husband will think twice before they come, instead of flashing past you shouting "where's my x" 100 times a day, make them come to you and say "are you busy? sorry but can I ask you something? I have looked everywhere for my x and I can't find it. I asked everyone at school / office too and I really think I've lost it. I am really sorry but please can you get me another one and I will really try to look after it this time?" that will happen about once a week, which is better than "where's my -" 100 times a day

Basically OP, your 'risk assessment' comes down to wealth projections and the type of lifestyle you prioritise as a family.

Nobody on here has any idea what your DH does - he could be the next Elon Musk for all anyone knows. There are occasions when it makes absolute financial sense to prioritise one person's earning potential in a couple. If one has the opportunity to make millions in the future - that will be schools, uni, trust funds, houses for kids sorted. What is the point of restricting someone like that, if you happen to be married to him/her? You are not taking a 'financial risk' if, for example, you end up with joint assets and investments worth many many times what you could ever have earned yourself. Most SAHMs I know have made this decision because EVERYONE in the family benefits - financially, stress-wise and educationally (in the case of the children). SAHMs put a lot in re-educational support - not having the extra demand of a job means you have more headspace and energy for all kinds of things, to be perfectly honest. The DH's don't care about the extra income. They want their kids to be with their mums. These are high-achieving families with high expectations who take a lot on and it so makes sense to 'specialise' in this way. Often people have an au-pair as well, but definitely cleaners. It's all relative. You have to weigh things up for yourself and be honest about priorities (for you and your children) and how best to achieve these.

@BlurredVision

One uncomfortable truth I see (and maybe in this case I am bitter 😁) is that many of the 'big job' men I work with, both in my company and the professional services firms we work with, love working more than being with their family. They talk the good talk about how important their families are to them, but in terms of time and effort it doesn't stack up.

Totally this. I completely recognise this syndrome. I'd say about 75% of men working in my industry are like this. It's all endless showing photos of the kids and talking about how much they value family time and take them to football on Saturdays etc but I can't remember any of them once leaving the office early because a child was sick or God forbid taking paternity leave.

Which is why the phrase "it works for our family" always makes me cringe. "It works for our family" is code for "It works for him because he does fuck all with the kids and it works for me because he pays me to make sure the kids and housework don't interfere with his frictionless work life." Each to their own and all that but I always think this puts a very positive gloss on men trying to prolong their freedom by paying their wives to deal with the hard yards of family life.

Bit of a digression.

But I think the "rushing around" which the OP has identified all falls to her is a side-effect of this syndrome. The more time people take off when their kids are young, the more the DH or DP retreats into the escapism of the corporate world, the more general rushing around and picking up on behalf of everyone the woman has to do, the more marginalised the woman becomes and it's an endless cycle of women losing their agency and financial power. Work is a ballache with small kids but it's the only real protection you have against this.

We did this when I had my second. I had horrendous PND/anxiety and stopped leaving the house at one point. This was definitely exacerbated by being alone a lot of the time. It came out of the blue after what was a lovely maternity leave with my first child.

The BEST decision I could have ever made was going back to work (after two years)

I’m not saying this will happen but I do think that if you end up a SAHM then you need to think really carefully about keeping yourself from being isolated and making sure you get time out for yourself.

Admittedly being at work (atm I’m 30 hours a week) is more of a ball ache logistics wise but I much prefer it.

Thepeopleversuswork - the part you're probably missing in your description of the men in your office, is that their wives will WANT to be with their children! They will be having a fantastic time probably. It 100% works both ways.