Childcare when both high earners

[Beedleneedle]

My partner today gave me shit because I haven’t got our son vaccinated against chicken pox. I suggested that it’s not impossible for him to take the day off and organise it either to which he replied he didn’t know how or where?
Neither did I until I researched it!
turns out im “better at that sort of thing”
I suggested ok, fuck it, I’ll quit my £170k a year job and then happy to cover all childcare requirements. AIBU to suggest all childcare should be 50/50 if earnings are the same?

how often do you have HV visits? i had one after my babies and then no more.

And this is why I suggested a nanny.

Tbh if we had a joint household income of 340k, I'd be hiring a nanny to help with stuff. Maybe not medical appointments, I'd rather do those myself obviously. But for household stuff, I absolutely would!

Alas. With a relatively poor joint income of 100k, we struggle on without a nanny........ 😬

You sound hostile, Ops.
You both should be able to make plans of how to delegate important child care tasks.
Are you better at remembering which shots are due? If you are you should inform DH - don't leave him ignorant.

Allocate him some appointments, show him where the information is gathered and decide to leave the health details about your child in a mutually accessable place.

The person with the most time would be ideally placed to take DC to medical appointments.
Your earnings matter not, though with both of you seemingly resentful about taking time off work to care for DC and with your household income being high, hiring a nanny could be beneficial to DC.

She earns the same.... Read the OP

90% of her follow posts are about earning disparity between couples!

where in the op does it say they earn the same? 😐

There are only a certain number of hours in a day. No matter how much each partner earns they should split childcare if both work full time. In fact I could argue that the higher paid you are average more flexibility you have. A checkout worker can't use any of their work hours to do or organise things. A CEO can.

'If one partner is earning 30k and the other earning 200k, I would think that it would make sense for the lower earner to take time off for family appointments'

Not sure why this statement is getting so much criticism. In almost all jobs there is a margin of discretionary time and mental energy. Certainly if a couple's joint ambition is to simply maximise earnings, it makes sense to give the higher earner that margin. Much easier to get your pay from 170 to 350 than from 0 to 170.

How is the salary relevant? You both work ft so what difference does it make?

DH and I both earn 6 figure salaries. We would never want a nanny as I’d feel
that would encroach into our private family space neither of us would want.

As for tasks relating to DC who is currently 2 well I guess we informally split them the best we can.

It helps if you are good or learn to be good at different things.

I do the online shopping order whereas DH spends a lot more time researching potential schools for example.

I sort out all DC’s clothing whereas DH takes him swimming every week.

We do of course do many things together but definitely make an effort to split fairly those that we don’t.

The chickenpox vaccine was a new one to us as well. We booked it in at our local Boots store and it was minimal effort to get sorted. Your DC will need 2 doses so perhaps agree to go and do 1 each.

If one partner is earning 30k and the other earning 200k, I would think that it would make sense for the lower earner to take time off for family appointments

No. It's more nuanced than that. It depends on the nature of the job and particular commitments. DH earns more than me but has far more flexibility generally as I'm an academic with teaching commitments. Therefore if I'm teaching then he needs to take the time off.

In fact I could argue that the higher paid you are average more flexibility you have. A checkout worker can't use any of their work hours to do or organise things. A CEO can.

Yep. This is why I have more scope for home life stuff than DP. He has to be physically on site to do his job between certain times. I don't, I can WFH/ any site and flex my hours too. That flexibility comes partly because of my higher salary. So I take on more at home when it's needed.

Higher paid jobs have some correlation with more stress and responsibility

This is not necessarily true at all. Research in the civil service showed that higher managers were LESS stressed than their staff. The higher managers were outraged at this, but there we go.

Other research has showed that the more autonomous people feel (are) in their jobs, the less stressed and more satisfied they are.

The lower down the hierarchy you are, the less autonomy and control you usually have, hence more stress. The higher up, usually more autonomy.

Obviously, this is a general rule of thumb, but the principle stands. Being a lower earner should not be assumed to be less stress at all.

Because you stated the one who earns less/more. You didn't specify hours or work location. It was a ridiculous statement. A nurse earns far less than a CFO of an investment bank but the CFO is in a much better position to make calls and book things without losing their job.

If both people are working full time and both people want this, then the one who would take on more responsibility for home life assuming they can't do it equally, is the one whose role allows them to. Lot based on earnings alone.

Your suggestion is the lower paid one should take on MORE hours of work (domestic work) than the other one to make up for the lower income. So you mean the lower paid one owes the higher paid one. This is a very unhealthy dynamic.

However, your partner is out of order by expecting you to pick up all the child related things.

Then the conversation should be about whether the lower paid one should go part time. Not just dump more and more on them because they earn less.

This thread had been derailed by the salary issue. Ultimately OP, no matter what the salary differential is, you are completely reasonable to be annoyed that you are the default parent and that, to make.matters worse, he expects to havr final decision making without any of the actual work.

Dh and I have had similar arguments in the past where he would choose to absent himself from the pre decision making, research phase, but then would be annoyed because he wants x or y without any idea of how practical that is. He is much better now, bit it took a few arguments before he a) stepped up and b) realised he couldn't zoom in at the end and tell me what should happen.

I'm in your position, OP. Both WFH, paid similarly, both have flexibility and work the same hours.

We generally split things 50/50. The only difference is that I book and go to the actual vaccinations though as he is terrible with needles. He is more than capable of booking the appointment, but I do it because I work the appointment around my workday calendar.

Make sure you have a joint email address for all child related things, including school (and utilities, insurance etc). Then you both have access to the same correspondence and he can’t argue that he didn’t know about xyz.

Then the conversation should be about whether the lower paid one should go part time. Not just dump more and more on them because they earn less.

Exactly. Also, just because someone earns less doesn't mean their career and job isn't important to them.

@plumberdrain

"AIBU to suggest all childcare should be 50/50 if earnings are the same?"

I would just get a nanny at that income

Not the point of the thread, but @Beedleneedle and @User5512 can you tel me what your jobs are to command such high salaries?

Also @Beedleneedle yanbu

This bit jumped out at me. Why does he get the final say? Especially as he's expecting you to organise it!

My take on it is that whilst parents should both contribute to the process of raising children, it doesn't mean each task needs to be shared. Of course discuss important things but booking routine medical appointments is best kept track of by one person so they don't get forgotten (thinking the other has done it) and yes if hours need to be reduced then the lower earner can make sense but mostly it's about playing to your strengths ... id happily make every meal on condition I don't need to clean the bathrooms or carry the vacuum upstairs (I'd worse still do the stairs) I'm in charge of logistics and timetabling generally and when I was with exh I looked after everything financially- he on the other hand was great at late night child soothing (night owl), weekend exercising whatever the weather, and so on. No way was he choosing clothes for them, no dress sense!