DH wants me to get a job

[Missedp]

My husband has been pressuring me to go back to work, however I am happy with our current arrangement: I am a SAHM for our 3 children, a caregiver to my family and a local volunteer.
DH earns as good wage and we have money left over each month. I do the school runs and the children have a wonderful routine; I can also help friends and family with any ad hoc support.
DH wants to “accelerate” our savings and wants me to contribute financially but once you factor in a cleaner, the additional stress to of working and arranging care, it hardly seems worth it. I’ll be making slightly above minimum wage.

If they both work full time - same hours then it’s should be split 50:50.

If one is part time and other is full time then of course the part time one does more.

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Sorry but one hour filling supermarket shelves, however worthy, is not the same as one hour being an airline pilot, electrician, firefighter, or accountant. They take a completely different level of concentration, intellect, bandwidth and stress. Expecting equivalent housework is absurd. Especially when they are bringing in 80 percent of the income, which also adds stress and burden.

So full time nurse and full time airline pilot are married? Nurse does more at home because earns less?

accountant and a shelf stacker - one may take more brain but the other is physically more demanding

perhaps if couples were kind to each other rather than seeing it so transactionally it would be a healthier relationship

I’m sure families can figure it out for themselves but in that example I’m guessing the supermarket worker would be home a lot more than the pilot.

That’s a very extreme example. So in my family for example if I did full time in sales but DH did full time consulting- how are you arguing whose job is more stressful? If both parties work the same hours and are home at the same time then 50:50 is fair. Unless one person has a very cushty job sat on their arse doing very little and the other is operating on brains all day.. highly unlikely.

What I don’t agree with is the argument that even if you’re both doing the same full time hours - the higher earner gets to do less than the lower earner. This seems to be what you are implying? Low paid jobs can be very stressful and high earning jobs can be unstressful. This seems another way to get women to do it all - because they may earn less!

I’d argue stacking shelves is a very physically demanding job and being a pilot - well you’re sat down… but the shelf stacker has to come home and go all the housework as they earn less..according to you.

Well said. It’s almost as though there are some men on here..

Same! I dont know where everyone gets this week filling ‘life admin’ from. Its no more than a few minutes a day around work/housework/laundry/school runs and everything else. If we need to talk about any ‘life admin’ theres always some point in the evening when the kids are sorted to get stuff done.

My experience is that it tends to be the woman who's expected to give up her career for caring duties - whether we're talking about children or adults.

When my late husband had his stroke, I was 53. Hospital staff expressed astonishment that I didn't immediately give up my career.

After 5 yrs, there was no other way of coping. Prior to that, friends of my husband had apparently voiced the opinion that I was being 'selfish' for refusing to stop working.

After DH died - nearly 8 years after the stroke - his daughter advised that I should go back to my career. Strangely, it wasn't possible to step back into a similar position at the age of 61.

If I'd quit my job at 53 - as expected by many - I'd have been in deep financial difficulty. I'm not comfortably off, but I have enough to live on with my reduced pension.

'Fanny around volunteering'! You do realise that charities need volunteers to audit, be accountants, take people to hospital appointments, run the sports clubs, youth clubs and toddler clubs which benefit so many underprivileged children, raise money for the hospices we all might need some day? If that's 'fannying' around, I really wish more people were able to 'fanny around and do these jobs (and others) which keep society going!

I presume you had a job before having kids? What was the plan / agreement when you gave up work? Was it to never go back even when kids reach a certain age? Or go back to work when the kids are at school etc

Exactly. Pretty much everything financial can be automated. So can routine purchases/shopping. Dental appointments can be made while at the dentist’s office for the current appointment.

Responding to the occasional birthday party invitation isn’t that difficult.

This is extremely short-sighted and individualistic, the country needs future taxpayers.

My.earlier.post notes that during a period of gardening leave for two months, I really struggled to get to more than two hours of work doing all drop offs, cooking from scratch and cleaning/tidying a large house. I really struggle to see how you would get to.more than this.

Perhaps it's s a good thing that those in the teaching profession don't agree with you, otherwise your children would be in enormous classes and their education would be completely down the pan.....And other knock on effect would be that there wouldn't be so many well educated doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to look after you when you need it 😅🤣

You deliberately leave out the children’s ages, so I suspect that they don’t need “nursery care”…. So what care? Before and after school care? It’s not as expats nursery care a month.

why would you need to factor in a “cleaner?” To any outgoing costs? That’s a luxury, that in reality you don’t need.

Additional stress of what? What is it you envision doing?

being a SAHM, needs to benefit BOTH people, and it sounds like it’s not benefitting your husband any more. Your comment about “it hardly seams worth it”, makes it sound like “you can’t be bothered to work”…..I would suggest a conversation with your husband…. If you truly think the costs of care are going to be so extortionate, otherwise… get searching for work.

Perhaps she knows her husband wouldn’t take on half the household responsibilities if she finds a job.

It depends. Not all jobs are equal. I know some male investment bankers who earn a fortune, who married very attractive women who would be a plus for their careers, who gave up their jobs, stayed home, had kids. It wouldn't be OK for him to suddenly decide she should go and work minimum wage in a shop, say, "just because".

People bring all sorts of advantages to a marriage. There is a lot more to it than just earning money.

She says he already does a fair amount so wouldn’t have to do much more in her last message

What about parenting? You think the “pilot, electrician, firefighter…” should opt out of parenting too, because they’ve been ‘concentrating’ all day 🙄

This.

You don't look after your kids all day, sahps do. So no, you don't do all we do

Then why don’t men ever do these things? Even when women work too, it seems to fall to them to organise everything.

In that case you’ve no reason not to acquiesce. You’re not doing everything, he is pulling his weight. Seems like you’re not.

Get a job. For many reasons.

Agree

And when 2 professional people marry and have children ... do both get to opt out after 'concentrating' all day?

Didn't think so, ffs

SAHPs of school age children do not look after their children all day.

With the rise of WFH an awful lot of full time working parents take their children to school, pick them up from school and supervise them after school.

Yes - I find it bizarre to downplay the mental load. I’m not going to make a list but when I handed over all the organising of one child’s sport to DH it made a huge difference. Yes we could do all the mental load or ‘wife work’ but why should we? I’ve handed over all the present buying of DH’s nieces and nephews to him too. It’s not the 1950s we can share the mental load rather than downplay it. It’s very liberating.

I do feel some women want a medal for doing everything. Well done - but it’s not something to aspire to. And it’s quite martyr-ish.