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.

In my experience the men's careers accelerate in their 30s and 40s while the women's don't to the same extent. I accept that there are women earning high salaries. But I don't really know them. I did know a few for a while, but they tended to have little spare time or inclination for socialising. So we drifted apart.

That’s opinion dressed up as fact. We earn 165k jointly and don’t have a cleaner.

Wonder why?

couldn’t be because women are stepping back from careers at that age at a higher rate than men to take on more of the domestic jobs at home?

and that couldn’t have the knock on effect that men get employed and promoted over women because it’s expected that women’s focus will be on the children at that age, they are more likely to quit of go part time, take time off for children because men aren’t expected to? So if you have two equally qualified candidates, you choose the male because you won’t have to deal with mat leave, parental leave, nursery runs etc.

women have to fight harder to show they’re not going to flake because of children. Men’s focus is assumed to be work because, well, there’s a woman in the background doing all that.

we have a big gender pay gap in my organisation. Even though pay scales are set in stone and everyone at the same level is paid the same. The reason we spend more money on men’s wages is women go part time. They stop going for promotions because it’s too much in addition to home responsibility. Men do more overtime because again, they’ve got a wife to take the kids or do the housework while they work.

the reason women “earn less” is a societal issue. And won’t ever really be addressed while women are the ones giving up work and men aren’t.

Same here. We are both high earners but no cleaner.

Perhaps. But how many women want to be the pioneers of the new world order you hope for if it means they don't see their kids?

I worked for a City bank. I had a big salary, international travel. When I had children I went back and hated it - the nanny was bringing up the kids. My husband had a good job so I packed it all in- I know you will find that horrifying. But I couldn't do it all. It was making me ill.

But anyway I do know plenty of high flyers, both men and women. The women used nannies. The men usually had a SAHW.

But it’s ok for men not to see their kids?

i don’t find it horrifying, it’s your choice.

i just find it interesting that when a couple decide they need a sahp it is nearly always the woman that takes the hit.

men never seem to think hang on I’m working so much I never see my kids and they’ll be gone in a blink. Why do the men have sahw and the women have nannies? Why don’t women have sahh?

I’m always suspicious when something is so default gendered, as it’s usually men getting the benefits at women’s expense. If giving up work was the better option, men would be doing it too.

i also come from a background where my dad had the “big job” while my mum sah. We barely saw him, even though he made a massive effort to be involved in our hobbies, on weekends etc. he was the one who wanted kids and loved spending time with us. then he dropped dead when I was 9 from the stress of working so much.

i would have much preferred my mum to have taken on some of the financial responsibility so my dad could have had more time with us, and also maybe not have worked himself into an early grave.

What I find interesting is that somehow these men work full time and manage to see their kids but if a woman is working full time, she never sees her kids. Funny that.

There was a recent thread where someone accused me of running away from my responsibilities as a parent because I work full time. Later on in the thread, she mentioned that her DH was a great and present father and laid out his work schedule which happened to be almost identical to mine. I told her that and asked her what the difference was?

Silence. She refused to answer why I was running away from my responsibilities yet her DH was Mr. Fantastic.

The only answer is sexism.

“ A low skilled dependant “
you do realise you’re speaking about another human being here ?, with your nasty choice of words ..

I can’t believe you are blaming your mother. Your father sounds like a workaholic, and whether your mother had worked or not worked he would have remained the same - the house and children would have been more neglected that’s all.

It is likely it was the conditioning and values placed on him as a child. Nothing to do with your mother, she was just married to him, and no doubt tried her best to support him.

I’m not blaming. I said I would have preferred it if they had shared the load and I had two parents I saw more of.

just as a point to those who seem to think mum giving up work to see more of the kids is ok, without a thought as to how much dad sees them. Or how those kids may feel.

i don’t know if he was a workaholic. I can’t make that assessment so not sure how you can. He was planning to retire early so I don’t think his job meant that much to him- he wanted to give up and teach his hobby so he had more time with us. From what I remember he worked 8-6, we would see him briefly before bed or he would pick us up from our dance classes or brownies.

my mother didn’t want kids. She was quite open about it.

i had a brief period of being a sahm. I noticed the same pattern- it meant dh worked more and I dealt with the kids. When I work as well dh doesn’t feel he has to go above and beyond at work because there is another income, and it also means he spends more time with the kids because he’s doing the school runs etc.

and no, no one’s neglected with both of us working.

Working 8-6 is just standard though @Whatsgoingonherethenagain. I'm not following your point. You say you hardly ever saw you dad, except for evenings. But there are millions of families where both parents work 8-6. So presumably those children grow up feeling as if they hardly see either parent? How is that preferable?

I don't know anyone who works 8 to 6. Are you including commuting time? Most people I know work 9 to 5 or 9 to 5.30. I work 8.30 to 4.30.

My now DH’s EW refused to go back to work after having children & decided independently that she was going to be a SAHM.

When the kids got to secondary school and he was paying for everything, he had a 4 hour drive to work and back, as well as doing the weekly shop - he said he started to feel very very resentful. The agreement had been that she would return to work when both kids were in Primary School. But she refused.

Eventually the marriage broke down and he tells me it was because he felt under enormous pressure and had become resentful of her filling her days with trips to the gym and the coffee shop.

Being a SAHP is a luxury and it only works if both parties agree to it. In this case the husband doesn’t agree so you need to go back to work.

As a side note - when they divorced and she expected to be kept in this lifestyle by him and refused to work she got a massive wake up. A judge during their finance hearing told her to get a job and start supporting herself.

The days of men being the providers and women the nurturers are over. Women have the ability to support themselves and are leaving themselves very exposed if they rely on someone else to support them.

I’ve always been fiercely independent. The best advice my mum ever gave me was ‘to never rely on a man to support you’ and she was right. If my marriage was to end I would have no worries about housing or money.

My point is why is the load not shared If the family decide there is a need for a parent at home?

why is it always the mum that ends up at home? Why is it never a consideration that dad might like to be at home for his kids. Or the kids might like to see more of dad than briefly on a night.

like I said my cousins are both hospital consultants. They have both worked 3 or 4 days a week since registrar years so both have lots of time with kids and also progress their careers.

I picked a job with shifts so I saw my kids a lot even working full time. Dh worked 4 days so around the shifts also spent a lot of time with them.

there are options, yet on this thread and mumsnet in general it seems to be one option only, mum needs to give up work to manage the house while dad does the big job, because he needs the support at home to do so.

why do all these women think men can only work full time?

This is the opposite of my experience- to finish at 4.30! I used to finish at 6 at the earliest then add an hour commute. DH was home at 8.30pm.

Even if we’d have fully shared the load - nobody would have been home until 7…

I suppose you must have a more high-powered job than me!

I don't know what you even mean by "work full time." That obviously means different things to different people. Not everyone works for an organisation or counts their hours. People work differently. I was a SAHM, I couldn't tell you what "hours" my DH worked. Sometimes he was on calls at home. Sometimes he was overseas. Sometimes he was at it evenings or weekends or whenever. Every week was different. He never "went to work" or did x number of hours. He never worked for anyone after the kids were born because he was a founder of a company which, after 10 years, was sold for over £1 billion. That was when he was 45 and now he just gets involved in projects that interest him. But he works from home, sporadically. There are loads of men we know like this, plus quite a few female entrepreneurs too. If they have kids, they have a SAHP or a full-time nanny. But generally, it's very intense for a certain period, but then they basically retire in their 40s so are around most of the time. If everybody worked 9-5, counting hours, and nobody ever took risks, how would any new enterprises or companies ever happen?

I think that’s part of the problem though. Two people with a high powered job is pretty hard. It’s hard for them to do 50:50, there’s always the argument over whose job is more important.

I’m slightly bitter 😂 and maybe I could have pushed DH to do more (though when he wasn’t actually in the country that’s hard).

But my point is - often its not easy or straightforward. So we shouldn’t criticise anybody’s choices when we don’t know the background of why those choices were made.

Women should have more choice. It should be easier for both parents to take parental leave. We need to be more like Scandinavian countries (not sure how?) where men leaving the office at 3 and working from home is the norm. Just more flexibility all round. Oh and cheaper childcare so it also makes financial sense - like Germany and France.

Women should not be giving up their careers if they don’t want to. But if as a family it makes sense and they are all in agreement that one parent stays home - then nobody should be criticising that decision either.

And most of all women shouldn’t be criticising other women’s choices!

Let’s be honest. It’s very hard for either sex to be incredibly successful if they are being held back by 50/50 domestic and childcare unless they are going to use a full time nanny or have gps willing to do it 247.

Having children is going to be a thing of the past, I can see that happening - there is no upside at all if you are both working every minute of every day most of the week - why bother? It would be easier to take an early retirement and have a future that isn’t completely exhausting. I can’t say I am going to recommend it to my DDs unless they are wealthy enough to truly enjoy it. Menopause hits, and it gets much harder with teens. Women need to rethink whether having children really works for them in this society.

South Korea is a great example. Many women there are refusing to run themselves into the ground by becoming mothers.

I love my kids but if I tried to combine full-time work (I'm currently part-time) with most of the chores, practically all the mental load and all the school runs and nursery runs, I'd be on the floor. The women I know who manage this successfully and still have something left of themselves either have very involved partners with a (practically) 50-50 split and they give each other a break or lots of reliable childcare and house help (nanny/family/cleaners). The others are on the divorce path tbh as the resentment is growing and growing.

I couldnt do full time now. Trying juggle elder parents too. Op if they still in school its hard trying get them to hobbies clubs etc if 2 working. Secondary ages yes my husb did expect me back working and I was.

In many cases, men subscribe to the notion of equality but are quite poor at carrying it out in practice. I have that problem with my DH - he truly believes that when he is at home, chores should be shared, but he's not at home very much (long hours + workaholic tendencies) and is just not that good at thinking about non-work stuff. Now the obvious answer would be to let him struggle, which I do normally (I don't do his cooking, washing or anything like that) but the bulk of stuff we have to do relates to the kids and I simply will not drop the ball on that. So I work part-time, he tops up my pension and he recognises at least (as a lot of men seem to fail to do) that the unpaid things I do are "work", so even with working part-time, my workload is equivalent if not greater than his.

This is exactly our situation. And I refuse to do his washing or iron his clothes! But equally I don’t want to live in a shit tip and the kids need taking to sports clubs as it hugely benefits them. So I’m the one that’s part time. Otherwise they’d suffer and I’d be having a nervous breakdown working full time and then doing about 85% at home. I’m not prepared to live like that.

When you have a DH who isn’t actually home that often then the 50:50 thing falls down.

This was 25 years ago. It would have been difficult for my husband to stay at home.

But he earned loads more than me. And I was struggling health wise. So I don't accept that it was purely a gendered choice.