Male colleague needs part time working mum to take care of 1 child

[colleg]

I was talking to a colleague recently and it came up that we both had sons who are 3 years old. I also have a 5 year old daughter.

my colleague was saying that he could never do the job ( the same job I do ), if his wife didn’t work very very part time around the needs of their 3 year old.

I was pretty shocked he said that to me. Isn’t it funny how a man can take such huge liberties and convince his wife that she can’t possibly work full time / she has to be the full time default parent for their 1 child, while there’s a woman standing next to him, who has two kids, does the same job as him and is also the default parent !

and before you start, no the child does not have special needs. It really does seem that this colleague needs his wife’s support to do the job I do, with two kids in tow.

it’s a high pressured job, but it’s a desk job. We aren’t going out to fields, farming the land or working in construction. We aren’t nurses or doctors on shift work. We have a 9-5 desk job in essence. And we also work from home, for most of the week.

We had no kids but my late husband was in a very demanding and high risk job and he used to say openly that he could never have done it if I had chosen to work full time. He didn't "convince" me, we made a joint decision based on what would be best long term for both of us. That's not to say that our situation was the same as your colleague's situation but I don't see why you should take exception to another couple's choices.

I assume he got used to having his wife at home practically all the time and now thinks he couldn't possibly cope otherwise. When in reality, if he really had to, he could. We all do similar things, like saying we couldn't cope without a dishwasher/cleaner/car, on less than 100k,etc. It's a delusion.

'I'm not of the view that anyone needs to explain or defend whatever their balance is. But if, like some posters on this thread, you do think that, having a job that means the other parent is effectively obliged to be the 'default' is as much up for criticism and discussion as anything else'

I'm not sure that's fair. Some jobs are, by their nature, far more demanding and involve longer hours or working away than others. Many of these jobs are vital for our society. Most people become parents at some stage in their lives and so some people doing these jobs will be parents. What matters is a fair balance within each family so that each parent is content most of the time. I would argue that future proofing and financial planning are also extremely important when making decisions. I definitely wouldn't criticise this couple for choosing this particular balance or work/childcare if they are both content with it. I would criticise him for being a pretty useless parent though, to the point that he is only making an effort to get to know his 3 year old son because his wife is going away, perhaps for the first time. Sure, some people are very poor at multi tasking at dealing with stress but parenting isn't optional if you have chosen to have a child.

I think having a default parent is fine if that works for the family but it shouldn't be to the point where the other parent has to "get used" to their own child.

Pretty pathetic of him op imo. This jumped out at me

he then went on to explain how his wife was going away for a few days and how he was going to start going with her to pick up the son and spend a bit more time with him, so he gets used to him.

wtf? Sounds like he’s one of them that does fuck all parenting

no assumptions. He doesn’t know his child because he told the op he needed to pick up his child so his child ‘got used’ to him.

It's much fairer than having double standards in what you criticise, especially when those double standards involve invention based on things OP hasn't said.

None of the posters slagging off the OPs colleague have any idea what he, his wife or OP do and the value it has to society. We don't have the information to ascertain the value to society of any of the jobs being discussed, whether that's in terms of the work itself, the tax take or both. Which also means it's impossible to measure them against the value of caring labour. It simply cannot be done with the information we have.

People are filling in the gaps based on how the couples in the OP make them feel about their own setups. If you want to be critical of the bloke for what he said about getting to know his son, that's fine, but it's equally true of anyone who'd need to do the same because of their job and life choices. You say yourself parenting isn't optional if you have chosen to have a child. No caveats.

I had a similar scenario once. Male colleague needed 'support' with his workload because he & his wife couldn't manage a 12 month old & 2 x full time jobs with 2 x sets of involved grandparents. I was an unsupported lone mother of 3 at the time (1 disabled), grandparents dead. I resented it so much I left.

Maybe she is more interested in her children and he’s more interested in his wfh desk job. It takes all sorts.

'If you want to be critical of the bloke for what he said about getting to know his son, that's fine, but it's equally true of anyone who'd need to do the same because of their job and life choices. You say yourself parenting isn't optional if you have chosen to have a child. No caveats.'

I don't agree with that. If you are away abroad for 6 months in the army or training as a neurosurgeon working long hours, perhaps working away to get necessary experience to acquire top notch skills, you don't have the option to be constantly present and parenting every day. This particular man works 9-5, mainly from home. He has the option to parent on a daily basis but appears to have made a decision not to bother. That's a very different scenario. Being a present parent when you are around, even if it's not every day, is very different to being an absent parent when you are fortunate enough to be around most of the time.

Not the same thing at all he works on site the ops colleague works from home.

I have a friend who is a CEO of a big company - he is also the default parent.. doing all the clubs, school runs etc.
His wife, who does not work, claims that my friend would not be able to do his job if she worked... it's weird. All she does is shop - admittedly not online and only in artisan shops (so doesn't got to supermarkets.. ) which is time consuming.
Very odd set up imo.

Read the op "he then went on to explain how his wife was going away for a few days and how he was going to start going with her to pick up the son and spend a bit more time with him, so he gets used to him." Get used to his own son so he doesn't know him. I don't know what's funny about that I feel sorry for his child.

Then you shouldn't have written 'parenting isn't optional if you have chosen to have a child'. Because apparently, you think the day to day aspects of it are indeed more optional depending on what job the parent does. Even though there's no reason to imagine the impact on the child, especially those too young to understand work, will be any different.

And since we're talking about choices, let's be very clear that the careers you mention are very much that. You absolutely do have the option to be present and parenting each day, but you've chosen to prioritise your work instead. Wider society may of course be better off because the choice you made, but as we don't know the jobs of any of the people here, that may also be true for them. Although the information given does indicate that they're neither neurosurgeons nor doing 6 month army placements.

So, either it's open season or it isn't.

convince his wife that she can’t possibly work full time / she has to be the full time default parent for their 1 child

A huge assumption there. Maybe he didn't have to convince her? Maybe she wanted to work part-time?

Also, huge assumption about the "getting used to" comment. He could have meant that both him and his son have to get used to a new routine.

I am the primary carer of our dd. Even if dh isn't working, I'd rather do everything for my dd myself. He will always help out with dd if asked to but I do everything for dd because I want to. I also only want to work part-time because of the time I get to spend with dd and it makes working around childcare much easier. I can assure you my dh hasn't convinced me that I must work part-time.

I may be missing something blindingly obvious but as far as I can tell OPs colleague and his family have a much better quality of life (although perhaps less money). He gets to focus solely on his job, his wife gets to work part time and spend time with their child (which I'd assume she'd want), and the child gets to spend more time with their mother and less time in childcare (which is generally the preference of most children). Everyone has a good and relatively easy life. Maybe the wife might be the worst off as she still has to work, but unlike OP she only works part time even though like OP she is the default parent. It also sounds like this collegue is appreciative of what he has given he acknowledges what his wife and what OP does. I don't really get your issue OP, maybe you just don't like the guy

If you're working from home they have flexibility. Obviously, you don't tell your employer that you're picking up your children. You can finish a little bit earlier or finish off later in the day. My partner used to work from home I know the score.

If it's a 9-5 job how can he pick up from nursery?

Perhaps his three year old is particularly challenging. I remember a difficult time when DD1 was 4 and not sleeping at night and we were both scraping ourselves up off the floor to get to work.

Why does he have to start picking up his son so he can get used to him why doesn't he do it anyway? My son loves it when daddy picks him up from school.

It's a better quality of life when one parent admits that because his wife is going away for a few days he's going to start going to pick ups so that he can 'get used' to his child? It sounds like the man hardly ever spends time with his child despite the flexibility he has in his role which is OP's point in the first place.

Also, an employer might be okay with you popping out to do a nursery pick up because there is someone else at work doing the same job as you. If both of you popped out to do the nursery pick up around the same time, i'm not sure if your employer will be too happy about it. I'm also not sure if you are trying to big yourself up or put him down really. Or a bit of both.

I think with the flexibility of the job and him not knowing his own child is an issue in itself.

They both do the same job so I guess the same way she does.

It's either because he isn't prepared to put in the required effort to adapt himself to their needs or he values the ease in both their lives due to the reduced hours his wife works over the additional money she would earn. If he had said the latter - fair enough, their choice. But if it's really the former, that's annoying, yes.

At least he hasn't kept his wife out of work altogether though - that's the thing that really annoys me, the de-skilling and enforced financial vulnerability that comes with that over time.