Argument with DH over childcare

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I’ll try and keep this short. I work PT and have two weekdays off work to look after our DS. He has been a handful today and I’ve asked DH if he’d consider not going to the gym after work as he has planned. I’ve asked this on the odd occasion previously too.

DH says that me being off work is my choice and we could put DS into nursery for an extra day or two if I didn’t want to have stressful days, and I could work and contribute more money to the household.

AIBU to feel like he’s being unnecessarily awkward and should be willing to forgo the gym to help me out?

Do you actually lose that much (after childcare and transport is taken into account) by working part time rather than full time with a toddler?

I think if you were ill or it was some sort of emergency, then fair to expect him to skip the gym. Not just because you had a bad day.

Crucially, I don't think the fact you were looking after your toddler today is really relevant. You had a bad day and didn't want to look after your child in the evening. Not really relevant whether it was during a paid job or childcare.

How many hours at your job would you do to avoid one hour of labour pains?

I'd do 10,00000

Given we are discussing a nursery age child not a newborn and the DH does his share of looking after the child on weekends, nursery drop offs etc I think bringing up pregnancy and birth is utterly ridiculous and irrelevant.

That has got to be one of the most ridiculous, absurd things I’ve ever seen on MN 😂 god the misandry on this site is real.

I have a toddler. Some days are so full on I count the seconds till my husband is home. He is always trying to make life easier and support me/us. He will always put us first.
He would absolutely skip the gym to support me and our child. Its not forever. Because I feel so well supported by him (vice versa for him) I don't have any resentments and I don't want him to miss out on his own hobby time. We made all our life decisions together and we are on the same page about it all.
His attitude makes a big difference to how much empathy I have for him. We both want the absolute best for eachother.
if he treated us like a burden or didnt appreciate me. I wouldn't be so inclined to protect his hobby time. This is obviously a two way street.

It sounds like you're not both on the same page. I think you need to sit down and hear each others sides to learn about where the other is coming from (not defend yourselves otherwise that ends up being a unproductive argument.)

Interested to know if OP would happily forego her planned evening activity if DH got in from work and said he'd had a bad day and didn't fancy looking after the toddler?

Agree !! Can you imagine throwing that in your husbands face when the child is 18😂.

I presume you only have one child id labour was that bad for you. You don't even know if OP had labour pains She could've had elective CS.

Was still over 3 years ago

He's coming at it from the angle that if looking after a toddler is hard, it's not worth doing. So just put him in nursery full time. You're coming from the angle that some things that are hard are still worth doing. I agree.
You're not on the same page as he thinks there's no benefit to a parent looking after a child over nursery workers. You disagree.

I wouldn’t want to miss a workout and it doesn’t sound like an emergency. That’s the reality of looking after a toddler.

These comments are crazy!!!!

I also have changed my role from full time manager to part time over night team leader so I can actually raise our child.

Some days are harder and just because I chose to be home more doesn’t make the hard days easy. It would not hurt for the husband to miss the gym for one evening and maybe go the day after.

I think he sounds like he is resentful that you work PT and he doesn’t rather than seeing what you are contributing in bringing up your child.

I would want to support my partner when they've had a hard day, and I'd hope they'd do the same for me. I would give up the occasional evening at the gym to save my partner's sanity.

Maybe he's never had a bad day with the DC one-on-one for the whole day.

I don’t think either of you are being particularly unreasonable, it’s probably the #1 classic ‘discussion’ between couples at this stage in parenting. And most are really bad at articulating how they feel. I also think (anecdotally) that some men are just not cut out emotionally to deal with very young babies and toddlers. Those men, if they genuinely love and wanted their child, come into their own later on in life-with a bit of luck. I only exH did. When they were under 1, he did anything humanely possible to escape from the house.

Yes this

Working parents raise their children. Working parents bring up their children. You surely don’t see your husband as not raising your children? What a truly deplorable thing to think about your children’s other parent.

OP my expectation is that we help each other out. Neither of us would dream of denying a request for a bit of extra support after a tough day. No emegnecy is needed - one partner has asked another for support. We don’t take the piss and so we accomodate each other. I can’t think of a single parent of young children who doesn’t at least occasionally skip a hobby. I’m really surprised so many people with reasonable partners they love would ignore an occasional request like this.

When did I say my husband wasn’t raising our child? You’ve taken my comment about myself and twisted it.

Her husband is saying to put the child in nursery for more days rather than seeing the benefit of what she is doing by being home those extra days.

He’s got a point to be honest. You’ve chosen to work part time and therefore take on a greater share of the daily work of being with a young child, while he has the greater share of working and earning. You say that evenings/ weekends are already a fair split so I can see why he feels he shouldn’t have to forego something he’s planned just because your child has been a handful today. Young children are a handful, it’s nothing unusual.

Has your husband ever had to regularly look after his own child for whole days as a solo venture?

He’s right. Why should he miss the gym because you chose to not work as often?

Perhaps you should switch places OP and let him work part time and have a couple of days at home with the child while you work full time. I’m speaking as someone who only worked 3 days a week when our kids were little (3 kids pre school age!) and I know which side my bread was buttered! Much easier than working full time and still having all the responsibly of being a parent to 3 kids!

All of this.

We had this set up with a disabled child in the mix. On DH's hobby nights there's a sort of unwritten contract that he would cancel if I asked, but I don't ask unless in dire extremis. It's mutual respect, it cuts both ways. He's missed a handful in 15 years.

I cannot believe some of the comments on here! OP if your dh can't forgo the gym to help out with his own child when you've had a bad day then he's a selfish git.
I worked part-time when kids were younger and I can tell you the days when I went into the office were way easier than being at home all day with dc. My dh reduced his days to 4 so that he could spend one day at home looking after our dc whilst I worked. That lasted 4 months and then he insisted he had to go back full-time! The reality was it was too much for him.
Your dh saying just shove them in nursery full-time is also very selfish and not in your child's best interests.
I had a friend who's dh was made redundant and so she become the breadwinner and he stayed at home with the dc. It didn't last long before he was looking for work!

I think YABU but I also used to feel like this. I think it was because I didn’t do anything myself away from the kids.

Depends on whether DH was fully in agreement with you working PT.

I did become a SAHP when we adopted DS and have only worked part time since, due to extra time and resources that DS had needed over the years. But this has been agreed between us as the best for the family as a whole. I picked up most of the crap, the school/college issues, medical appointments, friendship issues, being a taxi service. This meant DH could concentrate on work during work, but his job can be stressful, so at the end of a typical day we could both be frazzled and in need of some space.

But it also meant money was tight at times, and put pressure on DH. He stayed in a reliable job he didn't really like as it was secure. How does your DH feel about you being PT.

We both had hobbies and we accommodated each other doing their thing.

So your DH wasn't unreasonable in wanting to do his hobby on the agreed night - as long as you have a chance to do what you want to do another time, and he takes over at home to allow you to do it.

It's all in the context.