AIBU to ask husband not to take job that would make me solely responsible for childcare during the working week?

[Veganornotvegan]

My husband and I both work full time 5 days per week Monday to Friday, typical office hours. We both do a combination of in office and WFH (average 2 days in office / 3 days WFH per week) but exact days vary week by week depending on our diaries. Both of our offices are approx 20 minutes away.

Our toddler son is in nursery approx 10 minutes away.

We currently split drop offs and pick ups between us 50/50 (I typically do pick ups, he typically does drop offs) but we communicate daily on this if we want to swap for any reason and this works well for us.

My husband wants to take a job which would be a little extra money (not significantly more, and whilst we are not rich by any stretch, we are comfortable (and not in the middle class way where comfortable means rich! Just comfortable)) but accepting the job would mean he would be out of the house 7.30am until 7pm every day. These longer hours would mean that I would have to do all nursery drop offs and pick ups, as well as all dinners, and bedtime prep for our toddler (which we currently split). I would also have to do all kids sick days as I would be significantly closer to the nursery than my husband, so it wouldn’t be fair to expect our child to wait 90 minutes to be picked up by dad, when I am 10 minutes away (nursery is in between our house and my office, so whether I’m WFH or in the office I’m still only 10 minutes away.).

WIBU to ask my husband not to accept this new job? As a household we would walk away with only a little extra money, which arguably we don’t need, but I would have to take on more of the childcare responsibilities. My husband isn’t unhappy with his current job, he’s just bored, and this new one would be more interesting for him.

Do these friends he's observing follow traditional gender roles? Because it looks very much to me like resigning from child rearing responsibilities is his main aim from this job move. He obviously regards it as optional on his part & perfectly reasonable for you to do all of it, or he wouldn't have even suggested a job with those hours.

Big win for husband. He gets to shirk all his responsibilities at home . Living his best life

he probably will get home
just after you settle the kids into bed

ask him how he would like it if you get a fully office based job

I've not read the whole thread, only your posts.
I think he needs to negotiate his offer. They want him, he needs to have more flexible work options.

If you were on the bones of your arse it would be a no brainer, but you're not. Sometimes we all have to make sacrifices for the good of our family unit.

You've said a few times that despite coming from similar backgrounds, experiencing poverty in childhood, you're content with what you have whereas he is not; he wants more money and status. I think that's interesting and if it's not addressed it could continue to cause issues, whether he takes this job or not. If he's always bored and unhappy, never content with what he has, that's not a pleasant way for him to feel or to live, and will of course impact you too. I wonder if he might benefit from some sessions with a life coach or counsellor to discuss it. Perhaps they will help him come up with ideas for meeting his needs without negatively impacting on his wife and child.

Objectively I think it's madness to leave a hybrid WFH/office job with a short commute for a full-time office job with a long commute. As a parent, it would be out of the question for me. I agree with PPs that he should go back to the prospective employer to say that he can only accept on condition that he can WFH 2-3 days a week. Otherwise it would be a hard no.

Also, for people curious about the actual amounts... OP said they earn too much to get help with childcare costs, so it must be at least £100k/year each (the threshold for TFC) and his proposed new salary would be at least £120k.

On another note, I find it surprising that you'd have both a mortgage and enough savings to cover 2 years of living expenses - you must have a high rate of savings interest and a low rate of mortgage interest for that to make financial sense.

I'd be very careful not to squash all the dreams and ambitions he has. If this is a great career move just use the extra money to cover the extra work. If it was the other way round everyone would be furious that someone was trying to stop you furthering your career.

Thanks for your question, it’s made me think. No, his friends don’t follow strict traditional gender roles, most have wives who are also senior in their fields, high earners, and work full time (similar to me) however, I suppose they have a tendency for the wife in the relationship to be the default parent (but not to the extent that my husband is asking me to be). I wouldn’t say we are 50/50 parenting responsibilities at the moment, but we aren’t that far off!

I was a little surprised that he’s considering this offer, as at the moment he is an active and engaged dad, someone who genuinely loves being a dad, and our family time together. He often says that our evenings all together are the best part of his day. I wonder if he’s just got a little caught up in the excitement of being offered such an amount, and the ‘status’ of it, that he’s a bit blinkered to the wider picture beyond just the annual salary.

Is there a bigger picture/bigger plan here? I mean will new employer provide additional skills/training that mean he can jump to better work life balance and salary in a couple of years? If so I wouldn’t rule it out but there needs to be an end point. I think it’s perfectly fine to take turns taking a slightly heavier load on the parenting, however there needs to be a clear end goal/objective so it doesn’t last forever. Early years I did a LOT of parenting, prob 80%, then did a secondment at work to gain new skills etc, probably swung to 60/40 split in his direction, then got a better paid but wfh job, swung back in the other direction. He’s just started a new role so whilst he beds in it’s more me picking up but once he’s settled it will go back the other way. I think parenting doesn’t need to be equal all of the time, life doesn’t allow it to work that way, i think when you look back in 20 years time you need to feel as though you both did your bit & it worked out fair in the end.

You're gas lighting her - nasty.

We moved house (to our ‘forever’ home) earlier this year and made a fair amount of money on the sale of our old home (we extensively extended and renovated). We decided to (temporarily) put that equity into our savings whilst we consider what to do with it. We may keep it in savings, pay off a chunk of our mortgage, put some extra away for our child, pay for private school (we’ve decided against this now, but it was an option we were considering), similarly we thought about buying a second home. Basically whilst we have a chunk in savings, it would only pay off a third(ish) of our mortgage. As someone who comes from financial insecurity, as an adult I’ve always been a bit afraid to not have as much savings as possible and to have all my money tied up in property.

You dont know what may be in the budget yet or the effect of the sneaky and underhand freezing of tax thresholds that has been mooted. If its only a little more money most of that could disappear into the grubby hands of the tax man with no material benefit to yourselves. Unless, as other posters have suggested, the new job offers significantly better career progression or opportunities my answer would be no while your child is so young.

It is tricky, I get it. DH recently bought a house and weighed up quite carefully how much to borrow for our mortgage, and how much to keep aside for our renovation budget and general savings. However, do consider how much interest you'd save if you paid off just 20% of your mortgage.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgages-vs-savings/

You need to ask him if he would be happy doing every drop off and pick up and all the sick days (which I disagree with, he should be coming back even if you do the initial pick up) if the roles were reversed. If he says no that tells you all you need to know. And what about when it comes to school age? Parenting and marriage is partnership. That means give and take but not all in one direction.

I wouldn’t think it was worth it in those circumstances. I think he’d get fed up of the commute alone if it was much longer. How long would the commute actually be? It might seem okay in theory but in practice with traffic etc it will be different. And he won’t want to come home and help tidy up if he’s been sat driving for 2 hours.

Are you considering having another child at some point @Veganornotvegan . It would be a definite no for me if that was a consideration at all. A newborn and a toddler and him out all day would be really tough.

It's possible. I have a fixed rate mortgage of 1.79% (obtained before rates went up). My savings get much more than that, plus if I pay anything off the mortgage within the fixed rate term there is a financial penalty. It makes much more sense to keep money in savings until the fixed rate expires.

I did all childcare in the week, but I worked part time, which worked for us. I wouldn't have been keen to take everything on and work full time, especially when the kids were very young. So YANBU OP

I had a husband who worked away a lot when my children were small. It broke our marriage. Be careful OP.

He will be increasing his status and earnings on the back of your unpaid labour.
I note that you say you currently share the drop offs and pick ups equally at present but that he mostly does drop off and you do pick ups. That’s already unequal as pick ups are far more stressful- the last hour or so you’re constantly watching the clock as you can’t afford to leave even five minutes late. It means you can’t fully focus on your work.
Once he’s engineered this situation, and it may not even be conscious on his part, how likely is it that he may end up staying later still at the end of the day? After all his children are looked after and he can focus on work without having that hard deadline that you will have.
Once this new routine is in place the dynamic of your relationship will change.
It’s disappointing to see this male socialised selfishness play out like this.

What exactly is a little extra money?

So far he's coming across as selfish and thoughtless.

mental load should not be discounted, and that will only get worse when kids start school. All the homework, clubs, requests for this and that, Roman day and whatnot, friends' birthdays - there's just so much. Plus of course all sickness days, calls that you need to come pick your DC up because they're not feeling great - this will all be on you. First of course extra workload, but also your DH would be missing out on so much.

2nd comment from me as I've now read all your updates and your determination to not reveal the money involved. Everything you've drip fed does in fact scream rich and not just comfortable as you first claimed. Ironic.

I’m not surprised you didn’t write the salary figures, it absolutely would have swayed comments. However, without knowing anything about your outgoings, that fact that you’re both additional rate taxpayers already and have the work-life balance you do now and money you’re happy with, you really can’t afford the imbalance and stress your DH taking this job in will bring into your life.

Your life, not his.

Him taking this role would mean he opts out of family life completely Monday-Friday, which I wouldn’t be happy about at all. I’d be asking him why he is happy to do that.

If your DH takes this role, resentment on your side will creep in very quickly, especially as you weren’t on board with it in the first place.

If he takes the job, best you start squirrelling away that extra money for yourself, as you’ll need it when the inevitable parting of ways happened.

Trust yourself on this one. DH has a 1.5hr commute to the office but fortunately only has to go twice per week. He leaves before the DC are awake and they’re often in the bath by the time he returns. I can do it twice per week but that is my limit.

I’d go back to the company with a wfh proposal and see how much they want him. If there is no flex then it’s not the right job for the family. Don’t be swayed on it!

It doesn’t sound like that at all to anyone reasonable with even basic reading comprehension.

Your post was so needlessly unkind.

Why does their salary matter? She’s stated the additional money isn’t significant and they are comfortable which is all that is relevant to the situation.