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.

Completely unreasonable of him to consider taking this job and expecting you to be a single parent all week...

I don't see any advantage to taking a job that offers no home working at all, has a much longer commute and won't bring in much more money.

He is perfectly entitled to want to find a new job but he needs to make sure that he finds something that also takes into account your needs and the needs of the family in general.

Not in a million years would I agree to this. Any juggling you can currently do would be all on you. Not sure of the age of your children but you are likely to be ensuring that if you end up having more than one that they can’t do hobbies or are dragging children round to siblings hobbies or you are doing all hobbies. School years are much much more challenging for working parents and I can imagine it might be a nicer option to be commuting rather than juggling this.

Also once they are upper junior and senior age it’s rare to do after school clubs and often parents juggle WFH so that kids can get home and watch tv while parents are finishing up. I couldn’t do this on my own.

Dont do it xx

We actually had a similar dilemma recently as my DH who currently has a massively amount of flexibility applied for a job which would have required 5 days in the office and it would have had a big impact on family life, and on me. The salary increase was significant and he is definitely bored in his current role but the trade off really wouldn't be worth it. He's now decided not to apply for anything else until our youngest is at secondary. Basically he is choosing to put his personal aspirations second for a couple of years to support the family as a whole, which I massively appreciate

What is your husbands stance on it all? Is he pushing to accept?

My mum did all the parenting in the week as my dad was out 6.30am- 7pm for work. Mum worked but shorter days. I don’t think it’s that unusual is it?

I mean it would be complete madness to actually take this job, but I would definitely not ignore the fact that he’s feeling bored and a bit snuck. I’ve been in that position at work (due to balancing with childcare, obviously). And it’s not fun.

Can he speak to his current employers about taking on something new or changing his current role a bit? Is there a hobby that he fancies trying that he could do an evening a week after bedtime? I found that being contented with life overall made me not mind the boredom so much.

Ah OP, I sympathise, a similar change has just happened to us but due to redundancy so not really an optional change. I am stressed about it though as it means all evenings and mornings will be on me completely, as well as sick days, as you say.

However, I do think if this job is better money and potentially better prospects (I assume) for your DH AND it's actually workable around your own job ie not impacting your hours - which I'm guessing it is if your hours are 9-5 and you only work 20 mins away so you won't have to start late/finish early - I would let him do it.

I would definitely have a chat with him and emphasize the impact on you, impress on him that he likely won't see your DS all week, especially as he grows older and drops naps as he will likely be in bed around 7, but ultimately if he wants to take the job then I'm not sure there's too much you can do without leading to resentment.

It might not be unusual and in some cases, it may be necessary but in OP's case it would be a choice. They currently have a much more equal setup.

The difference is that you’re taking about people having no income vs and income.

In this case, it’s an income vs less bored and slightly better income (that isn’t needed)

All thes practical solutions and suggestions are useful. But I still belieev there's a bigger issue here. The mindset of "oh, I don't have to worry about my responsibilities because they're not really mine, they're Vegan's" would really have be riled up and, if it starts now, it will only get worse.

Your 'school' run will get harder with the move from nursery to school until your youngest child is at least 11 years old and at secondary school.

When does your husband propose to find time to be a father?

I wouldn't agree to this, being the default parent has the potential to fuck your career over.

Yeah I wouldn’t be happy to agree to this unless there was a huge financial incentive and even then it’s a huge amount of work to put onto one person

So because your mum did that, all women shoud exiect to NOT be an equal partner? To accept that whatever the dh wants wants come first. Even if it’s at their detriment. 🤪🤪

I mean that fine. The OP can drop hours and only work school hours. I’m wondering how much worse they’ll be as a family?
And how much worse the OP will be been lumbered with all the hw, childcare, still under pressure to earn money because you know she was befure do why not now etc….

@Veganornotvegan have you asked your dh if he is happy to not see his toddler 5 days a week due to his hours and he a part time father?
What did he say?
Has he even thought about it?

He'll be totally exhausted with 5 x 12 hour days each week, so will you from "doing it all." This sounds like a bad idea for a young family and very unfair on you.
3- 4 hours of commuting a day will be very, very boring too. Does he not like it at home or something?

If I was in your shoes, my immediate question to him would be "how are you going to covet your childcare repsonsibilities?""

I would never be phrasing this as a problem I have responsibility for solving. I would never consider it a case of "asking" my husband not to accept. He would ask if I could help make ot work (and my response would be no).

Nex you're going to tell me that as well as being unpaid childcare, he expects to keep the extra earnings to himself... 😆🙄

It's very unusual now for dads to do no parenting at all in the week. Unless mum is a housewife. I don't know anyone with this set up.
Where both parents work full time it would be very unfair and place an awful lot of stress on the mum. OP did not sign up for this.

If it's only a little bit more money and loads more hours, it's a pay cut. You're not being unreasonable. He's being very selfish.

Decisions like this need both of you to be in agreement. DH worked away, left Sunday evening and returned Friday evening. We discussed how this would work and the impact on me and our 2DCs before making a decision.

He’s treating you terrible by not even acknowledging the change in your role with the dc. His misogyny is shining through very brightly!

Not RTWT but if he has a firm offer, could he use it for leverage to get something more from his current employer?

Asking for a bit more money, some more responsibility and projects at his existing job is likely to be much easier.

Yes, this is something you both have to agree. You'll end up sacrificing your career for his.

It's a sliding doors moment: in one scenario, you both continue to parent jointly, you both earn similar amounts, you both look after the house; in the other, you end up solo parenting all week, much of the weekend, because he's tired from the commute, doing all the household tasks, taking on all the mental load, taking off so much time for pickups/dropoffs/sick kid/school holidays that your career will stall or you'll have to go part-time and that will turn into a vicious cycle of you having to continue to do all that because your the lower-earner and it will end in massive resentment and financial disparity ...

I know I sound like I'm catastrophising, but this scenario comes up on here every day and I know personally a good number of couples where this is how it's panned out.

It depends, will it lead to bigger and better things in the future and is he ambitious?

If hes doing longer hours for margainly more money is that not actually a pay cut? And therefore of course you wouldnt want him to work longer for what would hourly be less

Will he be paying for a child minder from his extra money so you get some help. ?If not then you both need to rethink it.