Parents sharing childcare 50/50

[mears]

I have tried unsuccessfully to put this point on the 'GF - don't go stomping off etc' thread but for some reason it will not allow me to add a message.

Anyway - something I have noticed is that very few mumsnetters seem to share child/home care on an equal basis. I work 30 hours a week and dh works full-time shifts. That means for the majority of the time when I am working my children are looked after by their father. When our shifts clash then gran steps in. The downside to this is we are sometimes like ships that pass in the night but perhaps that is a good thing too. Dh I have to say hates his job but remains there because the shift pattern accomodates my work, therefore our childcare.
Does anyone else share childcare equally with dp/dh?

Mears - I too work shifts at the for the moment, and my husband opted to got to day work (policeman) so that he could cover the lates and nights when I am not at home. Whilst he loathes the 5 days a week 9-5 it works - he has a problem - it makes the job a bit boring. I find that I do all day until 4 with my little boy, which I love, playing and going to various classes then go to work until maybe 1am or later and yet he is (dh) more tired, exhausted, knackered etc. I get 5 hours sleep a night, my husband can and does goes to bed at 10pm, and yet when the alarm goes off he says variations on the following with choice language and a huge sigh - ' Oh sh**, I am so knackered I really don't know how I am going to get through today'. Whilst this may sound amusing, it is a major source of massive rows. Why can't he appreciate just how tired I am, but no, in the tiredness competition I am not in the running. And then (I'm on a roll now) at weekends he plans down to the last hour what he is going to do - eg, garden in the morning, lunchtime nap, then clean cars. I know all importantish stuff but pulease. Oh and if, I am on nights like I have been all week, out of the kindness of my heart I get home at 7am get ds up and out of bed because he is calling Mummy, and give him milk and toast and play with him until 8.30am (feeling like pooh now), and when I take ds upstairs to wake Daddy and I get in the bed, he is SO grumpy that he has to get up, and always leaves with a stinger; from slamming the bedroom door shut, to just not answering when I say 'Goodnight'. ugh.

So is it shared - heavily in my favour, he is good with ds but then he should be, they do have a lot of laughs together. I just hate it when he says that he is babysitting, its his son, I would NEVER say I am babysitting.

I would love my husband to walk in my shoes just for a day - you know one of the really busy ones, when its swimming and 2 lots of mothers and children are coming back for lunch (mental note -look in freezer for pizza), and the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer have to be turned on/emptied/filled/emptied/filled, as well as think about doing something interesting with turkey mince for dinner, look half decent and try and pluck the overgown bikini line before swimming, whilst playing the pretend 'shopping with Thomas game' looking for 2 pence pieces in my purse.

In conclusion NO.!

I would say my partner and I have a very nearly equal split. On the housework front we both do practically nothing and moan a lot about how untidy the house is. He takes charge of getting the boys fed, dressed and off to nursery with packed lunches so that I can get to work on time and I pick them up and spend the 4-5 hours till he gets home with them. We take it in turns to put them to bed and he usually reads at least one of their stories. (I told him that they need a good male role model so he has to read the stories hahahahaha- he falls for all my pc junk!) Weekends are more variable but again would probably even out to roughly equal care over time.

I think the key is that he's slightly less selfish and lazy than some of the men I read about (in open-mouthed shock) on Mumsnet and I'm a LOT more selfish and lazy than some mumsnetters and absolutely will not stand for doing a lot more than the bare minimum, especially on the housework front.

Sadlt we can't do this because of Dhs jib. However he did do a month of full time childcare when I did some temporarty work. I must say that it was good for all of us to see 'the other side of the fence'. Dh now has a very good idea of how hard full tome parenting is. I understand the downside of working when the kids are home, and the children no longer see dad as a soft touch. He also does as much child care as he can, and of then has the children 100% on the weekens so I can do me work in quiet. Every benefite.

ScummyMummy - you could almost be describing our house - especially the bit about both doing practically no housework!

DH is actually pretty good (and I'm not just saying that because he'll probably read this ). As we both work full time and I have to leave in the morning when he's still in bed, and don't get home until later than he does then I don't see that he has any excuse not to do an equal share - and that goes for household jobs as well as childcare. I think a lot comes down to being relaxed enough about things to accept that if the house isn't perfectly tidy, it isn't really going to do any harm to leave it that way, rather than trying to keep it perfect. Effectively I do the same amount that DH is prepared to in order to keep the amount of effort we have to put in equal.

So DH gets DS up and dressed and dropped off at nursery in the morning, but I do the evening pickup. He actually does most of the cooking as he's home before I get back having picked DS up, so he has the time to do it, but I do all the shopping, bedmaking, getting DS's clothes, etc. It's usually DH who puts DS to bed, but me who goes up to resettle him when he wakes. Different things, but the end of the day about equal amounts.

The only thing that really isn't very close to 50% is time away from DS - DH gets to go out and do things in the evenings much more often than I do, and gets a couple of nights on his own about once a month on average, when I've had 3 evenings out and one night away from DS in 14 months.

Interesting about lack of housework mentioned. I too have a minimalist attitude to housework but dh is a bit more disciplined than me. It is not top of my list of priorities but I am building up to a clearout because I am getting to the stage where the state of the place is upsetting - happens about a couple of times a year!
This mumsnet doesn't help the situation any

We certainly used to - before my dh got the full time job he now has he had a research post and used to look after dd for a good bit of the time - mainly as I was so ill with PND that she needed an alternative carer, and as Mummy was sick we decided it was best to be daddy.
When he is home my dh is a gem. He does far more than half the housework even though I am home all day (I don't have time for housework, I'm a stay at home Mum, not a stay at home housekeeper!), we split the cooking about 50/50 although I am often keen to do it as he can play with and entertain/change/feed children while I make the tea, at weekends he does the lions share of the childcare, and loves it.
I think if we had the option we would both work part time and be at home part time. But there are no jobs available for me right now and we cant afford for him to be part time, as his salary is about 3x what mine would be if I was full time. So he works and makes the best of his time with the children, and I would say makes at least a 50% contribution to our home life. And yes, I am aware of how lucky I am!

We aspire to a 50/50 split, I'd say it is fairly even (and yes, I've read about some of the DH's on mumsnet and wondered what century we are living in!)
Mornings DH gets up and does DS breakfast, then he leaves and I take over, getting him dressed and walking to nursery (near my work). Evenings I pick him up and give him supper, DH gets in and does the bath.
DH has dropped to 4 days per week, and me to 3.5 days, so we each ahve one day in the week looking after ds. (and I get a half day to do as I please....!)
BUT I still do most of the planning and organising - sorting out the food, making sure when we go out together we have a snack and drink, etc etc. DH will do these things if asked, but I have inevidtably thought of them way ahead of him - not sure how to get around that one!!
Oh, and I'm VERY lazy domestically. One reason I'm not a SAHM - the childcare is ok, its all the shopping, cooking and cleaning that seems to come with the job!! We have a cleaner once a week and I think it saved our marriage.....

W have a fairly even split: dh certainly pulls his weight wrt ds. He gets him up every morning during the week (I'm a slug and like every extra second in bed) and brings ds thought to the bedroom to have his morning milk and we all have a lovely snuggle. He changes and dresses ds every wee day morning AND gets the breakfast ready - all while I sneak an extra quarter of an hour in bed.

At weekends, I'll go and get ds up (an hour or so later than during the week) and will usually (but not always) be the one to change/dress him.

At night, we take it in turns to put him down, unless one or other of us is out socially or on business. Dh always has to do a Wednesday, as I'm out at my Pilates class.

I tend to be the one that thinks of ds' food and what to give him/prepare for his packed lunch. I get his milk ready the night before, and usually get his clothes out ready.

Dh thinks he's more houseproud than me - he does the hoovering and some of the tidying. It's not that I'm not houseproud - it's just I can't be bothered! I'd dearly love a cleaner, but dh refuses to have one, saying that we should do most of it ourselves (and thinks he does most of that anyway - he doesn't see the dust, the bathroom, the oven?.) - yet complains that since we had ds we never have a moment to ourselves, that there are always things we need to do ??.!!!!!

I do most of the cooking - but that's because in our current kitchen (which we said before we moved in 3 1/2 years ago, needed to be replaced) is too small for 2 people. In our last kitchen, which we designed ourselves, we shared the cooking far more - and it did our relationship a lot of good. Dh has just given up his job and will be having a couple of months off. He's promised me that he's going to do a lot more cooking, so I should be going home regularly to lovingly prepared meals!

Pretty much. We both work a fairly standard 35 hour week outside the home and both commute for approx 1hr each way to get there. Ds goes to a good nursery local to home. Three days a week dh drops and I pick up, two days we reverse - so that the flexi-time agreed by both workplaces is more or less evenly split.
Whichever person fetches ds gets tea on and we all eat together when the other parent arrives. We alternate bath (while other adult clears up and puts dishwasher on) and bedtime (while other adult staggers downstairs to a nice large glass of alcohol) so that ds has time alone with both parents every night and time with both of us.
We are lucky because we don't have to do shifts, neither of us has to travel for work and we don't have a "long hours culture" in our workplaces.
So far, so equal-sounding. But this is a polished routine that has been reached by a fair amount of nagging on my part over the past two years, he didn't submit without a fight...
I think you are both stars to manage shifts on top of all the other logistical problems being a parent working outside the home brings.

JanZ, it all sounds very familiar!! I simply loathe getting out of bed ONE MINUTE before I have to. And can't bear going to bed early to make up for ds's early starts either. Unfortunately ds has inherited dh's sleeping habits....

My DH also objected to a cleaner on principle - it took me several years to wear him down on that one. It has been sooo worth it - we stopped having rows about cleaning overnight (it was always DH getting at me for not doing enough!) and we both love coming home to a clean house once a week. Best £15 a week I ever spent.

I appreciate how lucky we are to have jobs with some flexibility and predictable, not excessive working hours. one thing I have observed, though, is that DH gets a lot more comments than I do about whether he is 'damaging his career' by working part-time - which I find somewhat galling since I have trained far longer for my job and earn a lot more than DH - so financially my career is more important for our family's survival.

Good thread mears although having to have a seperate thread for it does make me realise how lucky I am!

I work from home 4 days a week and my dh is a teacher. Ds who is 10m goes to a childminder from 10 till 4 for the 4 days that I work. I get him up and ready in the morning and play with him till 10, and then pick him up at 4. Dh is usually home by 4.30 and looks after him for the rest of the day, gets his dinner and baths him. The day off that I have we spend swimming and visiting places.

At the weekend it's pretty equal, and during school holidays it's all dh. He even takes him off for a few days in the holidays to stay with grandparents / aunts etc.

As for housework, the little that we do is spread quite well. Dh does most of the cooking, ironing and hoovering, while I do the other bits - washing, bathrooms etc.

I know we are lucky that I can work from home, a change I made when we had ds, and it means that I can do things during the day if I need to, and make the time up in the evenings (like the time I spend looking at Mumsnet!).

I think that dh probably does more than me! I work full time with some evenings/ weekends on call. Dh works full time, but 9-5ish. We all get up at 6 am for breakfast, then I b/feed dd while dh gets dressed, then he dresses dd while I get dressed. We all leave the house around 7.40 am, and dh usually drops dd off at nursery on his way to work. Whichever one of us finishes work first (we work in the same place, thankfully, so easy to keep track of each other) picks up dd on the way home and gets her tea into her. Then its bath-time which we all take part in, as dd prefers to have company in the bath!(Only one of the grown-ups at a time in our tiny bath!. Then I b/feed dd and put her in her cot when asleep ( still haven't been able to break that little habit!), while dh gets dinner. Housework is pretty much evenly split along the lines described by Scummymummy- neither of us picked up that lump of potato from the kitchen floor until it went very mouldy-yeuch!

I'm fairly recently married, and even more recently familied, and still used to looking after myself. Although I like having dinner made for me, it makes me feel guilty about not pulling my weight. Every time dh gets round to a bit of housework, I feel I have to do an equal amount to catch up! Time to chill out a little maybe!

Ours is split fairly evenly in terms of the time we are actually both at home (although he never cooks / does the laundry and I never do the garden/DIY). However because I don't work Fridays, I usually spend at least 4 - 6 hours of that day on housework, cooking, food shopping etc (although we do have a cleaner for 4 hours on Thursdays). My working week is 44 - 48 hours spread over only 4 days so by the time Friday rolls around, I am knackered. But my husband's week is 60 hours+ so there is no potential for him to up his contribution without impinging on our family time. I count myself lucky that he is as helpful as he is.

Oh good I'm not the only one whose dh does about 55 - 60% of childcare. I sort out things like getting clothes, food shopping etc, and I tend to instigate any clearouts but we are fortunate enough to have a lovely woman who cleans for us once a week and ds goes to a childminder as dh and I both work full time.

DH use to do about 80 and me 20 when I worked in a proper career
Now that I work from home - and so does he - both part time, I'd say we do 50/50 EXCEPT that I now do far more house work than he does.... in a way I enjoy it because I like a tidy house and was really finding it hard before when I came home and it was all a mess and I was too tired to clean !
DH having been doing so much childcare he is VERY close to the kids and I don't need to tell him anything about how and what to do (well most of the time !)

BTW he told me a cute one yesterday.... he knew he married Mrs Right.... but he didn't know her first name was Always !

Dh started today being the full time carer. He gave up his career, partly because he was bored but mainly because he felt he would never have this opportunity again. As for housework...what's that? I do most of the cooking mainly because I enjoy it and have a slightly better imagination than dh. Cleaning is kept to the bare minimum and I only do the evening dishes because I hate having to wash cups first thing in the morning before my caffine injection.

We share everything pretty much 50/50 too. And ds isn't even dp's. OK, I do have to mention that the loo/stairs/sinks need doing sometimes but that's not the end of the world. Apart from that he really pulls his weight with shopping, childcare, cooking, cleaning etc. If I cook he washes up and vice versa and we take it in turns to put washing on and to hang dry clothes up. No-one does the ironing since we don't do ironing in this house. In fact, I moaned about doing too much of the shopping a while ago and he's done it all since. It's been wonderful not even thinking about whether we've got bread or milk or loo roll: he's done it all for the last 6 weeks.

Oooh I love him and do, in fact, want to have his babies I'm also incredulous when I read about what some of the men here get away with - in the same situation I would moan so much that it would be easier to do it than to listen to me going on and on and on...

Oh dear, I think I'm married to the wrong man...all your DPs sound wonderful. What I find annoying is that DH will do cooking/laundry when asked but never thinks about it. Childcare - I'm definitely the primary carer, he just pitches in every so often. And I know he would dearly like me to iron his shirts but I've been studiously ignoring the hints!

In response to Mears question - God No!!! I don't expect the care to be allocated 50/50 because dh works abroad most weeks Mon-Fri, but I would be so thrilled if it even approached 30/70 when he was around. I love dh dearly but his inertia when it comes to childcare and household help drives me to distraction. I have three options: be a constant nag, do it all myself, do the bare minimum necessary to keep baby & toddler clothed and fed and then listen to him whinge and carp on about the state of the house etc.
DH does earn the majority of our household income (I work part-time) and does work long hours, but as we all know, that is nothing compared to the hours I put in as the primary carer of two very small children.
I would love to amend the current situation and am full of admiration for women who seem able to galvanise their partners/husbands without resorting to nagging. If anyone has any top tips for subtle methods of man management, I am all ears!

Hi Bugsy, sounds like you're still in the same boat as me. Single mum status without the benefits eh! Are you finding it a lot harder with 2 children now? Time they are both fed and in bed its 8.30pm, quick tidy and dinner, and then regretting staying up to watch The Office because you have to get up early next morning!!
Why is all the good TV on after 10 O'clock, its such a temptation, especially when I haven't got the energy to rewind a blank video tape!!

P.S. Bugsy, top tip for non helpful partners, on no account do their ironing. Its an easy one to avoid without affecting you. Just get a bigger ironing basket!

I'm there with you Lil! Propped my eyes open with matchsticks to watch The Office and felt the effects at 5.15am today!!!!
It is hard with two and I got so exhausted that I recruited some help between 6 and 8pm Mon-Thurs. Just two hours of help a day has made the world of difference and has kept me sane. I have huge amounts of admiration for genuine single parents who cope solo 24/7 all year around. They deserve medals.
However, all that doesn't stop me wishing that dh would be a little more "willing" when he is around!

where can you find recruited help? is it paid or friends? Oh that 6-8pm slot. Nothing matches it!

Initially, I advertised for a "mothers help" in SimplyChildcare (check out their website for further info) and then I found someone through my childminder. She is a student with younger siblings and is just a nice helpful girl, who slowly gets ds (3 yrs) into pyjamas and bed in a fun way, while I get dd to bed, load / unload dishwasher / washing machine, hang washing out, get some food prepared, tidy house, sterilise bottles etc. etc. etc.
It is so great because it means that when I finally get ds to sleep at about 8.30pm, I am not running around in quite such a headless manner until 10pm. I can actually sit down and eat my food and maybe even watch a bit of telly or make a phonecall!