How do I tell him I don't want to go back to work?

[DontGiveAwayTheHomeworld]

DS starts school in two weeks. He's going straight into full-time, which frees up a large chunk of the day for me. Because of this, DH has started on about me going back to work. The thing is, I don't really want to.

We don't desperately need the money, things are tight but we manage. I never had anything resembling a career, and the only work I could realistically do is shop/cleaning work - I was more than happy to give that up, and I really don't want to go back to that, particularly if there's no financial gain (which there wouldn't be after childcare.) Besides that, I've been working on a novel for the last year and a bit, and the dream is to write full- time. The extra time I gain from DS being at school would be the perfect transition to that, but DH sees it as just a hobby. Which it is, I guess, but I'd love to make it my career, even if I don't make much money from it.

I just don't know how to talk to DH about all this, he's all but decided I'll be going back to full-time work outside the home, to the point where he's getting annoyed at the fact I'm not really looking. It's really eating at my confidence - like I'm not worth anything without a job.

And I think a healthy dose of realism is also recognising that everything had pros and cons. A 'shitty low paid term time job which fits around the kids' may feel mundane sometimes, but I bet there are many career men and women in high stress management roles who'd kill for a week where they could roll up for work after the school drop off and be finished by 3pm. God knows, there are enough threads on MN from women asking how to get a term time school hours job because they're like gold dust.

Bottom line is: the OPs husband doesn't want to be the sole earner any more and that's fair enough. Equally, she has a right to expect him to take on proportionately more of housework and cooking if she works. As for women who admit to being in relationships where they work the same hours as their husband and still do far more housework, or at the same level job as their husband but still do more than their share of staying home with sick kids... Well, they only have themselves to blame really. A partnership is what you make it.

or follow a dream, or to flog a metaphor like a dead equine

Love it. Have you considered a career as a writer?

Lordy, no! I am far too much of a natural drudge

You are being selfish.
Time to pull your weight financially I'm afraid. You can't expect your DH to pay for everything whilst you indulge your inner writer.
What if he said he wanted to give up work to become a golf professional or something & you had to take sole financial responsibility, I bet you wouldn't be too happy??

Arsenicy, you are giving the OP the benefit of the doubt because of her age, that is a kindly thing to do.

I'm just interested in how the OP came to feel she had so few choices. It's pragmatic to reserve judgement until that's clear, I think.

OK, there are valid arguments against taking an unskilled, low-waged job if you have skills, experience and qualifications and can afford not to take such a job.
One is that you may be depriving someone else who doesn't have skills and qualifications and who is desperate, of a job.

Another is that employers who pay inadequate wages and treat their staff like shit should be boycotted. It is genuinely wrong that people who are on benefits are pressured to take zero-hours-contract jobs or expected to be 'flexible' when that translates as 'working any amount of unpaid overtime at short notice and being expected to be grateful to have a job at all.'

There is also a moral and utilitarian argument for maximising her earnings over her lifespan and fully exploiting her potential and talents.

The choice ISN'T between FT unskilled work and FT speculative novel writing.

Many posters are falling into the trap of believing that just as much as the OP is.

I find it amazing how bothered and judgmental people can be on a thread like this.

It's not a clear-cut issue. At all.

Many posters seem to have given the OP a cursory skim before becoming overcome by frothing indignation at the thought of relying on a breadwinner. There are many male actors and writers who point to their wives being willing to support them as instrumental in getting their first creative project of the ground. Taking gender out of it, it's something that a DP should probably consider and have a discussion about, if he/she loves their partner and wants them to flourish. Nobody's obliged to go through with anything so kind, of course. But this is how the OP's really feeling then she's entitled to a conversation (hopefully less entitled than the OP, which was, I think tongue in cheek, something that seems to have passed more earnest posters by).

I also think we're all terrified of of being perceived as lazy if we stay at home to raise children - and that working mothers often do perceive stay at home mothers as lazy. In fact, both are a valid choice and just because a single parent or two working parents can use childcare, afford a slightly bigger mortgage and spend their lives rushing madly about from pillar to post doesn't make it the only sensible and moral choice. It's a decision to be arrived at together based on mutual aspirations and if the OP is guilty of failing to discuss this issue with her husband, her husband also seems not to have made space for hearing what his wife's aspirations and hopes are. She doesn't sound materialistic. If she thinks they have 'enough' to live on, she may really not see the point of going through something that she perceives will be hell, just to have a bit more to buy new curtains for the hall with or even upgrade the car. If she's had a child full-time at home until now, she has probably been responsible for a plethora of different jobs within the home in addition to being on call 24/7. Why shouldn't she at least hope to catch her breath? Nothing wrong with picking up some cleaning if she and her husband doesn't that, on balance, it's best. But she's not being selfish in thinking that this option seems a bit pointless.

Some of the ideas being trotted out here are mystifying. To those who have suggested study...how on earth would her DP be persuaded to pay for that when what he wants is another income? To those who have suggested writing for cash - if you can do it, you are very clever and very lucky. I have a highly successful relative in journalism who is watching colleagues being sacked right left and center, certain he'll be next. All of those talented, experienced writers are flooding a reduced market for writers.

And finally....my parents never had much - struggling junior university lecturer when I was growing up, mum stayed home with us children. She was qualified to teach but couldn't get a job. Dad just wanted her to be happy because he loved her. They weren't materialistic. She helped out in the community and she was 100% there for us all the time minus the seven hours we were out at school each day. If I asked her now why she didn't get a job as a cleaner, I think she would laugh and say, 'I didn't want to!'. Is she selfish? No.

I don't really want to go to work either.

But I'm an adult who needs to eat and needs a roof over her head, so I do.

And finally....my parents never had much - struggling junior university lecturer when I was growing up, mum stayed home with us children. She was qualified to teach but couldn't get a job. Dad just wanted her to be happy because he loved her. They weren't materialistic. She helped out in the community and she was 100% there for us all the time minus the seven hours we were out at school each day. If I asked her now why she didn't get a job as a cleaner, I think she would laugh and say, 'I didn't want to!'. Is she selfish? No.

Sorry, but one income could support a whole family then, it can't always do that now-that's why the ops DH isn't happy. Surely you can see it's not the 1970s now?!

Shit. I hate the picture of society that this thread paints. Mothers and Fathers working in shit jobs with shit pay - held hostage to jobs they don't like because that's the way it is. The fear of one half of the partnership not working because it will all fall apart.

But I know I'm being all rareified because that's how it's always been. Except, before, when we all worked with our noses to the grindstone with no prospects, we had family and society and community. Now we are expected to tread water and have no life rafts. Work. Earn. Pay mortgage. Retire (on a pension that is worth nothing)

I'd LOVE to write a book - but I know I haven't the talent. Where's the OP?

My mother stayed at home baking bread and being there every day in the way that you did back in the 70s. It is 45 yrs on from then and times have changed. It's not unusual for women to work because many women like work, like the social ness, like a challenge and regard housework as pointless drudgery.

All the defence of SAHP (or just stay at home) is pointless when you take into account the fact that OP's husband does not want to be the sole earner. Until he agrees to fully financially support her (against his choice, but because that's what she wishes) it would appear that she has a problem.

Anyone else stating that he should and if he loved her and mourning what this means for society is missing the fact that it means when two adults share a life and responsibilities there has to be agreement about who is responsible for what. Op and her husband don't agree. She has no more right than he does to make unilateral decisions about responsibility. They have to agree.

All the other detail about writing being successful or not, whether work could be found that was profitable etc is academic if they have no agreement over that first principle.

I've followed this thread with interest. Maybe because like the OP what I want to do is write fiction, but have always been too scared to give up FT or PT paid work to 'follow my dream'. I've found it hard at times not to resent my DH when he's had a job he enjoys much more than me.
This time last year I decided to DO something and give myself a goal: getting up an hour earlier to write 5 days a week and banning DCs from the room til the alarm goes off; entering competitions; finding a writing coach to help/motivate (cheaper than you think). I am much older than OP but had faffed around too long. A year on, I've written a lot - some short stories successfully; an absolutely crap first draft of a novel. So some progress.
Would I prefer that I had the ability to do it FT? Yes - and of course I feel that in some way I'm not a 'serious' writer because I can't sacrifice all for it. Do I feel I'm too old, that if I was a true writer I'd have succeeded by now? Of course :( But this thread has made me think about how DH feels as the main breadwinner in the house - thank you MN for making me think about that - and how I can carry on juggling reality and a dream. Maybe I'm not doing as badly as I think.

A friend of mine has written 2 novels which could be described as 'successful'. She still works as a teacher and sometimes book critic.

Both partners are so surprised and impressed that the man in the partnership is doing any housework at all, that they consistently over-estimate how much domestic labour the male partner actually does.

I think that comment is fairy condescending! It seems sexism is alive and well but reversed!!

My dad, step dad and husband all do housework as a matter of course without expecting a round of applause! Have done for years. My step dad raised his kids and held down a full time job so his ex could set up her own company and she freely admits it. My dad does all the shopping and cooking, my Dh is extremely hands on with our DC, does everything I do in the house and we are very competitive over who cooks the best! Just because there are some useless feckers who get away with it doesn't mean all men are the same!

One thing jumps out at me in all of this, believe you'll resent your DH for going back to work because he thinks you ought.

Truth is you should go back to work because that's what your family needs you to do.

Some people are lucky enough to be in a job they love, most of the world simply go to work to pay for their life when they aren't at work.

The problem is that writing is unlike the vast majority of jobs, in that you can work incredibly hard at it, and be good at it, and still make precisely no money. You need to be dedicated and committed and lucky to bring in more than a negligible amount of money. There's a real risk that you could devote years to it, get nowhere, meaning that it really was no more than a costly hobby, which would probably lead to real resentment from your husband.

I got lucky. I won a reasonably high-profile competition, had interest from agents, and was taken on by one of them. Book one has had positive feedback from editors, but no offer. Some have asked to see book 2, and that has now gone out. No offer so far. The time from starting book one to completing book two was over three years. If I'd ditched the day job as soon as I thought I was getting somewhere, we'd be three years of salary down.

I am now giving up the day job to write full time, but that's off the back of two years of freelancing, with a firm agreement from one magazine editor to give me a certain amount of work, and a relatively successful sideline in short story competitions. Building up that side of things has taken time and effort, but having more free time to do it wouldn't have speeded things up particularly. It's just a slow process.

So a stroke of luck, enough success to know that I'm at least competent, and working hard at it, and it's still taken three years to get to the point where I can be confident of making a modest profit.

Also, when I first met my agent, she said that she always advises her writers to have another job, not only because writing is so precarious, but also because she doesn't believe that many people can write in a bubble.

Writing is something that you can do alongside something else, and the vast majority of writers do exactly that. Having a part time job is unlikely to slow your progress substantially, simply because of the nature of writing - there's only so many hours at a time that you can sit down and retain any sort of decent output - and it would prevent it becoming a real bone of contention in your home.

Excellent post thicket.
Roolomthesummer are you suggesting Sahms don't exist?

I was the sole breadwinner for years. I really enjoy my job, but it was a lot of pressure. DH going to work was a relief. His drudgery job ensured a better standard of living for us,know ever small.

It's not a big ask.

When things are tight, you do what you can for your family.

Some people are over thinking all this, and also adding in their own issues ; eg the poster who assumed ( based on her own situation) that if the OP returns to work, she'll end up doing all the housework, cooking and taking time off if the child is ill.

The bottom line is: a relationship of two adults is a partnership. There is no blueprint on how roles 'should' be divvied up. Thank god we're not in the bygone era when roles were pigeonholed by the social structures of the time, and when regulated childcare didn' exist anyway .
It's up to every couple to agree between them how to share the tasks involved in running a home and family. The OPs DH has made it clear he no longer wants to be sole earner - and that is his right. He may enjoy his job, or maybe he's learned to enjoy it over the years; he may have been prepared to take on the pressure of being sole earner while the child was pre school, but whatever the background, he doesn't want to continue being sole earner to support his wife's hobby.

I also agree that there have been lots of practical suggestions here as to how to start a conversation and more importantly demonstrate that she's serious by fitting in writing alongside some work, which is what most writers do anyway. However she has ignored all of that because it seems practical responses which treat her as an adult aren't what she wants to hear.

Of course there are sahms. Far less though now than 30 years ago-partly due to the cost of living-and you need the main breadwinner to be in agreement for this to be a success. Which the OP's DH is not.

theladybird please do not feel you are a lesser writer because you do other paid work . Zadie SMith, PHilip Hencher, Martin Amis , Toby Lit ... all work as lecturers..

OTOH, TheWord, Pat Barker, Kate Atkinson, Dorothy Lessing all started (or continued) writing when they were SAHMs.

arsenic of course there are writers who don't do other paid work (though they are the minority) but that wasn't the point I was making. The fact is that it is not necessary. Nor for many writers is it actually desirable.