Being the higher earner...and a good mother

[babybrain77]

Hi everyone

Hoping to get some perspective/ideas from others in a similar position.

DH and I married earlier this year and I am pregnant with baby number 1. We are both very excited.

As the initial excitement of getting a BFP is overtaken by first trimester exhaustion and sickness, I have been worrying a bit about the practicalities of parenthood. DH is due to start a degree in September as he wants (with my encouragement - he was miserable) to change careers.

I am in a stable job which I enjoy, and have been promoted well to a relatively senior position earning good money. My salary is sufficient to comfortably cover our outgoings. DH is not 'old-fashioned' in the slightest - he has stopped work now in preparation for his course, and is doing the vast majority of household chores whilst he is home during the day, in combination with reading and prepping for the course. I have no doubt that when baby comes along, he will more than pull his weight.

I have two main problems. The first is that DH is sensitive about the fact that he is not earning and is likely to earn less than me for the foreseeable future (the career he is looking to go into is not going to be as well paid as mine). I have tried to explain that his happiness and fulfilment are more important than financial contribution, and that the working patterns associated with his new job (long holidays) will be hugely beneficial to our finances, but he still finds it difficult. We were both raised in households where the father worked and the mother was a stay at home parent.

The second is that I worry I am going to miss out on things as a parent. I am lucky enough to work for a company that is flexible and generous with maternity leave, but that only goes so far. I always imagined that I would be the one able to pick up children from school if unwell, stand on the side of sports fields and 'run' a home. I like my job, but I am already feeling guilty that it's going to come at the expense of feeling like a good mother.

Sorry for the long post - if anyone has any words of wisdom of how to support DH and get my head around being a working parent, I would love to hear them.

I'm the breadwinner too - mine are 6&9 and I've been in current job 7 years. Flex too so often drop at school and go to work and always go to sports days as I usually use it as lunch break and work from home afterwards

The main thing with your partner is he's into a degree and changing career it'll take time but he's contributing too in other ways - mine recently finished a 2 year part time course and did lots of school drop and picks but I still do some

Convention these days can be anything!

Thanks @flumpybear - great to hear. Do you mind my asking how it was when they were very young? Did you go back to work quite quickly after your second?

Perhaps by the time your child starts school, you might be able to work flexibly some days? Maybe some work from home or early finish some days?
Is your partner planning to study at the same time as doing childcare? Might be tricky in my experience (but because he is male, I mean for anyone!).

I mean NOT because he is male!

@cantmakeme Yes - I don't think there would be any problem working flexibly. I already work from home a day a week. Slight complication in that my office is quite a commute (1.5-2hrs in the car) from home, so I stay 2-3 nights a week near the office, do one day a week in London and one day a week from home (South West of London). So I think this is making it harder for me to imagine how it will work :-(

Both DH and I have mothers who are desperate to help with childcare. I am happier in prospect with my mother than his, but that is my issue! I don't expect DH to study and do childcare, but hopefully his study will be flexible, and he will be able to do childcare during his holidays.

I have one piece advice for you. Buy yourself a copy of 'wifework', read it, and forget about mad gender expectations 🖒🖒.

What is being a 'good mother'? Personally I think there is much more to it than just being there at sports day. Teaching them that women are as strong and independent as men, and that men can do the nurturing and sports days and cuddly stuff is a very important part of parenting. To my mind.

I appreciate that you love your husband and want to help him adjust but.... wifework. It really is. You have taken it on the chin, sucked up the prospect of less mat leave/ more time in the office to enable him to change career which is very admirable. However you are now finding yourself needing to look after everyone else's emotional wellbeing as well- classic female role.

Emotional graft is the hard jard hard bit of parenting. Be very careful not to assume full 'motherly' responsibility for that by default, because then you really will find yourself unable to have it all....

My second was 6 months when I went back to work but DH til 4 months paternity leave too so he wasn't in nursery til 10 months and he knew it well as he'd been dropping off his baby sister since he was in utero!
It was hard work but mainly lack of sleep but coffee helped!
Nursery is much easier than school so the first few years will be ok as you drop early and pick up late, schools have after school or breakfast clubs if you need them too usually
I make sure I'm home early enough for bedtime (usually well before to be honest but I only work 10 mins drive away) and we have lots of weekend and holiday family time. We also sleep regularly with the kids still which helps with bonding I feel (didn't co sleep as babies not til they were about 2)

How brilliant that you are both willing and able to reverse the roles and thus both have satisfying careers. I know a couple of people doing the same thing, and it is great to see them embracing non-traditional roles. As long as this type of arrangement is still fairly new, you won't just get the stress of feeling like you "should" be "more motherly" or "more fatherly", you will also get massive kudos for being modern and flexible, with the dad melting hearts by tenderly caring for his children and the mum held up as an example for what young women are capable of in the workplace. Milk it as much as you can!

My situation sounds quite similar to yours. I have an older daughter who is 12, I'm the higher earner, I commute 1.5 hours to and from work 3 times per week, and WFH the other days. We also have a baby who is 1. I returned to work when he was 6 months old and had hoped to be able to reduce my hours to 4 days however this was declined. Consequently I work full time.

My husband also works full time but generally works from home. Our childcare hours mean that often I'm not around to do the drop off and pick ups so my husband by far does the lions share of this.

There are days when I feel we're managing and everything is ticking along fine. And there are days when I feel I'm doing a terrible job as a mum, a wife and an employee.

We've found that quite a strict routine works for us, we know who's picking up and dropping off when and the baby has quite a set routine for bedtime etc.

I've also found that we make more of the weekends and do lots as a family then. I try to remind myself that the financial freedom we have to do nice things and take the children to nice places to make fab memories means that sometimes I can't do some of the little things like nursery drop offs etc.

For me the thought of how we'd manage once the baby was here and I was back at work, was a lot worse than the reality. I think you just get on with it as you just have to!

OP I'm sure you didn't mean this to come across as it does, but you might want to think about the large numbers of lone parents who have to work full time because they are not only the main but the sole breadwinner, and the implication of what you are saying about being a "good" mother.

I work 60 hours a week to support my DD because, well, no-one else will. I am very lucky in that I have a good job which I enjoy and get well paid for, but even if it was miserable and minimum wage I'd still have to do it.

I have never had the luxury of being able to do school pick-ups and rarely see my DD for more than an hour on week days.

I take issue with the idea that this in some way means I'm not a "good" mother.

You have admitted yourself that the idea of a mother who doesn't work is learned behaviour from yours and your DP's parents but you still betray a fair amount of prejudice about what being a "good" female parent is.

I work my arse off all week often to the detriment of my health for mine and my daughter's financial security. I spend as much of my free time as possible with her and bend over backwards to make sure she is well fed, well cared for, loved, stimulated and well educated.

Am I not a "good" mother because I'm not at the school gates every day? I don't think so. I compensate for the time I'm not with her in a variety of ways, by making sure she's financially well provided for (I know that's not the most important thing), by making sure she's loved and cared for. And I also show her what a woman can achieve on her own. I'm sure you didn't mean to offend with what you said, but for the sake of your own children I think you should think a little bit about what you're conveying to them with these ideas about gender roles.

I am a single mother and I work about 60 hours a week at the moment, purely for money!

All you can do is your best. Feed them, love them and cuddle them. Unfortunately it isn’t always possible to be there for every single moment of their lives if you have no choice but to earn what you need. It’s hard. Things get missed and forgotten... can’t be helped sometimes

Can you put in flexible working request for when the baby comes?

Are you able to work from home? Do compressed hours maybe?

I worked part time when mine were in primary school and it worked perfectly.

I was able to attend special assemblies...liturgies...sports days etc.

@ohnothanks - What a great perspective, thank you! I will definitely get a copy of wifework for my holiday reading.

@ravenmum - thank you, what a lovely message. I admit that I am dying to see DH with the baby, the thought of it melts me already!

@22WR - it's great to hear from someone doing something similar, thank you. I do hope that we will just get on with it once baby arrives, I am sometimes guilty of trying to overthink/plan. At the moment I'm so exhausted by the end of the working week that the weekends are a write-off...hopefully my body will get used to the tiredness at some point!

@usernamefromhell - thanks for taking the time to share your experience. I hope that you will choose not to take offense at my post. My life experience tells me not try to compare my lot to others - it rarely does anyone any good. My post was merely looking for others who are in a similar situation to me, who might be able to shed light on how they have overcome the feeling of conflict and guilt associated with not being able to spend as much time with DC as they would like. My fears and concerns do not imply a judgement of others who are doing things differently, either by choice or circumstance.

@SandyY2K The company I work for is relatively small and male dominated (although there are other women with children working there, they joined when DC were older, so there has never actually been someone on maternity leave before). The head of the company has been very supportive so far and has said that he is happy for me to work from home and be flexible, so I think I will just have to see how things go when baby arrives. I think one of my issues is that my 'model' of parenting (which I loved - I am very close with my parents) is different from what I will be able to give to DC. So it's great to hear from people who have different 'models' and still manage to make it work!

I was in the same situation as you.

1. Your DH can't have his cake and eat it. Either he wants to study to change careers or he wants to be the breadwinner. If he gets sensitive about it remind him it was his choice and no matter which path he has taken you both equally share parenting and housework.

1. You'll learn how to create the right balance for you and your family. It may seem daunting now, but you can be a good mum and have a full time career. I travel away two days a week so understand how tough it can be. School events are still years away - don't make decisions now based on these as life may have changed by then. I make it to the majority of important school events for my kids.

1. Managing the house is not your job - it is a shared workload with your partner.

You'll worry about how on earth you'll balance everything at each new stage but you'll work it out. Working from home is really helpful as is having grandparents on hand ☺.

I preume your dh is going to be a teacher. If so can I warn you that indeed this is one of the hardest working and pressurised jobs ever. The workload is massive. The stress can be overwhelming with constant monitoring from senior staff. Also teaching practices can be very tough!
Just warning you.

I know exactly what you mean by missing out. I worked throughout my dc childhood and I really wished I hadn't.

@theducksaysmoo thanks so much for sharing. It's great to hear that you have managed to still make it to most events even travelling a couple of days a week.

@feckers2018 thanks for the warning! Fortunately we have a lot of friends (including a housemate) who are teachers so have seen first hand how stressful it can be. As DH is coming from another high stress, long hours, poorly paid job, hopefully it won't be too much of a shock to the system! I'm sorry that you regret working whilst DC were young, that's hard and where I'm hoping it doesn't go for me