If you're in a more traditional eg sahm set up..

[Eucalyptusbee]

Which parent is more responsible if one of the kids has an issue with poor school performance vs what they should be getting (Not an issue with underlying ability or behaviour, just not meeting expectations as per natural ability).

I'm talking primary school age children here so parental help required for learning support.

Is it
The sah parent
The parent who is focused on earning and so not around to help with homework
Neither

@daisyjgrey

You're a team...not two parties working separately so one can take the blame for something.

The point is, it shouldn't even be about blame. The dd might be exactly where she needs to be right now. The fact that she isn't currently exceeding expectations for her age doesn't mean that anyone is failing in any way. Nor does it predict how the dd will do in the future. She is six ffs!

@Clymene "But the OP isn't a SAHP. She's a hospital doctor on maternity leave"

Yes I get that, but for the purpose of this thread she's on mat leave and has compared that to being the SAHP, which she is while on mat leave.

He normally goes to the gym or plays tennis in the evening. I support this as it helps him unwind-he was very stressed when not going

But is this not just him ducking out of parenting his children every night as you end up doing the brunt of everything, juggling 3 children one of whom is a baby? Dh has a very stressful job too but still made it home for 5.30pm and did all the teamwork needed for food and bath times, reading etc, then he went to the gym after that or like now, at 6am and back to make Ds2's lunch (almost 16 but Dh loves looking after him) and often drives Ds2 to school so they can spend one on one time together. I wonder if your Dh has ever looked after all the children by himself rather than you always being there.

Lots of people have stressful jobs, surely your job is incredibly stressful too. If you can, throw money at it. The whole anybody can do what you do is not true because other people charge for it and only do shorter shifts of it. Get a cleaner/housekeeper someone who cleans but also organises stuff. Maybe they can throw something into a slow cooker for you so your evening meal is sorted.

I am a SAHM but there is a 3 year gap between mine and I only had 2. Dh and I don't do the blame game, we say well that's happened how do we move forward from here? What are we putting in place to make X happen. We also regularly ask each other, is there anything I can do that would make your life a little easier? We have been married over 20 years.

I'm just catching up with your posts.

Honestly, I'd pack some bags, collect DCs from school and go and stay with family. (If this is at all possible)
I can't imagine my husband being such an asshole towards me.

Sounds to me like he's very stressed. But he can't be gok g around and taking it out on you.

If you want to be a complete cunt to him, you could leave with the baby and leave him to deal with working and 2 kids. But that's just fueling a fire you don't need to be honest.

He's being horrible though and you have to stand up to him now.

Also, if either of us wants to do something un the evening. It's after the kids go to bed. Or prearranged before hand that we won't be back for dinner/bed time. And it's not allowed to happen often because it's bloody hard work (as you know) looking after 3 kids and a dog (you may not have one of these!!)

He really needs to see that he can't have his cake and eat it.

Every single update you post makes me more angry on your behalf!
Are your finances not combined? Why were you paying for an au pair out of your salary with its 1/10th of his?
Why does he think that all the household contributions have no value? He obviously can't be that smart if he can't comprehend how much it would actually cost him to have someone running the household & caring for his children!
He gets to play martyr whilst getting paid a fortune & then swanning off to the gym to relax & coming home to a meal cooked for him! This is not a partnership at all and your children will notice this more and more as they grow up.
You are modelling behaviours for them & they will normalise it in their own relationships. You don't even deserve to be treated this way, imagine your poor children being in relationships like this in the future & understand it will be because they believed it was acceptable because their parents did this.
Don't even get me started on the absolute nonsense that is 'I went to oxbridge so I must be superior & therefore my children must be superior' - this is an extremely damaging mindset that will impact your children's self esteem in the long term.
You are a doctor & this man has made you question your self worth so completely that you accept his horrible treatment of you. This impact will also be felt by your children. I don't have anything to suggest except counselling for your family because this issue is so big & will affect you all for a long time.

What is your childcare when you're both working? Presumably with your 'D'H's high earnings you could afford a nanny, who would help with homework? Perhaps while on mat leave you could get an au pair or mother's help to support you in the after-school hours - maybe that person could take the baby for a bit to free you up to help with homework? Or they could cook the evening meal so that's one less task for you as well?

The more you mention about him, the worse he is.

He seems to have no respect for you and has ground you down over time.

I do like PPs idea of thinking about what you want and what you want your life to look like. Add writing a few nice things about yourself each day too.

[quote 1Wanda1]@Clymene "But the OP isn't a SAHP. She's a hospital doctor on maternity leave"

Yes I get that, but for the purpose of this thread she's on mat leave and has compared that to being the SAHP, which she is while on mat leave. [/quote]
You know the normal response for a decent husband and father to a teacher saying you should do a bit more reading with your year 1 child is to discuss how you can carve that up between you, acknowledging that your wife has her hands full in caring for a 3 month old, cleaning out the house and doing 3 hour round trips to look at properties. And that maybe you can give up a gym session to do reading.

Not tell her she's a failure.

@spacehardware

Sounds like your husband knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. What a prick.

^this.

"He normally goes to the gym or plays tennis in the evening. I support this as it helps him unwind-he was very stressed when not going"

So even though you don't actually need the vast amounts of money he earns in this cripplingly stressful job, he chooses to keep doing it, and has to be allowed to do whatever he wants in his down time or he makes your life miserable.

He's sounding like a Prince amongst men to me.

Well, you already know that your husband is being a dick and I hope you are reviewing the nature of your relationship in the light of everything you've heard on here.

However, I cannot emphasise enough how damaging it is for your DC to be thought of as 'not good enough' if they are not excelling in everything. That is the sort of thing that leads to lifelong issues. They're very young, still developing fast and things like reading skills don't develop in a linear manner. And I can guarantee you that with this kind of pressure on, your DC will really struggle once they reach secondary age. Take that very seriously.

@1Wanda1

I don't really understand the comments that say this is a matter of equal responsibilities. If you've got primary school aged children and one parent is working till 7-8pm every day then clearly the practicalities mean that the SAHP is the one with the day to day responsibility for supervising and helping with homework and supporting learning. Yes the working parent can do some at weekends but you can't pack it all in to evenings after 7pm or the weekend - that's not fair on the child or the working parent.

Nor is this a question of which parent is more intelligent. We're talking about primary school content not A level maths. Unless one parent has learning difficulties themself then this is the SAHP's job to support Mon-Fri and the working parent could help a bit at weekends.

I used to be a SAHP and it wouldn't have occurred to me to expect the other parent to start doing homework when they got home at 7pm.

You might want to RTWT.

Thank you, yes I am probably a bit ground down.

To answer your questions

2020 /2021 I was taking professional exams and work was very stressful (I'm an anaesthetist for context) but it's difficult to discuss at home as his also became super stressful at the same time due to semi collapse of his particular industry. As he's the main income by a long way that took the focus really. He thinks my job is poorly paid(it is tbh for the hours and stress involved) and so if I don't enjoy it i should find a better paid one I do enjoy.

We had been TTC pre covid and that was then on hold as wasn't sure of severity of the virus and was at the coal face every day so that was a stress too as I always wanted a dc3.

I used to like my job but also feel very ground down by it now and unappreciated there too.

The stress of it is definitely not worth the salary but I want to have a job as its nice to have my own money and something just for me. Also v hard to see any alternative career options at this particular stage of my life.

Kids previously were both in school with au pair to help for wrap around but the house feels much nicer with no one extra living in it and so I'm keen to avoid an au pair again if possible.

Plan when I go back to work this time will be nanny to look after baby and wrap around but haven't organised this yet as baby only 2 1/2 months and I'm going to take a year off.

I pay for childcare utilities food and kids stuff

He does mortgage school fees holidays and savings

We go on a good number of holidays and I'm taking the kids away for Easter hols which he's paid for which is great- he's only coming out for the BH as can't get time off.

Fgs you're an anaesthetist. You have people's lives in your hands on a daily basis, snd he thinks his paper shuffling is more important.

I don't like your husband at all. What's good about him (don't mention the money. About him)?

What mortgage?

The vile abusive prick goes to the gym in the evenings whilst you do everything?? And when you work (as a doctor!) You work 48h? And you look after 3 kids plus everything else? He doesn't know how easy he has it. You deserve a medal. I don't know why you stay with him.

Leave him, enjoy your kids and your life.

@ThymePoultice

What mortgage?

It's paid down now, so payments going into savings instead - for school fees / retirement (his work pension is shit)

You arent in a traditional set up though OP. You are a highly qualified anaesthetist whose husband seems to have made her contribution feel so worthless whereas actually you have managed to

Look after 3 children, whilst studying to further your career and presumably housework without I suspect needing the time to yourself of tennis or the gym that he does.

He has massively inflated his own ego here - his job may earn more but that is all he is bringing to the table and that I think simply isnt what you or your children need. Why does he get to have time to himself - because he happens to have chosen a career that pays more. His certainly is needed more than yours.

And this attitude WILL damage his children if he continues with this whole approach

Ha. Thanks for the support. I think I've always just "got on with it" to compensate for the disparity in earnings but its led to this situation where he can't see the value of what I'm doing as he's never had to be involved in the family admin etc

So you pay for everything while he saves his giant salary and throws you the odd holiday

He's financially abusive as well as emotionally abusive.

I guess reflecting on your comments I've probablu have lost my sense of worth with the grind at work and home and never much to actually objectively show for it

Everything has just become a bit much and this has been a really helpful discussion. I never feel like I can talk about this in real life as it feels disloyal / moaning when I have quite a privileged day to day existence

Thank you all

Feeling a bit .. empty

I’m a SAHM don’t earn anything, I don’t DO anything to stop my DH resenting me, he seems to be quite fond of me (yeah I’m surprised too).

He’s got a horrible perfectionist streak in him and he’s basically decided his family aren’t measuring up. Also if it was so important he would have skipped the gym and sat with his DD for her parents evening. Our DD is 2 and DH took time off to attend her first “parents evening” LOL. He wants a perfect family who basically stay in line, achieve to acceptable standards and basically needs someone to blame if his kids don’t reflect back those high standards.

It’s not that other people aren’t competitive or don’t value education (DH following daughter around with his homemade flash cards as we speak) it’s the way you do it. Your DD is who she is, what if meeting standards is where she will always be, not everyone excels. I would be worried that while right now you are baring the brunt of it, eventually if DD doesn’t start improving he’s going to start making her feel like shit (even if thats through blaming you)

I’m not sure about this but I think marriage counselling is required but tbh he’s questioning your worth and to me you sound extremely worthy, a good woman who’s carrying way more than her share of the load. He’s basically a tit. Good kind men don’t question their wives value because their kid got a “doing fine” at parents evening. I think you need to sit down and think about what YOU are getting from this marriage and when you say he’s nice what does that mean, like generous with his spare time for his family (because it sounds like he and you prioritise his wellbeing above yours) generous with money or is it that he doesn’t ALWAYS make you feel bad. What does he do that makes you feel loved and respected?

Does he just pay into his own retirement with the money that should be paying for the mortgage?
Are you paying for literally everything else for the home & your own retirement?
I can't fathom why your finances have been this separate for this long. It really doesn't bode well for your financial security down the line. Even with what must be a good salary on your side, he is putting all his money now into savings whereas yours is still predominantly going to expenses.
This man has made you feel worthless when you have an extremely challenging job & 3 children to care for and a household to run. All he has to do is his day job & he still feels like he has the right to complain about you doing literally everything else 'not to his standards' just because he earns more money. This is such a personality fault I don't know how you can get past that.

My Head always used to say there should be no surprises for parents on a parents' evening - that it is the school's job to avoid this so perhaps you should be looking at what the school can do to alert you in future. There should be no blaming only looking at what you can do moving forward.