Being the ‘secondary’ parent as a Mum?

[nightmareallys]

My DH and I are in the stage of talking about children, and what our lives would like with children. We both currently work full time in similar paying jobs, and I enjoy mine more than him and I have a clearer route of progression and pay rises. It’s also easier in my job for me to move round to different companies - I have a set “role” that many companies use. His job is more specialist and less transferable.

He’s also definitely more excited about being a parent than I am. He’s very family-focussed and loves his nephews and is really excited about parenting. I think I’ll find it much harder as I’m quite selfish and I think I’ll find not putting myself first quite trying at times. My DH is already a very selfless person and does that already often. We’re both keen to avoid nurseries for our child/children until school age (apart from a little socialisation in the year before school), just personal preference based on our upbringings.

Anyway, all this to say it seems to me that the best option for us both may be for me to go back to work at 6 monthsish and for my husband to become the full time, stay at home parent. He has expressed an interest in doing this and we think the finances would work. I’m thinking this would be a good way for me to maintain independence and get to be more of the traditional “Dad” parent - weekends and evenings, not the hard grind of childcare.

My main worry is our relationship would suffer - I read a lot of threads on here from SAHM’s whose husbands are resentful of being the ones to keep the family financially afloat, or SAHM’s complaining working parents don’t do enough to help. I worry about how to navigate that, as I would expect my husband to do the bulk of household jobs and child responsibilities - I will not be doing any nighttime’s when I’m working for example, that’s the point of having someone at home. At the moment that’s fine in principle and we both agree, but clearly a lot of people have found that harder in practice.

Anyway, I’m interested in hearing from women who have been the breadwinner whilst their husband’s have stayed home. Or, I guess, from SAHM’s who can give advice on navigating one working, one staying at home.

It doesn’t really sound like you want kids, which is fine
but it sounds like you’re trying to find a way to accept having to have children, and find a way you can carry on as normal, and compartmentalise the kids and family around the life you actually want. Lots of dads do this, but that wouldn’t be the sort of man I’d have a child with. I guess my concern would be if the kids would feel that
and also if you’ll feel resentful if DH loves being a SAHP he gets to be a DF like he wanted, doesn’t have to go to work anymore, and you have to go to work, have stressful days, then come home to DC you didn’t really want, and pay for everything for everyone
especially since you’ll also be the one who’s body is effected and has to do the tiring first 6 months primary care as you recover from birth with a crying baby you weren’t 100% on board with having.

I don’t think you want a baby. And you’re as likely to become as resentful as men do when they have one because their wife wants to. But it’ll be your body going through pregnancy and childbirth which is a massive difference.

from what I’ve seen this always ends badly. Over time the Career woman comes to resent the SAHD and find him less attractive compared to her peers (regardless how good a dad he is) and feels she is in the masculine role. Then often either because of this or independent to it the SAHD comes to feel himself less of a man and grows bitter at the working woman.

Of one couple I know who do this the man is a arty sculpted who works from home and though he is happy his wife has come to resent him and is confused by it all. I can’t see it lasting.

Perhaps some rare men may be happy like this but I’ve never seen or heard of a woman that retains attraction to a man in this role. She may give another reason but it always seems to go that way.

I remember reading that career women with men who either SAHD or earn far less are BY FAR the most likely group to file for divorce and be dissatisfied with their relationship.

I guess you can’t fight nature.

I'm the sole earner and DH is a stay at home dad. I did take a good chunk of mat. leave when DD was born and we have built a very strong bond, so it doesn't really feel like I'm a secondary parent most of the time, but there are a few things such as if she wakes in the night she'll come to DH's side of the bed before mine, and I'm generally considered the 'stricter' parent (if I say no to something she'll go and see DH to see if he'll let her get away with it!)

The secret, as with so many of these things, is communication and respect. I appreciate that DH was able to support DD's homeschooling through the pandemic so I could continue focusing on my career and building a good life for us as a family, and he knows this. DH does a lot of the cooking and organises all DD's activities and homework, but I spend plenty of good quality time with her - of course I do, I'm her mum and I adore her! I just don't have as much time as DH does.

Ultimately it just depends on your relationship and how well you can work as a team. It works for me & DH.

Once children get older and are at nursery and school a SAHP would have time to be doing the house stuff and have down time but with babies and toddlers at home you don't get any peace. Babies do nap of course but some don't sleep for long and if you've only had 3 hours sleep or whatever the night before you might not be hugely motivated to be cleaning windows.

I don't think any parent who is fully looking after a child under the age of about 3 gets any downtime. They may catch up with shit if they sleep but unless the other parent actively facilitates it they won't be getting a break. You'll need to both facilitate breaks and downtime for the other one.

The reason why historically men went to work and did fuck all when they got home is sexism. Why shouldn't they parent on their days off work?

Small children are exhausting, you can't just pop and hang the washing out when you have a 2 year old as they'll try to follow you, or climb on something high, empty all the toilet roll into the toilet etc etc. They need supervision and entertaining and it can be mentally draining.

I'm not a SAHP but work part time and when mine were small I found my days at work were a rest because I only had to think about me and my job during that time and not whether a small person was trying to climb out the window, eat the play doh or once again, is that poo or chocolate on the carpet!

This makes sense in principle. We have a somewhat similar set up to what you want. But I deal better with low sleep. I want my partner to be good at caring for DC and being exceptionally tired doesn't allow him to give them good opportunities. So we take it in turns based on who needs it.

I suppose this is the difference between in principle and practical reality. And your reality will be different to mine based on your personalities.

Over time the Career woman comes to resent the SAHD and find him less attractive compared to her peers (regardless how good a dad he is) and feels she is in the masculine role

Like the wet dad from Motherland.

Sadly I think lots of people (men and women) are pretty sexist on some level and while we all talk a good game about why it should be normal for men to take on the bulk of childcare, in practice lots of people react badly to SAHDs and assume they're a bit pathetic/career failures or else lazy. (And TBF sometimes they are- I've seen plenty of threads on here about men who claim to want to be SAHDs but actually just want to sit around doing the minimum while their wife earns the money and runs the home.)

"We personally don’t agree it’s fair to expect one person to work full time hours and also wake in the night with a baby."

You've got zero idea of the reality! That's just a theory you currently have.

Also I'm a sahm and I can assure you I work 'full time hours', it's not a doss! Young children are full on and it's best to tackle things as a team not just leave everything to one parent.

Letting one parent do all the night time wakings is very unfair and you’ll realise this once you have the baby.
Both parents need sleep, both are working. Looking after a baby is monotonous and exhausting, you get little down time to yourself.

I think you are struggling to work out WHY parenting is a full time job?

You are up at 6 with the baby, feed, burp, many babies don't just lie on the mat and kick back and will need near constant attention. You are then loading and unloading the dishwasher, and doing endless laundry with a small baby.
When you start weaning you have to endlessly clean up messes.
Putting a baby down for a nap isn't easy usually unless you are very lucky.
Bedtime can take up to 30 minutes. Every time the baby naps instead of sitting down, you are tidying up, doing basic cleaning stuff. Or cleaning the floor post weaning. If your child has a tricky morning and you go to the loo for 10 minutes and when you come back they are inconsolable and it takes you half an hour to calm them down. Or just getting out of the house takes 15 minutes more than is necessary.
I think it's very difficult to explain to someone who isn't in the trenches why this is so utterly draining and mind numbing. Parenting an older child or even say a 4 and 6 year old is entirely different to being at home with a 6 month old.

People saying that being a stay at home parent is a full time job and you have to treat it as such and split everything 50/50 when you get home - is the parent who is working full time not doing more?

Well, no- people are saying that both jobs are full time. So each parent is doing one full time job during the working day and then 50% of the childcare outside “office hours”. 150% each.

I think you're being very naïve.

I'm the breadwinner, DH is part time, but I am still the primary parent, because I'm their mother! Even though DH is the main caregiver, he does most of the day-to-day dogwork, it's me they want when they're sick, sad, scared etc etc etc. In my experience it's a primal thing. DH is a spectacular father, but he's daddy, not mummy, and when the chips are down its generally mummy they want.

OP, I really don't think you should have children. You don't want it enough.

I was a sahm and in theory we decided the same before we had children and most of the time it was fine.

However on those nights when the baby won't stop crying and won't go to sleep my husband would take over. There are nights when the children have been ill and I am more tired than he is and it made sense for my husband to do more at night. He did this willingly and without any discussion. He wasn't a secondary parent. He was just a parent who cared about his whole family, including me. Honestly he was better at putting babies to sleep than I was. When older they loved to sleep on his chest and we all got a few hours sleep.

It might come as a shock but the best thing you can do as a family is embrace a flexible approach to parenthood.

I wouldn't necessarily put too much focus on night feeds. By the time you finish mat leave, they will be over with anyway.
Entirely depends on the child of course, but my son rarely woke up in the night after 10 weeks old - lucky easy baby I guess. 1 weekend of teething down the line was all.
I do however, think being a SAHP is unnecessary these days. If you have such an aversion to nursery, could family assist so your DH could be part time? Just thinking his self-esteem would remain better intact that way as he will come up against other people who wonder why he is a SAHP when there is decent childcare out there. My son still has friends that he made at nursery despite not going to school with them after, they are good places of learning and social interaction so not sure why you'd be against that?

Apologies if I missed it, but how long is your husband planning to stay off work? We did shared parental, with some overlaps (which were great and I would highly recommend it). Sharing night wakings is a must at the newborn stage, and your husband should share these with you when you’re off in the first six months. It’s exhausting and dangerous being in charge of a newborn if you’re shattered. It’s easy to make work, just do it in shifts. When the baby sleeps through it’s not an issue. You may have a baby that naps well, if so the sahp can do chores in that time. We didn’t, had a great night sleeper, but only napped for an hour a day, so was difficult to get chores done in the day - we split them in the evening or weekends. We split everything 50/50, so it was easier for us and there was no resentment. I wouldn’t worry about baby clubs if you’re not bothered, neither of us did and the occasions we did go, didn’t look to make friends. We sent our child to nursery at 1, which worked out well for us and they have a great time, they get so excited to go. I think it depends how long your husband plans to stay at home, the older they get and when they go to school, there’s loads of time for chores then!!

I mean, when I went back to work it felt like a breather 😆
I could have a lunch break by myself and wander around the shops for an hour.

From my point of view, I literally couldn't get anything done in the first few months - I was completely tied to the baby. As he got bigger I didn't want to put him in a playpen so honestly couldn't do things like get the house cleaned. When he's older it won't be a problem of course but now I watch him full time. I manage jobs like laundry, dishwasher, wash up etc but not the big house clean. What works for us is say husband finishes work I might give him an hour today for his own time and he'll reciprocate tomorrow - we only started doing this when baby was about 9 months.. When baby was about 15 months we started alternating Saturdays and one person going out for six/seven hours and doing their own thing..
The person working full time isn't doing more because the person at home is working all the time they're at work too.

This ^

@Rowen32 why wouldn't you use a playpen?

Apologies, seen you don’t want to send them to nursery until school age. Then yes, I think you both need to split chores, or just get a cleaner. Dinner can be cooked by the sahp when they are cooking the child’s meal. You can take it in turns at the weekend. I think if you think you’ll just go back to your old life, you’re sadly mistaken. I was also quite selfish in terms of my time and doing what I wanted - that soon changed. I have a lot of respect for those that can stay at home with a child, it is definitely not for me.

I find it a bit odd that you have already decided to be a 'weekend parent' and that you are going to be lukewarm in your approach to loving and caring. I don't think you should have DC if you have already decided on this - children deserve both their parents to love and prioritise them.
You are also basing everything on theory - you've yet to take on emotions and hormones, both of which can dramatically effect what the reality of having a baby is like.

I think what you're not allowing for here is that you just don't know what kind of baby you're going to get, or what kind of parents you and your husband will actually turn out to be. I was like your DH- very excited to have children, I (and my husband and family) assumed I would take to it like a duck to water because I love small children and used to be an early years teacher.

When it actually happened, it was much harder than I thought. I like to think I'm generally a good mother, but I struggled with it much more than I expected. DS was a tricky sleeper too. I certainly didn't take to it like a duck to water and desperately needed DH to pick up the slack with night feeds etc.

What I'm saying is- don't assume that your DH will breeze through being a SAHD. Even if he's good at caring for other people's, having your own is a different ballgame. All sorts of things can throw a spanner in the works, and circumstances could lead to you taking on much more of the primary care than you're imagining. I really don't think it's a good idea to have kids unless YOU want them.

Same 😆

What a load of bullshit!

I wouldn't necessarily put too much focus on night feeds. By the time you finish mat leave, they will be over with anyway.
Was about 3 and a half years for one of mine - and he continued with the coming to find me in the night long after he stopped feeding.