I want my husband to reimburse me for half the income I lost during maternity leave

[Anonymous]

Figure out what a nanny would have cost. Divide in half. Subtract that half from your salary take home during the time you stayed home. Have dh pay you that amount.

[Anonymous]

What happens if you husband takes a day off because your child is sick - will you reimburse him for lost income or lost vacation time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You knew that as a woman there would be inequality when you chose to get pregnant. Only women can bear children, only women can breastfeed. Due to these factors it is common that women stay home at least initially due to healing the dependence of the infant on them for nourishment. You knew you would be giving up income initially to have a child. Not factoring that in or not having thought of it doesn't make sense. When you were arranging mat leave, you knew your income would drop for that time. On the flip side there is also inequality for the man who does not get that bonding time or time with their child that the mother gets.

And your husband may have been against it but you could have chosen to take the more demanding job opportunity. You chose again not to - your choice. You could have hired more childcare to cover the long hours you were both gone. Seeing as equality in careers and money seems to be the driving force for you and the main area you are prioritizing and concerned about, then make the decisions that meet those goals. You can't have everything - you can't want more time with your child but also a more demanding job with higher pay - one comes at a cost to the other. Your husband chose the job and money over time at home - you can choose the same.

But in a family, if there is to be some kind of equality or balance, these cannot be treated as two separate decisions. OP-- When you were pregnant and your husband was offered the new, demanding job, did he consider what impact his decision would have on your professional choices, given that you were both about to become parents? Because he should have. The demands of his new job constrain the amount of non-monetary contributions he can make to the family. It forces you to either curtail your professional advancement or choose to pay for more child/household support. If you're both on the same page about the amount of child/household care the two of you are willing to delegate to paid employees, then there is no problem. But even that should be a mutual decision, made before one of you unilaterally narrows the options.

[Anonymous]

"Sorry son / daughter I can't take you to soccer practice because your dad won't pay me to do it"

This is a really dangerous dynamic to be entering with children. You cannot treat caring for your own child like you are hired help doing it. If you are married without a prenup there is no actual financial divide anyways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get into counseling, stat. Raising kids is full of all kinds of unfairness. If you can't understand that, you are headed towards divorce.

+1 This.

I'll pray for you.

[Anonymous]

To the people who this is just about bean counting or money, I'd like to see you address the inequality issue. That is the question here. You are addressing this only on the most shallow level and not looking at the real issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the people who this is just about bean counting or money, I'd like to see you address the inequality issue. That is the question here. You are addressing this only on the most shallow level and not looking at the real issue.

She chose the inequality. She chose to stay home for four months, knowing full well even before mat leave started that meant reduced income. She didn't discuss this at the time with her husband. She could have gone back to work after a couple weeks to maintain financial equality if that is the priority. After the fact she suddenly remembered it wasn't fair and that she didn't have income and asked husband to now pay her for staying home. That isn't really about equality. Equality would have been having the conversation before hand when she knew she was about to make a decision as to how long to go without income for. Deciding together how that would be managed.

[Anonymous]

Hi – OP here.

Thanks for your thoughts/insights..

A few of you have asked what I’m trying to accomplish with this. On one hand, I think I’m not sure (hence the post) and on the other hand, I know that I am trying to be cognizant of the fact that I don’t want to unwittingly create resentment by creating a situation where my time or my income (or time or opinions) is less important than his. And this is the first situation in which this dynamic has come to a head.

And let’s just get this out of the way – yes, money is not the most important thing in life. Yes, marriage will require that we each give what we can to benefit the family and it may not always be able to be equal (if I could figure out how to get him to do half the breastfeeding, I would!). Yes, we will both make immeasurable sacrifices throughout the course of our marriage. Yes, marriage is not a business transaction. Yes, I very much value the time I got to spend with our child.

So anyway…

On the topic of non-shared accounts – I’m surprised so many people find it odd. What we were doing as individuals before we got married worked for us so we stuck with it. We both enjoy managing money and have slightly different approaches to it. Keeping our own accounts allows us to both feel in control of our financial future – in a way which we are comfortable. We have never once fought about money in 5 years (how many with a joint account can say that?). This maternity-leave situation is more of an intellectual discussion than an argument for us. He already said he’d transfer the money if I wanted him to and I already said that I was fine with not doing it if it bothered him. It’s more of the principle of the situation that I think is important/interesting/worth discussing and I am trying to make peace with in my own mind.

I do think the word “reimburse” has thrown people. I think of it more as shared sacrifice.

So on the topic of what I’m trying to accomplish…I recently read the follow up piece to the “Opt Out Generation” in the NY Times Magazine ” and it seemed to me that what really bothered a lot of these women 10 years down the road (after opting out of high paying professions) was the subtle inequality that crept into their marriages. A few articulated that their time/intellect/talents/opinions started to feel less important when they began to have a significantly lower income than their partner. I also read “Lean In” which warned against stopping taking on new opportunities at work because of childcare responsibilities. My husband took a new, very demanding job which he loves while I was pregnant (no pay bump) and therefore could not take paternity leave. I also have a demanding job but was able to take some leave so I did it. But while I was out on maternity leave I was offered a new opportunity that would be a bump for me but also a significant amount of more work that would take me away from home. My husband was strongly against me taking this new position for this reason which struck me as a bit unfair given his current employment status. In this situation, I don’t want the job because I don’t want to be away from home that much – but what if I did?

I think the crux of my question is how does one maintain equality in a marriage when child-rearing tends to demand (physically, socially, economically) so much more from women?

This does not apply to you. You keep your money sperated. You are not in this together, each person has one foot out the door. If he was forced to take a pay cut or was fired, would you make up the difference in his account? No. Just as he, by your arrangement, should not make up the difference in your account when you have a baby and take four months off. It sounds like you want to keep your money seperate when it favor you and when it does not favor you, you want to pool the money. By your arrangement, you owe him money for the joint account. Are you planning to pay for that or just take his money and put it in your account? If the roles were reversed, you would not give him "your" money to cover his retirement while paying all the bills. PS the pooling of money favors the women..longer life, having childern, and men averaging more money for the same work to list a few. He should be pissed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous



To the people who this is just about bean counting or money, I'd like to see you address the inequality issue. That is the question here. You are addressing this only on the most shallow level and not looking at the real issue.

How is what she is asking for equality? She just wants to have her cake and eat it too. She did not work for 4 months and now wants payment not from her employer, but from her husband. She just sees her husband's money and wants it. Like when they get divorced there will be "her " and "his" money earned while living together/married. There is no larger issue with her and you. Most people can't take 4 months off from work, it's like two to six weeks. Sound like she has it good.

[Anonymous]

Geez, your marriage sounds like a balance sheet: All this time and emotional energy so that everything is perfectly fair and equal like a business partnership. Exhausting just reading about it and you have a baby! What kind of new mother thinks like this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous



To the people who this is just about bean counting or money, I'd like to see you address the inequality issue. That is the question here. You are addressing this only on the most shallow level and not looking at the real issue.

How is what she is asking for equality? She just wants to have her cake and eat it too. She did not work for 4 months and now wants payment not from her employer, but from her husband. She just sees her husband's money and wants it. Like when they get divorced there will be "her " and "his" money earned while living together/married. There is no larger issue with her and you. Most people can't take 4 months off from work, it's like two to six weeks. Sound like she has it good.

Uh, are you serious? You clearly do not have kids. If her maternity leave was anything like mine she worked twice as hard on half as much sleep.

It sounds to me like the husband wanted her to take time off to care for their child so he could keep his career going. All she's asking for is that it not set her back financially more than him since her staying home was a mutual decision that served both of them.

Also - she's willing to shoulder half her lost wages - she just wants him to chip in the same amount she's willing to chip in.

[Anonymous]

Why are people so hostile to OP? She does not want to take a financial hit when both parties decided that she should stay home for four months. With SAHMs, the husband pays the bills. She stayed home, thus, the husband should have paid all the bills. Also, if she takes a pay cut for forgoes a career opportunity, DH should make up the difference somehow.

[Anonymous]

Ils sont fous ces Washingtoniens, Asterix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are people so hostile to OP? She does not want to take a financial hit when both parties decided that she should stay home for four months. With SAHMs, the husband pays the bills. She stayed home, thus, the husband should have paid all the bills. Also, if she takes a pay cut for forgoes a career opportunity, DH should make up the difference somehow.

OP should have brought it up before her maternity leave (ideally before conceiving) - too late for it to sound anything but shrewish now.

[Anonymous]

NP here.

Although I married early and have (mostly) joint accounts, I understand your position and the emotional dynamic you are worried about. But my suggestion is you adds that emotional issue, which is ultimately a shared investment in and sacrifice for your family / marriage. Money is one way this plays out, but there are others, and this is a good starting point.

But as to your initial question - I don't think your husband paying you is the best course, but iit does make sense for him to demonstrate an equal investment in your new family. So perhaps one way to do so would be him paying into a new joint/family account for child related expenses.