Two working parents and comparable jobs struggling to negotiate whose job gets priority

[Anonymous]

Do any other dual working parents of young kids run into this? Both my spouse and I have comparable jobs but I make about 10 percent more. My job is more demanding and requires a high degree of availability and responsiveness but no travel. His job is more flexible but requires more travel and in person work, so he expects me to be the primary parent to cover him constantly, which increasingly impacts my ability to do my job. I feel like with all these constant school closures and illnesses we are constantly negotiating whose job gets priority. And it seems like my husband just expects that because I am “the mom” that it be me. We have a nanny but when the kids are sick they just want mom so she’s of limited help to me and it seems like they are sick constantly for the last few months.

How do other working couples negotiate this? I feel like it would be easier if one of us had a big job and the other did not, or one of us stayed home.

[Anonymous]

We don't do it by whose job is more important or gets priority. We look at who has how much sick or annual leave left, who has the calendar full of external meetings v. who has a bit more flexibility that day, who has a big deadline next week v. who's got a bit more time. There is no default to one or the other of us. Some days we even split the day; he works from home/takes time off in the AM and I work from home/takes time off in the PM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don't do it by whose job is more important or gets priority. We look at who has how much sick or annual leave left, who has the calendar full of external meetings v. who has a bit more flexibility that day, who has a big deadline next week v. who's got a bit more time. There is no default to one or the other of us. Some days we even split the day; he works from home/takes time off in the AM and I work from home/takes time off in the PM.

Similar. We take turns but it's not a regular rotation, since my spouse teaches, so sometimes has ZERO flexibility and sometimes can take every sick day in a month.

[Anonymous]

Same here. When anything comes up, we discuss who has availability, who has something critical coming up, who can least afford the time off. And we negotiate who takes the time. If you feel it is too one-sided, then you discuss when you aren't in an emergency and come up with ways to rebalance. When both parents are available for an emergency, we often decide whoever has had the least interruptions has to take care of it or whoever has a deadline or something big coming up in the future (and likely not going to be available in the next few months) may take it. We try hard to balance and be respectful of each other's time and jobs and do what we can to balance the load. But, we tend not to have the "default parent" setup.

[Anonymous]

Neither of us is of the mindset that our job is "more important".

We have set weekly household/parenting chores that are divided in an equitable manner.

When something unexpected comes up, we handle it on a case-by-case basis depending on what our work schedule looks like.

That's really it.

Also, if you have a nanny, sick kiddos stay with her, and parents continue to work. Sick-coverage is one of the key benefits of a nanny. Leave the house and go work in a coffee shop, or whatever, if you have to.

[Anonymous]

Same pay and same difficulty of job- I wfh 3 days a week and DH can never wfh. Hence I do 95% of the random days off and sick days. I also watched the kids all summer. If my youngest needs care, I just take the day off because I cannot work with her around. My older two are pretty self sufficient (even the 5 year old).

I'm not thrilled about it. When dh takes off to watch the kids, he always has to go in from 5pm-2am or something to get his work done. He has plenty of annual leave, it's more that his work piles up and there's no one else to do it.

[Anonymous]

My kids also have a full time nanny. If they are sick, we take time off if they need to go to the doctor but otherwise the nanny can handle it. We are not the type to cuddle with them for extended periods of time. DH had much more involved and loving parents than I did, and even his parents didn't do that.

You don't always get everything you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don't do it by whose job is more important or gets priority. We look at who has how much sick or annual leave left, who has the calendar full of external meetings v. who has a bit more flexibility that day, who has a big deadline next week v. who's got a bit more time. There is no default to one or the other of us. Some days we even split the day; he works from home/takes time off in the AM and I work from home/takes time off in the PM.

This is what we do. Spouse tends to have more meetings during the workdays and I tend to have more deadlines, but can work in the evenings, so that influences how we work things out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any other dual working parents of young kids run into this? Both my spouse and I have comparable jobs but I make about 10 percent more. My job is more demanding and requires a high degree of availability and responsiveness but no travel. His job is more flexible but requires more travel and in person work, so he expects me to be the primary parent to cover him constantly, which increasingly impacts my ability to do my job. I feel like with all these constant school closures and illnesses we are constantly negotiating whose job gets priority. And it seems like my husband just expects that because I am “the mom” that it be me. We have a nanny but when the kids are sick they just want mom so she’s of limited help to me and it seems like they are sick constantly for the last few months.

How do other working couples negotiate this? I feel like it would be easier if one of us had a big job and the other did not, or one of us stayed home.

The biggest difference is that his job travels- is he available to take sick days during travel? Didnt think so.

Who accrues more leave? My spouse accrues leave at 2.5:1 ratio basically and it took 4 YEARS for him to understand that not only did I decimate my leave for postpartum but I never could accrue anything because we were always doing it 1:1. He has almost 100 hours right now and I have 20. even with a new system of him taking 2 for every 1 I take.

You also have a nanny. Have nanny work core hours/4-5 hours. Age of kids and number of skids matters a lot too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any other dual working parents of young kids run into this? Both my spouse and I have comparable jobs but I make about 10 percent more. My job is more demanding and requires a high degree of availability and responsiveness but no travel. His job is more flexible but requires more travel and in person work, so he expects me to be the primary parent to cover him constantly, which increasingly impacts my ability to do my job. I feel like with all these constant school closures and illnesses we are constantly negotiating whose job gets priority. And it seems like my husband just expects that because I am “the mom” that it be me.[u] We have a nanny but when the kids are sick they just want mom so she’s of limited help to me and it seems like they are sick constantly for the last few months.

How do other working couples negotiate this? I feel like it would be easier if one of us had a big job and the other did not, or one of us stayed home.

You have to end this. He may not realize he is doing it, but if he really is, he has to stop.

[Anonymous]

You have a nanny. She can take care of the kids. That's her job. Up her hours if you need it so you can both stress less about daily kid logistics.

The sicknesses etc are short term. I'm guessing your kids are very young? It ends after 1-2 years, they become pretty immune to common bugs or tolerate it better.

We resolved this when my spouse got a big promotion I can't match. I was also ok mentally at that point stepping back. I know another couple that resolved it by hiring a nanny who does all kid stuff plus light cleaning and cooking. Very expensive but worth it for them to both pursue their careers.

[Anonymous]

We had a conversation about how it was hard for both of us to balance our work ambition with kids (this was after kid #1was born). We both wanted another kid (ended up having 2 more) and we realized I would get more joy from being the default parent than DH would.

So DH focused on getting a “big” job and his career and I took a mommy track job and my kids always came first. I took all the sick days and my boss didn’t love it but tolerated it because I had the leave.

It’s been seven years and I switched to a non-mommy track job again when the youngest turned 2 and made that work for a few years, but went part time last year because even with the kids getting older, balancing two careers never got easier (and the big career wasn’t the main culprit - it did provide with more $$ to outsource stuff we couldn’t have done before). I thought older kids would make it easier, but they now want to to come to field trip, activities, and other stuff, so their desire to have me around hasn’t gone down.

But we have never had a nanny. You should rely more on your nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids also have a full time nanny. If they are sick, we take time off if they need to go to the doctor but otherwise the nanny can handle it. We are not the type to cuddle with them for extended periods of time. DH had much more involved and loving parents than I did, and even his parents didn't do that.

You don't always get everything you want.

Do you mind expanding on this? Why did you have kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids also have a full time nanny. If they are sick, we take time off if they need to go to the doctor but otherwise the nanny can handle it. We are not the type to cuddle with them for extended periods of time. DH had much more involved and loving parents than I did, and even his parents didn't do that.

You don't always get everything you want.

Do you mind expanding on this? Why did you have kids?

Because they're cute and entertaining and it can be fun most of the time (and when it's not, that's what the nannies are there for!) and we wanted a family.

[Anonymous]

Hopefully you only have 2 kids. Don't have any more.