SAHM’s - anyone successfully convince DH to support their staying home long term?
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Anonymous
| OP never answered the question of whether she would be okay with her husband downshifting his job and taking a lower stress job. |
Anonymous
I don't know about 10, but ages 3-6 are way harder than the infant years, and made much more challenging if you have multiple kids. Babies rely on you more but their needs are easy to satisfy. Young children can do lots of things very poorly, basically. So even though they are capable of feeding themselves, getting dressed, using the bathroom, etc., in reality you are still working extremely hard to facilitate those thing. Plus their emotional needs are so intense and change so much, it is hard to keep up. The post school hours of 3pm to 7pm in a home with a 3-6 year old are more draining than any full 8 hour work day I've ever had, including years of my life where I was a camp counselor and working in food service. The combination of physical labor and intense emotional labor is unmatched. I am guessing (hoping?) it gets easier after this but also assume that every kid is different and that if you have 3 or more, the difference may be negligible because the impact is cumulative. And if even one of your kids has special needs or is dealing with a serious academic, social, or medical issue, that will make it harder. Some people might choose to work full time and outsource a lot of it simply because working is easier! But plenty of people choose not to because they want to be the one to help their kids through those challenges, and because they know they will need to be the primary support anyway so why not be physically present for more of the day? |
Anonymous
My inference is that he has zero interest in doing this. It sounds like he does nothing at home and is not looking for more work/life balance for himself. He just wants to maximize earning and isn't particularly concerned with the impact on the quality of their home life. |
Anonymous
As a SAHM I thought it was harder as they became older. Mainly more needs with sports, friends, etc. I never planned to have a career per se, but I also made sure my partner knew being there for the kids was going to be a priority. I think you should have made that clear early on, but if you are financially ok then I don't see why you would have to change his mind. |
Anonymous
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My DH is very capable in household work - childcare, laundry to cooking - and will pitch in without asking. But, he begged me to quit because our kids, home, marriage and life was suffering. Mainly, it was hard with the kids because they were falling sick in the daycare and reliable childcare was frequently failing. Anyways, when he begged me to quit I put forth certain conditions -
- I was never going back to work until I wanted to go back to work. I did not want him to expect that I could go back to work on his whim. First of all, the field I was in was not conducive to career breaks and secondly I was making a sacrifice that he had to respect. - I was not letting go of my cleaning woman, in fact, I wanted her to come twice a week instead of weekly. I did not want to spend my time doing chores that I was already outsourcing before. I appreciated that my time was valuable (it was costing me my lost income) and so it had to be used wisely. - DH was completely responsible for kids college and our retirement. I did not want us to be financially insolvent because that would be short-sighted. - He was still going to help at home. I did not want inequality in the family and I still needed help. Being at home was very exhausting even with help. DH agreed with caveats. - He was not going to help with kids K-12 education planning. He was willing to drive them to places on the weekend. This was a big mental load off of him. He wanted the kids to do well in school and be happy, healthy and secure. - He was not going to pay for big fat weddings for the kids. We were only paying for their entire college. - We were going to live in a cheaper neighborhood, drive cheaper cars... We would not be able to swing for an expensive house, expensive cars etc on one salary and then also maintain a good standard of living, college/retirement saving etc. - He gives me a set amount of money to run the house. Out of that I pay for every single thing. He only pays the contribution to retirement fund, contribution to medical insurance and investments. In the past 15 years the amount has not changed. This has worked very well for us. Neither of us feel shortchanged and we feel that we are a good team. What worked for us, may not work for others. I will however say that I will always advice women to prioritize the finances of the family first. The next priority is health and health coverage. The third priority is the need of the family. If you quit work and stay at home - there are immense benefits, but you have to first make the finances work and also have health coverage. Also, make sure that you have excellent insurance. |
Anonymous
I disagree. OP said he is jealous, which likely means he is burnt out. I don't get the sense he wants to maximize earnings. |
Anonymous
I have a 14-year old 8th grade boy and a soon to be 16-year old Sophomore boy. By the time they hit middle school, it became SO MUCH easier. You aren't arranging play dates, etc. Mine make their own plans and do their own thing. The older one stays after school for HS sports, I'm not driving all over the DMV for practices anymore. He also will have his driver's license very soon. They do a lot of chores that help the family out. |
Anonymous
"Financially ok" can change as the kids grow older too. When they're little, college and retirement seem far off. Not so much when they're 10 and up. |
Anonymous
This is a big problem with many if not most of my friends who worked. I know one that divorced her husband with 2 young children. She figured at least she would get a break when he had them. However, he found a girlfriend who did it all as well. OP I would quit period. There's no way I would have 2 jobs like many of my friends. They are stressed and it's not good for the kids. |
Anonymous
She can always do something p/t at home down the road. My friend works p/t for a cruise line booking cruises etc. There's tons of stuff. |
Anonymous
| Yes, I was married to a doctor and stayed home. Worked out to my advantage when he traded me in for a new model. Alimony for life. |
Anonymous
This is all such excellent advice. My DH and I negotiate this stuff in a similar way, though in our case I'm the one who never wants to pay for stuff like cleaners because I prefer to do it myself and save the money for something else. But the approach is the same -- we have the same goals, we both have limited resources (time!), and we want to maximize everything we can for our kids. I work part time because I really value have secondary income in the family as a "just in case" and I view it as important protection for me if something were ever to happen to him -- we have great life insurance but if he died I would definitely need/want to work and I would not want to have to start from scratch after years out of the workforce. Stuff like that keeps me up at night, so I have conintued to work part time in my field and maintain contacts and skill sets so that I could return to full time work if needed. But your underlying points about communication and prioritizing are really important and that's how families should make these decisions. There is no right way. For some, two working parents might make the most sense. But you have to make the decisions collectively based on family needs, not just based on individual whims. You have to talk everything through and discuss how it impacts the family. And that includes his job, too. Often we don't discuss how the DH's job can have a negative impact on family life, but if DH is traveling a lot, never home for dinner, or has a job with limited flexibility, all of those things impact DW and the children and in a situation where DH wants his wife to work, one thing that should be on the table is him changing jobs or scaling back in order to enable her to work. A DH who demands his wife return to work while maintaining a job that will never allow him to stay home with a sick kid or get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour needs to be brought down to earth about what it means to be a parent. Someone must do those things. |
Anonymous
Only if one person is at home. Go over to the teens forum and see how messed up kids can get. What will you do when your teen fails at life? Have another kid at 50 and start over? Parenting a child does not stop when they are 10 years old. Did you see how many WOHMs quit work when remote working and remote schooling happened at the same time in the US? Working moms are struggling when they have to deal with their work, their kids, their kids education and household chores, while working from home especially if they cannot outsource childcare, child's education (school) and household work. Lets acknowledge that women are doing a hugely disproportionate amount of work (even the mental load) of childcare, child education and household work. and therefore now leaving the workplace in droves. OP is correct. If her DH wants her to work, he can do 50% of the household work for next 3 months and then see how it works out. |
Anonymous
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I am a long term SAHM or "housewife" I suppose. Whatever you want to call it. I haven't worked in 11 years and have 3 kids (13-8). Fwiw, it was my husband's idea that I stay home in the first place. I periodically asked him if he wanted me to go back to work and he always said "no, why would you want to do that??" lol
Since he made his money and hit his "number," he has also downshifted into a less demanding, less stressful job. |
Anonymous
And now you don't have to wash his socks either. I divorced my wealthy husband and I will get his retirement since I was the beneficiary, not his current widow. A SAHM is often financially secure. Something many don't understand. |