SAHM’s - anyone successfully convince DH to support their staying home long term?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should he work if you won’t?

OP here - my view is, why should I do everything I do now plus a job? I would be insane to agree to that. He’s not going to magically do half.

You shouldn't. He needs to do 1/2 the cooking, 1/2 the cleaning, and help with homework, kids activities and more. Tell him to start magically doing half and when he does it consistently for 3 months you will go back to work. Remind him when you go back to work you will not have sick leave or vacation so he will have to take off work for every school holiday, every sick day and every emergency that comes up until you can build up some leave. Also, tell him he needs to find before/after school care for the kids and arrange for summer camps for all weeks in the summer he cannot take off to be with them.

Their youngest kid is 10. Camps and summer are completely optional.

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.

That's a good idea. If he doesn't then she gets to stay home with the kids. One job is enough!

[Anonymous]

We have 3 under 5 and, honestly, going to work is like a little vacation from our hectic house. I just went back after being a sahm and, though DH would prefer me at home as he misses not having to lift a finger, it’s not happening.

I suggest you find something pt that you enjoy and let him get a feel for how his home life will change once you are working. He may or may not be happy with it, depending on how tiresome he finds the household tasks he now has to do to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is your dh’s concern? Would he agree that you have plenty of money?

OP, I think maybe he’s jealous? And also doesn’t understand what having 2 FT working parents is like - we’ve never done it. He doesn’t cook, clean, or shop but somehow magically thinks he will do 50% of this if I go back.

Have him do 50% for a few months before you do anything.

This really is the best answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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 continued 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.

Absolutely. Your model (part time work for me) would have been my favored plan but my biggest two issues were 1) my DH job is pretty inflexible/work day pretty long and 2) my own field did not encourage part time work. Some of the things you have mentioned are of real concern to moms (layoffs, illness, death, divorce). As a woman and a mom, my kids and I are financially vulnerable until we actively work to make sure that concerns you raised were addressed by taking concrete steps.

I would never question a mom's need to be at home with her children but the finances and their own life reality needs to be first accounted for. There cannot be one solution fits all for anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is your dh’s concern? Would he agree that you have plenty of money?

OP, I think maybe he’s jealous? And also doesn’t understand what having 2 FT working parents is like - we’ve never done it. He doesn’t cook, clean, or shop but somehow magically thinks he will do 50% of this if I go back.

Have him do 50% for a few months before you do anything.

This really is the best answer.

He won't be able to do it. Many men claim to do 50%, but I know very few that do.

[Anonymous]

1) do you need the extra income?
2) do you have a career you genuinely enjoy to go back to?

I don’t know why in the world a SAHM that doesn’t need the income, would go back to work if that meant working some boring office job or low paying part time work just to be “busy.” It really isn’t hard at all to fill the hours kids are at school doing productive things for yourself, house, and family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

+ 1
Educated, working moms making a livable wage, who quit to become SAHMs do that ONLY after making sure that they and kids are provided for if something changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) do you need the extra income?
2) do you have a career you genuinely enjoy to go back to?

I don’t know why in the world a SAHM that doesn’t need the income, would go back to work if that meant working some boring office job or low paying part time work just to be “busy.” It really isn’t hard at all to fill the hours kids are at school doing productive things for yourself, house, and family.

+ 1

Conversely, 99% of working folks (WOHMs included) will quit in a second if they won a lottery. People mostly work to pay bills.

[Anonymous]

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 continued to work part time in my field and maintain contacts and skill sets so that I could return to full time work if needed.

Absolutely. Your model (part time work for me) would have been my favored plan but my biggest two issues were 1) my DH job is pretty inflexible/work day pretty long and 2) my own field did not encourage part time work. Some of the things you have mentioned are of real concern to moms (layoffs, illness, death, divorce). As a woman and a mom, my kids and I are financially vulnerable until we actively work to make sure that concerns you raised were addressed by taking concrete steps.

I would never question a mom's need to be at home with her children but the finances and their own life reality needs to be first accounted for. There cannot be one solution fits all for anyone.

(shortening quotes for space)

PP here. Just wanted to note that I really, really lucked out with work. I was gearing up to return to work full time when my youngest turned 2.5, and then I randomly got offered a super flexible part time position by a former colleague. It was not at the time exactly the work I wanted to be doing, but the hourly rate was so good that I had to take the offer seriously. Even with the high hourly rate, I don't make as much as I would if I were full time (may house can be a bit variable). But I am so glad I took the job. What it means is that I get to do fairly high level work in my field, but I work from home on a completely flexible schedule. Also, because they headhunted me for this job, I was able to come back to them and negotiate a very favorable work arrangement that allows me to prioritize my kids pretty much whenever I need to. It is a unicorn job and I'm fully aware of that -- when Covid closed schools, I spent months working from 9pm to 2am in order to complete projects because I figured at some point schools would reopen and the last thing I wanted was to lose this job. I think it would be next to impossible to replace.

My dream is actually to find ways to pay this situation forward as my kids get older, and ramp up my work until I have enough of my own business to be able to offer this same opportunity to other women in my field. I work mostly with other women who have kids (mostly now grown) and I think that's a big reason why the stars aligned on this for me. Women who have been through it get it. I would really like to see more opportunities for women to be able to work flexible and part-time jobs when their kids are small without having to sacrifice a substantive role in their field. Most of these jobs are largely administrative and dead end for women, which makes it harder to justify returning to work if you previously were working at a higher level. I remember when I was starting to look, a lot of the full time jobs I was looking at were largely administrative and earning potential was severely limited. As someone who used to make more in bonus than in salary and has a pretty impressive CV, it was depressing. The mom penalty is very real and the expectation that women can just hop back into the workforce after taking an extended break to have children is really unrealistic.

[Anonymous]

OP, I SAH but generally have some (paid) projects going that I can ramp up or down depending on our schedules. What did you do before you became a mom? What would you work towards if you didn't have a child? I can't imagine just spending all the time taking care of house and family stuff, even if it could fill your hours. Don't you want to make something? Help people? Have a big talk with DH that if you pursue full-time work, that means he must do X, Y, and Z around the house and with your kid. If he's not willing, then you take on something smaller a few hours per week.

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind, that usually when a woman goes back part-time, she is still expected to do 100% around the house because she's not working 50 hours/week, but she no longer has free hours while kids are at school to do any of that. It's actually a raw deal. Men need to step up at home and back at work to be a supportive partner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) do you need the extra income?
2) do you have a career you genuinely enjoy to go back to?

I don’t know why in the world a SAHM that doesn’t need the income, would go back to work if that meant working some boring office job or low paying part time work just to be “busy.” It really isn’t hard at all to fill the hours kids are at school doing productive things for yourself, house, and family.

+ 1

Conversely, 99% of working folks (WOHMs included) will quit in a second if they won a lottery. People mostly work to pay bills.

This is so true. I knew very few that love/like their jobs.

My kids are grown and thankfully I still love being able to do what I want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is your dh’s concern? Would he agree that you have plenty of money?

OP, I think maybe he’s jealous? And also doesn’t understand what having 2 FT working parents is like - we’ve never done it. He doesn’t cook, clean, or shop but somehow magically thinks he will do 50% of this if I go back.

Have him do 50% for a few months before you do anything.

This really is the best answer.

He won't be able to do it. Many men claim to do 50%, but I know very few that do.

Well how about she earn 50% of the income for 3 months?

[Anonymous]

Surprised no one mentioned that her DH is laying groundwork for divorce? That’s always a good reason to push SAHM back to workforce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is your dh’s concern? Would he agree that you have plenty of money?

OP, I think maybe he’s jealous? And also doesn’t understand what having 2 FT working parents is like - we’ve never done it. He doesn’t cook, clean, or shop but somehow magically thinks he will do 50% of this if I go back.

Have him do 50% for a few months before you do anything.

This really is the best answer.

He won't be able to do it. Many men claim to do 50%, but I know very few that do.

Well how about she earn 50% of the income for 3 months?

This is a silly response, but it gets at a good point. Why should he have to prove that he can handle 50% before she even attempts to go back to work. If you are getting into these games, you have a marriage problem. OP and her husband need to talk about the family needs, including the home, finances, retirement, etc. Maybe they have plenty of money but the DH is hoping to retire at 65 instead of 70. Maybe he's worried about his industry or job going away. Maybe he's worried about how much they have saved for college. Maybe he's just sick of his job and wants flexibility to change to something lower paying. We are not getting the full story, but it seems like this is just something they should work out with games to "successfully convince" the DH. Maybe OP should convince him with good sense and realistic plans.