Is my wife being unrealistic about her expectations of my work life balance?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It’s nuts that in 2025, the sahm position is that taking care of two young kids, one of whom goes to daycare, is beyond the capacity of the stay at home parent, and this can only be reasonably managed with childcare.

I am fascinated and disgusted that some women have not only convinced their husbands that there is so much value in the work done by a stay at home mom that they shouldn’t work out of the house, but also that their husbands should go out of pocket to pay for childcare and house cleaners while their wives perform this apparently imperative function. (I understand ops wife is on maternity leave and planning to go back to work, so it’s not exactly the situation here. But there are lots of posters suggesting that op is expecting too much of her to watch two kids on a day when she is not working - so same sentiment).

you’re fascinated and disgusted that a woman wants support caring for two small children one of whom is an infant possibly breastfeeding? And you then wonder why women are declining to have lots of babies? Come on.

I’m a woman and find it this strange. The older kid is in full day daycare most days. I have no issue with women opting out of having kids, but I do think it’s odd to try and opt out of the ones you do have.

Oh, so asking for some help from the other parent of your infant and preschooler is “opting out” of childcare? GTFO.

Yes, complaining about the spouse giving a presentation to the c-suite on the first day you have to take care of both kids solo is pathetic. Embarrassingly so.

if he failed to even communicate and work out a plan with her - and just silently expected her to do it all - then yes, he’s being a sh*tty user. The message is “you are my nanny and I control the division of labor in the household.”

If OP had taken a moment to be RESPECTFUL of his wife and coordinate the day, then he wouldn’t be here right now.

You are kidding right? The plan is the parent who is not working that day takes care of the kids. It was 5 hours, not even a full work day.

Yeah no, your wife is not your nanny. If that’s the plan, you discuss it with her.

I am a wife who works and brings in the lion share of our income. What a silly response. Yes, the parent on leave actually cares for the children. What a strange world you must live in.

you’re not reading what I wrote. of course it makes sense that she did the childcare while he worked. The problem would be if there was no conversation about it letting her know that today he’d likely be unable to interact the way he usually does during the day. And the broader context is that she’s going back to work in a month. is he also going to silently expect her to be the one to take all the snow days? Sounds like it.

You’re actually suggesting that when you have a working spouse and a spouse on maternity leave not currently working, the couple needs to have a discussion about who is going to watch the children on a snow day?? When one of the parents has no fixed obligations that day, and the other one does have obligations? Like there’s a discussion to be had? You ladies are absolutely bonkers.

Yes there is a discussion to be had. That’s the whole point - assuming your wife will just be the default caregiver is a huge issue down the line.

She’s on maternity leave today. Down the line, when she returns, things will be different. Today the wife is the default caregiver.

No, she’s not. he’s the parent too.

She is the DEFAULT parent because she is home full time right now. Why is that so hard for you to grasp?

That’s not actually how it works.

Ah, if only I had kids myself and a full-time job and stayed home on maternity leave. Oh wait, I did!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Without hearing her side of the story, yes she sounds unreasonable. It sounds like you have an amazing, unicorn job. I have a pretty flexible job too and I take full advantage of the flexibility to be with my kids, but one reason I still keep getting promoted is I show up when it matters. And I have childcare in place to enable me to do that.

That being said, she’s on maternity leave, home with a 3mo all day, probably feeling a mix of frustration from being out of the adult/working world + blues from having to return to work soon. So cut her some slack and be gentle about her irrationality. Don’t give in though.

I agree with all of this.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I struggled with work life balance early in my career, but things have improved since I started working 100% remote for a company based on the west coast.There’s a flexible culture around time off, which has been great to spend more time with our two kids (4yrs, 3 months). As a result, I never work/take my laptop with me on vacations or work on weekends. Sometimes I’ll work in the evenings to catch up on stuff, but I’ll do that when wife/kids have gone to sleep. I have to travel to our home office once a quarter for 4 days at a time for planning meetings, but I usually schedule my flights to minimize impact to family life (leave late Sunday afternoon, return Thursday night or Friday am on red eye). Another plus is that I’m able to attend daytime events at our 4 yr olds school, which is really meaningful to me.

DW is still on maternity leave for another month with the 3 month old, while our four year olds preschool is a 5 min drive.

Due to most of my coworkers being west coast based, mornings are slow, so I’ll take the 4 year old to preschool. At 5 PM, DW leaves to pick 4 yo up, and I take over with 3 mo old. However, it’s not uncommon to have lots of requests and meeting in the afternoon, so sometimes I won’t sign off until like 5:05 or 5:10, which bothers DW because she likes to pick up 4 yo at a consistent time.

I recently moved into a management role, which has me much busier during the day, in and out of lots of meetings, and doing admin work in my downtime. As a result, a lot of days, I’ll only have time for a quick lunch, which means I don’t have the time to do the household tasks I was able to do before (folding laundry, dishes, etc) When I come down and eat quickly, DW always remarks something like “you want to spend some time with your kid?”

However, things came to a head this week with DW and I regrading work life balance. Our quarterly planning meeting was this past week. Due to my new role, I was told that I only needed to be involved in one days worth of meetings. It didn’t make sense to travel cross country for one day, so fortunately I could join remotely. Unfortunately, the one day would involve two presentations that I’d be giving to different csuite members, so I felt it necessary to spend a great deal of time preparing these presentations.

Of course, the day I was scheduled to give these presentations, the shit hit the fan on the home and work front. Our 4 year olds school had a snow day so she was home, which is always a challenge. ILs are local and they’d normally help in this situation, but they were out of town. I helped out with the kids for about an hour in the morning, but then lots of work related fires had to be put out, which resulted being called into meeting, which then dovetailed into my presentations for the csuite. I basically didn’t leave my desk for 5 straight hours, which, I can’t stress enough, is incredibly rare, even in my new position. Along the way in this madness, DW texted me “we’re all doing great down here, thanks for checking in!”

A day later, DW tells me that she feels that I have an unhealthily work life balance, and I’m not prioritizing our family’s needs over work. She pointed out that she would drop everything at work if it was a snow day, so why shouldn’t I do the same. I see her point, but at the same time, this was an impossibly unusual circumstance, and I can’t just not attend a meeting where I’m presenting to the csuite.

I guess I just don’t know what she is expecting of me. Yes, I can work harder to ensure that I log off by 5, but at the end of the day, I think my situation is really great. I know many other people in much worse situations (having to go into an office, lots of travel, regularly working on vacations). I’m truly trying to understand my wife here, but I just don’t understand how one very bad day, along with signing off 5-10 minutes after 5 pm equates to not prioritizing my family over work. Am I totally off base here?

Your wife is a selfish, spoiled brat.

This. She actually expected that because it was a snow day, you should drop your presentation? Does she want you to quit? You need to ask her this. Honestly, this crap makes me just shocked at the younger generations’ work ethic. Like this is insane. You have a JOB that you presumably need, yes? It’s not just a minor inconvenience or a vanity hobby? Insane gen x women are like this, so hellbent on getting full equality for even the most banal happenings and then are surprised when their partner ends up being underemployed and they are broke. Ask her if she wants to be broke and what the plan is. She’s a nut, though and an incompetent one, and I’d be terrified about her return to work.

My read on that was that she wanted him to shoot her a text that said, “Just checking in. How are things going?”

Just implying that he thought or cared about her at all.

That’s clearly not what she was fishing for at all.

Regardless, why would she need a check in during the work day? Conversely, why wasn’t the dh checking in on OP on his big day of presenting for the c suite? Seems like his day was a bigger day than hers. Long story short is she needs to grow up

It doesn’t sound to me like she knew about that. We know about it because we are getting his point of view.

Do you have trouble reading?

He was supposed to go to CA but didn't have to. They discussed that. So she knew he had presentations.

I don’t have trouble reading. He said that he and his boss discussed it and that it didn’t make sense for him to go out to California and all. He didn’t say that he actually talked to his wife about any of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re both wrong. If you have a hard stop at 5, you need to stop at 5, JUST LIKE EVERY MOM IN THE WORLD WHO WORKS AND DOES DAYCARE PICK UP. Why is that hard to understand?

I sympathize with OP but I do agree with this part. Both my husband and I have been responsible for leaving work at a particular time to get our kids and there is no gray area there. You log off when you need to and go get your kids.

Now we both work from home, so while our agreement is that we all meet with the kids in the kitchen at 5:30 to make dinner and feed the dogs if everyone is at home (our kids are older now), one of us not showing up for that isn't that big of a deal so we're pretty understanding if something came up. But picking kids up from daycare is no joke and you don't have the room to be 5-10 minutes late. If I were you, I would apologize for that and make a bigger effort going forward. Her taking the 3-month old isn't an option - that's a lot of work to get the baby ready and in the car - so you need to honor your commitment to a 5 pm stop time even if it means you do log on later.

It absolutely is. Parents do it every day. She (and apparently you) don’t want to do it, but it is indeed an option.

It's not an option if she needs to leave at 5 to make it to daycare before it closes and doesn't have the baby ready to go. If she KNEW she had to take the baby, she could plan ahead for that. If she didn't and wasn't planning to, the baby could be asleep, etc. Clearly you've never had a hard deadline to pick up a kid in the DC area.

She does not need to leave at 5 to get there before they close. She likes to pick the 4 year old up at a consistent time. Totally different. That said, I do think OP could manage a hard stop at 5 if wife was willing to let him sometimes go back to work for 30 minutes or so at some point before 8pm. There have to be tradeoffs here.

As for that big meeting day, and the unexpected snow day, I think it is ridiculous to say OP could not assume that his wife, on maternity leave, would watch both kids, while he prepared for and presented these important meetings. Yes, it sucks to take care of an infant and a 4 year old but with one parent on leave that should be the default. Of course if it were a regular work day, I am sure he would have takens some time off to help out. But this was just bad timing.

[Anonymous]

This is literally the craziest thread I have ever read. I was a SAHM for a year but have mostly been a working mom. A SAHP or a parent on maternity/paternity leave is the default parent without need for discussion during the other parent's working hours. Period. It is crazy to suggest he should have canceled his important c-suite presentations so his wife on maternity leave did not need to take care of two kids at the same time. My nanny moved for her husband's job when I was 8.5 months pregnant with my second so I spent the vast majority of my 4 month maternity leave taking care of a baby and toddler alone. New nanny started two weeks before I went back to work to get to know our routines and so I could spend some quality alone time with each kid before going back to work. Anyone who cannot take care of two kids alone--at any ages--should not have had a second kid. Her DH could have been in California for 4 days. Even with no snow day, she would have had to take care of both in the evenings.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with work life balance early in my career, but things have improved since I started working 100% remote for a company based on the west coast.There’s a flexible culture around time off, which has been great to spend more time with our two kids (4yrs, 3 months). As a result, I never work/take my laptop with me on vacations or work on weekends. Sometimes I’ll work in the evenings to catch up on stuff, but I’ll do that when wife/kids have gone to sleep. I have to travel to our home office once a quarter for 4 days at a time for planning meetings, but I usually schedule my flights to minimize impact to family life (leave late Sunday afternoon, return Thursday night or Friday am on red eye). Another plus is that I’m able to attend daytime events at our 4 yr olds school, which is really meaningful to me.

DW is still on maternity leave for another month with the 3 month old, while our four year olds preschool is a 5 min drive.

Due to most of my coworkers being west coast based, mornings are slow, so I’ll take the 4 year old to preschool. At 5 PM, DW leaves to pick 4 yo up, and I take over with 3 mo old. However, it’s not uncommon to have lots of requests and meeting in the afternoon, so sometimes I won’t sign off until like 5:05 or 5:10, which bothers DW because she likes to pick up 4 yo at a consistent time.

I recently moved into a management role, which has me much busier during the day, in and out of lots of meetings, and doing admin work in my downtime. As a result, a lot of days, I’ll only have time for a quick lunch, which means I don’t have the time to do the household tasks I was able to do before (folding laundry, dishes, etc) When I come down and eat quickly, DW always remarks something like “you want to spend some time with your kid?”

However, things came to a head this week with DW and I regrading work life balance. Our quarterly planning meeting was this past week. Due to my new role, I was told that I only needed to be involved in one days worth of meetings. It didn’t make sense to travel cross country for one day, so fortunately I could join remotely. Unfortunately, the one day would involve two presentations that I’d be giving to different csuite members, so I felt it necessary to spend a great deal of time preparing these presentations.

Of course, the day I was scheduled to give these presentations, the shit hit the fan on the home and work front. Our 4 year olds school had a snow day so she was home, which is always a challenge. ILs are local and they’d normally help in this situation, but they were out of town. I helped out with the kids for about an hour in the morning, but then lots of work related fires had to be put out, which resulted being called into meeting, which then dovetailed into my presentations for the csuite. I basically didn’t leave my desk for 5 straight hours, which, I can’t stress enough, is incredibly rare, even in my new position. Along the way in this madness, DW texted me “we’re all doing great down here, thanks for checking in!”

A day later, DW tells me that she feels that I have an unhealthily work life balance, and I’m not prioritizing our family’s needs over work. She pointed out that she would drop everything at work if it was a snow day, so why shouldn’t I do the same. I see her point, but at the same time, this was an impossibly unusual circumstance, and I can’t just not attend a meeting where I’m presenting to the csuite.

I guess I just don’t know what she is expecting of me. Yes, I can work harder to ensure that I log off by 5, but at the end of the day, I think my situation is really great. I know many other people in much worse situations (having to go into an office, lots of travel, regularly working on vacations). I’m truly trying to understand my wife here, but I just don’t understand how one very bad day, along with signing off 5-10 minutes after 5 pm equates to not prioritizing my family over work. Am I totally off base here?

Your wife is a selfish, spoiled brat.

This. She actually expected that because it was a snow day, you should drop your presentation? Does she want you to quit? You need to ask her this. Honestly, this crap makes me just shocked at the younger generations’ work ethic. Like this is insane. You have a JOB that you presumably need, yes? It’s not just a minor inconvenience or a vanity hobby? Insane gen x women are like this, so hellbent on getting full equality for even the most banal happenings and then are surprised when their partner ends up being underemployed and they are broke. Ask her if she wants to be broke and what the plan is. She’s a nut, though and an incompetent one, and I’d be terrified about her return to work.

My read on that was that she wanted him to shoot her a text that said, “Just checking in. How are things going?”

Just implying that he thought or cared about her at all.

That’s clearly not what she was fishing for at all.

Regardless, why would she need a check in during the work day? Conversely, why wasn’t the dh checking in on OP on his big day of presenting for the c suite? Seems like his day was a bigger day than hers. Long story short is she needs to grow up

It doesn’t sound to me like she knew about that. We know about it because we are getting his point of view.

Do you have trouble reading?

He was supposed to go to CA but didn't have to. They discussed that. So she knew he had presentations.

I don’t have trouble reading. He said that he and his boss discussed it and that it didn’t make sense for him to go out to California and all. He didn’t say that he actually talked to his wife about any of it.

He said exactly that. So you do have trouble reading.

[Anonymous]

Pickmesha is HILARIOUS!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with work life balance early in my career, but things have improved since I started working 100% remote for a company based on the west coast.There’s a flexible culture around time off, which has been great to spend more time with our two kids (4yrs, 3 months). As a result, I never work/take my laptop with me on vacations or work on weekends. Sometimes I’ll work in the evenings to catch up on stuff, but I’ll do that when wife/kids have gone to sleep. I have to travel to our home office once a quarter for 4 days at a time for planning meetings, but I usually schedule my flights to minimize impact to family life (leave late Sunday afternoon, return Thursday night or Friday am on red eye). Another plus is that I’m able to attend daytime events at our 4 yr olds school, which is really meaningful to me.

DW is still on maternity leave for another month with the 3 month old, while our four year olds preschool is a 5 min drive.

Due to most of my coworkers being west coast based, mornings are slow, so I’ll take the 4 year old to preschool. At 5 PM, DW leaves to pick 4 yo up, and I take over with 3 mo old. However, it’s not uncommon to have lots of requests and meeting in the afternoon, so sometimes I won’t sign off until like 5:05 or 5:10, which bothers DW because she likes to pick up 4 yo at a consistent time.

I recently moved into a management role, which has me much busier during the day, in and out of lots of meetings, and doing admin work in my downtime. As a result, a lot of days, I’ll only have time for a quick lunch, which means I don’t have the time to do the household tasks I was able to do before (folding laundry, dishes, etc) When I come down and eat quickly, DW always remarks something like “you want to spend some time with your kid?”

However, things came to a head this week with DW and I regrading work life balance. Our quarterly planning meeting was this past week. Due to my new role, I was told that I only needed to be involved in one days worth of meetings. It didn’t make sense to travel cross country for one day, so fortunately I could join remotely. Unfortunately, the one day would involve two presentations that I’d be giving to different csuite members, so I felt it necessary to spend a great deal of time preparing these presentations.

Of course, the day I was scheduled to give these presentations, the shit hit the fan on the home and work front. Our 4 year olds school had a snow day so she was home, which is always a challenge. ILs are local and they’d normally help in this situation, but they were out of town. I helped out with the kids for about an hour in the morning, but then lots of work related fires had to be put out, which resulted being called into meeting, which then dovetailed into my presentations for the csuite. I basically didn’t leave my desk for 5 straight hours, which, I can’t stress enough, is incredibly rare, even in my new position. Along the way in this madness, DW texted me “we’re all doing great down here, thanks for checking in!”

A day later, DW tells me that she feels that I have an unhealthily work life balance, and I’m not prioritizing our family’s needs over work. She pointed out that she would drop everything at work if it was a snow day, so why shouldn’t I do the same. I see her point, but at the same time, this was an impossibly unusual circumstance, and I can’t just not attend a meeting where I’m presenting to the csuite.

I guess I just don’t know what she is expecting of me. Yes, I can work harder to ensure that I log off by 5, but at the end of the day, I think my situation is really great. I know many other people in much worse situations (having to go into an office, lots of travel, regularly working on vacations). I’m truly trying to understand my wife here, but I just don’t understand how one very bad day, along with signing off 5-10 minutes after 5 pm equates to not prioritizing my family over work. Am I totally off base here?

Your wife is a selfish, spoiled brat.

This. She actually expected that because it was a snow day, you should drop your presentation? Does she want you to quit? You need to ask her this. Honestly, this crap makes me just shocked at the younger generations’ work ethic. Like this is insane. You have a JOB that you presumably need, yes? It’s not just a minor inconvenience or a vanity hobby? Insane gen x women are like this, so hellbent on getting full equality for even the most banal happenings and then are surprised when their partner ends up being underemployed and they are broke. Ask her if she wants to be broke and what the plan is. She’s a nut, though and an incompetent one, and I’d be terrified about her return to work.

My read on that was that she wanted him to shoot her a text that said, “Just checking in. How are things going?”

Just implying that he thought or cared about her at all.

That’s clearly not what she was fishing for at all.

Regardless, why would she need a check in during the work day? Conversely, why wasn’t the dh checking in on OP on his big day of presenting for the c suite? Seems like his day was a bigger day than hers. Long story short is she needs to grow up

It doesn’t sound to me like she knew about that. We know about it because we are getting his point of view.

Do you have trouble reading?

He was supposed to go to CA but didn't have to. They discussed that. So she knew he had presentations.

I don’t have trouble reading. He said that he and his boss discussed it and that it didn’t make sense for him to go out to California and all. He didn’t say that he actually talked to his wife about any of it.

He said exactly that. So you do have trouble reading.

Wait, do you think that he is having quarterly meetings with his wife?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t get through your whole post before thinking your DW had unrealistic expectations. You seem to be able to do more than most that are employed full time.

He works 10-5:10. That's barely full time. He SHOULD be doing more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t get through your whole post before thinking your DW had unrealistic expectations. You seem to be able to do more than most that are employed full time.

He works 10-5:10. That's barely full time. He SHOULD be doing more.

He IS doing more. He takes his 4 year old to daycare every morning during what most of us would consider typical work hours. And he is clearly involved as soon as his workday ends at 5, because he was aware on this particular snow day that his extra 10 minutes of work really messed up his wife's expectations. Clearly he is involved on typical days, or his wife wouldn't have lost her mind when he had the audacity to work for a 5 hour stretch without relieving her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of empathy missing from these replies. This is a hard time for both of you. Yes your wife is not being reasonable, AND she's going through a very difficult period of life and, in my marriage at least, we give each other grace.

Maternity leave with my second was one of the toughest stretches of my entire life. I would get to the end of the day and just cry myself to sleep for an hour then wake up and do it all again. Add in a snow day with a 4 yo and an exceptionally busy day for my husband and I probably also could have said something unreasonable or snarky. Thank god my husband let those kinds of comments roll off his back, stepped up where he could, and overall maintained better perspective than I was able to at that point in time.

Have you ever spent five hours straight stuck inside with both of your kids? Five hours flies when you're busy at work but your wife was probably crawling up the walls and watching seconds tick by. It doesn't make her "right" it just means she was struggling.

OP, my advice to you is that the "reasonableness" of her comment isn't really the lens to look at it through. You are a team with a shared problem: you are both operating at full capacity, so any unexpected burden, e.g. a snow day, puts one or both of you over the edge. I'd try to tackle that part of the problem together. Where can you throw money at things? Where can you each let go of a little bit of expectations? (E.g. she wants the 4 yo picked up at a specific time, you want to get all of your emails sent before you leave the office. Neither one is necessary, you are both choosing a battle).

Fwiw my husband and I both work for west Coast companies and it's NOT easy. We say constantly that one or both of us should quit but we have golden handcuffs. I'm grateful we can each relate to the problem at least, it must be hard to be juggling the pressure of trying to log off at what is effectively 2 pm for your colleagues, and feeling push back at home if you can't get off until 2:15. It sounds like your wife will be going back to work soon - have you guys started to talk about your routine then? Maternity leave is short and hard, so I would spend less energy trying to draw out these arguments and more time trying to anticipate the next phase, which will last a lot longer.

Snow day. OP's wifey should've taken those kids out to play in the snow. Yes, even the baby. Typical helpless millennial momma. I don't know how our species will survive.

Wifey? Momma?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with work life balance early in my career, but things have improved since I started working 100% remote for a company based on the west coast.There’s a flexible culture around time off, which has been great to spend more time with our two kids (4yrs, 3 months). As a result, I never work/take my laptop with me on vacations or work on weekends. Sometimes I’ll work in the evenings to catch up on stuff, but I’ll do that when wife/kids have gone to sleep. I have to travel to our home office once a quarter for 4 days at a time for planning meetings, but I usually schedule my flights to minimize impact to family life (leave late Sunday afternoon, return Thursday night or Friday am on red eye). Another plus is that I’m able to attend daytime events at our 4 yr olds school, which is really meaningful to me.

DW is still on maternity leave for another month with the 3 month old, while our four year olds preschool is a 5 min drive.

Due to most of my coworkers being west coast based, mornings are slow, so I’ll take the 4 year old to preschool. At 5 PM, DW leaves to pick 4 yo up, and I take over with 3 mo old. However, it’s not uncommon to have lots of requests and meeting in the afternoon, so sometimes I won’t sign off until like 5:05 or 5:10, which bothers DW because she likes to pick up 4 yo at a consistent time.

I recently moved into a management role, which has me much busier during the day, in and out of lots of meetings, and doing admin work in my downtime. As a result, a lot of days, I’ll only have time for a quick lunch, which means I don’t have the time to do the household tasks I was able to do before (folding laundry, dishes, etc) When I come down and eat quickly, DW always remarks something like “you want to spend some time with your kid?”

However, things came to a head this week with DW and I regrading work life balance. Our quarterly planning meeting was this past week. Due to my new role, I was told that I only needed to be involved in one days worth of meetings. It didn’t make sense to travel cross country for one day, so fortunately I could join remotely. Unfortunately, the one day would involve two presentations that I’d be giving to different csuite members, so I felt it necessary to spend a great deal of time preparing these presentations.

Of course, the day I was scheduled to give these presentations, the shit hit the fan on the home and work front. Our 4 year olds school had a snow day so she was home, which is always a challenge. ILs are local and they’d normally help in this situation, but they were out of town. I helped out with the kids for about an hour in the morning, but then lots of work related fires had to be put out, which resulted being called into meeting, which then dovetailed into my presentations for the csuite. I basically didn’t leave my desk for 5 straight hours, which, I can’t stress enough, is incredibly rare, even in my new position. Along the way in this madness, DW texted me “we’re all doing great down here, thanks for checking in!”

A day later, DW tells me that she feels that I have an unhealthily work life balance, and I’m not prioritizing our family’s needs over work. She pointed out that she would drop everything at work if it was a snow day, so why shouldn’t I do the same. I see her point, but at the same time, this was an impossibly unusual circumstance, and I can’t just not attend a meeting where I’m presenting to the csuite.

I guess I just don’t know what she is expecting of me. Yes, I can work harder to ensure that I log off by 5, but at the end of the day, I think my situation is really great. I know many other people in much worse situations (having to go into an office, lots of travel, regularly working on vacations). I’m truly trying to understand my wife here, but I just don’t understand how one very bad day, along with signing off 5-10 minutes after 5 pm equates to not prioritizing my family over work. Am I totally off base here?

Your wife is a selfish, spoiled brat.

This. She actually expected that because it was a snow day, you should drop your presentation? Does she want you to quit? You need to ask her this. Honestly, this crap makes me just shocked at the younger generations’ work ethic. Like this is insane. You have a JOB that you presumably need, yes? It’s not just a minor inconvenience or a vanity hobby? Insane gen x women are like this, so hellbent on getting full equality for even the most banal happenings and then are surprised when their partner ends up being underemployed and they are broke. Ask her if she wants to be broke and what the plan is. She’s a nut, though and an incompetent one, and I’d be terrified about her return to work.

My read on that was that she wanted him to shoot her a text that said, “Just checking in. How are things going?”

Just implying that he thought or cared about her at all.

That’s clearly not what she was fishing for at all.

Regardless, why would she need a check in during the work day? Conversely, why wasn’t the dh checking in on OP on his big day of presenting for the c suite? Seems like his day was a bigger day than hers. Long story short is she needs to grow up

Really? It's much easier to present to the C-suite than deal with 2 small children. I'd choose that every time.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I struggled with work life balance early in my career, but things have improved since I started working 100% remote for a company based on the west coast.There’s a flexible culture around time off, which has been great to spend more time with our two kids (4yrs, 3 months). As a result, I never work/take my laptop with me on vacations or work on weekends. Sometimes I’ll work in the evenings to catch up on stuff, but I’ll do that when wife/kids have gone to sleep. I have to travel to our home office once a quarter for 4 days at a time for planning meetings, but I usually schedule my flights to minimize impact to family life (leave late Sunday afternoon, return Thursday night or Friday am on red eye). Another plus is that I’m able to attend daytime events at our 4 yr olds school, which is really meaningful to me.

DW is still on maternity leave for another month with the 3 month old, while our four year olds preschool is a 5 min drive.

Due to most of my coworkers being west coast based, mornings are slow, so I’ll take the 4 year old to preschool. At 5 PM, DW leaves to pick 4 yo up, and I take over with 3 mo old. However, it’s not uncommon to have lots of requests and meeting in the afternoon, so sometimes I won’t sign off until like 5:05 or 5:10, which bothers DW because she likes to pick up 4 yo at a consistent time.

I recently moved into a management role, which has me much busier during the day, in and out of lots of meetings, and doing admin work in my downtime. As a result, a lot of days, I’ll only have time for a quick lunch, which means I don’t have the time to do the household tasks I was able to do before (folding laundry, dishes, etc) When I come down and eat quickly, DW always remarks something like “you want to spend some time with your kid?”

However, things came to a head this week with DW and I regrading work life balance. Our quarterly planning meeting was this past week. Due to my new role, I was told that I only needed to be involved in one days worth of meetings. It didn’t make sense to travel cross country for one day, so fortunately I could join remotely. Unfortunately, the one day would involve two presentations that I’d be giving to different csuite members, so I felt it necessary to spend a great deal of time preparing these presentations.

Of course, the day I was scheduled to give these presentations, the shit hit the fan on the home and work front. Our 4 year olds school had a snow day so she was home, which is always a challenge. ILs are local and they’d normally help in this situation, but they were out of town. I helped out with the kids for about an hour in the morning, but then lots of work related fires had to be put out, which resulted being called into meeting, which then dovetailed into my presentations for the csuite. I basically didn’t leave my desk for 5 straight hours, which, I can’t stress enough, is incredibly rare, even in my new position. Along the way in this madness, DW texted me “we’re all doing great down here, thanks for checking in!”

A day later, DW tells me that she feels that I have an unhealthily work life balance, and I’m not prioritizing our family’s needs over work. She pointed out that she would drop everything at work if it was a snow day, so why shouldn’t I do the same. I see her point, but at the same time, this was an impossibly unusual circumstance, and I can’t just not attend a meeting where I’m presenting to the csuite.

I guess I just don’t know what she is expecting of me. Yes, I can work harder to ensure that I log off by 5, but at the end of the day, I think my situation is really great. I know many other people in much worse situations (having to go into an office, lots of travel, regularly working on vacations). I’m truly trying to understand my wife here, but I just don’t understand how one very bad day, along with signing off 5-10 minutes after 5 pm equates to not prioritizing my family over work. Am I totally off base here?

Your wife is a selfish, spoiled brat.

This. She actually expected that because it was a snow day, you should drop your presentation? Does she want you to quit? You need to ask her this. Honestly, this crap makes me just shocked at the younger generations’ work ethic. Like this is insane. You have a JOB that you presumably need, yes? It’s not just a minor inconvenience or a vanity hobby? Insane gen x women are like this, so hellbent on getting full equality for even the most banal happenings and then are surprised when their partner ends up being underemployed and they are broke. Ask her if she wants to be broke and what the plan is. She’s a nut, though and an incompetent one, and I’d be terrified about her return to work.

My read on that was that she wanted him to shoot her a text that said, “Just checking in. How are things going?”

Just implying that he thought or cared about her at all.

That’s clearly not what she was fishing for at all.

Regardless, why would she need a check in during the work day? Conversely, why wasn’t the dh checking in on OP on his big day of presenting for the c suite? Seems like his day was a bigger day than hers. Long story short is she needs to grow up

Really? It's much easier to present to the C-suite than deal with 2 small children. I'd choose that every time.

Yes, I'm sure that's why you're about to get promoted to the C suite. Because it's that easy.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It is really hard juggling a newborn and toddler. Really really hard.

What are your plans when the wife goes back to work?

I would bring in nanny earlier.

DH is a surgeon so he worked out of the house. We had our kids when he was in residency so he was working 80 hours. When he walked in the door, he took the baby.

OP, you should take the baby from 5pm to bedtime at a bare minimum AND clean up, cook, etc every night. Give your wife a small break. You should also hire help.

OP is working from 9-5, as is his wife.
Why should OP solely cover "second shift" from 5pm to bedtime? They should be equal participants in the second shift work.

Who is covering third shift? (nighttime wakeups)

Also, doesn't a good father want to spend time with his kids? Be competent at bathing, feeding, etc?

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Anonymous wrote:It’s nuts that in 2025, the sahm position is that taking care of two young kids, one of whom goes to daycare, is beyond the capacity of the stay at home parent, and this can only be reasonably managed with childcare.

I am fascinated and disgusted that some women have not only convinced their husbands that there is so much value in the work done by a stay at home mom that they shouldn’t work out of the house, but also that their husbands should go out of pocket to pay for childcare and house cleaners while their wives perform this apparently imperative function. (I understand ops wife is on maternity leave and planning to go back to work, so it’s not exactly the situation here. But there are lots of posters suggesting that op is expecting too much of her to watch two kids on a day when she is not working - so same sentiment).

you’re fascinated and disgusted that a woman wants support caring for two small children one of whom is an infant possibly breastfeeding? And you then wonder why women are declining to have lots of babies? Come on.

I’m a woman and find it this strange. The older kid is in full day daycare most days. I have no issue with women opting out of having kids, but I do think it’s odd to try and opt out of the ones you do have.

Oh, so asking for some help from the other parent of your infant and preschooler is “opting out” of childcare? GTFO.

Yes, complaining about the spouse giving a presentation to the c-suite on the first day you have to take care of both kids solo is pathetic. Embarrassingly so.

if he failed to even communicate and work out a plan with her - and just silently expected her to do it all - then yes, he’s being a sh*tty user. The message is “you are my nanny and I control the division of labor in the household.”

If OP had taken a moment to be RESPECTFUL of his wife and coordinate the day, then he wouldn’t be here right now.

You are kidding right? The plan is the parent who is not working that day takes care of the kids. It was 5 hours, not even a full work day.

Yeah no, your wife is not your nanny. If that’s the plan, you discuss it with her.

I am a wife who works and brings in the lion share of our income. What a silly response. Yes, the parent on leave actually cares for the children. What a strange world you must live in.

you’re not reading what I wrote. of course it makes sense that she did the childcare while he worked. The problem would be if there was no conversation about it letting her know that today he’d likely be unable to interact the way he usually does during the day. And the broader context is that she’s going back to work in a month. is he also going to silently expect her to be the one to take all the snow days? Sounds like it.

You’re actually suggesting that when you have a working spouse and a spouse on maternity leave not currently working, the couple needs to have a discussion about who is going to watch the children on a snow day?? When one of the parents has no fixed obligations that day, and the other one does have obligations? Like there’s a discussion to be had? You ladies are absolutely bonkers.

Yes, because they're a married couple and care about each other and care about their kids. Her day just got way harder and he thinks he doesn't have to lift a finger? No thank you. He can step up. Not just ignore her and proceed with his day. It's really rude.

The ages of the kids are not snow day compatible, the 4yo should get to play in the snow but an infant shouldn't be outside that long. And it's hard to keep a 4yo quiet during all three infant naps. Being a good parent means the dad steps up to handle some of this.

But they did talk about it! The wife knew he had presentations that day. Then the snow happened but why would that affect his work?

I think this is a fine argument while she is on maternity leave, however, they need to sit down and discuss what they will do if this happens once she has returned to work. It isn't equitable to assume that his life will not change and his work will always assume priority, without a talk.