Breadwinner -- Dinnertime and weekends?

[Anonymous]

DH is the breadwinner and I am a SAHM. DH gets home by 6pm on most nights. He works late 1-2 times per week and works weekends when he is on call. DH is a physician. He is at the hospital right now. We have dinner together usually 5 out of 7 nights per week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH is the breadwinner and I am a SAHM. DH gets home by 6pm on most nights. He works late 1-2 times per week and works weekends when he is on call. DH is a physician. He is at the hospital right now. We have dinner together usually 5 out of 7 nights per week.

How many weekends a night is he on call? We are looking at most nights home after bedtime and weekend works as startup ramps up. It seems like that is pretty rare, even in big law or lobbyists; everyone I takes a dinner break. But in tech you often are working problems as a team and the website/code debugging is hard to pause for a family break.

But for those with BigLaw or someone who misses dinner and weekends regularly, is anyone satisfied with the arrangement b/c they get to stay home and focus on kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is the breadwinner and I am a SAHM. DH gets home by 6pm on most nights. He works late 1-2 times per week and works weekends when he is on call. DH is a physician. He is at the hospital right now. We have dinner together usually 5 out of 7 nights per week.

How many weekends a night is he on call? We are looking at most nights home after bedtime and weekend works as startup ramps up. It seems like that is pretty rare, even in big law or lobbyists; everyone I takes a dinner break. But in tech you often are working problems as a team and the website/code debugging is hard to pause for a family break.

But for those with BigLaw or someone who misses dinner and weekends regularly, is anyone satisfied with the arrangement b/c they get to stay home and focus on kids?

The only SAHM I know like this has a FT nanny. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH is the breadwinner and I am a SAHM. DH gets home by 6pm on most nights. He works late 1-2 times per week and works weekends when he is on call. DH is a physician. He is at the hospital right now. We have dinner together usually 5 out of 7 nights per week.

Is he in the anesthesia specialty? Or Obstetrics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH is the breadwinner and I am a SAHM. DH gets home by 6pm on most nights. He works late 1-2 times per week and works weekends when he is on call. DH is a physician. He is at the hospital right now. We have dinner together usually 5 out of 7 nights per week.

How do you find this schedule? Do you find it difficult to deal with? What about loneliness on the weekends when he is working? How do you spend your time on the weekends when he is working?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is the breadwinner and I am a SAHM. DH gets home by 6pm on most nights. He works late 1-2 times per week and works weekends when he is on call. DH is a physician. He is at the hospital right now. We have dinner together usually 5 out of 7 nights per week.

How do you find this schedule? Do you find it difficult to deal with? What about loneliness on the weekends when he is working? How do you spend your time on the weekends when he is working?

Think it likely depends on how frequently he is on call. Even someone in IT might be called in on a weekend for a problem, though obviously no where the severity that most doctor's face. At least Doctor doesn't have to worry about being laid off; malpractice might loom large, but if part of a hospital pretty steady I think.

Since DH is home by 6 at least 3 nights a week, this isn't too bad compared to some project based IT timelines where people push to a release schedule for weeks and weeks of late nights and weekends.

[Anonymous]

I work part-time but we sacrificed my career advancement for his. He has always worked long hours and traveled a lot. When he's in town he comes home between 8:30 and 10:00. Too late for dinner. He's around on weekends but does work. We could never take as much vacation as the kids and I wanted because of his work schedule.

This was all a mistake. We are now divorcing for other reasons and I have learned that I should have either insisted on keeping my full-on career too or quit altogether. You can't undo 20 years of passing up promotions and job offers. I'm going to struggle financially for the rest of my life because he'll claim that I have a higher earning capacity than I really do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is the breadwinner and I am a SAHM. DH gets home by 6pm on most nights. He works late 1-2 times per week and works weekends when he is on call. DH is a physician. He is at the hospital right now. We have dinner together usually 5 out of 7 nights per week.

How many weekends a night is he on call? We are looking at most nights home after bedtime and weekend works as startup ramps up. It seems like that is pretty rare, even in big law or lobbyists; everyone I takes a dinner break. But in tech you often are working problems as a team and the website/code debugging is hard to pause for a family break.

But for those with BigLaw or someone who misses dinner and weekends regularly, is anyone satisfied with the arrangement b/c they get to stay home and focus on kids?

The only SAHM I know like this has a FT nanny. Seriously.

My husband is a big law partner and we don't have a full time nanny. He tries to get home by 8 of 8:30 so he can do bedtime. I find that I don't mind doing dinner on my own for a toddler and an infant, but I really like having help with bedtime. When our second child was born, we did get a mother's helper who came from 5-8 to help with this period for the first few months. DH has to work weekends, but can get a lot done during naps and after bedtime, or I plan an outing with the kids for a few hours so he can get work done.

I don't think the arrangement would work for everyone, but you don't have to live everyone else's life. It only has to work for you and your husband. It works for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is the breadwinner and I am a SAHM. DH gets home by 6pm on most nights. He works late 1-2 times per week and works weekends when he is on call. DH is a physician. He is at the hospital right now. We have dinner together usually 5 out of 7 nights per week.

How many weekends a night is he on call? We are looking at most nights home after bedtime and weekend works as startup ramps up. It seems like that is pretty rare, even in big law or lobbyists; everyone I takes a dinner break. But in tech you often are working problems as a team and the website/code debugging is hard to pause for a family break.

But for those with BigLaw or someone who misses dinner and weekends regularly, is anyone satisfied with the arrangement b/c they get to stay home and focus on kids?

DH is on call 10 weekends plus 1 holiday. He is a surgeon. His schedule is somewhat predictable.

I used to work in finance before I was a SAHM. Many of my male colleagues had SAHMs and missed dinner with their families every weeknight and worked most weekends. I still think everyone had at least one weekend day off. These guys made a lot of money, hundreds of thousands or millions. Everyone took off during Christmas and a summer vacation.

Would he be working around the clock forever or just for a short time?

It just seems risky for a tech start up. It is one thing if he is making $500k or $2 million.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is the breadwinner and I am a SAHM. DH gets home by 6pm on most nights. He works late 1-2 times per week and works weekends when he is on call. DH is a physician. He is at the hospital right now. We have dinner together usually 5 out of 7 nights per week.

How many weekends a night is he on call? We are looking at most nights home after bedtime and weekend works as startup ramps up. It seems like that is pretty rare, even in big law or lobbyists; everyone I takes a dinner break. But in tech you often are working problems as a team and the website/code debugging is hard to pause for a family break.

But for those with BigLaw or someone who misses dinner and weekends regularly, is anyone satisfied with the arrangement b/c they get to stay home and focus on kids?

DH is on call 10 weekends plus 1 holiday. He is a surgeon. His schedule is somewhat predictable.

I used to work in finance before I was a SAHM. Many of my male colleagues had SAHMs and missed dinner with their families every weeknight and worked most weekends. I still think everyone had at least one weekend day off. These guys made a lot of money, hundreds of thousands or millions. Everyone took off during Christmas and a summer vacation.

Would he be working around the clock forever or just for a short time?

It just seems risky for a tech start up. It is one thing if he is making $500k or $2 million.

We are not doing it for big payout but it is more money so allows for the SAHM setup. But I guess only way to make sustainable is to make those finance siE Numbers bc money makes everything easier!