WFH Frustrations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make daycare arrangements.

Lol she’s SIX

So. What do you think parents do who work as a cashier or a nurse or uber or whatever. They don’t just leave their 6 yr old home alone. There are plenty of at home providers who would take your child. Find one and use them.

But OP and her husband are not nurses or cashiers. They both work at home. Why is your suggestion a better solution than OP simply talking to her HUSBAND -- who is supposed to be her PARTNER -- and taking a few steps to make this work better?

OP -- my DH and I both WFH and like you, earn similar and have jobs that are comparable in terms of intensity, flexibility, etc. We also have one lower ES student (she's 8). For whatever reason, trying to juggle work and even just some minimal engagement with her on the random days off that are creeping up right now is very stressful for my DH, and he's just not good at it (he gets wrapped up in what he's doing and forgets to come up and make her lunch, e.g.). It's still a PITA for me, but it stresses me out less and I handle it better. So rather than try and divide this particular task equally or even really at all, I'm the one who does it -- and DH just works away as usual in his home office.

BUT -- huge "but" here -- because he's not a selfish jerk baby, he makes it up to me. Once we "clock out", he's the one who is on for the evening, handling dinner and bedtime while I catch up a bit at work. He will also then take DD out for a weekend activity while I relax and further catch up at work, for example.

Every task does not need to be divided evenly -- play to your strengths -- but there should be a fair arrangement overall. You should absolutely talk to your HUSBAND, and work something out.

[Anonymous]

Hey op I think your post summed up a lot of hardship women faced during school lockdown. Women balancing work and childcare while husbands shut themselves importantly in their offices. It’s a bad dynamic and it sucks and talking to your DH just leads to a fight sometimes. Ugh.

I agree with others that if you know your kiddo is going to be home, the fair thing is for you and DH to divide up the day. Remind him that you both have equally important jobs. Make a schedule if you need to. Then act lack a man and hole up in your room with the door closed and a “do not disturb” sign on it.

My DH is in the military and often gone. When we had our snow days this year, I told my boss “I’m taking leave. It’s not good for either my child’s emotional health or mine to pretend I can take care of him while I’m working.” My boss is a mom and totally gets it. I ended up working in the mornings and taking off in the afternoons. In the morning he’s more content to hang around and play Minecraft, and I’d also always have a class scheduled for him on www.outschool.com, which is amazing resource btw. By lunch, he’s hungry and restless, so I’d sign off work and feed him and take him to the sled hill to meet friends. This worked well for us and might be a model you can use if you can’t get DH on board.

Good luck and hang in there! Shout out to ALL the moms out there who are continuing to deal with rolling school closures while trying to work. It’s not easy and we are all goddamm heroes.

[Anonymous]

Do this: alternate days. So he handles one day off, and you handle the next day off. GO TO THE OFFICE on his day off. He can either take a personal day, or deal with your 6 year old. You're letting him get away with this BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Put me in the camp of not wanting to normalize airing personal grievances with your spouse to strangers on the internet. Firmly believe we’d be a better society if people got professional, private, help rather than seeking sympathy from people they know will give it (all we have is your side after all), therefore - potentially irrationally - making the issue worse, not better.

Talk to a therapist.

Oh look, OP's husband showed up. Asshole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What worked for us is to address the day in the morning and make a plan, 9-5, for who's available for child and when. "I'm booked for a 2pm and 3pm call" etc. It was the only way I found to get my spouse to treat my job as equal. We identify who is "on hand" for child at any given timeframe during the day, even if kid has an activity. That way expectations are set, meals are covered, and there's a point person for emergencies. It was unacceptable to me (and I communicated this to spouse) that we be ensconced in our ivory tower home offices all day when our kid is home.

You know your DH better than us, but to me, it sounds like he's gotten spoiled having the house to himself during the day.

This is what we do, too. We compare schedules the night before and essentially create shifts for ourselves. Also, OP, suck it up and give your kids lots of screen time.

[Anonymous]

To address your call issue. In your shoes, I would kick my husband out of his office so that I could make my call in private and he is forced to take on childcare responsibilities.

[Anonymous]

Don’t stay home every time your daughter is there. Stay home half the time and let him deal with it. They will be fine!

[Anonymous]

Some benign neglect of your kid will be just fine. Go to your office on half the days. On the days you are home, let her watch tv and make her own lunch. She should be able to grab something from the fridge or pantry just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some benign neglect of your kid will be just fine. Go to your office on half the days. On the days you are home, let her watch tv and make her own lunch. She should be able to grab something from the fridge or pantry just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t stay home every time your daughter is there. Stay home half the time and let him deal with it. They will be fine!

I don’t always stay home, but he literally will give her the iPad at 8am and forget to feed her lunch and she’s still on the iPad when I come home. And extended iPad time makes her act like a psycho.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t stay home every time your daughter is there. Stay home half the time and let him deal with it. They will be fine!

I don’t always stay home, but he literally will give her the iPad at 8am and forget to feed her lunch and she’s still on the iPad when I come home. And extended iPad time makes her act like a psycho.

Whyyyy are so many men like this?is there some gene that makes them immune to feeling guilty about screen time ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make daycare arrangements.

Lol she’s SIX

Exactly, there are drop in facilities that will do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t stay home every time your daughter is there. Stay home half the time and let him deal with it. They will be fine!

I don’t always stay home, but he literally will give her the iPad at 8am and forget to feed her lunch and she’s still on the iPad when I come home. And extended iPad time makes her act like a psycho.

So set the ipad to turn off after a set amount of time. Make sure he doesn't know the password.

[Anonymous]

Calm conversation about it.
Lay it out: Marla is home for X workdays and we need to find a way to make this work. It can no longer be all on me. How do you think we should handle this?

And listen to his suggestions. If he thinks getting a sitter, or letting her spend the day eating Doritos on the iPad is the way to go, you need to work with that for his 50% of the time in charge (though he should be on tap to find the sitter).

Stand up for yourself. There are men out there who pull their weight (my husband is one). But if you make it easy for him, or default take things over, nothing is going to change. Even if the immediate issue is going to go away, it’s a conversation worth having as it’s about more than your immediate crisis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t stay home every time your daughter is there. Stay home half the time and let him deal with it. They will be fine!

I don’t always stay home, but he literally will give her the iPad at 8am and forget to feed her lunch and she’s still on the iPad when I come home. And extended iPad time makes her act like a psycho.

Whyyyy are so many men like this?is there some gene that makes them immune to feeling guilty about screen time ?

So true. And the mom has to either be a control freak/primary parent, or else give up and then the child suffers.