Reply to I want my husband to reimburse me for half the income I lost during maternity leave

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi – OP here.

Thanks for your thoughts/insights..

A few of you have asked what I’m trying to accomplish with this.  On one hand, I think I’m not sure (hence the post) and on the other hand, I know that I am trying to be cognizant of the fact that I don’t want to unwittingly create resentment by creating a situation where my time or my income (or time or opinions) is less important than his.  And this is the first situation in which this dynamic has come to a head.

And let’s just get this out of the way – yes, money is not the most important thing in life.  Yes, marriage will require that we each give what we can to benefit the family and it may not always be able to be equal (if I could figure out how to get him to do half the breastfeeding, I would!).  Yes, we will both make immeasurable sacrifices throughout the course of our marriage.  Yes, marriage is not a business transaction.  Yes, I very much value the time I got to spend with our child.

So anyway…

On the topic of non-shared accounts – I’m surprised so many people find it odd.  What we were doing as individuals before we got married worked for us so we stuck with it. We both enjoy managing money and have slightly different approaches to it.  Keeping our own accounts allows us to both feel in control of our financial future – in a way which we are comfortable.   We have never once fought about money in 5 years (how many with a joint account can say that?).   This maternity-leave situation is more of an intellectual discussion than an argument for us.  He already said he’d transfer the money if I wanted him to and I already said that I was fine with not doing it if it bothered him.  It’s more of the principle of the situation that I think is important/interesting/worth discussing and I am trying to make peace with in my own mind.

I do think the word “reimburse” has thrown people.  I think of it more as shared sacrifice.

So on the topic of what I’m trying to accomplish…I recently read the follow up piece to the “Opt Out Generation” in the NY Times Magazine ” and it seemed to me that what really bothered a lot of these women 10 years down the road (after opting out of high paying professions) was the subtle inequality that crept into their marriages.  A few articulated that their time/intellect/talents/opinions started to feel less important when they began to have a significantly lower income than their partner.   I also read “Lean In” which warned against stopping taking on new opportunities at work because of childcare responsibilities.  My husband took a new, very demanding  job which he loves while I was pregnant (no pay bump) and therefore could not take paternity leave.  I also have a demanding job but was able to take some leave so I did it.  [b]But while I was out on maternity leave I was offered a new opportunity that would be a bump for me but also a significant amount of more work that would take me away from home.  My husband was strongly against me taking this new position for this reason which struck me as a bit unfair given his current employment status.  In this situation, I don’t want the job because I don’t want to be away from home that much – but what if I did?
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I think the crux of my question is how does one maintain equality in a marriage when child-rearing tends to demand (physically, socially, economically) so much more from women?

[/quote]

This is the beginning of opting out.  You place a greater value on being in the home than your husband does.  He doesn't have to value being at home as highly as you do -- he has you picking up the slack at home.  (Isn't that why he was "strongly against .. taking this new position"?)  You, on the other hand, have to place a higher value on not being "away from home that much", because you do not have a husband who can be at home when you are not because he has a "new very demanding job which he loves."

On the surface it seems like you are "choosing" this, but underneath, if you think about it, you are "choosing" because your spouse has already made a choice that narrows the range of options you have to choose from.

If you are interested in equitable child-raising, then you really need to have an explicit conversation with him about how much direct supervision of the child by one or both birth parents is necessary and how much each one of you feels comfortable outsourcing to nanny, tutor, housekeeper, daycare, etc.   Then based on that, you have to have an explicit system for dealing with professional opportunities (alternating?  increasing the outsourcing when both of you have increased work responsibilities at the same time? bringing in other family?)

Yes, there is some biology involved, but no, that doesn't mean that you are always the one who has to do everything.  Your husband may not be able to breast-feed, but he can certainly do 50% of all feedings with breast milk that you have pumped (or formula).

A lot of the inequity of child-raising comes from how much women ourselves accept.  My favorite Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote is to the school who kept calling only her when there was a problem with one of her children at school -- "This child has two parents.  I suggest you start alternating calls."   Yes, it is tiresome to keep saying this in all facets of your parenting life, even your spouse.  Yes, people will think you are a bitch.  But, the alternative is to accept the millions of inequities that our culture shoves at mothers in the name of "biology". [/quote]

Great post PP.  You hit the nail on the head.  [/quote]

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