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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Long story short:

DW was a trailing spouse for first part of marriage for much longer than anticipated. Now DH has his desired job (academic), and DW is trying to get her career back on track after 4 years of disjointed work and freelancing. DW is 34, and it is time to have a baby, but DW doesn't want to permanently tank the possibility of a decent paying career. Therefore, DW wants DH to take on [b]at minimum[/b] 50% childcare responsibilities while she tries to get promoted and work her way up the corporate ladder to a middle manager level. DH claims to be on board, but DW is concerned that in practice things will fall apart, in large part because she reads all of the sob stories on this board.

What say you? [/quote]  Doing the job thing is easier when children are younger, you can find care to cover things relatively easily - nanny should be the ideal in this situation since DH has a job that will likely have odd hours.  It also takes a year or so to have a kid.  DW needs to understand the DH will do things differently than she would have, but if everyone is alive and somewhat happy at the end of the day/week/month.  It will work. Getting a house cleaner helps quite a bit too.  DW also has to be okay with smaller amounts of time she will have with the child and that feeling will likely change once the child is born.  It will may be very difficult for her.

If you do not choose the nanny route, I suggest that DW is the one who drops off and DH is the one who picks up.  The parent who picks up tends to end up with more child work naturally.  That also means that the DW can work late when she has to without having to coordinate ahead of time for DH to pickup. She will then have the flexibility to stay an bit of time if she is almost al the end of a project.

How is housework currently divided?  Make a list now with what each person currently does and try to even it out now.  Then after the child comes, if things seem to shift more to the DW, make a new list and compare again.  [/quote]

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