Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is your dh’s concern? Would he agree that you have plenty of money?

OP, I think maybe he’s jealous? And also doesn’t understand what having 2 FT working parents is like - we’ve never done it. He doesn’t cook, clean, or shop but somehow magically thinks he will do 50% of this if I go back.

Have him do 50% for a few months before you do anything.

This really is the best answer.

He won't be able to do it. Many men claim to do 50%, but I know very few that do.

Well how about she earn 50% of the income for 3 months?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is your dh’s concern? Would he agree that you have plenty of money?

OP, I think maybe he’s jealous? And also doesn’t understand what having 2 FT working parents is like - we’ve never done it. He doesn’t cook, clean, or shop but somehow magically thinks he will do 50% of this if I go back.

Have him do 50% for a few months before you do anything.

This really is the best answer.

He won't be able to do it. Many men claim to do 50%, but I know very few that do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) do you need the extra income?
2) do you have a career you genuinely enjoy to go back to?

I don’t know why in the world a SAHM that doesn’t need the income, would go back to work if that meant working some boring office job or low paying part time work just to be “busy.” It really isn’t hard at all to fill the hours kids are at school doing productive things for yourself, house, and family.

+ 1

Conversely, 99% of working folks (WOHMs included) will quit in a second if they won a lottery. People mostly work to pay bills.

we have great life insurance but if he died I would definitely need/want to work and I would not want to have to start from scratch after years out of the workforce. Stuff like that keeps me up at night, so I have continued to work part time in my field and maintain contacts and skill sets so that I could return to full time work if needed.

Absolutely. Your model (part time work for me) would have been my favored plan but my biggest two issues were 1) my DH job is pretty inflexible/work day pretty long and 2) my own field did not encourage part time work. Some of the things you have mentioned are of real concern to moms (layoffs, illness, death, divorce). As a woman and a mom, my kids and I are financially vulnerable until we actively work to make sure that concerns you raised were addressed by taking concrete steps.

I would never question a mom's need to be at home with her children but the finances and their own life reality needs to be first accounted for. There cannot be one solution fits all for anyone.

Anonymous wrote:1) do you need the extra income?
2) do you have a career you genuinely enjoy to go back to?

I don’t know why in the world a SAHM that doesn’t need the income, would go back to work if that meant working some boring office job or low paying part time work just to be “busy.” It really isn’t hard at all to fill the hours kids are at school doing productive things for yourself, house, and family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I was married to a doctor and stayed home. Worked out to my advantage when he traded me in for a new model. Alimony for life.

And now you don't have to wash his socks either. I divorced my wealthy husband and I will get his retirement since I was the beneficiary, not his current widow. A SAHM is often financially secure. Something many don't understand.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is your dh’s concern? Would he agree that you have plenty of money?

OP, I think maybe he’s jealous? And also doesn’t understand what having 2 FT working parents is like - we’ve never done it. He doesn’t cook, clean, or shop but somehow magically thinks he will do 50% of this if I go back.

Have him do 50% for a few months before you do anything.

This really is the best answer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH is very capable in household work - childcare, laundry to cooking - and will pitch in without asking. But, he begged me to quit because our kids, home, marriage and life was suffering. Mainly, it was hard with the kids because they were falling sick in the daycare and reliable childcare was frequently failing. Anyways, when he begged me to quit I put forth certain conditions -
- I was never going back to work until I wanted to go back to work. I did not want him to expect that I could go back to work on his whim. First of all, the field I was in was not conducive to career breaks and secondly I was making a sacrifice that he had to respect.
- I was not letting go of my cleaning woman, in fact, I wanted her to come twice a week instead of weekly. I did not want to spend my time doing chores that I was already outsourcing before. I appreciated that my time was valuable (it was costing me my lost income) and so it had to be used wisely.
- DH was completely responsible for kids college and our retirement. I did not want us to be financially insolvent because that would be short-sighted.
- He was still going to help at home. I did not want inequality in the family and I still needed help. Being at home was very exhausting even with help.

DH agreed with caveats.
- He was not going to help with kids K-12 education planning. He was willing to drive them to places on the weekend. This was a big mental load off of him. He wanted the kids to do well in school and be happy, healthy and secure.
- He was not going to pay for big fat weddings for the kids. We were only paying for their entire college.
- We were going to live in a cheaper neighborhood, drive cheaper cars... We would not be able to swing for an expensive house, expensive cars etc on one salary and then also maintain a good standard of living, college/retirement saving etc.
- He gives me a set amount of money to run the house. Out of that I pay for every single thing. He only pays the contribution to retirement fund, contribution to medical insurance and investments. In the past 15 years the amount has not changed.

This has worked very well for us. Neither of us feel shortchanged and we feel that we are a good team. What worked for us, may not work for others.

I will however say that I will always advice women to prioritize the finances of the family first. The next priority is health and health coverage. The third priority is the need of the family. If you quit work and stay at home - there are immense benefits, but you have to first make the finances work and also have health coverage. Also, make sure that you have excellent insurance.

This is all such excellent advice. My DH and I negotiate this stuff in a similar way, though in our case I'm the one who never wants to pay for stuff like cleaners because I prefer to do it myself and save the money for something else. But the approach is the same -- we have the same goals, we both have limited resources (time!), and we want to maximize everything we can for our kids. I work part time because I really value have secondary income in the family as a "just in case" and I view it as important protection for me if something were ever to happen to him -- we have great life insurance but if he died I would definitely need/want to work and I would not want to have to start from scratch after years out of the workforce. Stuff like that keeps me up at night, so I have continued to work part time in my field and maintain contacts and skill sets so that I could return to full time work if needed.

But your underlying points about communication and prioritizing are really important and that's how families should make these decisions. There is no right way. For some, two working parents might make the most sense. But you have to make the decisions collectively based on family needs, not just based on individual whims. You have to talk everything through and discuss how it impacts the family. And that includes his job, too. Often we don't discuss how the DH's job can have a negative impact on family life, but if DH is traveling a lot, never home for dinner, or has a job with limited flexibility, all of those things impact DW and the children and in a situation where DH wants his wife to work, one thing that should be on the table is him changing jobs or scaling back in order to enable her to work. A DH who demands his wife return to work while maintaining a job that will never allow him to stay home with a sick kid or get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour needs to be brought down to earth about what it means to be a parent. Someone must do those things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is your dh’s concern? Would he agree that you have plenty of money?

OP, I think maybe he’s jealous? And also doesn’t understand what having 2 FT working parents is like - we’ve never done it. He doesn’t cook, clean, or shop but somehow magically thinks he will do 50% of this if I go back.

Have him do 50% for a few months before you do anything.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should he work if you won’t?

OP here - my view is, why should I do everything I do now plus a job? I would be insane to agree to that. He’s not going to magically do half.

You shouldn't. He needs to do 1/2 the cooking, 1/2 the cleaning, and help with homework, kids activities and more. Tell him to start magically doing half and when he does it consistently for 3 months you will go back to work. Remind him when you go back to work you will not have sick leave or vacation so he will have to take off work for every school holiday, every sick day and every emergency that comes up until you can build up some leave. Also, tell him he needs to find before/after school care for the kids and arrange for summer camps for all weeks in the summer he cannot take off to be with them.

Their youngest kid is 10. Camps and summer are completely optional.

Only if one person is at home. Go over to the teens forum and see how messed up kids can get. What will you do when your teen fails at life? Have another kid at 50 and start over? Parenting a child does not stop when they are 10 years old.

Did you see how many WOHMs quit work when remote working and remote schooling happened at the same time in the US? Working moms are struggling when they have to deal with their work, their kids, their kids education and household chores, while working from home especially if they cannot outsource childcare, child's education (school) and household work. Lets acknowledge that women are doing a hugely disproportionate amount of work (even the mental load) of childcare, child education and household work. and therefore now leaving the workplace in droves.

OP is correct. If her DH wants her to work, he can do 50% of the household work for next 3 months and then see how it works out.