Bring on the daddy wars ; )

Wow- what an amazing acknowledgement that Dad's actually exist! May I cautiously suggest that this sounds a bit like progress?

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I could relate to that. My son is in fulltime childcare because I work fulltime. Not because we necessarily REQUIRE fulltime childcare. DH works from home and let me tell you it isn't anywhere near 40 hours per week. At least one full day per week he is doing what you could more or less call "hobby" stuff, or gardening, or other personal interest type stuff. IMO he could schedule his worktime more effectively and our son could be in part-time preschool or maybe go fewer than 5 days a week, but when I have suggested this DH acts as though I have totally lost my mind. The fact is he feels absolutely zero pressure or desire to do any one-on-one parenting. Now I know DH would SAY he loves spending time with our son. But frankly unless I push him he rarely takes the initiative to DO it.

The really ironic thing is that we met with a financial planner this morning to discuss savings and income goals for me to leave my fulltime job and do my WAHM business instead. We established a fairly significant level of income I would have to earn per month for this business to be a viable replacement for my current employment, taking into account taxes and higher health insurance costs and every little thing. So then financial planner guy is running the numbers and crosses out what we currently pay for preschool and puts a big fat 0. I was like, "Wait a minute! How will I be able to earn that kind of money if I'm also tending to a 3-year-old all day! He's going to still go to at least half-time pre-school." So financial planner and DH both kind of shrugged and hmmm'ed and said oh well, okay. Honestly IMO DH and I could certainly stagger our work hours to not need any child care, or to at least reduce it to only a couple days a week, but do you think DH spoke up and offered to do that? Do you think the idea even crossed his mind for a nanosecond?

I just thought that was SO revealing about what is truly expected from mothers -- EVERYTHING. Keep the house, tend the child, bring in income, just do it all. I mean trust me, financial planner never suggested we could save on preschool costs NOW by just having DS stay home while DH works! It's really kind of infuriating and depressing and unsurprising all at the same time.

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So YOU'RE automatically expected to care for a child while working FT at home, but your husband isn't? The inconsistent logic here, not to mention the assumptions, is annoying as all get-out.

You mentioned that your husband has not volunteered to work his schedule to spend more time with your child, but I'm curious as to whether you've brought the subject up with him? Or have you not bothered because you don't think he'll go for it?

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Thanks for sharing the article...I think we are making (slow) progress...but ITA with wednesday above.

I used to WAH FT (45-50 hrs/wk) with my ds when he was a baby until he was 8 m.o. It didn't even occur to my dh to relieve me when he got home. I also did 80-90% of the housekeeping and all of the meal prep... HELLO? Cut me - do I not bleed? I won't do it again...now I have ds in daycare 3 mornings a week and I don't even always have work to do (freelance). If I don't want to, I just don't bring him to daycare.

I realize now that I set myself up to way too high of a standard before, a standard which my dh came to expect to me to live up to. Now I know better, and no longer aspire to be Superwoman....wednesday, I'd suggest you keep this in mind as you plan your son's schedule for your WAH!

BTW, my dh is wonderful. But he is NOT going to tell me to get extra childcare, take a break for myself, volunteer to keep ds, etc. Most men won't, IME. Gotta do that for yourself!!

Eh, I don't want to bash my DH here, he was actually a fulltime SAHD during DS's first year. But not by choice, it was because he was laid off and so I went back to work. He got really depressed during that time and it was a very difficult time for our family. I've brought up the idea of him taking on some child care on a regular schedule and it just horrifies him. I think he has an immediate gut reaction of remembering how miserable he was that first year and just can't consider it at all. What can you do I was really annoyed that the financial planner (a dad of a 3yo and 1yo, incidentally) thought nothing of assuming I could earn essentially a fulltime salary from home but not use any kind of child care!

Now I know some WAHMs do manage without childcare, more power to 'em, but I don't intend to put myself in that position.