Dear For Love & Money,
My husband and I are in our mid-40s with two young children. My husband is a veteran and is currently self-employed as a carpenter. He receives a monthly disability benefit, which has allowed him to have a more flexible career, working intermittently for a few months or a year to build up a “safety net” and taking time off to travel and focus on hobbies. I have a stable federal career as a social worker with the Department of Veterans Affairs, which includes excellent benefits, a pension, and family health insurance. We both make good incomes and have money set aside. We keep our finances separate and split our bills 50/50. This has worked until recently.
Up until about four months ago, I worked remotely, which gave me the flexibility to walk the kids to and from childcare. Then I received the federal return-to-office order, and I lost that flexibility. My husband took over mornings and after school with the kids, leaving him about five to six hours to work when he has a paying carpentry job. Even though it seems like a small adjustment, it’s becoming a big issue — I miss my flexibility and ability to have that extra time with the kids, and my husband wants a few more hours each day to work on carpentry projects without worrying about the kids’ schedules. He has also expressed feeling like a stay-at-home dad who’s “doing it all,” and feeling like I take this setup for granted.
We recently got into a heated discussion, and he asked me to consider leaving my stable career and benefits to find another job that’s either remote or part-time to take back the stay-at-home parent role, so he can focus on building his business. I’ve no intention of leaving my job — the pay is great, I enjoy what I do, and there’s opportunity for growth. I also don’t feel comfortable losing that stability for myself and for our kids. I’ve suggested adjusting the 50/50 split to decrease the pressure on his carpentry business, but he hasn’t shown interest in that, and truthfully, I know my income alone won’t cover our monthly expenses.
How do we maintain enough flexibility for one parent to be able to walk the kids to and from school without having to pay someone else to do it and, more importantly, not sacrifice career stability or opportunities?
Sincerely,
Standing for Stability
Dear Standing,
The term “stay-at-home-parent” refers to someone whose exclusive job is staying home and providing childcare for their children. To be clear, your husband is not a stay-at-home dad any more than you were the stay-at-home parent when you were working remotely or if you were to get a new remote job. I don’t say this to be pedantic; I clarify this point because, as convenient as it may feel for one parent to work from home and be on hand for their child’s needs, these are two separate, time-consuming jobs.
You mentioned that your husband feels he is “doing it all”, which makes sense if he is the one at the house all day, surrounded by the responsibilities of your lives. He may be struggling to balance everything more than you did when you were working from home due to being self-employed and not reporting to a boss or having hard deadlines; I myself know how easy it is for my other responsibilities to creep up my to-do list when there’s no external source forcing me to prioritize my paid work.
At the same time, he has to recognize that what you’re asking of him isn’t impossible; in fact, when you were working from home, you were taking on these responsibilities that he feels overwhelmed by. It’s possible he took for granted that you were “doing it all” without even realizing it, and the answer to your problems isn’t simply making things go back to the way they were.
Quitting your job in the hopes that you can find something remote seems like a vast overreaction to inconvenient pick-up and drop-off times. Your solution will be found in the details of your daily routine, which will be hard to negotiate if you’ve both mentally reduced your schedules to: “You have time. You’re home all day,” and “I don’t. I’m in the office or doing carpentry all day.”
Instead, address your husband’s logistical obstacles directly. Ask him what specifically isn’t working for him. Maybe he’ll tell you he feels like every time he gets into the flow, it’s time to pick the kids up from school, or every time he drops them off, his day gets derailed by tasks. Working from home can be challenging because personal and professional boundaries often become blurred; you walk past the kitchen and notice the trash needs to be taken out, and then the dishwasher’s clean light pops on, and suddenly, two hours have passed, and you haven’t even started working on the projects you’ve planned for the day.
If he feels that drop-off regularly triggers a series of rolling tasks, create a standing chore schedule. If your husband knows you will get the dishwasher after dinner, he won’t need to worry about taking care of it during the day.
Support your husband in creating boundaries around a workflow that feels productive and doable for him. Perhaps there are strategies you learned when you were working from home that he could incorporate into his daily workflow. Another way to help balance the workflow might also be to ask your boss about any potential flexibility; if you can change your hours from 9 to 6, for instance, you may be able to add dropping your kids off back into the mix.
As a work-from-home, self-employed person, I know that when someone says they feel like they’re doing it all, what they’re really saying is “Does anyone appreciate how hard I’m working? Will they help?” You talked about adjusting how you divide your bills, but adjusting how you distribute the labor in your home and making sure everyone feels they have the tools they need to succeed could be a more effective way of meeting everyone’s needs without ruining anyone’s career.
Rooting for you,
For Love & Money
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