A couple of years ago, my husband lost his job, and, since I was the main breadwinner anyway, I supported his being at home since our kids are young, and life routines seemed less stressful that way. However, when I stayed home for my recent maternity leave, it became evident that the home had become his territory, and since then we've experienced marital stress. Has anyone else had a similar situation, of role-reversal that feels wrong (it seems like my husband has taken over being mom)? (And maybe I should ask if anyone else has a husband who is mostly at home, whether it works well or not.)

My husband retired from the Navy about 8 years ago and he volunteered to be Mr. Mom. I thought it was a great idea. Yes, we have had our ups and downs. I have had to relinquish some of my ideas about being "super mom" If you have this arrangement, the best thing you can do is talk. Keep up the communication since your feelings won't change but it will get better if you both work through them and figure away out to feel like you are still the mom. I would be happy to help with specifics if I can.

I am very nervous about this issue too. My husband and I are about to make this switch. He is quiting his job to care for our child and I am going back to residency.

I think we have very different parenting styles. He is very laid back. Doesn't like to discipline much, would rather just tickle and giggle. I feel he also lets her eat what ever she wants instead of providing balanced nutrition and saying "its this or nothing". He's more like "you don't want carrots and peas, ok, here is a popsickle". He doesn't like to follow schedules for naps, meals, bedtime.

I am worried that we are going to argue a lot about these things. I have a little bit of hope that he will figure out that not having a schedule doesn't work very well. I know I can't expect him to use my schedule, but maybe he will find his own schedule that works well for the two of them.

Remember that children are very resilient. They can thrive under the most amazing circumstances. It is probably more important to have them feel safe and loved, than to follow a schedule. I recently spent time with old friends on vacation, and found that since we had children, we were very different. My hubby and I are more laid back- our 2 year old was eating corn pops and hot dogs, while hers ate whole grain cereal and avocados. Mine slept when he was tired, while hers stopped the whole group when she had to nap. Guess what? Our kid was the better adjested, more talkative, more physically developed of the two. It may be hard for you to let go of some of your parenting 'rules' and let your husband follow his, but if you are willing to let him learn as he goes, you will likely find the whole family thrives. Just my 2cents worth, although it probably isn't even worth that much! Good luck!

This is really a difficult issue because there is so much other societal junk that comes to bear and you just don't know what will happen in the future.
My husband and I married while I was in first year of residency and he was finishing his masters in engineering. We had our first child at the beginning of my second year and he assumed much of the primary "babycare" stuff because my hours were horrible...you know, missing one night and practically unconc. the next. I had a lot to overcome, mostly jealousy when the baby turned to him but after all these years (and three kids..all in double digits now) we've managed to deal with this and ignore any comments from others that have stung, using my salary for the basics and his as extra.

We decided after residency, since I made at least 3x his salary, that my job would take presidence and he would do "project" work mostly from home so we had someone at home for the boys after school and to get to the numerous sports activities (and orthodontics appointments).

This worked really well for us, well I admit there were occassional spats but every couple fights about something. :yes:

Now we are dealing with another side of the issue which I think would look different if the roles were more traditional. I became disabled about 9 months ago, and have been told I shouldn't go back to direct patient care for a while. I can't think of anything I can do at present but the LTD don't want to pay for the time since July when my elimination period was up, so we are REALLY stretched right now ( Don't let anyone tell you you need 3-6 months emergency funds....get at least a year, there is NO incentive for LTD to pay up, they have no penalty to pay if the court rules that they must pay so it's more profitable to them to hang on to the money until you give up and go away.) My husband had to remain available to me while I was acutely ill and had to limit his availablity for projects and now we're hearing comments from friends and some of my male doctors...couched as chitchat, how are you doing, what's your husband up to etc?

Now I am probably being a bit paranoid but if a male doctor were to find himself in this situation I doubt that the rest of the society would assume his spouse would drop the house/kids and immediately walk into a well-paid job...or am I missing something. :scratchchin: If I am please let me know what it is.

Sorry to ramble, bit anxious about this topic.

Denise

The discussion is interesting and helpful. All the areas mentioned are involved: giving up being 'supermom', varying parenting styles, jealousy, and going against societal expectations. There are a couple of things that stand out for me. First, not being able to have my own time at home with the kids - when I come home it's family time, and often I am out of sinc with what's going on, (my husband is finishing up helping one child with homework or guiding another in a craft) so even though I'm finally home I'm still separated in a way, like a double blow. Second, feeling like my feminine side is neglected because I'm wearing these masculine shoes. For example, this past summer, it was hard when my husband took the older kids on vacation while I stayed to work.

For me, the difference in parenting styles seems to have gotten intertwined with issue of being an active parent when I am at home - if my husband is still calling the shots after 5pm, then my own style (which is a little more freestyle than his) doesn't get opportunity to come into play. The issue of disability must be a tremendous challenge to face - for me the societal expectations mentioned occur both at work, and at home where it is impossible to keep up with the supermoms, and one can feel excluded at the school.

The disability issue hits home with me--We are considering having my husband become a 'stay at home Dad', but I have MS and therefore am at higher risk of becoming disabled to the point where I can not work, and for this reason we have not done anything yet. My husband is in the computer field and therefore would need to keep up his skills if he plannedon returning to work. While the part-time 'consulting' option is possible, this would normally mean less predictable schedules. We are still investigating the options--for now our 3 kids are happy enough in daycare/after school programs, but once the oldest hits 12yo it will become more complicated (most after school programs use 12yo as a cut off, but I don't want my son to be home alone at 12yo.

To answer the original post - I work FT and my husband is a FT business student, in class inly 2-3 hours a day. He was always the one to take our daughter to day care when I was in residency b/c otherwise I'd have to drop her off at 6:30am, plus I was already getting such little sleep. Now that I have 8-5 hours he still brings her, which is great for me in terms of saving 30 minutes in the morning. BUT, I took Thursday off so we could attend to some financial stuff, and when we brought her to daycare, he walked in an all I can say is, "took over" everything. He told her where to put her lunchbox, to go sit down to eat her breakfast when she clearly wanted me to pick her up, etc. When I tried to step in and say "Hey, slow down here, she's out of sorts b/c I'm here" he barked at me that I didn't know what I was talking about and that he could handle it. I don't know if he was trying to make me feel an inch tall, but he did. I was actually embarassed in front of all these daycare workers, like "my husband won't even let me comfort our daughter b/c he runs the show here." It felt like a power play to me. Well she started crying b/c she didn't want me to leave, and I was about to cry b/c I felt like he had been so harsh. One of the teachers said "She'll be alright, toddlers always know how to make you feel guilty. Two-parents days are never easy" etc to make me feel better. But I felt like, when I walked in the door there, it was HIS territory, and I needed to just sit back and watch. I didn't like it at all.

From the way he behaves when we are at her daycare, you would think he is the attentive Mr Mom at home. Not so. It's bizarre to me. Does anyone have any insight into this? It makes me feel so badly.

I feel very fortunate. When my first child was born I was in the middle of residency. We hired a nanny and had one for the first 5 years. That was wonderful. I was able to devote time to my daughter when I got home and on days off, although she went to sleep shortly after I got home from work, so the time was short. She is 17 now and still says that she remembers sadly looking for me at the door around the time I would come home when she was a pre-schooler. That;s even though our longest-term nanny was (and still is ) a wonderful loving woman who I became great friends with and who was more like a grandmother to us all than a hired nanny. Then we (my husband is a FP, I am a pathologist) decided to make a big move, career-wise and location, so I could do part-time, even though my salary in the private sector would be much larger than my husband's. I have loved it. In the past 10+ years I have been PTA president, girl scout leader, tutor at school, 4-h helper, had twin boys after that, then cub scout leader, Taekwondo helper, etc etc. I think I would have regretted not doing all those things. Even though I was part-time with the later twins, I also had a nanny for the first few years. this freed me up to devote my time away from work to the kids. It's funny, but for a very long while (years) many other parents thought I was a stay-at home Mom because of my degree of involvement with the kids (mine and theirs). I was able to do this with a part-time pathology job. this may not work with other specialties, although I do know quite a few physician Moms in my area who have children and are working part-time.

Thank you so much for these last 2 posts. It seems that men, just like women who are mainly at home, can become territorial about it. I guess their esteem becomes centered in it. I would also like answers/solutions since my husband and I are also in such a power struggle, as became evident during my last maternity leave. If I were in a situation like GracieThree last week, I'd want to 'do it all' with the drop-off at daycare, since husband gets to do it every other day. For me now, it is sick days or snow days - if I take a sick day to stay at home with a child, I am in his space, he is looking over my shoulder, so I haven't done it in order to avoid the conflict. But I am really longing for that quiet time at home with my children.

It's encouraging to hear about horseman's experience. I've also gone through a reinventory of my role with the kids vs career when my oldest was five - so it's interesting to learn of her daughter's preschool recollection. Since last year, I've tried to schedule things so that I can be a 'room-mother' for my son's class - this level of involvement does seem to be unusual for fulltime workers so most parents for now don't think I am fulltime. I admire you, and am jealous in a hopeful sort of way, for your accomplishments with PTA, 4H and so forth - though I don't see those roles for me necessarily, maybe I can keep a hand in somehow, and maybe parttime could be in the future if my husband can go back to work.

Well jeez, Horseman, your post made me tired just thinking about all the extracurriculars you were involved in! LOL - guess there's hope then that one day I might be able to schedule time for things like that. I am about to take the first and exciting step of requesting time off from work for my daughter's Mardi Gras parade and party in a few weeks. Am so apprehensive you'd think I was requesting leave for a manicure. Just can't get used to taking time off from work, even for my child! It was never an option before.

I think a dual-income sutuation is different too though - we have no extra money for a nanny, and believe me, I keep lobbying my husband for it. We just can't afford it. Once he finally starts working next year she'll be about old enough for regular preschool. If there is a "next baby", things will be different, from taking a looong maternity leave to having a nanny of my selection.

Hang in there sisriver. :grouphug: