My wife Sara and I have a 3 year old son, Jacob, and most things in our family are going great, she is a great Parent, I am so happy to be a parent too. We've got our finances in order now, although they had been tight before.
Sara works part time, and she is also working towards her mba, which her company is paying for and allowing her to work part time to do. Between her classes and her job she's busy for 40 to 50 hours a week.
I'm working full time, about 40 hours a week.
Between my parents who are retired, Sara's dad who is retired, and our Nanny, we cover daytime childcare.
The thing that's been coming up as a problem is what we do on the night and weekends.
Sara is a natural scheduler and planner, and she's taken on a lot of the work to organize our family's schedule, which I really appreciate. But she's been treating our time taking care of Jacob like a shift-job.
For example, last week which was a typical enough week:
Sunday, in the morning, I watched Jacob when Sara went out for brunch with her friends. Then in the afternoon, she took Jacob to the beach and encouraged me to go to the gym rather than joining.
Monday, Jacob was with Sara's dad while we worked. Sara asked me to stay home with him for the night so she could study in the library for her classes.
Tuesday, our Nanny was at the house when we worked. I had yardwork to do that evening and Sara took Jacob on a hike (in a kid carrier)
Wednesday, my parents babysat during the day, and Sara hired the neighbor's daughter to babysit at night while we went on a date night.
Thursday, Nanny again during the day, I was invited to a happy hour with coworkers at what I thought was a family friendly place. It's a bar and grill, but it had outside seating and games and lots of people bring kids in the afternoon. Sara said she'd come by with Jacob, but then she texted me last minute saying "oops I didn't realize it was a bar, I'm not gonna be that asshole who brings a toddler to the bar!! Have fun tonight tho, I'll cover for you tonight!" That kind of frustrated me because I had wanted to do something all together and she flaked last second.
Friday, My mom babysat all day, Sara wanted to go to yoga then her study group, and I'd stay home with Jacob.
Saturday, I had to go into the office in the morning, so Sara stayed home. When I got back in the afternoon, she asked if I could "take over" for the afternoon and evening, she was stressed and needed some time for herself. I was disappointed because I wanted to spend time together as a family.
I'm sorry for being long winded, the point I'm trying to make is that she's treating parenting like a shift-job, and doesn't want to do stuff as a family.
We spend quality time together, me and her, during date nights and after putting Jacob to bed. And each of us is a great Parent. And we have great support from grandparents.
So idk if I have much to complain about, but I feel like something is wrong, like Sara is treating parenting like a job she doesn't want to work more than necessary.
Can I have some advice? I have brought up my feelings, and she gets very defensive, deflecting the conversation. Then, day-to-day she always has an excuse to go out.
tldr - My wife seems to think of parenting as a shift-job, not a team effort
Submitted August 05, 2019 at 09:23AM by dad92617 https://ift.tt/33ajlUY
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