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Interesting!

I know a couple where the wife is a doctor. Her husband became the SAH parent after their child was born before she graduated medical school. Into her residency, he maintained the childcare until he took a job. They enrolled their child in a preschool program with them working now. I believe that he does a lot more of the childcare stuff than she does because of her schedule. They make it work, but they have the same challenges presented in this article.

My husbands a first year resident and there's a surprising number of residents where he works that have children. all the spouses either have flexible work schedules or stay at home whether the resident is male or female. The main difference I've noticed is that male residents tend to have families younger so there's more male residents by far that have children then female residents. Having children later gives you more time to get adjusted to the job and more seniority for some flexibility.

Why are the women still primarily responsible for taking care of the kids and home (regardless of work status or income level)?

The kids? I think sort of because they want to? Not that I wouldn't maybe like some more help sometimes, but I don't think it is that I want to really be around less-- I think its just that I want my husband to be around more. I wouldn't want to work 80 hours and miss out on stuff! I think guys are more often okay with missing out, even if they don't love it. Our LO rolled over for the first time today and I know my husband was bummed he missed it.. but I think if I had missed it I'd be crushed. I think there are some women who are okay missing stuff.. but I think for the most part we aren't.

Why do we take care of the home? Because we're around more, and we care more about it being clean.

I think globally, it is fairly true, but you have to account for the individuals as well. In my personal experience, I feel so guilty when my DH washes dishes, feeds E, and watches him all day. Currently, he's putting his career on hold because we have to have his flexibility for child care. (And I'm up the creek in a couple weeks, b/c E is still in the wait list for daycare and DH is going to be gone for several days. Plus I'm on call. So I have to find temporary child care for both the day and night.)

It is hard. DH is like a SAHM who is rather unwilling (although he does a beyond amazing job at it) because his life has been put on hold. And when I come home, I DO pick up the slack to give him some off time from E, because the way I see it, we both have full time jobs. I'd feel too guilty just sitting back and "expecting" my DH to fully assume all household and childcare duties. But I won't lie, being 6 1/2 months pregnant, sometimes I come home and just sit down!

@lawbee11: maybe also because guys tend to go back to work earlier? My DH went back to work after 2 weeks (1 week after we got home bc we spent a week in the hospital) so he's used to just being gone a lot. I think being home all day every day with LO... when I go back to work it will be 10x harder for me.

@Espion: I think you summed it up pretty good with your situation. you work full-time while 6 1/2 months pregnant and still feel guilty if you don't do the dishes. I'm just not sure men are wired that way either naturally or culturally to feel that sort of guilt. I hope you get some rest. Best wishes.

OK so i'm obviously odd woman out. I expect my husband to split everything with me. I don't want to be the one doing everything. Although it's a frustrating stereotype for me to live in, I do think it's primarily true. I do drop off but my husband does pick up. He takes E to about half of her dr's appts. I want the update, I don't need to sit there for an hour to feel like I'm "being the mom". When I get the call from daycare, we go over our schedules for the day and decides who's can take the hit. It's not that I don't want to be involved in my child's care, but that I realize that both DH and I work full time, so we really split the rest of everything as much as we can.

So...this article is pretty true in my industry. Engineering can lead to heavy and weird hours (3 shifts of manufacturing, hello) and pays plenty well for a wife to stay home. So many do.

Frankly, I think a lot of women look at their career as “less important” or less of a priority than their husbands. Either they make less or they decided together that his job takes a priority, so they take the backseat. And I support that everyone does what is right for them, but it certainly doesn’t help me out when I’m bucking the system, lol. I dislike the expectation that I "should" do XYZ or that I "should" be home.

I think if women want their husbands to step up more at home, they need to 1) marry men who are down with that mentality (many men are traditional and you should know what you’re getting into when you’re seriously dating) 2) demand it happen at home. Yeah if I do all the cleaning, my husband will just mostly watch me do it. But you know what I do? Hand him something and say, “can you help me do XYZ?” and he does it. So yeah, I think we have to start raising the bar for what we expect of our husbands as fathers and PARTNERS. I don’t want to do all the work. Why should I?

I simply don't buy into the notion that women do everything because they want to. I think we've been brainwashed to think we have to in order to be good moms, lol!

@blackbird: I just wanted to clarify my post because you're definitely not the odd woman out (or maybe we're similar because we're both engineers). While I do want to be at Xander's doctor's appointments and I prefer to pick him up from daycare, Hubs and I really do split things pretty evenly! He does daycare drop-off (I leave for work before Xander's even awake) and when Xander needs to be picked up early from daycare or the daycare is closed, we decide together who's going to pick him up/stay home with him based on our schedules. Hubs actually just stayed home with him on Columbus day because he has more flexibility than me to do so.

And it definitely seems like a lot of the guys I work with - their wives are SAHMs!

And as far as household chores - we definitely split those and Hubs probably does more than I do! He always starts the dishwasher, takes out the trash, cleans the bathrooms, etc. And then we split picking up around the house and vacuuming and mowing the lawn.

So yeah, I agree with you.

@lawbee11: just because my husband is a doc doesn't mean he's not involved in Ts life! That's ridiculous to assume of doctors. He has a great relationship with our son and his time with him is quality...and in a few years my husband plans to coach soccer and little league or whatever other things he can do to be involved. But you're right that being married to a doctor is not for everyone and there are many days I wish my husband did something else for a living. But we have been together since college and I supported his career path despite shitty work hours.

@lawbee11: obviously I'm a little too sensitive to this issue lol.

@winniebee: I took that last sentence out so that others don't interpret it that way. I know what it's like to be sensitive to stuff on HB, so you're not alone

Belatedly jumping in to say that DH is a first year resident while u work ft (although I just cut to 30 hours). The schedule at least during med school and residency is really insane and not compatible with any work/life balance. The hardest part has been no control over his schedule, which means weekends, nights, holidays etc. we make it work because my job is flexible but it leaves a lot to be desired.

We have figured it out that DH does his work and occasional house projects and is in charge of car maintenance. I am in charge of me, LO, and everything else around the house. And my work. Not ideal but that is really all he has time for. Now that I work one day less I still have LO in daycare and use that day to run errands and catch up so the weekend can actually he about enjoying the little family time we have together.

I also wanted to add that I planned to work and share parenting and housework with my DH but that is not possible I. Our current situation.

@winniebee: I hear you!!

my husband and I are both doctors. we both work full time, but i have more inherent flexibility in my job than he does. i am the one who gets the kids up in the morning and i always come home in time for dinner and bedtime. i do that because it is important to me. i do sacrifice a bit at work to be present in my children's lives as much as possible. my husband doesn't really have that option with his chosen specialty. ultimately, my husband gets more gratification from being successful at work whereas i am happy to sacrifice success in the workplace (in terms of advancement and academics) to be with my family. if the nanny calls in sick, i am the one to scramble for coverage or stay home. evenings and weekends we split the chores 50/50 and both do our share. we BOTH feel guilty for being away from the kids all day.

@blackbird: haha, well I can tell you I definitely don't WANT to clean, which is why Hubs ends up doing the majority of the housework!!

@Raindrop: I definitely think you're right about engineers! And the majority of my girlfriends are also engineers! And my husband also definitely has more patience than I do! He tends to take over with Xander when he's throwing a tantrum because of it. And I'm definitely the planner and organizer. The main reason I do all the doctor's appointments is because I have every other Friday off, so I just schedule the appointments for those days.

@galore5: interesting perspective thanks for chiming in!