Finally Friday: ‘Margot’ Bootie

Hi all,

17 weeks pregnant today and I’m seriously struggling with DH over a budget for our baby’s room and how to handle finances with a new baby generally. We make a good income combined, but we have decided that I am going to take a few months leave of absence from work in the fall before the baby is due in January due to some serious antenatal depression issues I’ve been having. My work is totally fine with me going on leave before the baby is born and has been super accommodating up to this point (a super small litigation boutique), but me going away early will leave me without income for 1 month before I can start collecting Employment Insurance Maternity/Parental Leave benefits (yay, Canada!), and the benefits I get will be a fraction of the salary I usually bring home. All this info is to set the stage for the conundrum I’m currently in.

Last night after dinner I told DH that I wanted to set aside $1,000.00 as a budget for our baby’s room. In my mind, $1,000.00 is extremely frugal and it means that we will be getting a lot of things second-hand(thankfully my parents are delighted about the pregnancy and have already committed to splurging on a nice stroller for us). I did let DH know that I hoped we could purchase pretty much all used stuff with the exception of the car seat and crib mattress. He agreed that the car seat could be purchased new, but flipped out over buying a new mattress for the baby. He tends to be a bit of a Negative Nancy generally, and started rambling on and on about how the baby will only use the mattress for a little while and we shouldn’t spend as much on it as we would for comfortable furniture for ourselves which we will be using for years and years (he used his $250.00 home office chair as an example). I tried to explain why a new mattress was better based on the research that I have done (e.g. potential bacteria in old mattresses, risk of SIDS if mattress is not firm and saggy, etc.), and he basically went off on how I must have been brainwashed by the Baby Industrial Complex to want a new mattress and that it isn’t necessary. I told him to feel free to do the research himself if he didn’t think that purchasing a new mattress was reasonable (as he is a thorough researcher for pretty much every personal purchase he makes), and he balked saying that he didn’t care enough about any of the baby’s stuff to do any research, but nevertheless he felt like spending $250.00 (or anything close to that) for a new mattress was insane. I finally had to show him online that new mattresses for cribs can cost anywhere from $80-$300 for decent quality, and then he seemed to settle down because the price range wasn’t as bad as he had imagined.

In the end he apologized for not trusting my judgment and said that he trusts me to make reasonable purchases for the baby, but I am still steamed about the whole exchange today and I only foresee more of these exchanges as we have to start purchasing items for the nursery. This was the same approach he took to wedding planning. We settled on a budget and he said he didn’t care how I spent the money and didn’t want to help me look for deals, but then he flipped out (and later blamed me for wanting a “fancy” wedding) over how much things cost. I know that money can be a sensitive subject for most couples, but has anyone successfully dealt with a spouse who claims to be disinterested in how the finances are spent, gives you the green light to move forward, and then later blows up over how you managed the finances (after parameters for spending were agreed to)?? I’m not sure how to handle this behaviour (which actually strikes me as being pretty passive-aggressive). I am generally a very direct person so I have no issues with initiating a frank conversation, but I don’t want to just be beating my head against a wall and not getting any results.

My mom watches my son full time while my daughter is in day care. We’ve had my mom watching a kid for almost 3 years now and I really think it works well. We pay her about $10/hr–lower than nanny rate in our area, but I think pretty good considering there’s a lot of intangible benefits (correct me if I’m wrong here), especially flexibility with time. For example, we don’t mind her taking care of personal errands with our son. Or, when my MIL watches the kids instead, it’s a day off but there’s no accounting for it (so, PTO). Also, she sees her grand kids every day, she has told me this is a huge thing for her. Though, there have been issues creeping up that if this were a traditionally hired nanny, I feel like I would have no issues (or at least not over think) being clear with my expectations. The issues are: we’d like to consider a different schedule and her personal errands are getting out of hand (the last three weeks have had more personal errand days than days with activities for my son).

So, my question for all of you with hired nannies, how and when do you handle a discussion about resetting expectations? Do I make an appointment to handle it? Do I just mention it off hand (this morning when she told me she was skipping the weekly library trip for a personal errand, I think my response was “Really? What activity are you doing for Son?” but I went no further)? She’s staying late tonight so that we can have dinner together–I don’t want to turn that into this discussion, but is it disingenuous to pretend that everything is okay tonight and handle the problems later? I know I’m over thinking this because she’s my mom. But still, any input would be much appreciated.

FWIW, we generally get a long better than most mother/daughter relationships, for example, having her in my home, every single working day, for about three years has not been a problem.

Inspired by last night, though it’s been on my mind for a while …

For those of you that choose to work (and yes, I’m fully aware that for many / most women this isn’t a true “choice”), how much if at all did or does your identity as a working mom ‘Role Model’ impact your decision?

During the past month, two tremendously bright and talented women I know resigned their jobs to ‘spend more time with their young children.’ While I applaud them individually for doing what I assume was the right thing for their family and circumstances, those announcements did make me sad in a broader sense, because it plays into the narrative that even though women *can* do everything that men can, what most women actually *want* is to stay home.

Every time I’m promoted, I have fewer and fewer same-level female colleagues, and even fewer same-level female colleagues who are parents. I feel an increasing burden to normalize the idea that women with children can – and dare I say, should – be at the table with the decision makers as something more than a token or anomaly. Do other people feel that way? How do you, explicitly or otherwise, shut down conversations about guilt, or shame, or how HARD it is – and just demonstrate by your actions that yes, women with kids work and get promoted and it isn’t weird?