SAHM/WOHD Issue
Find a Conversation
| Thu, 07-13-2006 - 4:35pm |
My husband came home the other day with this story:
His coworker, J and J's wife, K just had a set of twins born via in-vitro after 17 years of marriage and infertility. Anyway, the end of the pregnancy was difficult and K was on bedrest and the babies were born (I think) 6 weeks early - one of them had to stay in the hospital for 2 weeks after birth. OK - that's the background.
K got a lot of attention during pregnancy - not being able to move around on her own. Now the babies are 4 months old, but although she is a SAHM, she expects (yes, expects) J to leave work every day at 4. That's the normal time, but at times they are required to work overtime if something has broken and needs to be fixed before the next shift comes in. According to my husband, J comes home every night and fixes dinner, washes bottles, takes care of the babies, and then gets up with them in the middle of the night. The only time K is bothered with them is during the day when she's home alone. (I know, this account is how J related it to my husband, so the story is probably more one-sided than the situation really is.) And K may have post-partum depression and that can explain needing J so much....
K's mom and sister both lives within a halfmile of her and can come to help with the babies, but she expects J to leave work everyday at 4 to do it. She also calls a lot during the day. Anyway, the other day something had broken and J needed to stay past 4, but he tried to leave - my husband's and J's boss told J that he needed to decide what is more important - him taking care of those babies or him working to provide for those babies? Sounds to me like J's job is starting to be in jeopardy and he makes pretty good money for the area of the country we live in. Replacing that income would be very hard.
Just wanted to see what y'all thought about this.

Pages
<. Me saying hey get up and go grab the baby and bring him to me so I can nurse isn't asking for help it is being LAZY>
I have a question?
<>
And that's different exactly how than what anyone (besides kbm) has said?
***You said he would laugh in your face if that was the situation. You know the man I don't. As for insulting your DH, then don't do it about mine.***
No I didn't. Again try to stick to the facts and not put your personal spin on the situation. Please show me where I insulted your DH.
*** As for the breast comment, your DH must be glad that he didn't have to wake up to nurse. ***
Well for the record...I nursed because it was the best thing for our children to be nursed. I nursed because I wanted to nurse, and wanted to do whatever I could to provide the best for our children.
***You did make a snarky comment about "that bad neighborhood". They never insult any officers at any dept? I find that very hard to believe.***
I think maybe you are way off base. You might have a point if I would have said big bad neighborhood that is so scary. You said your DH worked in a bad neighborhood. How is that different than what I said? Snarky? I wasn't the one being snarky. No they don't insult other officers. They believe strongly in the brotherhood. The former NYPD officers that moved here to have families are the same way.
***I was never on maternity leave. I joined after I gave birth to my DD.***
Was your DH a cop then? Did you wake him after you gave birth and he was a cop?
"Well if she wrote that the mother and sister can help I am sure that is because the DH said that the mother and sister have said that they can help out. That is what I am going on." You are going on an assumption you made that the mother and sister have said that they can help out. Just because the OP writes that they live close by and can help out doesn't mean that they have actually said that. There are a number of different possibilities:
1)They theoretically could help but the wife refuses all help (a claim the OP made in a later post)
2)They can't help out for whatever reason- reasons we have no way of guessing at so I won't even try (ok, yes I will, health, their own job responsibilites, family discord)
3)they can and do help- but not enough to alleviate the fatigue that both parents are feeling, and so this sporadic help didn't make it into the husband's story because he's still tired so it didn't "count".
I have no idea which of the above (maybe none of the above) is true and neither do you. And neither does the OP. Remember that the OP is not writing about her own life. She's writing about the life of the wife of her husband's coworker, which is 3 degrees of separation from the truth.
Pages