Parenting as a female breadwinner
this is kind of long, thank you in advance to anyone taking time to read this.
Just for a variety of reasons, I (33f) have ended up being the primary breadwinner in my relationship. I am self employed and my husband makes less than me and has a lower stress part time job, and does most of the housework. I don’t make a ton of money but we manage, we live in one of the most expensive cities in the US. Mostly I am cool with this arrangement, because he’s just better at housework than me and I have a fulfilling career. He doesn’t have a lot of interest in advancing his career. We have discussed the possibility of him being a primary caretaker if we have kids (which I should add is a big IF and we are leaning towards no), nontraditional for sure but I think he might be good at it.
I do see being the primary breadwinner being something that causes resentment if we choose to have kids. Also as a self employed person I spend a crazy amount of money for health insurance and it would go up higher if I had a child (1800 dollars/month is what another self employed person told me they pay for them and their 2 kids… yikes!). I’ll probably have to go to a 9-5 to get better benefits and more stable pay, which I do for years and it sucked the life out of me. I feel like I will just become bitter and resentful of my husband.
There is part of me that also kind of doubts the idea of a man being a primary caretaker… obviously we are already very nontraditional but part of me feels I am going to end up doing most of the work on top of working full time. A lot of this is influenced by seeing my friend’s husbands and social media posts from moms, even though knowing my husband I think its likely he would do a good job as a primary parent.
It sounds really bad but I see some of my friends with husbands with well paying careers and think… wow if I had that I would be so much more into the idea of having kids.
Also I know this may come off as frustrated or resentful for my husband… I have seen how miserable he was working full time and this is just a better arrangement for us. I love him, hes a great partner and the best thing that ever happened to me, and want to stay in a relationship with him more than anything.
Thanks for reading this far. I appreciate any input anyone has.
ITl;Dr I am ok with making more money than my husband now, but I don’t think I will if we have kids