My wife went from PT to FT after maternity leave after our 3rd child. Great development for her. Much more satisfied professionally and personally.
For me however, it had led to 10-15 additional hours of solo childcare per week in addition to my 50 hrs day job. The math makes sense for her to work too, but that's just a bonus.
In truth, I'm conflicted. We will reach our FI goals maybe 18 months sooner, but my head hits the pillow at 9 pm and I'm out cold. We have a lot less time together as a couple as well. Love the kiddoes, but dinnertime + cleanup + whatever is WORK for me and is exhausting.
I guess I would say I'm less satisfied professionally and personally. Less time to recover from day work, less time for entertainment, and overall grindier grind.
This sounds a bit complainypants when I reread it, but im still figuring out how I feel about the new overall situation. For the record, I'm a big believer in splitting all duties 50-50 . I'm feeling like it's more 60/40 right now.
Facepunch away...
Not a facepunch, just food for thought: I think it is natural to compare the level of effort to what we are used to, so when the overall workload goes up, we sometimes feel like we are doing more than our fair share, even when it’s just “more” overall. Have you talked to your wife? I’m wondering if she would say the same thing if you asked her the same question.
I was in your wife’s position years ago. We established a routine when DD was born - I was telecommuting part-time, so it made sense for me to take the lead with kid and house duties. A few years later, we added DS - but this time, I was working in an office at a much more normal schedule. But because we had already established our responsibilities and routines, DH just largely kept doing what he had always done. I think if you had asked him at the time, he would have felt like his workload went way up, with more baths to deal with, two daycare/school dropoffs instead of one, etc. But the reality was that since I was still doing most of the kidwork, my workload went way up between the hours and work and the extra kid/house duties. So we were both working a lot harder overall, but comparatively, my workload increase was significantly more than his.
Not saying that is your case at all. But I would encourage you to look at it as the overall workload - kids plus work plus housework/chores - and see if it is really out of whack, or if you guys are both pretty equally in the suck right now. And know that it does get better as you develop new routines and things start to feel like a new “normal.”
And zero facepunches, even to yourself. It is hard - for me, the hardest years of my life so far - and you’ve just gotta be able to vent about it periodically to stay sane.