It totally stinks to have your groove disrupted. Imagine you and your family have a great schedule that works for everyone — and suddenly it changes. One Redditor with a wife and two children shared a conflict he recently had about shifting schedules.
The OP works from home, one child goes to school, and the baby needs morning care until the nanny comes. The OP’s wife recently lost her job, and it seems like she’s really struggling as a person who valued being busy at work. With the wife’s being laid off, the schedules are shifting — and she’s not happy about it.
“I was a bit baffled by this argument this morning so wondering what other people thought. My wife was unfortunately laid off last Thursday. She is still technically working for the next 2 weeks but has no actual work stuff to do. She plans to go into the office for some of it just to prepare presentations for job hunting and to have a desk area to do that. I WFH and use the only desk setup we have. Her job has always required her to go into the office so having two setups was never a factor.”
“When she was working, I would always have minded our 1 yo in the morning after my wife left until our nanny came back from dropping our 4yo to preschool. I have a morning meeting at 9:30 every day and our 4 yo takes a while to get ready and get to school so there’s been plenty of days where I’m on my meeting with the video off muted and minding our 1yo for 5 to 10 minutes. This morning, I asked her at 9:10 to mind our 1 yo so I could start work. She was a bit upset that I was changing our usual schedule. I pointed out that it made sense given that she now has more flexibility.”
“This went back and forth for a while, to me it seemed pretty obvious that the person who doesn’t have any work commitments can take the 20 minute hit in the morning. She’ll still be in the office from 10 to 4:30 / 5. She’s always imo felt a need to act like she’s the busier of the two of us which is fine if it’s a typical workday. Currently though, it’s a bit of a stretch to act like she’s busier than me.”
What do Redditors think?
“NTA. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask her to take some turns doing it given you say you’ve always done it and she doesn’t have a work commitment. It’s not like you’re turning around and saying she has to stay at home to look after the kids all of a sudden or anything like that.” —
Puzzled_Cheetah8390
“I think the issue is more about the fact that OP asked their wife at 9:10AM when they had a meeting in 20 minutes, rather than at some point over the last several days when they could’ve found a moment to discuss changes in family responsibilities/morning schedules now that the wife won’t be working for a bit. Something as simple as ‘hey, I know you likely have some responsibilities at work as you wind down over the next few weeks, but would it be possible for you to cover the kids in the morning so I can participate more in my 9:30 meeting?'” —
ExplorerIndividual
“NTA. But I wouldn’t necessarily say your wife is either. This is probably a huge, scary change and you asking her to do a new routine probably freaks her out.” —
MrBodhikins
“This doesn’t sound as much as a scheduling conflict, as a resentment bubbling up for you. Discuss changing schedules *beforehand*, instead of dumping baby care on your spouse with no advance notice. Also, try to muster some compassion for your wife: she just lost her job, which must be stressful and unmooring.” —
Ok_Bookkeeper_3481
“The YTA from me is because your wife lost her job last Thursday and you couldn’t at least wait until her two weeks were up before transferring one of your duties to her. Her newfound “flexibility” is because she was laid off and it should be an obvious assumption that she isn’t feeling great about it. If it’s only 20 minutes, you could’ve picked a better time to remind her that she isn’t as busy anymore.” —
emi_lgr
