The arrival of a new baby shifts family dynamics for sure.

In this story, two new parents have a financial dilemma: does a mother providing childcare make up for her lack of income?

Let’s run the numbers.

AITA for refusing to pay my half of a loan I took together with my husband?

First of all we’re in Europe here, in a country with arguably the most extended social help policies possible.

With public healthcare, we don’t need to worry about medical bills.

Public childcare is affordable (in some states even free); private, like full-time nannies, of course more expensive.

Ah, the benefits of social programs.

State welfare provides for you when you lose your job, at least for a certain period of time.

You’ll always find some job, maybe not immediately one in line with your career, but at least something temporary.

It’s rather unlikely that one partner will have to support the other financially at any point (unless maybe they agree on a stay-at-home parent situation).

Independent living at its finest.

Savings are for emergencies like broken refrigerator, or things like next car upgrade, maybe a more expensive vacation or investments.

Of course, it’s still wise to have contingency plans and strategies aligned.

Life can throw all kinds of curveballs at you.

That’s for sure.

Furthermore separate accounts while also having shared investments/expenses/properties are common.

Most people with kids/in committed relationships I know have separate accounts, sometimes an additional joint account for shared expenses.

“One pot” policy is rather outdated.

That’s what the generation of my parents/grandparents would do.

Usually finances while one partner is on maternity/paternity leave or otherwise unable to work are handled rather intuitively, like “I’ll take care of the bills and you buy the groceries” kind of thing.

Intuition is great but only if both people are on the same page.

Never have I heard of someone splitting expenses respectively to the income percentage.

Which may leave folks in an unsure, maybe even disadvantaged situations.

Note that I’m only speaking for myself and from what I’ve heard from people I’m around (friends, close family).

Not a ton of context about this loan, but this partner has a lot of opinions on shared finances.

And for those wondering, we’re hashing out the details and it seems like we’re gonna go with the percentage thing for all the bills, including the loan payment.

What do you think? Yay or nay?

Let’s look to the comments.

This person says the couple should’ve gone back to basics.

Someone else says conversation is key here.

Another person says why are your finances split to begin with?

Another commenter says definitively NTA.

This user says OP should get child support if she has to pay back this loan.

Family finances are definitely not child’s play.

This guy seems way out of line, though.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.