Learn Hardcore German: In der Elternzeit möchte meine Frau nicht nur das Baby betreuen, sondern auch an ihrer Karriere arbeiten. - During parental leave my wife not only wants to look after the baby, but also work on her career.

in + accusative = movement into something (direction)
- Ich gehe in die Schule. – I’m going into the school.
in + dative = being inside a place / in a period of time (location/state)
- Ich bin in der Schule. – I’m in (at) school.
- In der Nacht schlafe ich. – At night I sleep.

Elternzeit here is a time period / state (“during parental leave”), not a movement, so German uses dative:

In der Elternzeit = during parental leave / while on parental leave.

“In die Elternzeit” would suggest going into parental leave (entering that state), which would only work in a different context, e.g. Sie geht bald in die Elternzeit (She will soon go on parental leave).

Why does the sentence start with “In der Elternzeit” instead of “Meine Frau möchte …”?

German main clauses are generally verb-second (V2). Exactly one element can go in front of the finite verb as the “first position.” That can be:

the subject,
a time expression,
a place expression,
or another phrase the speaker wants to emphasize.

Here, the time phrase “In der Elternzeit” is placed first for emphasis or style, so the structure is:

In der Elternzeit – first position
möchte – finite verb (must be in second position)
meine Frau – subject
rest of the information

If you start with the subject, that’s also correct, just a different emphasis:

Meine Frau möchte in der Elternzeit nicht nur das Baby betreuen, sondern auch an ihrer Karriere arbeiten.

Why is “möchte” in second position, and what does it express compared to “will”?

In German main clauses, the finite verb must be in second position. Here, the finite verb is möchte:

In der Elternzeit (1st position)
möchte (2nd position – finite verb)
meine Frau … (rest of clause)

About meaning:

möchte = would like to (politer, softer, more hypothetical)
- Meine Frau möchte arbeiten. – My wife would like to work.
will = wants to (stronger, more determined)
- Meine Frau will arbeiten. – My wife wants to work (more forceful).

In this sentence, möchte sounds more polite and less blunt, similar to English would like to.

What case is “meine Frau”, and why is it “meine”, not “meiner” or “meiner Frau”?

“meine Frau” is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative case.

Nominative feminine singular with the possessive “mein-” is meine:
- meine Frau – my wife (subject)

Other forms for comparison:

Dative feminine: meiner Frau
Accusative feminine: meine Frau (same form as nominative, but used as object)
Genitive feminine: meiner Frau

Here, since meine Frau is doing the action (she is the one who wants), nominative is correct: meine + Frau.

Why is it “das Baby”? Is “Baby” always neuter in German?

Yes, “das Baby” is neuter in German, and it is almost always used as das, regardless of the baby’s biological sex.

Singular:
- Nominative: das Baby
- Accusative: das Baby
Plural:
- Nominative/accusative: die Babys

So das Baby is just the standard grammatical gender for this noun.

What case is “das Baby” in, and why does it look the same as nominative?

In “das Baby betreuen”, das Baby is the direct object of the verb betreuen (“to look after, care for”), so it must be accusative.

The verb betreuen takes an accusative object:
- jemanden betreuen – to look after someone

However, for neuter nouns, the nominative and accusative singular articles are identical:

Nominative: das Baby
Accusative: das Baby

So although it looks the same, its function here is accusative object.

How does “nicht nur … sondern auch …” work in this sentence?

“nicht nur … sondern auch …” is a fixed correlative pair meaning “not only … but also …”. It links two parallel elements that are added together.

In this sentence, it connects two activities that “my wife” wants to do:

nicht nur das Baby betreuen
sondern auch an ihrer Karriere arbeiten

So the structure is:

möchte meine Frau *nicht nur [Activity 1], sondern auch [Activity 2].*

Important points:

The things after nicht nur and sondern auch should be the same kind of element (here, two verb phrases).
It emphasizes that both activities are intended, not one instead of the other.

Why is there a comma before “sondern”?

In German, “sondern” is a coordinating conjunction used after a negation to mean “but rather / but instead / but also”.

When sondern connects two parts of a sentence that are more than just single words (e.g., whole phrases or clauses), German spelling rules require a comma before it:

…, sondern auch an ihrer Karriere arbeiten.

So the comma is obligatory here.
(You would also have a comma before aber in a similar structure.)

Why isn’t “möchte” repeated in the second part (after “sondern auch”)?

Grammatically, the full structure could be:

In der Elternzeit *möchte meine Frau nicht nur das Baby betreuen, sondern auch an ihrer Karriere arbeiten.*

Notice that “möchte” logically applies to both activities:

(möchte) das Baby betreuen
(möchte) an ihrer Karriere arbeiten

In German, when you coordinate two infinitive phrases that share the same finite verb, you usually don’t repeat the finite verb. It is understood (elliptical).

So we don’t say:

✗ In der Elternzeit möchte meine Frau nicht nur das Baby betreuen, sondern möchte auch an ihrer Karriere arbeiten.

That is grammatically possible but sounds redundant and stylistically clumsy.
The natural version is to say “möchte” once and let it govern both infinitives.

Why does “arbeiten” come at the end in “an ihrer Karriere arbeiten”?

In this sentence, “an ihrer Karriere arbeiten” is an infinitive phrase, not a full main clause. In such phrases, the infinitive verb normally stands at the end:

… nicht nur das Baby *betreuen, sondern auch an ihrer Karriere arbeiten.*

The finite verb möchte already appeared earlier in the sentence (möchte meine Frau …). Both betreuen and arbeiten are infinitives dependent on möchte, and in German, dependent infinitives go to the end of their phrase.

So the word order [prepositional phrase] + [infinitive at the end] is standard:

an ihrer Karriere arbeiten
für die Prüfung lernen
mit den Kindern spielen

Why is it “an ihrer Karriere arbeiten” and not “auf ihrer Karriere arbeiten” or something else?

With the verb arbeiten in the sense of “to work on something / to develop something”, German typically uses the preposition an + dative:

an etwas arbeiten – to work on something
- an einem Projekt arbeiten – work on a project
- an seiner Aussprache arbeiten – work on his pronunciation
- an ihrer Karriere arbeiten – work on her career

Using auf here would sound wrong or at least very odd.
auf etwas arbeiten has a different meaning (e.g., auf etwas hinarbeiten = work towards something).

Why is it “ihrer Karriere” and which case is that?

The phrase is “an ihrer Karriere”.

Case:
The preposition an here expresses a static relation (not movement), and with this meaning it takes the dative case:
- an + dative
- an der Wand – on the wall
- an der Uni – at the university
- an ihrer Karriere – on her career (= work on her career)
Form of “ihr–”:
Karriere is feminine singular, dative case.
The possessive determiner ihr- (“her”) in feminine dative singular is:
- ihrer Karriere (feminine dative singular)

So “an ihrer Karriere” = on her career in the sense of working on her career, with ihrer correctly agreeing in gender (feminine), number (singular), and case (dative) with Karriere.

What exactly is “Elternzeit”, and is it the same as “maternity leave”?

Elternzeit is a specific legal concept in German-speaking countries:

It literally means “parents’ time”.
It is a job-protected period of parental leave that either parent (or both, at different times) can take to care for a child, usually for up to 3 years after birth (details depend on the country and law).

It is not exactly the same as just “maternity leave”:

Mutterschutz / Mutterschaftsurlaub – maternity protection/leave around childbirth, focused on the mother’s health and recovery.
Elternzeit – longer-term parental leave available to mothers and fathers to care for the child.

In English, “Elternzeit” is best translated as “parental leave”, not just “maternity leave”.