Used to do the competitive tiredness thing... until recently, when the children started sleeping through the night consistently, and the oldest started school, I think he really is more tired. Now I'm worried he'll notice and send me back to work!

Yes to a point UQD.
But if the person is asking the same question for the 4000th time, the askee is not unentitled to fold their arms.

Much as my secretary would be if I asked her over & over where the holiday forms are kept, or something. If I found myself doing something repeatedly, I would definitely start off by saying "I'm sorry, I know I've asked before, but where are ..." and then make myself a little note so it doesn't happen again. Because the repeated queries do show a something - an "it's not quite my responsibility" thing - with associated issues about respect.

"where do we keep" sorry

Brain is addled today

I see what you mean but I'm not talking about deliberate incompetence. I think there should be some give and take - if he says "where you we keep the so-and-so", don't sigh, tut and fold your arms - tell him. And ask yourself if you'd know how to do any of the jobs he does (assuming there are any!) without asking a question.

UD, incompetence, though, is an old trick for getting out of things, isn't it? Like dads who wash up and cook so spectacularly badly or many of my collagues at work who let others wipe their arse for them, it's easier for someone else to step in. I have to say I now have this down to a fine art, with my burning and using-up-every-pan-in-the-kitchen skills.

I cannot complain about my own DH who is fully responsible.

I do think if women want down time though, they are going to need to actually take it. You can't complain about never getting to read a book if when you have the time you don't actually do it. If both people are working, I think inevitably some choices have to be left out: in our house, we choose sloth often to keep us sane, even if we have to live in mess sometimes.

I have a problem stopping too. It took me ages to realise that I was developing a bit of a martyr complex - doing housework in my 'time off' while feeling hard done by when my partner relaxed with the paper during his. Actually it was only spending time staying with a woman with a much bigger martyr complex that made me realise what I was doing. Now I try to say sod the house work and relax. It might help that my mother was never obsessivly houseproud and is just as likely to read the paper as tidy up!

I think MP sums it up wonderfully
Dh and I do engage in this a bit but we both acknowledge that it is narkiness vrought on by exhaustion- he works nigfhts and I have an up-all-night sn ds1 and a baby.

Ultimately we know we're both tired and the grizzling never lasts long- indeed it tends to warn the other partner that tlc is required

Great quote from Toby Young, but he does make some good points higher up the article (about the relative levels of "competence" to be expected between someone who does the childcare all the time and someone who just does it in the evenings).

Bink - thank you! And on the subject of Default Parents - guess who was baking his birthday cake at 9 p.m. last night?

orangina that is true for me too actually

I can't bear to sit still, I will do washing up, cook next Tuesday's dinner, re-paint the lounge... while DH will listen to the football

MrsTittlemouse: Good point about looking at your parent's 'deal' and comparing

At the risk of painting a bad picture of dh, he will always attempt to read the paper, and I will always find something that needs "doing".

Or perhaps the problem lies with me?!

Message withdrawn

Of course if you are doing alternate shifts looking after children there is the question of what you do during your 'time off' - read the paper or tidy up the kitchen?!

I think that a lot of the problems come from women looking at their own Mums and feeling really dreadful for doing less (even though I'm a SAHM, I have rotten pregnancies, my Mum breezed through hers ). And men compare the amount that they do with the amount that their own Dads did and feel really good.

DH is fantastic and does loads (easily the lions share of the washing up, as well as the fun stuff like taking DD to the park). But his Dad did have the whole waited on hand, foot and finger thing (still does) and it wouldn't surprise me if he subconciously looks back at what his Dad had and feels a bit cheated.

Message withdrawn

It is really easy to play pass the parcel with one child and two parents. It becomes so much less straightforward when there is more than one (and I only have 2, lord knows how people really deal with the serious multiples...). We tend to take it in turn and work "shifts", which (hopefully) means that we get a bit of time to ourselves (whether that is to read the paper or make lunch...). However, if I haven't got things more or less organised beforehand, then it can go spectacularly pear shaped.

Mothers are very definitely the default. And not just with dh/dps, but also with the children. Both mine are totally mummy-centric at the moment, and sometimes, at which point, all thoughts of a relax rota go out the window....

(exhausted emoticon... why don't we have one of these?)

I think MP and Mrs Badger have hightlighted an important issue about who is the default parent.

We try to take it in turns for one of us to be explicitly 'on duty'. If I'm on duty and I want help I have to ask for it - if I'm not on duty then anything that is happening is not my problem (unless I'm asked for help). It's quite nice lying back with the paper thinking 'not my problem, not my problem,' to myself while world war three breaks out next door. But its a lot easier for me because we only have one, I can see this doesn't work so well if they start running in different directions.....

SSB ... happy birthday to ds1!

MP is spot on with mothers being the 'default'.

IME many fathers are generally very willing to do anything provided you say very specifically 'DH, please can you do breakfast / put a wash on / take dd to ballet / remove this whining monster from my leg so I can have a wee'
They rarely spontaneously say 'Darling, go back to bed, I will do breakfast'.

And if you say nothing they will carry blissfully on pottering round the house/shed/pub while the mother wrestles the kids because it doesn't occur to them that anything needs doing.

Very interesting. In principle I hate "competitive tiredness" BUT as a way of dealing with DH moaning about how hard it is being at home with the children, I find it works rather well . That makes me As Bad As Them, doesn't it?

Cross-posting again - that wasn't meant to challenge what you say, MP, about women often being default childcarers (because I totally agree, it's the term I use, through quite a lot of teeth, at home) - it's just saying that the issue arises even when the domestic set-up isn't one parent as primary caregiver.

Just to say - speaking from the 2-FT-WOH-parent perspective - that this isn't an issue which only plays where one parent WOH fewer hours than the other (so we should be careful of letting it slide into a default-childcarer vs. additional-childcarer type debate).

In my particular situation, it has something subtle & pervasive to do with not being brought up to know (experientially) that IF you, personally, do not do something THAT THEN (as night follows day) somebody else HAS TO. (Which is, I think, what results in a lack of "innate sense of fairness". Though I'd be quite happy with a sense of fairness that wasn't innate but had eg been ground into someone. I am certainly trying to instill it in my children.)

From what I have observed, I think a lot of women are just responsible 'by default' for the children - so even when the men are around, they are free to come and go - trotting around the house, going upstairs, pottering out the shop - whereas the women have to drag the children with them for every bowel movement.

I think that assumed responsibility can be very ingrained, and it's hard to know what to do about that.

Thanks for the link to the Toby Young column. I'm sure he's not the only one.

I was surprised by the EOC figures too - earlier time use surveys had shown that if you combined paid and unpaid work women worked longer hours than men. (I think it came to about an extra day a week from the last survey) Not sure if these figures show things have changed, or they are counting hours differently. For example if two people are watching TV but one is also ironing how is that counted? I will see if I can find out.

It would be nice if things had changed, and I do think my partner and I work roughly the same number of hours (with different combinations of paid and unpaid work) but that's clearly not universal.

Hmmm you are onto something there Bink actually

I think that a lot of the 'men' who are saying things like 'Let's call it a day with this warring!' really mean "Bugger off so I can read the paper" rather than "Let me finish that laundry for you babe."

Actually she said "innate sense of fairness"

Which was even more wildly jealousifying

Gawd.

The solution to competitive exhaustion is not "calling for an end" to it. As if.

Some (nice) friends of ours had a baby after us & the mother said to me, happily "I suppose it all depends on the other parent having a sense of fairness"

I was so that I could hardly answer.

find some time for childcare??

Good job I managed to find some time isn't it? Otherwise the poor mite would be home alone a lot of the time.

I think so RS

HMMMm I wonder if I'll 'find some time' for childcare today?

I mean it IS optional right?

what does "find some time for childcare mean"

is this like dads "babysitting" their children?

FFS and

Even the executive summary of the EOC report is telling in the language used:

"Whatever their hours of work, fathers find some time for childcare."

FIND SOME TIME FOR CHILDCARE?!?!?!

Edam I agree with you, I think his interpretation of the EOC data is rather GENEROUS to men to say the least

I'd like to be a Victorian dad! Perhaps dh would let me have a day's free trial...

Toby Young:

"My position is analogous to that of the white liberal in present-day South Africa. I recognise that the previous regime was unjust, but I can't help feeling a little bitter that my privileged lifestyle has been taken away."

The thing is, women have ALWAYS had a shit deal, but men USED to have a good deal - go to work, then get home and be waited on.

DH says that part of him YEARNS to be Victorian Dad who just gets home and has his pipe and slippers bought to him.

I think Toby Young wrote a column on this recently... wil hunt

Have posted. I don't think the EOC data shows what he claims. And I suspect men overestimate what they do. Still very common for the father to come home and 'help' rather than recognise childcare, housework and family admin is his job too.

Even when the mother works full-time, she still tends to be the one who has to organise holiday clubs, dentist appointments, remember book bags and deal with letters from school. Of course fathers do do stuff but I think in many families the tedious stuff - not playing or bathing but dreary everyday tasks - falls on the mother.

I think Morningpaper is right - it's appreciation that matters. Paid work and caring for children can be hard in different ways and both can have their upsides.

When things are good with my partner we can both recognise that the other works hard even if there are aspects of each other's job we envy. It's when one or both of us starts concentrating on the hard bits of our own job and the good bits of the other's job we have problems. That's usually when we are both tired - real exhaustion is at the root of a lot of competative exhaustion!

This competitive tiredness thing pisses me off no end tbh.

I can't say to dh that I am tired or have had a loooong day without being regaled with a long and dull tale about how his day was longer and he is more tired. I am not interested. If I were to say "I have had a shit day" and he were to reply "So have I, lets get dd to bed and vegetate on the sofa with a bottle of wine and wind down" then that would be great. But maddeningly he seems unable to appreciate that just because I haven't worked a 10 hour day doesn't mean I haven't had enough myself.

I have arranged my hours around his work as the nature of his job means that I have to be permanently available to do the nursery run, to cover dd's sickness, hospital appointments, school stuff (run up to reception start in Sept). What gets on my tits the most is that rather than getting some kind of appreciation from him that my career is on hold, all I hear is "it's all right for you, you aren't at work as long as I am." I still work more or less full time btw - 35 hours a week (dropping to 21 soon) but he works 50+. We get up at the same time, leave the house at more or less the same time. I get home earlier but start tea, do the washing up etc etc so I am not sat on my arse whilst he is at work.

I don't want a competition about who is the most tired. I just want him to understand that I have as much right to tiredness or a bad day as he does.

I've been brave and posted on it! I hope they don't shout at me!

The day-to-day nagging about who-is-working-harder is really about not feeling appreciated. The real argument is not 'I am working harder' but 'I am less appreciated.' And I think that is down to lack of communication and lack of ... appreciation.

In my experience, it is crap being at home with small children and it is also crap being responsible for the bills and having boring 24/7 work to do for sixty year without any sort of break (even if that break is to raise children; there is a lot to be said for variety, and people working full-time don't get that luxury).

I don't think people want their partners to say 'oh yes dear, you do ALL THE WORK' - they just want their partners to recognise that they work bloody hard. And that's true for both the person at home and the person who is working out of the home.