Minor male entitlements

We never did that (may be because I checked before we married he was a feminist and we agreed my work would come first - I earned more) in terms of weekends. However we did when the children were younger agree who would have them when at the weekend. We had a period when I had them all day Saturday and he worked and we swapped on the Sunday.

When men I meet through work tell me their wife is expecting a baby I always make sure I ask about childcare and work rather than assume the woman will be home, particularly now there is the new right that the man can take part of the leave.

I think it was really important I had a study in this house. When we moved here I made sure the downstairs had lots of separate rooms. No reason men get studies and women share kitchens with children at home.

I'm the one guilty of disappearing to the loo for some peace here.

DH hides in his study with his computer!

A common family entitlement: It is the weekend. A woman with young children needs to do a job which needs some quiet/space/whatever. She checks with her partner that he is ok to be in sole charge for an hour. A man is, IME, far more likely to simply announce that he is doing X

Yes -or don't even announce and just go and do it - the disappearing off for the half hour poo is an example!

A man just talking on the radio about making his wife cancel a birthday weekend she'd planned for him so he could watch sport on TV. It'd also be their last weekend before she has their child. He admitted that there were tears. There seemed little disagreement to the idea that he was entitled to do this.

blimey

According to one survey cited in HBO's 2011 documentary, "When Strangers Click: Five Stories From the Internet." when online dating, men and women have quite a different main worry. Women are afraid of meeting a serial killer, while men are afraid of meeting someone who is fat.

Yes, you read it right. While we are worried about being murdered while just carrying out simple, everyday activities like dating, men only worry that they might not find their date totally physically attractive. Not sure this even qualifies as 'minor' entitlement.

That assumption that childcare is defaulted to women is something that enrages me (lots does, tbh). Especially the weekend stuff. There's nothing wrong with each parent having time-consuming hobbies. But the lack of discussion is what gets me. How fucking dare they? There should be a national strike. Sunday mornings - women's time. If you already get weekend time, just shift it to Sunday morning. If not, take Sunday morning, Sunday 5th October. Let there be lots of clubs and shit opening - whatever women want to do. But no preparation - "I'll be out tomorrow, in for tea. Oh, and I've put you down for the sandwich rota for a week on Sunday. That OK? Kids will love watching their mum."

I kept meaning to go back to that thread.

yes minipie re hobbies. i said similar on the "passions" thread the other week. women are supposed to have hobbies that they can do at the same time as caring for children (or at least, that they can do at home while the children are in bed), like baking, crafts - things that are also productive so can be worn, eaten, given as presents etc

men are more able to have hobbies that are incompatible with children and take them out of the house several times a week for several hours at a time, with expensive, bulky and specifically dedicated equipment and an output that is usually for their own benefit (sports like fishing and shooting will bring home some food i guess)

Yy mini pie.

EBear that is similar to something I've noticed.

We know lots of couples with babies and small children. The fathers quite frequently seem to organise sporting things at weekends which obviously will require someone else looking after the DC. For example: triathlon; golf weekend; cricket match; going to the rugby. It is clearly just expected that someone else (the mother) will do the childcare. The women don't organise child incompatible activities.

Another thing: My DH's work (heavily male with SAHWs) quite often organises client entertainment events which are "and partner". These often happen during working hours. Obviously the wife is expected to have no job herself and be free to come along to Glyndebourne . DH is always rather miffed when I turn these down but why would I use up my precious annual leave attending his client events when I barely have time to attend my own?

One thing I've noticed is men taking lads holidays, or staying home alone while their wives/partners take the children to grandparents for a week - which would be fair enough if their wives got a similar break at a different time, but in most cases, that never seems to happen. So the men are in the office all day, then have holidays alone, but the SAHMs who support them never get a break from parenting.

I may have been known to make some rather sarcastic remarks on this matter when it's come up in conversation.

a "career" is often something that only the privileged are able to have

This is something I feel feminism still fails to address. In speaking of women (and men) with jobs rather than careers, it still adopts a "them" attitude. It's understandable, given the nature of the movement, but alienating and pretty damn stupid imo.

yes, a "career" is often something that only the privileged are able to have (among men and women)

I also think that the whole 'career vs SAHP' thing is a slight red herring. Not every woman or man has what could be termed a career, most people have jobs. A goodly number of those jobs offer little in the way of progression. Of that type of job, the better paid ones (trades etc) are generally male dominated, while retail, caring etc, which are much lower paid are female dominated. Suggesting that people in that type of job are in some way just not trying hard enough is pretty awful.

And whatever choice women make will always be judged and criticised, sadly, often by other women.

whichever choice men make (to focus on career, or scale back to do more at home, or become a sahp) they are praised for it

Thank you Yonic. I was. I just didn't like Greengrow telling me that I should only receive my life's satisfaction from my career. I see work as just a means of making the money to do other things. Those are my priorities. I fully support others having different ones, but it pisses me off to have someone suggest that I can't find joy and satisfaction in spending all my day with my young child. God knows he won't want me about this much when he's bigger :)

And, Greengrow, I don't find 'a lot of money' very exciting. Stop assuming that what's true for you is also the case for everybody else.

Pomme, I think eatscake was speaking personally.

Green, you know your own household economics don't work if everyone in the country makes a lot of money, right? your nanny would have been unaffordable for one thing!

Ah, a why bother having children post. Always one just around the corner on mn even when the discussion is not about wohm!

Let us not get into that - I would argue men and women who work do raise their children. I know few full time working parents who don't rush to get home to see their children. I work from the house most days. I recommend working full time whilst making a lot of money. More fun than working part time on the minimum wage with hardly a pot to piss in.

But Greengrow - doesn't that fail to recognise that some of us ( male and female) chose to have children because having and raising them was an important part of our life satisfaction? Dh has deliberately chosen a job which allows him to be home by 5 so he can spend time with our child even if that has some financial downsides. Being fully involved in our children's lives is more important to us than money, else why bother?

late to this thread too

our departmental assistant is a man who sits at the desk next to me, and his role is identified by a sign on his desk. he has access to the schedules of members of our department and also knows where most of the meeting rooms in our massive building are located. but i am always the one interrupted by people asking for directions or help locating someone in our department. never him. in the past i would jump to be helpful, but now i will just direct them to the DA for assistance.

if i go to another department to meet someone and i don't know what they look like or where they sit, and if i can't identify a departmental assistant, i will approach a man instead of a woman if possible, purely to redress the balance a bit in terms of interruptions to their work