Dropping the wifework

I haven't either wasting. I do think that equal leisure time should be the goal - this can be problematic if one partner is a workaholic.

I haven't come across the idea that the lower earner should do more around the house etc. before. I don't like it - why shouldn't the lower earner be able to focus on their career to try to progress it?

I sometimes think that 'having it all' actually means 'doing it all'...

I have a DD and a DS and I already worry about and have to fight ideas (in myself as much as anything) that she should help with housework but he does not have to.

She is older and she likes to help so it's easy to involve her but this weekend I felt a bit bad that she and I were cooking dinner and the boys were playing lego.

I am not a LTB type but I would leave a man who did not expect to have an equal amount of leisure time as me.

Makes me uncomfortable to say that because as a SAHP I have far more leisure time than he does.

And yes yes to all this being a big disadvantage to women in paid work.

Dh is no longer a sahd, but as he is the lower earner he does do vast majority of it. I don't see anything wrong with that, as them I am free to push forward in my career. He benefits from that with the money I make

I have often said that I have no desire to be a SAHP but I would like to be married to one!

However I feel it would be a case of 2 wrongs not making a right if I pressured DH into staying at home.

I think this happens to women a lot if they are the lower wage earner and I don't think it's right. It should be a free choice.

I just wish that since we are working outside the home equally we should be working inside it equally too. DH really is a nice decent guy and I think he really does do more than most and more than society expects but not as much as I expect ie half!

mamadoc My situation and list would be v similar to yours, although I am the lower earner (but a high earner in comparison with only women)

"We have talked about it and he fundamentally disagrees that I do more. He feels he does his fair share. He compares himself to his own dad (and mine) and most other men he knows and it is true that he does more or a similar amount. However many of these men have SAHPs."

We have had similar discussions and I am . It's true that he does much more than 99% of the men we know, but the better comparison would be with me!

Monkey, love that football team analogy.

Philo, absolutely. Even though DH and I are very balanced, we are both working with people (men) who have a 10:90 split of household shit not a 50:50. So we are both at a disadvantage on the staying late front.

The first thing that made me notice it was how men with the same job and family situation as me did not seem to be so perpetually stressed and tired and had time to take on extra responsibilities. Then I realised it was because their wives were fixing all this stuff for them*

This is exactly why this stuff is important. Until recently I was a teacher, I was the only member of the senior leadership team who was a woman with children. The others were all men with SAHP or women with no children. Even at middle management level this pattern was quite similar.

I am the main breadwinner. I help with night feeds, and childcare. I hoover on weekends. I tidy around if there is stuff left out in week. I will text dh instructions if I need errands running and I can't do them. That is about it. I am not doing anymore as I think it is right that the breadwinner should definitely help with childcare, but it isn't there place to be running around cleaning

As a feminist SAHP/ housewife/ lady of leisure this interests me and I expected that I would do most of CMOTs list . I was surprised to see that I don't.

Being the default person for meal planning
We have a weekly family meeting, everyone contributes a meal of their choice and volunteers to cook one meal.
Being the person who washes/launders
Children do most of their own laundry. I do all of the bedding. When I worked it was split more equally.
Arranging childcare or being default child carer, this is perhaps worse if it leaves you with the child care responsibility when the other parent is not at work.
When I worked we had childcare in the home, we chose this person together. Now I am at home I guess I am the default child care in the week. At the weekend DH tends to be the go to person. When I worked DH was the default. He can be quite flexible with work so often comes to appointments with me.
Arranging and attending dental or medical appointments for children
Appointments for the children at home tend to happen with me. The older children tend to go with DH as we are quite strict about then not having time off.
"Mum's" family organiser calendars - mother as family organiser being the societal norm. The backbone of the family.
We have an online calendar and s kitchen one which is seen as a family one- certainly not mine.
Being the fun arranger. The weekend activity planner. The holiday planner. All these mental drains falling on one person takes up a great deal of mental bandwidth.
Again with a large family this has to be planned as a family.

He does not want to be a SAHD and since I won't give up my career how can I ask him to give up his which is equally important to him. I would not ask him to do that although it would have made financial sense certainly when we had 2x full time childcare expenses.

I have often thought that if our genders were reversed I would certainly have been a SAHP by now.

One I have noticed recently is 'carting shit around that might entertain/clean/distract' the child when we're out.

But I am not a SAHM. I am the main breadwinner.
Therefore how is it not a gender thing?
We both work approx same hours and have the same free time but I spend more of mine cleaning and organising

Mama, if your dh was a sahd he would do all of that, and I doubt it a lot of it would cross your mind either. It isn't a gender thing imo

I can see that if I ever do want it to be fairer I will just have to stop doing some of the stuff and let him sink or swim but it will be hard for me to tolerate him failing at it especially as I would likely be blamed (by DC and world at large) if eg world book day costume didn't happen.

I think they are really ingrained societal expectations. I do these tasks because it is expected of me and he does not do them because it is not expected of him. It is hard for both of us to break out of that and he does not have much motivation to do so as the status quo is pretty good for him.

The first thing that made me notice it was how men with the same job and family situation as me did not seem to be so perpetually stressed and tired and had time to take on extra responsibilities. Then I realised it was because their wives were fixing all this stuff for them.

If I say anything about it though people think I am whinging and point out that DH does quite a lot (by their standards).

mamadoc, that's a really interesting list - I wonder what mine would like if I wrote it out.

DH and I do share quite a lot of jobs I suppose. But it also feels like there are some things that would just never get done if I didn't do them .

Maybe I should write out my list after all, grr.

I actually feel a bit guilty after this thread as looking at it DH does 60-65% of the 'wife work' in our house. I did joke with him the other day that I don't even know where the Hoover is kept, and then I realised that I actually didn't have any idea where he kept the Hoover.

mamadoc, I expect if you read that book you will get fucking furious

I really should get around to buying and reading that book. I have a feeling it might help put a name to my frustrations.

I am the main wage earner (both FT but I earn more) and yet also the main child carer, cleaner and household organiser. This feels very unfair and I am not sure how it came to be this way.

Things I never do
Write his family's b'day or Christmas cards
Pack his case
Make his lunch
Do any ironing at all
(I have always drawn the line on things that as an adult I feel he should do and of course did himself before he met me. He has never expected me to do this stuff)

Things I do most of but he does a bit
Shopping
Cooking
Laundry
Washing up
Cleaning
(He used to do these himself before he met me to a good standard. I think it was post kids they started to fall to me possibly on mat leave. He will do them but not usually without prompting)

Things I do pretty much all of
Childrens clothes and shoes
Children's haircuts, dentist, health appts
School admin; dress up days, parents evening etc
Holidays
Leisure stuff; play dates, swimming and dance lessons, birthdays
Childcare; paying for and organising
(He does not seem to ever think of these. He completely assumes I will manage all child related admin stuff)

Things he does all of
Breakfasts and packed lunches for DC
Car MOT, service etc
Puts out bins
Gardening and DIY (theoretically, in fact none happens)

Things that we genuinely share
School drop off and pick up
Childcare generally
(He would put shopping and cooking in here as well)

We have talked about it and he fundamentally disagrees that I do more. He feels he does his fair share. He compares himself to his own dad (and mine) and most other men he knows and it is true that he does more or a similar amount. However many of these men have SAHPs.

Many people eg MIL and his family generally plus other school run parents think he is basically a saint because he does school drop offs and takes annual leave for some holidays, 'You're so lucky that your DH will do that'. Funnily enough no-one ever thinks that he is lucky that I earn a good stable income.

Much of the organising is invisible to him.
He says he is not unwilling to do some of it but it never really occurs to him eg that DS shoes are getting too small or DD needs a haircut.
He feels I should prompt him to do it and can't see that it's the 'buck always stops with me' thing that I object to.
I hate the sentence 'oh what are WE doing about [insert random DC related task eg parents evening, nursery application, birthday party]' as this means 'what have YOU done about it'

I resent it but I don't know how to resolve it. I don't feel I can just stop doing DC related stuff as they will suffer.

My DP has always been hopeless at wifework - he was single for a long time and just didn't bother doing stuff really. I grew up in a house full of women with one hardworking but pandered-to man (my DF) who used to do random things like make marmalade that created lovely stuff but also work for other people. Now we've been together 10 years, I'd say things are not far off equal between DP and me, although increasingly when they aren't I get cross and notice. He does always clean up when the cat is sick, though.