Demanding job

OK OK I shall attempt to be more mature in my next post....

There is a buying clothes for men thread!? I remember my aunt looking horrified that I don't know what DH's shirt size is. And then I compounded it by saying I don't iron his stuff either. It was all round. Happy memories.

I reduce the wife work by never ever baking for school or worrying about school fairs, voluntary PTA stuff and the like; no present or card buying for DH's family or friends; and DH participates equally in all decisions about childcare, including ad hoc summer stuff etc.

Oh, and not only a glass ceiling within personal partnerships which impacts the wider experience of women. In addition, there are swathes of men who are able to focus on work in a way that even their single colleagues cannot, because they are doing next to no personal admin. Ffs, you only have to look at the buying clothes for men threads!

Strongly agree with the point that most women can't fulfil their potential at work or their own business, creatively or whatever, if they are doing the lion's share at home.

Also relate to NK5BM3 and others about the exhausting nature of the"wife work". Especially the less obvious (but important and time consuming) stuff requiring attention and draining our brains!

The paying the cleaner example is classic: if I'm away and remind DH to pay our cleaner, even if I leave money for this, he forgets and expects me to sort it out when I get back. when challenged he says it doesn't matter, she was fine about it and I'm making a "big deal" (by mentioning it!) It makes me because it's disrespectful to me and her and reveals a bad attitude. Another example: on mornings when he takes the DDs to school he doesn't regard it as his job to do their hair. One has done her own since she was 2 (she's got some talent and a funky sense of style!) but the other wakes up as early as possible so that I can do it before I leave (early) for the commute, and gets anxious about it. He knows this and yet still won't learn.

Citrine because clearly you have an extra day off and during that time you can organise all the threads and summer holiday plans.

Same here except I'm the higher earner and have a demanding job. Dh is self employed so v demanding job as well - I get that. Plus if he doesn't work then he doesn't earn.

But... Why is it up to me to organise summer camps and pay for them? Why is it up to me to organise after school club payments and have meetings with them? why do I also then have to rock up to school with a home made cake because I had to take note of the bake sale?! This summer, I agonised over summer camp and eventually chose one (the one we used last year ceased to exist in it's previous form). I booked summer holiday. I've just organised a play date to coincide with a boring trip to Clark's to get shoes (20 miles away so best to get two things out of the way - and save petrol).

I don't bother telling him things anymore. Increasingly it's only on the day when I inform him. Because it doesn't matter - I still have to organise pick ups and everything.

It's one of the brightest examples of male privilege: the ability to behave in a way that causes discomfort to those around you, but to live your life as if you were a paragon of virtue. Not having to suffer comebacks from your bad behaviour pretty much defines privilege for me.

I've said before, this is the real glass ceiling. From the first moment (usually during maternity leave) that a partner decides that they are the important job person, then the decisions that should be discussed from a place of equality become distorted. Because if one person's choices include knowing that (at least) adequate care - giving and family management are going to be delivered if they remain in full time work , including possibly doing less than if that person were single, and the other partner knows that the opposite (and more) is likely to be true, then decisions about working patterns are skewed.

Good point

I think not caring if someone respects you because of your own shitty behaviour is a measure of how much respect you have for them

which would be...not very much at all

Is it something to do with that emotional-half-life we bring boys up to expect?

They just find a sort of half-relationship acceptable?

But why are more men not bothered about the fact that they lose their DP's respect?

I'd hate to live with someone who I knew didn't respect me

He know you think it's too petty to end the marriage over, so he can just ignore you Citrine.

Nothing changed with my DH until I threatened divorce.

Citrine I agree - the organisation itself is the thing. It's exhausting to hold so many threads in your head.

Ignoring Larry's bullshit, the demanding job thing us very true and very irritating.

DH and I have the same job title, same level of experience, same university etc. I work 4 days per week, he works 5. I have a 45 minute commute, he has an hour. He generally leaves work late.

He does his share of parenting but no organisation, laundry or cooking. It is annoying me a lot, particularly the organisation in that it takes up so much headspace and i just feel tired of it. With the summer holidays, I've booked activities, swapped childcare, arranged days off, even sorted out cover with his lovely parents. I've tried talking to him about it and he says he'll try and nothing ever happens.

It's too petty on its own to end my marriage over but I am losing respect for him.

Typical spurious argument. Where did that come from?

From the typical wage bracket of the cleaner I was describing. Try reading what's posted before giving your opinion on it. It might stop you looking quute so reactionary. Might.

Has he stopped posting yet?

That was tiresome.

I'm going back to my demanding job.

oh larry, please don't make promises you have no intention of keeping

Last comment about comparing work and being a parent.

If you do that comparaison, you can't make it with a full time job, employed in a company.
But if you really want to, you might want to compare it with two selfemployed people having a join venture together. There are no boss and one person can NOT tell the other one off, slagg them for not doing the job right (Otherwise, it is clear that said joint venture isn't going to last. That's the MAIN issue with your 'but the WOHP should be able to comment about the state of the house'). What you would see is one person wondering why xxx hasn't been done, a discussion about why and then that person proposing to help the other, maybe to look at another way to distribute the jobs as clearly one has more to do than the other. They would look at the abilities of each person as well as their standards. ie both can do a presentation but one likes to have 'everything perfecft' therefore he is the one to do said presentation. On the other side, the other person is very keen on customer relationship and is doing well with it so he is the one focusing on that.
The same should be the case in a relationship. It's a joint venture. There are NO boss to tell the other one off. One might step up when the other one is struggling (That's called helping each other). They might share tasks according to their likes and also share the ones that no one likes so that they both contribute to that too. If one partner doesn't know how to do xxx, the the other can teach them. From giving a bath to the baby, getting up in the middle of the night and settling them down to doing some DIY or changing the oil in the car.

And what Apocalypse and CHunky said.

Larry you seem to think that most, if not all, men are very kind people who always think about their partners, are always able to evaluate how hard the job they are doing is and always, I mean really ALWAYS, will share all the work involved in running a house.

Unfortunately, this is NOT the case. This is not the case because some men are just twats (and yes perhaps we shouldn't have married them but they are also usually quite good at hidding their twatiness).
But most of the time, they are acting like twats because they have been taught as children and then teens and then young adults that 'this is what a woman does and this is what a man does'. And a man doesn't do HW, he helps (and then needs BIG round of applause for it). He doesn't look after the dcs either, he is babysitting because he is very kind to give his dw a break. Oh and he has the RIGHT to evaluate her job, criticise her ( have a disciplinary procedure against her) because her HW isn't up top standards (Well I hope that this is just you)....

It's not about me or any woman having all the power to 'make men do what they want them to do' it's about women regaining the power that have been taken from them. So no, things aren't always done as per the men's will. And yes when said man doen't want to listen, well... they are 'made' to listen. Or we could just leave you. Because these are no little problems. This is about respect for the other human being living in your house.

It's about 'educating' men because unfortunately, they have been taught that men and women aren't equal. Men do xxx whilst womern do yyyy and asking a men to do yyyy is just beneath them.
When we, as a society, will stop to teach children that boys and girls are different, that men and women are different and have different ablities, the women will not need to 'educate' their DH about equality and sharing domestic tasks anymore. Until then, slowly, we can only do the 'teaching' one person at a time. With our DH, with our ds, with our dd.

^'And all for minimum wage'

Typical spurious argument. Where did that come from? This only applies to those living in penury^

Well, apparently the average wage is about twice minimum wage right now, so actually, when split between the WOHP and SAHP as you advocate, that's almost exactly correct, not spurious (assuming that the WOHP and SAHP share all tasks once the WOHP is back - otherwise perhaps the SAHP should 'earn' a higher percentage as they are spending more hours 'working') - that's ignoring the 27% of the population who apparently live in poverty and therefore presumably bring home rather less than average.

And no, merely being in the same house as one's own sleeping child, is not being 'on call' and is not 'being a night nanny'

No, it's not, because it's 7 days a week, unpaid, no time off for holidays, no real ability to quit, no ability to sleep in the day to make up for it (sleep when they sleep my arse), no pension, no sick pay, no time off for good behaviour. It's done because it has to be done, and out of love, this is the major reason it's not comparable to a job.

It's absolutely being on call though. - When I'm on call for my job I'm paid, and I get called perhaps once a month, and if need be I can swap with other people. When I'm on call as a mother, I'm not paid, and the cry goes up much more frequently, and I have to do it because they are dependent children, not just servers going down.

Now I do have a partner that shares that, thank goodness, and we don't need some kind of contract to rule who gets up today, and standards regarding how sick will be cleaned up.

That's why it's not comparable to a job. Not because of the responsibilities or hours

The consensus on this thread seems to be that the WOHP should have zero say in this environment.

I think the actual consensus is that he can clean to his own standards and do his bit to maintain the shared environment rather than issue orders.

"I am going to stop posting." Please do. wishes I could believe you