Do these men even exist?!

[Killermanjaro]

Are there really men out there that have a job and do 50% of the housework/ chores / child rearing / cooking / 50% of the nappies, night feeds, playtime, walks in parks, bedtime reading etc, and at the same time are respectful, kind and loving to their partners and appreciate them and treat them as an individual with their own needs and desires?

I have never seen these men, they aren't in my friendship circle or at work or in my family. Definitely not my DH.

Replace the word men with women and replace 50% with a figure between 60-100% and I will find these women everywhere. These women are my friends, my family, my coworkers. I am one of these women 😔

If you have one of these mythical creatures, where the fuck did you find them?! (And do they have a brother?! 😆)

I have one.

And he’s funny, and charismatic. Nobody could describe him as boring.

He was super keen to be involved with the baby, had him in a sling loads, has probably done 75% of all nappies we’ve ever had, and did a night feed every night. He did at least half the early morning wake ups and would often stay up with DS so I could go to bed early or sleep in.

He does 75% of the cooking and housework, too. He’s brilliant.

I met him at work. I absolutely lucked out.

My DH does (and a lot of my friends' DHs are the same).

However when I say we are all 50/50 I do count paid work in that. So he works 5 days, I work 3 days. So he does more work outside of the house and I do more inside. But we spend the same proportion of time working.

If he did half the home jobs while working in his paid job 2 days more than me, well that wouldn't be fair.

I’d say Dh is pretty much spot on. We each have our own jobs we do around the home, so is it exactly 50/50, I don’t know. But I say do the school runs, but he’ll be looking after the dc and running them to activities while I do my hobby every day. He doesn’t necessarily do much of the mental load of remembering when school photos are, but he does take the dc away camping on the weekend (like he is this weekend) and organising activities with their friends. So I think it probably all evens out. We each do the things we’re good at.

He runs a successful business. He does all the gift buying for his family and the remembering of birthdays. Actually he does most of the birthday and Christmas presents for the dc too. He’s thoughtful and kind and loves me. He’s a great guy. He’s very unlike anyone I dated before him. I think I got lucky because he’d not had many relationships before me. So when I met him, I knew a good thing when I saw it and I locked that down. 😂 We met in a bar and I made a judgemental comment about the drink he ordered. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yeah, but we’re gay.

Yes I've got one, he does so much and works, I also had the total opposite for 20 years in my ex...

In my experience yes and no. I earn the most and after our 2nd my DH was a full time stay at home parent whilst I worked. He definitely did majority of childcare and housework.

Now they are both at school he is back at work. I also still work full time (and am still the main earner). It is now a battle to get him to pull his weight and understand that we both work and both have to contribute. It’s so frustrating as you would think he would be more sympathetic having been on both ends of the experience but he’s not. Now that he’s back at work he seems to think he’s too important for housework and all the “mental load” stuff.

Thought I did but the weight of pregnancy and breastfeeding and then parental preference weighed heavily upon us. Its still very close to 50/50 though its just when you're doing the bulk of one thing (kids) it feels exhausting.

Mine. But I think a big part of it was that we did 6months each shared parental leave. So I'm not default parent and he knows what it's like to be in the trenches.

So many women I spoke to at the time said things like "oh I couldn't bear to leave my baby yet" and "I did the hard work, a year away from work is my time: I'm not sharing that". It made me feel a bit shitty at the time. But tbh those that are the most vocal seem now to have the most unequal marriages wrt parenting.

I realise we're really lucky to work for employers that would pay for us both to be at home for 6months on full pay. And I'd welcome a gov policy that mandates men having equal rights and compensation to parental leave than women

Forgot to say we met on tinder. And yes he does have a brother, who's also married and imo i got the best of the two 😂My brother in law and I are very similar. DH in turn is very similar to my sister in many ways. Kinda weird, try not to think about that too much!

Yes I have one. I think there’s a few factors:

We met young-ish and therefore grew and found our feet in the household stuff together.

He has always finished work before me so does the dinner each night rather than waiting until I got in later to start cooking or doing jobs.

It was just him and his dad at home during his late teenage years so he could cook/clean/do the washing etc and knew what he needed to do to survive along with another person.

My dad was very 50/50 as was my grandad. I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) have been able to accept a less than 50% partner.

I know a lot of men like him but unfortunately equally know a lot who claim they do ‘loads’ but in reality it’s the bare minimum

Yes I have one , much to his late mother's disgust when we first got together as she didn't bring her son up to be be a slave to a woman. Both she and his sister waited on him hand and foot even after 30 years of marriage if he walked in their houses ,he was treated like a king. However at home he cooked , cleaned picked kids up from school because he finished before me, he does shopping in his lunch break as he works in a town whilst I am in the middle of nowhere. In fact I think the split is more 60/40 in my favour. So yep these men do exist and when we are bringing up our sons we need to remember if they are not whose fault it is!!

You will get plenty of people on here who say yes, and maybe it's even true in their cases.

What I would say is:

1. There is a large amount of statistical evidence showing men do less around the house and less childcare. So those people with genuine equality, are outliers.
2. And that's before you get into inequality in the labour market.
3. And the ever present inequality regarding violence in relationships and sub violence stuff like who ends up holding the baby when a relationship breaks up.
4. It's easy to look like you are hands on while still letting your wife/partner do all the thinking ahead, form filling, planning, worrying, budgeting. People dismiss the idea of "the mental load" but look on the class WhatsApp - it's a rare dad who's actively sorting anything (there'll be a couple of divorced ones finding out holiday childcare doesn't just arrange itself).
5. The "not my Nigel" contingent are part of the issue, being statistical outliers.
6. I wish the above wasn't true, but I recognise your picture.

I wonder whether it is the work, or the children.

I just get the 'feeling' that men fit into one of three categories when it comes to kids...

• Want kids, will take care of them
• Want kids, but it's a woman's job
• Not fussed about kids and just did it because of being pushed into it by their partner or accidental pregnancy

I'd actually bet it's a near-even split between the categories.

My husband and oldest married son fit your description.

Mine is forgetful as a person, puts his phone down forgets where it is type of thing, he does do his fair share though he needs the occasional poke. He does do all the finances and bills, he consults me on it. He did more drop offs and pick ups for school than me.

I’ve heard of them on Mumsnet but never met one in the wild. Which is not to say that all the men I know are completely awful and do nothing, it’s a sliding scale. Most think they do more than they do. By far the best one I know does about 40% of the housework/parenting. Most think their wives don’t notice when they purposefully don’t do the bits they think are beneath them. They’ll be a ‘great dad’ if that means taking the kid to football games when they also love football. But if they’re not interested in the kid’s hobby then mum will be taking them. Play with power tools once or twice a year? Sure! Scrape food waste/change nappies/wash up etc..on a daily basis? Nope.

When I divorced my (abusive) husband I returned to my home country and got to know my brothers in law properly- they both worked more hours than my sisters but shared the childcare/ shopping/ laundry etc. Possibly not 50/50 but very close to it. One does all the bedtimes 😳

I commented on how lovely it is and my sister was outraged- this is how it should be, all men she knows are like this, I've just had a terrible experience with an awful person as a partner... We've worked out it is a generational thing to some extent (I'm over a decade older than my sisters). Some men of my age (approaching 50) expect praise for all little household tasks. Younger than me, almost every other man I know simply does what's needed alongside his partner. It's a refreshing mental shift.

(however it's fuck all use to me as a single parent who does every single thing myself 😂)

Absolutely. My DH. We both work FT. On top of everyday life he also copes with 5 or so international work trips a year for me for a week at a time. Kids are in pre school and junior primary.also quite a few of my male colleagues work PT and are primary carers of their kids

I’d say we’re doing the same amount of stuff but it looks different. Dh does more obvious things like school runs and ironing uniforms. I do more planning and organising that might be less visible to the naked eye but keeps the show on the road. Dh never stops me from going out, seeing friends, building a career etc.

A lot of the women I know in unsupportive, unequal relationships are getting divorced and these unsupportive, unequal exes are instantly in serious relationships with other women so in general the heterosexual bar needs raising op, I feel like it’s set at not obviously abusive when it should be set at completely unexploitative of women’s time and labour. Things might change then 😊

My brother does about 70 % of all that, works full time and has a disability!
We have a male friend who also works full time, does all the meal planning, shopping, cooking and 90% of the child care!
In my own situation I do everything! However I only work 17 hours per week and DH works insane hours. It works for us and we're both happy with the set up.

Also from another persepective- my dad and mum had a very happy working life (now both retired) with DM doing everything kids and home related and DDad doing all life admin and the garden stuff. It worked well but now they are getting older it's hard- DDad is useless at looking after himself/ DM out of touch with finances etc.

In my close circle of friends, most of the men are like this, including DH. It is the one man who isn't like this who stands out. His wife does almost everything, although he would not object to "helping" her if she told him what to do. She is always late to our ladies nights out cos apparently he isn't able to put their DC to bed. She very much notices the difference and is resigned to it, like I get the feeling many on Mumsnet are.

Yes, my DH does. But people dont post about them as then they get accused of "bragging" or get comments like "well bully for you but its not the norm" etc People dont tend to talk about things like this as they get criticised for it which I kind of get but it also means your info is skewed towards the shit men stories.

Sadly, I don't even think it's generational (certainly some things are improving but others worsening - like the hours expected at work these days).

I teach teenage boys and they certainly don't give the impression they're on the path to these kinds of relationships. Maybe a few. But not all the men my age (50s) are undomesticated. I can't think of a single one who's the "management", however. My FIL (80s) does better on this front than quite a few of my friends' DHs...

So you don’t share things evenly? Car, bills and diy in no way equal house and kids.