Why do so many women in the UK, work full-time and also do the cooking cleaning and mental load at home..?

[GreenCandies]

Why ?

Why put up with it ?

I think its started albeit slowly. More and more women are choosing not to have children. In the 1990s i was an outlier but i wouldnt be now. I could see that having it all really meant doing it all. Nope!

Although we would have to get to a Children of Men situation before a lot of men noticed. Having said that a lot of men seem to not like women who choose not to have kids. I guess we arent as easy to control. A lot of posters seem to think that a guy who always wants costs split 50/50 right from dating.......well it must be because he believes in equality.
All that proves is that he believes in the part of equality that financially benefits him.
The thread ive linked above is a good example.

Yes, i think there's alot of truth in this post

Interesting comments about how this can change so much throughout the various life stages
Would you consider hiring a cleaner ?

There is definitely that aspect of thinking because they are the breadwinner then they don’t have to think about the domestic sphere, however even friends I’ve known with SAHDs and they are the breadwinner still seem to do have responsibility for the majority of the domestic sphere with the exception of supervising the children while they are working. I think as a young adult I didn’t realise until I became a mother how much work was involved in being the mother in a family, which increases the more children you have. I remember reading mothers, even with children at school only had 5 hours of free time each week and thinking they must be some mistake!! However I’d now massively agree with that statistic, The other issue is that there’s a lot that some men I know of just don’t think is important e.g why bother going to all the hassle of cooking from scratch, avoiding UPFs etc but then a lot of men have not had the education about the evidence base for such things, my DH did mechanics at school and I did child development, my career is in health, his the military, my fb feeds and discussions with friends, news articles I read centre far more around health, nutrition and care related issues DH is a fantastic father as makes the children feel loved and engages in play and activities with them wholeheartedly, he happily works hard to be able to provide them with everything they need and makes them happy, sacrificing buying things for himself so they can do extra clubs etc but I just don’t think it would work if we tried to interchange our roles without a lot else also changing

I was in the same position. Everything was my job in the house because 'he worked'. Nothing would encourage him to help, not crying (often with tiredness) or begging or pleading.

But he knew he was supposed to do it, because if we had visitors he would step up. The only time he ever washed up a dish was when we had visitors when he was all 'oh, you cooked, you go and sit down and I'll do the dishes'.

It was this that finally persuaded me to divorce. The fact that he KNEW he was supposed to step up and help out, but only thought it was worth doing when other people were looking and praising him.

This! I didn’t think my life would be like this, but transpires husband isn’t capable even if forced! Then it would be separation where I’d do the most again.

Before anyone starts with ‘WHY PUT UP WITH IT’ that’s not really accurate is it. If I don’t sort out child out they will do without to the standard I expect or be neglected (obviously not to social services stand in level!!) but not what they need! Likewise, I don’t want to live in a dump and would like to eat each day!

Maybe I differ from others but we both work, financially I bring home alot more, however my role is desk based his is very active manual work, I do it to be active in evenings to give him a break and rest, keeps me healthier and him a break.

Most men have a period of living outside their childhood home now before they get married. Previous generations might have had their DM cooking for them then moved in with a partner but under the age of 60, those men are surely few and far between.

Well it wouldn't have got done most of the time if I hadn't have done it back in the day. Not much he could have done whilst on board ship.

I do the cooking because my husband does the laundry. We both work full time. Seems fair enough to me...

It’s not always about putting up with an unjust burden, my DH would rather work more
to earn what is needed to mitigate the issue and I’m happy to work part time so that works for us. I think mother thing that makes it all becomes more of an issue for couples ones they’ve had the children as the workload increases exponentially, it becomes totally relentless. It isn’t just putting 2 hours into cleaning a house at the weekend while listening to your favourite podcast, a house that then looks wonderful and stays that way for the next few days.

But you can go back further as surely the reason women tend to date, then marry, older men is the ones their age are immature...

No children and never lived with any of my partners. In my mid fifties now, I cannot imagine sharing my space. Would happily allow someone to take over life admin, cleaning maintenance cooking if they wished- get fed up of doing it. No intention of mummying someone.

I’m a similar age. My dad did fuck all in the house. My friend’s dads were the same.

The thing is I did work! Full time and in a very high flying job. He was in the same job, but when we had our first child, he somehow found it too stressful to get to nursery on time to pick him up, or take time off if he was ill. And somehow I was the one organising the cleaner, and choosing the schools and later on planning the meals etc. And still working full time.

We do think we can have it all, but that means working full time (and probably still being subject to the gender pay gap) but still taking on at least the mental load at home, and probably most of the physical load too.

I too will never live with another man.

Men are vile.

As others have said though, it's a slope. After all, if you're with a boyfriend and he doesn't lift a finger from day one, then you know that's who he is and you can get rid immediately. It's the men who pay lip service to equality and start out being equal parents but then gradually let more and more slip because they KNOW you, as mother, will take up the slack. He's 'too busy at work' to do nursery drop off or pick up? Well, what are you going to do, leave the child there until he's free? No, Mum compromises HER work to fetch the child. He's 'got things to do' so he can't help out with birthday party preparations? Unless Mum steps up the child gets no birthday party.

They know that the work will be done by someone else if they don't do it and Mums do it because otherwise it's the child who suffers. And it happens gradually, you pick up the slack because you think it's just this one time while he's 'so busy'. But it never, ever goes back.

It might help if women stopped judging other women.

It was getting better (Gen-X here) but once social
media got going it’s unraveling again. The image of a perfect life is more important, and the values pushed online never benefit women, yet both men and women fall for it.

Oh and money, how many women would walk away from rubbish men if they could afford it? All of them. But money gives you status, and men earn money so women put up with whatever the men want and the men know this.

Although something is changing because the birth rate has fallen off a cliff.

A lot of truth here, I am starting to think that most men are just simply more selfish than women

Yes very interesting point about falling birth rates, suspect suspect that will keep on going down