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 ?

Disagree. What is wrong with you?

You could think more kindly about your mum

Same!

How is you jeopardising your financial independence and earning potential the answer?! Surely the answer is either your husband steps up and pulls his weight around the home, or you both earn enough to buy in support such as a cleaner, grocery deliveries, gardening etc

I thought I was in an equal marriage. Now it’s me doing 100% everything. It’s not quite shit enough to divorce and I just wish he was the man I used to have and I don’t want to see my kids only half the time and know the other half they’re sat in front of a screen the whole time.
o never thought I would stay or be in this situation but there we are. Talking nothing gets through it’s just spun around. That he doesn’t empty the dishwasher and do the bins……

Choose the bear.

This is what I don’t get. OP just describes becoming dependant on a man and still doing all the housework and admin as though that’s the solution.

its not. Its a pretty shit response to the situation you witnessed as a child

In my experience most women go back to work part time, not full time.

Im in Australia but see similar on forums.
I think its often because its financially hard for the woman to leave.
Men earn more, get jobs easier etc. Childcare is expensive.

Would be nice to think it's just a mumsnet bubble but unfortunately all statistics including rigorous family time budget studies support their pov. It's your circle that seems to be the outlier. That's if everybody in their curve had actually kept track overtime to establish both partners do indeed get equal leisure time and don't just (often mistakenly) think so.

Who Said I was financially dependant on him ? Not me

if we spilt I’d have enough to live a good life
and I’d just increase my hours
and adjust

Not sure about UK, but in Australia, the childcare system favours this. The subsidy caps out so that somebody working 5 days could be worse off than somebody working 4.

The problem in many cases is that the couple start off equal. Both working, both doing housework. Then the woman has a baby and goes on maternity leave, picks up any slack at home because she has the time to. Then she goes back to work and the man simply never takes back over the jobs he used to do. So she HAS to do them because she can't see their child suffer Then the man gets more and more used to doing very little, she is picking up more and more because so much HAS to be done. He waves it off or says 'just leave it' but she knows if she 'just leaves it' there will be twice as much of it tomorrow and it will STILL be her problem. He thinks she's making too much fuss and 'nagging'.

And so it goes.

DH wanted kids, I told him he had to go PT and do his share of the childcare. Which he did so we had 3DC who are now teenagers, we both went back to working FT once the DC were at secondary. Now we're both exhausted (and he absolutely does half the work), I don't know how some mothers do it all if both of us are tired doing half (and we have a cleaner)!

I feel like I can answer the Christmas thing though. MIL is dead now but if I hadn't hosted Christmas for DH's family they would have all gone to my lovely MILs and expected her to do it all even though she was in her 80s which I thought was unfair to her so it was better that I hosted them than she had to (in my family my generation took over Christmas years ago and everyone has a task). MIL died a few months ago and I'm looking forward to having a quieter Christmas with just our nuclear family this year, with no annoying ILs (MIL wasn't annoying but BIL and SIL were).

I don’t agree it starts off equal. I’ve seen the disparity begin the moment the majority of people I knew rented a flat or bought a home with their partner.
I think women are often conditioned to show love to a partner by domestic acts of service whether the mean to or not, so they cook the nice dinners, fold the laundry etc and when kids come and they’re years down the line they are worn down by the excessive workload.

Don't know if many of you have been following the clancey case in America, but that Patrick, most likely did it, in my personal opinion
And he's certainly a total deadbeat

Off brunching, skiing, working away, having an affair

While his sick wife is overloaded

Its very deeply ingrained in our society that home and kids are the womans responsibility. If a kid is lost people say 'wheres your mum'. If a renovating show is on it shows the woman picking out the kitchen appliances while the man gets a shed.

And I wasn't born into any kind of privilege at all, I've had to graft for everything in my life including challenging things and fighting for fairness.

But I did go into adult life, know what I didn't want it to be

She killed the 3 children.

She admitted it.

I definitely agree re society’s judgement, mothers are held up to a way higher standard often by other women.

Maybe this is a strong part of it all its been so long woman have taken care of the kids and homes, it's so ingrained into society its actually going to take a few more generations to drop the expectations

Whi knows how long that actually will take....

It's a slow and gradual creep.....
On mat leave women become the default parent.
Then work part time, managing the home and family (being there for the kids, extortionate nursery fees, next pregnancy etc).

As kids get bigger so does the responsibility. You may be back working full time but the position of default parent is now well established.

The men don't see (intentionally/unintentionally) what needs doing.
School runs, dentist, doctors, parties, play dates, uniform, clubs, hair cuts etc

HAVING TO TELL THEM, REMIND THEM, JUST ADDS TO THE MENTAL LOAD! We need them to see something needs doing and just do it!
We don't need "just tell me what to do". Use "adult" as a verb as well as a noun!!

Kids hit teens, we hit menopause, the inequity hits home. We realise the extent to which careers, hobbies, lives have been put on hold.
It's why in mid life many women blow up and men look perplexed.
Then throw some older generation family into the mix to add to the joy.

My DD has discussed it with me and said to hell with that! As a Dr her career will be important, equity all the way for her with compromise on both sides when needed.

Because they don’t have any good options.

It all starts with men refusing/failing to pull their weight. Then their choices are:

1. Nag + be branded a nag
2. Live in squalor.
3. Leave - not always easy.
4. Do it themselves. Sometimes the easiest option. Encouraged by some institutional sexism which programmes women to think that household chores are their job.

So why stay with someone who won’t do their share of housework and childcare if you’re not financially dependant on him?

why won’t he do his half?