Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

To think that motherhood ''puts us in our place''?

40 replies

poshsinglemum · 16/07/2010 22:04

Ok- I have a good degree, a private school education and I did my dissertation in feminist literature. Yet I still spend my time doing lots of housework, moping up poo worrying about stains and desperately trying to get my career on track.
What I really mean is that since becoming a mum I have taken on traditionally ''feminine'' roles.
If I had apertner mabe I'd feel differently.

OP posts:

ivykaty44 · 17/07/2010 12:41

thats good - thats it's resentment.
idon't see that men get a raw deal any more or less than a woman - I think there are gains and losses on both sides

ReasonableDoubt · 17/07/2010 12:42

Being a mum has certainly made me more aware of the unique pressures and conflicts of being a feminist and 'modern woman'and a mother. I don't know if it has put me in my place, though.

I was very lazy and undomesticated before and, although I am still basically a slattern, I do take a bit more responsibility for my surroundings now and am more organised. I have had to be for my children's sake, and it has done me the world of good.

I tend to resist the whole 'wifely' thing, though. I do no more housework or childcare than my husband. Some friends say I am 'lucky', but I don't know if that's true. I just never cast myself in that role.

It might sound trite (and even a little smug - hope not, because that's not how I meant it), but I promise - I would rather be single than be a 'proper wife' - ie. do all the housework, laundry, cooking, organising etc. It's just not me - never has been and never will be.

lazarusb · 17/07/2010 12:44

Dh works 32 hrs per week, I work 12 (term time) and study. However, we may be unusual but dh does most of the housework and childcare is equal more or less. I don't ask him to do things, he sees what needs doing and does it. No questions/ recriminations. We work well together and as a family unit.
Having a partner doesn't mean you need to be a slave, and I don't feel guilty either, nor does he begrudge his input (no gender stereotypes in this relationship!).

nowherewoman · 17/07/2010 12:49

At least you only have to do it for you and your dc(s). If you had a partner more than likely you would be cleaning up after him too.

sunny2010 · 17/07/2010 12:49

I agree reasonable doubt about having kids makes you be more domesticated, and I see it as a good thing for me personally.

We were married 4 years and living together for a year and a half on top of that and I had never even used an iron or made a meal with stir in sauce. Its cause I moved straight out of my mum and dads and in with my husband who looked after me so never had to learn to do domestic things myself, being a mum has made me do things and I have realised its not that bad after all!

BelleDameSansMerci · 17/07/2010 12:56

I'm no more domesticated after having DD than I was before. I still had to clean up (to a certain extent - I have a cleaning lady who comes in once a week) before I had her. I'm a single parent and I work full time. My career is currently f*cked (although I think I'm about to get past that and get it back on track) and I'm shattered all of the time. I wouldn't change it though.

I don't feel "in my place" but I wish I'd better understood what a huge difference it would make to me at work but how short term that change would be...

purepurple · 17/07/2010 13:00

YABU
It's ideas like this that give feminists a bad name.

DuelingFanjo · 17/07/2010 13:03

I'm busy working towards getting DH to take more of an equal share of the housework while I am pregnant in preparation for the fact that once this baby is here, he'll be pulling his weight more than he does now.

To be honest I've been a bit too kind to him in the last few years and taken on the bulk of house stuff. Once I have the baby he will definitely be doing more and when I go back to work I'm expecting things to be done equally!

Morloth · 17/07/2010 13:07

I think it is a shame that child raising is so undervalued. It is pretty important, more so than moving pieces of paper/ideas of money around - which is what I do for paid employment, I have never really been interested in a "career" though, I do the work, I get paid, I get out of the office ASAP.

Housework is something that has to be done whether you have kids and are a man or a woman.

I don't feel put in my place, we make joint decisions about stuff, I have an equal voice in all family decisions (possibly more so than DH because I run the home).

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think you can generalise.

ppeatfruit · 17/07/2010 14:44

Why the assumption that bringing up DCs and cleaning the house is demeaning? Are nannies and cleaners beneath those with high powered jobs and degrees??? Equality for all I say.

hairytriangle · 17/07/2010 15:04

Cain no, you don't have to accept 'just' that for your life.

It will get easier as your DC grows up.

For now though, as you've chosen motherhood (and I just always presume that if someone chooses to become a parent then they must have considered that they could be a single parent at some point) and so that is what you've chosen to do for now.

Surely it's foreseeable that if you choose motherhood, then it will limit your choices for a bit, as you have a new very important role to fulfil?

mumbar · 17/07/2010 15:15

since ds now 5.10 was born I have worked p/t then f/t when his dad left to moving to uk and not working for 9 weeks to working p/t (5pm/wk) to working f/t term time only and done 3 years open uni at the same time.

I suppose it depends how much time you chose to do these things in. I found I couldn't get a school job in the uk having not had a job in uk for a few years so did 1 yr in a shop to get references.

Sometimes my life is manic but I see a good career and a better life for me and ds at the end of it so suck it up and go.

Housework etc just fits in around the rest at weekends or when ds in bed before study time.

guess what I'm saying is you can be a mum and also other things too simultanously.

sunny2010 · 17/07/2010 15:23

exactly mumbar - I work with kids including my own child who is 2, and have just completed a degree. I only took 10 days of after birth and still manage to have an active social life and go out a lot. Being a mum doesnt mean your life has to be boring.

BeenBeta · 17/07/2010 15:32

Lost count of the number of times I have read this kind of post. It really does not have to be this way. Men can wipe bums, cook meals, wash dishes, shove a hoover just as well as women.

However, Poshsinglemum you are a lone parent and there is no one else. If I was a lone parent it would be the same for me. You do what is necessary. It is not a feminist issue.

As bonsoir says, if you can get a well enough paid job put DC in a nursery and get a cleaner then go out to work yourself if it makes you happier.

HerBeatitude · 17/07/2010 15:34

No I don't think motherhood puts women in their place.

I absolutely agree with SGB, it's partners who don't pull their weight domestically, who put women in their place.

That's one of the reasons it's easier, psychologically, to be a single mother than to have a selfish, self-centred partner with a massive sense of entitlement who thinks he doesn't have to do any more housework as soon as you've had children.

Flip

1 2