TO ASK WOMEN. In haVING EVERYTHING; DO YOU END UPDOING DOING EVERYTHING/

[ScousyFogarty]

yOU have all heard the phrase about "having everything" career, family etc Someone came upwith a clever saying "we have everything; but we end up doing everything" (I assume it was about doing job and housework) I should imagine there is a lot of that going on. But you would know better than me.

I am not perfect and living the dream all the time.

Yesterday, took my inlaws to Swinbrook to look at the Mitfords church, cleaned the house from top to bottom, helped dd with chemistry revision, waxed the floor, went out for dinner with dP.

Today I have wasted most of the day (when should be doing some stuff for work) ponceing round the house making mess. I am supposed to making a curry (home toasted and ground spices natch) and am upstairs mumsnetting and listening to the Smiths, with piles of laundry everywhere waiting to be done and the cats mithering. Manana, manana.

Having it all is a phrase used to keep women down. Has anyone ever applied it to a man? No because no one is trying to push men to give up work or not have chidlren if they do work. So the less the p hrase is used against women the better.

Heaps of women for generatinos have worked full time and had babies. Men do that too because they know it's the best thing. If they can find some mugigns housewife type to do their dirty work then they do it but they certainly don't want it themselves. The propert nice fun balanced life is a life with a successfull high paid career and a lot of children. It works. It's great and loads of us do it.

However having it all is not tolerating sexism at home. If you do it all you are an idiot. Why do people tolerate for one day that they both work full time but the woman does moer than teh man at home? Don't they have an IQ over 100? Don't they just refuse on the very first day to take on that extra task>? It's not hard to say right I cook so you do 100% of this family's washing. Or I take John to nursery every morning so you collect him every day, alter your job to fit that mate or else to the mornings and I'll do the evenings. It's not hard.

I'm not suggesting anyone should live in a shithole to accommodate a partner who won't do housework, GetOrf, far from it. But there are women who push their partners away, particularly WRT the children by criticising every litle thing they do so the men give up. It does happen.

There are also lazy bastards of both sexes who would happily live in shit if permitted to. That's fine if they live alone or with someone with similar standards.

No you're right Georgi, I undertarsdn what you meant, I didn't mean to sound so vociferous.

I also have friends who won't let their DP do anyting for the baby because 'they can't be trusted'.

Xenia you are onto something. And its original Historically menhave been exploiters of women and everything else. Is there some improvement in our country? I think so, but it is a work in progress.

It's very improved. Even in 1982 before I married we could talk about which of us would stay home if childcare didn't work out and he followed my career to London. If it could be done in 1982 it can be done in 2011 but it takes women to ensure they don't accept sexism. It also helps if from day 1 that baby is left in sole charge of its father when it's not being fed. Clearly it helps as in our relationship where with baby 1 we both earned about the same, both worked full time so there was no inequality of money or power and neither of us was sexist and he'd owned his own house, run a home was porbably better than I was at making sure it was cleaned, washing done etc.

Always do your due dliegence before you end up with a man. Has he always lived with mother? Does he come from a family where men are idle lay abouts and women glorified servants?

I think the balance is achieved by not criticising each other and letting the other person find their own way and not really "helping each other" but dividing tasks. for 17 years I never took the children to the dentist once. For a period I could hardly work the washing machine as he 100% dealt with that whilst I did our tax returns, I plaited the girls' hair, I packed the school bags. Just divide it up fairly. Most people want fairyl equal fair relatioships and if you like your partner you don't want them over burdened.

I suspect some women were so desperate to find a man they accept anything at home i terms of taking on domestic jobs or else they are useless at work and the only thing on the planet they are any good at is changing the baby's nappy so they have to pretend they are some kind of stellar God like person who is the only one who can deal with the baby betcause that flatters their silly little ego whereas their husband might acrtually be better than they are at it but they won't let him near it. They pay the price for that later of course big time.

Xenia Sun 05-Jun-11 17:11:17
"Having it all is a phrase used to keep women down. Has anyone ever applied it to a man? No because no one is trying to push men to give up work or not have chidlren if they do work. So the less the p hrase is used against women the better."

Perfectly put. When did you last hear a male company director or professor blamed for wanting to have it all and starting a family?

When dp and I met we were both in precarious go out and chase teh work careers interior designer and musician. When I got pregnant we just sat down and said how are we going to do this and worked out a plan where we both did our share. It wasn't that complicated nor does it have to be

I have all I want and if that means I have to work damn hard for them then thats okay. I have a career, a child I adore and a house that will be getting a cleaner soon! So you can have it all, but I do think women pay a higher price.

Why do you think women pay a higher price? I would have thought we got more choices. Much harder for most men to say to their wife you work full time and I'll stay home with the baby.

Yes we have more choices, without a doubt, and I think being a woman is a blessing but IME men do not do as much as women, or make the sacrifices women do. Its not to 'bash' men, its how I have seen it. My dh did stay home with baby for a year, because I earn a lot more than him.

What are these sacrifices women speak of so constantly? I haven't made any sacrifices.

I made a sacrifice. I had to sell my 2 seater sports car when I fell pregnant.....

You didn't have to. Your partner could have run along behind while the baby went on the passenger seat .

I went back to work when dd was 4 months old because I earn double what dh does, thats a bloody sacrifice. Just because you haven't made sacrifices doesn't mean others haven't.

I did suggest that but he said he could drive it and I could run along beside him... equality, huh??

mrsravelstein: 'we would have major issues in my household if i worked full time, because i know i'd still be doing the lion's share of the household 'work' too. this is partly down to the fact that dh and i have totally different standards as to what is necessary to be done - for instance, i make all the beds each morning, dh wouldn't bother as he couldn't care less if the duvet is in a heap when he gets into bed in the evening.'

This is where I am too! Come and share my corner. I am not a doormat and we have repeated conversations, but my dh comes from a background where women are pretty much solely in charge of house and home. His says his Dad had next to nothing to do with him until he could bait his own fishing line. My view, that it is a partnership, has been a hell of a shock to him!! We managed to work it out while I was working FT but when we had dd, it became very much 'Man earns, woman cooks, buys food, looks after baby and cleans house.' The division of time thing (the idea that if I am working, albeit unpaid, while he is at work so any tasks that aren't completed when he gets home are shared) was totally alien to him. It didn't seem to him to be at all unreasonable to sit on the sofa at 9.00pm while I tried to get dishes from supper washed, for example. He had been at work, after all. It has taken ages, and a lot of conversation, to try and retrieve the situation, and it is something I have to keep talking about. For instance, he would never think to clean the bathroom. Does he use it? Yes. Should he clean it too? Yes. And I certainly don't criticize if he does! But if I just wait, then it will become filthy, and the fact is I'm home more and notice these things more. Splashes on the toilet rim just don't bother him - they do me. So I have to keep talking, and occasionally I will fester and then I nag or explode. Either way, I find it turns me into someone I don't like and don't want to be.

If anyone finds a way to ensure that he remembers all this, I'd be very grateful....

babybythesea, you may not be a doormat but you sure as hell sound like one. And your husband sounds like a sexist pig.

I find it hard to believe that before having a child you had a completely equal division of labour and as soon as you reproduced he suddenly became a 1950s throwback.

Then baby give him jobs he will remember and make him 100% responsible for them (and I think it helps if you outearn the man too). For example he could be the only person who deals with washing. He could empty the dishwasher each evening or morning. He could hang up the washingi f you've put it on earlier and he's more likely to do those type of jobs than notice cleaning needing to be done.

Perhaps never buy food and leave it for him to buy. When there is no food in the house he may realise he has to do it all or put him 100% in charge of cooking the evening meal. That isn't something you can then just forget to do.

i don't think baby's dh is a 'sexist pig', mine certainly isn't, but mine also needs to be asked to help, as he will also sit on the sofa at 9pm while i clear up after supper. it's a difficult one, because there is this push and pull between dh thinking 'i've been at work all day, so it's time for me to relax', and me thinking the same... i find i rarely sit down inbetween school runs and playgroup runs and doing stuff with the baby, but for some reason it does seem to be impossible for DH to really understand that.

it's one of the many shifts in the relationship that happen when you have kids (we were fine with 2, but 3 has been really difficult) and you have to try to work your way through them diplomatically if you have a generally good relationship that you want to hang on to. i resent having to ask for help, but if i don't ask, dh simply doesn't think to offer, he just assumes all is well unless told otherwise (i don't want to generalise, but in my experience this is definitely "a man thing")

It seems to be such an embedded thing reading soem of the posts here. Women seem to think the default is it's their job so it's the man helping them. Never the woman helping the man.

Dh went to boarding school from a very young age and never went home for any long period of time. He comes from a culture that is traditionally women in the kitchen. I swear it is because he missed a huge chunk of exposure to seeing his mother and other women doing the housework, that means it's simply never been an issue who does what or who helps who. He was self sufficient when I met him and we've always worked as a partnership.

It's going to take a much bigger shift in male and female attitudes in homes before we can get rid of this attitude that all men are like this or that.

rainbow, i take your point, in my case i use the word 'help' because at the moment i am a SAHM so i don't expect a 50/50 division of household jobs.

however, i don't think it's all about being used to women doing the housework, because dh's mother died when he was a child, and he grew up needing to be fairly self sufficient as there was just him and his dad in the house. he'd never lived with another woman before me, so from being a child until 36 years old, he'd had to do things for himself. but his idea of supper, before he met me, was a packet of ham, and a jar of pickled onions.... so he wasn't necessarily well prepared for domestic family life. in fact i think he'd have been better prepared for it if he HAD grown up in a house with a mum and seeing her and his dad doing housework.

takingchances that is a very impressive post. I will be looking to see what other posters say. Fair to say it is a mixed picture. so far, some women think they have it taped Otherd think its a nightmare....Germain Greer told Tony Blair he should "pay housewives."

This battle over housework just astonishes me at times. I don't get it.

My own personal view is that being at home with very young pre - school age children is all consuming and a SAHP needs paid help (eg a cleaner) or their partner to pull their weight with housework when they get home. If children are out at school all day then one person should be able to look after a home if they treat it like a proper job and is only fair if the other person is out at work all day earning. Chores and childcare should be shared at weekend of course.

rainbow - good point. I went to boarding school too (all boys) and we were expected to be self reliant, make our own beds, put our dirty clothes in the right bin, tidy our room, clean our shoes, look after and supervise younger children. In other words, all the normal things that one expects in a civilised family home setting - because that is what boarding school is - a home.

mrsravelstein - I have a little unspoken personal rule you might want to put to your DH that saves arguements over housework. When I am sat down in the evening relaxing and I notice that DW is up doing bits of housework (eg loading the dishwasher) I get up and do something too (eg wipe the kitchen tops). Then we get through it quicker and we can then both sit and relax but I don't sit if she isn't. DW reciprocates if I am up doing something. Could you reach an agreement like that?

The other thing is on Saturday morning, DW takes the DSs out to judo, leaves them and then goes for a coffee a read of the paper and maybe a bit of browsing in the shops, posts letters, goes to the bank and picks up anything we might need on her way back home. I stay at home and clean the house and cook lunch because its more efficient to do it that way if everyone is out. Then when DW gets home, we crack open a bottle of wine and eat lunch together in a nice tidy house with 2 calm well excercised boys and relax for the afternoon. Much nicer than bickering and feeling resentful.

Division of labour works to everyones benefit. Could you and DH do something like that on Saturday morning if he is not at work?