to be shocked by the amount of Stepford wives on Mumsnet

[LoopyLoopsCorgiPoops]

So many women on here either this it's fine to do everything in the house and with the children, or don't think it's fine yet put up with it. I simply could not live with an adult who thought they were more important and more deserving of leisure time than me. Why do they all put up with it?

People have a free choice-it is up to them.

hate the phrase Stepford Wives

and I'm feeling that this is a bait thread to wind up women in an awful way today

(judgey pants?)

so for that reason, I'm out

Yes I agree OP.

It's not that women choose to be SAHMs that depresses or baffles me.

It's women who trot out the old 'my dh works FT so is tired and wants relaxation when he comes home so I don't expect him to do housework/do dc's bath/bed routine'.

I have said on here so many times I am boring myself that I work FT and when I come home I don't expect a G&T and a foot rub. I take over from dh and sort the kids' bedtimes etc.

It is utter BOLLOCKS that anyone working FT is more tired or deserving of a rest than an at home parent.

And don't even get me started on 'but he does make good money and I'm grateful for that'. I make good money for the family and it is our money, not mine, and no-one needs to be grateful!

I was a housewife, briefly, during my short lived first marriage, due to not being able to find a job, and being with a man with money.
It was amazing how quickly I began to put salt in the sugar pot, and pick little holes in his cashmere jumpers...
If I had to stay at home while my kids were at school and fucking knit I would just bypass the valium and go straight for the crack.
My career matters to me, but so does my job. So does being out there in the big bad world, hustling to pay my own bills, baby.

Oh, and whoever husband is on a stag do in Thailand, but "not a sex tourist"...No.
Men only go to Thailand on stag dos to watch rice farmer's daughters shoot ping pong balls out their Yin-Yang. Sorry.

"I'm feeling that this is a bait thread to wind up women in an awful way today" um, no.

Oh, be fair, NowThen, maybe the poster's DH and his men friends are providing holiday cover for a children's vaccination programme. Or meditating at a Buddhist mountain retreat. Or something

i also cut roses out of my garden and arranged them into a vase on the hearth of real fireplace.

Or something..[grin]@garlicfanjo

I used to think that because DH worked he should be able to "relax" when he came in, and I didn't mind when he went out twice a week to play football, and then out with his mates at the weekend... I thought I was being a good wife

Now I know that there was something seriously wrong with our relationship back then - DH didn't do anything around the house or with the kids because he cared more about himself than us :( It took the near destruction of our marriage for us both to see how unbalanced it was, and now he's a lot more involved it makes us all feel a lot closer as a family.

I'm not saying it's the same for everyone, but the behaviour the OP mentioned was in hindsight a big warning sign for me.

I love these

"its my feminist way or the highway threads" :)

HRHCatgirl. I am a sahm and our family live off dhs income. I am not dependant on him nor do any of the family feel I am. I make it possible for him to work, as he has unusual hours of work which would be hard to provide childcare for. The money is equal and irrelevant where it comes from. What a weird notion that sahm/p are dependant for income.

We do them especially for you Boney.

Its good to know that we appreciate the effort the other puts in.

morethan you are finacially dependant on your DH. That isn't a judgement, it is just a fact plain and simple. Nothing wrong with it at all - we all depend on people for things, but it is a straight forward fact that you depend finacially on your DH at the current time in your current circumstances.

I have often read about 'equal leisure time' as opposed to a 50:50 split in domestic duties but what about equal 'parenting time'?

Do SAHMs that do everything have closer bonds with their DC than the DHs who are too busy relaxing after a hard days work to cook up and serve a meal to their DC or bath them and put them to bed?

my dh works FT so is tired and wants relaxation when he comes home so I don't expect him to do housework/do dc's bath/bed routine

I hear this from women, and think it is fine. If you want to let him relax when he gets home, your business. Don't complain.

Equally, if he was a slob when you met him and you now can't get him to do his half of the housework to the standard you have decided you want it, don't complain. You knew this when you chose him.

Women do have the opportunity to get to know their future partner. If they do not take it, or think they can change them, they deserve what they get (in terms of a lazy slob). I am yet to meet a woman who tells me her husband lived in a pristine house and cooked himself lovely meals before they were married but now does fuck all. If he did fuck all before, he will do fuck all in the future. And you chose him.

It did work out like that for us pickledsiblings. DH moved out while we were sorting things out. We told the 3 DCs (oldest was 5 at the time) that Daddy was going to be living somewhere else for a while and they didn't bat an eyelid :( He just hadn't really been involved with their lives much at all up until that point.

Wife swop (programme, not the activity!) reduced me to tears once . There was one Dad who used to lock himself away in his games room, and his DS said he used to pretend his DF was dead as it was easier than thinking he didn't want to spend time with him.

Some of our DH's don't come in and relax though of an evening - they're straight back on the laptop working for several hours whilst I watch tv/read/mn etc.

Its just not always as cut and dried as some people make out.

HRHCatgirl. I know you are not being judgemental but we don't see it like that. Dh earns the money and cb, tc, wtc etc all goes into the family pot. We have joint and separate accounts and bills are paid and items bought from any of the accounts. If he stopped work we would get other benefits how do we depend on his income? Sorry I don't get it.

i dont get why one person would concern themselves enough to be "shocked" at how other people choose to live their lives

odd

As a feminist, I do not have a problem with the idea of choice and that a woman or a man can be a stay-at-home partner in the marriage and shoulder most of the childcare and housework responsibilities. What I do have a problem with is that this stay-at-home person is expected to do ALL of the childcare and housework. Most importantly, how many of SAH-Partners on this thread have financial independence? Do you have pension arrangements that will give you a decent pension in the old age? Do you have financial insurance that will take care of you for life if your other half decides to bugger off or gets run over the bus?

Well if your DH had to fill in a form which said "do you have any financial dependents", the answer would be yes and you would be included.

But it isn't important. He depends on you for childcare etc. You depend on each other for different things as you are a partnership and that's how it works.

I really wasn't making a judgement. I am the main (close to sole) earner in our family and all the money is ours, equally. I don't think of it as mine - its the family money regardless of who earns it. It would be the same if DH was the main or sole earner (and he was at one point).

But for me, for my own reasons, I need to know that I am financially independent. I don't think anyone else should feel like that or that it is a sensible or rational way to think - its just a personal thing.