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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that men can't have it all.

15 replies

NowThenWreck · 07/09/2012 18:00

It lovely that they want to be fathers, but when you have children, you always have to sacrifice in some way, whether that means not always getting so far in your career, of not seeing your kids enough.
Working dads face a constant juggling act of trying to put in the hours at work, then feeling guilty because they are not raising their own children, not to mention all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry that faces them at the end of a day at the office.

Maybe men just have to accept that they can't always have it all. Perhaps they have too much choice these days, and they have to face facts: being a dad means having to always put your children first.
A lot of men have chosen to cut their hours, or come back from paternity leave to jobs that pay less, or have fewer demands on them. Sure, this means that women often surpass them career-wise, but someone has to look after the children.
And, after all, companies can't be expected to pay and pay, just because men choose to have children.

Sound reasonable?

OP posts:
Socknickingpixie · 07/09/2012 18:09

have you lost the plot or have i?

Tingalingle · 07/09/2012 18:12

No, I think OP has swapped 'men' for 'women' in someone ekse's diatribe to get a point over.

Kayano · 07/09/2012 18:13

My dad can't understand why my DH can't work 6 and 7 days a week like he did so I can stay at home

It's mentioned frequently

He can't accept that DH and I both would hate that! I chose to start a family with DH... And funnily enough that vision include him in a huge capacity.

I didn't choose to use him as a sperm donor so I could raise children alone while he works.

He does five days monday to Friday and I do 3 days. If he gets looked over fr promotion because he won't work ridiculous additional hours, neither of us minds

ThreeWheelsGood · 07/09/2012 18:14

Hear hear! I'm tired of hearing/reading the 'can women have it all?' trope which you're parodying. Why does no one ask the same for men ffs.

NowThenWreck · 07/09/2012 18:16

Grin @ socknicking

Sort of. Everything I just wrote I have heard lately on TV debates, but with women instead of men.
I am just getting mighty sick of the inference that it is only women who have children, and I wondered whether anyone would think that the above would seem reasonable, if it was about men, not women.

OP posts:
LydiasMiletus · 07/09/2012 18:16

No one can have it all. Its impossible, you can't work and spend as much time with kids as a sahp does. Its impossible.

LydiasMiletus · 07/09/2012 18:17

But also I don't get the op.

LydiasMiletus · 07/09/2012 18:18

Sorry x post.

Socknickingpixie · 07/09/2012 18:22

ohhh thats ok then i shall stop trying to call my mum to rescue me as i obviously havent gone bonkers.

fwiw i totally resent the whole mums cant but dads can thing especially when you fast forward several years if the relationship has broken down the parent who did have it all resents the other parent being the pwc

kim147 · 07/09/2012 18:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NowThenWreck · 07/09/2012 18:42

Very true kim147, but I think what gets me is that these conundrums are always presented in the media as a "women's" problem.
Children-the having and raising of them are seen as something that women do.
I remember being 18 and reading one of those "can women have it all?" articles, and thinking to myself "but what about men?" why is it just automatically accepted that men can have a job and children. No-one ever, ever questions it.
Pisses me right off.
And this is in no way intended to say that all women should work, or men should work less. None of that. That is between you and your family, or it should be. It's just that there is no conversation, even, that recognises that men have kids too.

OP posts:
LST · 07/09/2012 18:48

I work ft and my DP works nights at the weekend. So he is basically a sahd (though he does next to no housework Hmm)

PanickingIdiot · 07/09/2012 18:49

Agreed, OP.

Actually, I hate the whole phrase as it is. Have "all" of what? Like having an eight-hour job in the office and another one raising the kids and cleaning the house is the jackpot everyone's yearning to win. It's quite the opposite, isn't it. No-one wants to do it all, it's all about what you can outsource and where the buck stops.

chocoluvva · 07/09/2012 18:59

Point well made OP!
I surely don't know many men who feel guilty about not doing much housework.

Megan74 · 07/09/2012 19:04

YANBU and I love your OP. I often hear media stories about childcare/working/ etc and it always, always describe it as a women's problem.

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