..to think that it would have been much better to teach me how to cook, clean and do laundry

[idiuntno57]

...rather than get a degree and postgraduate qualifications to pursue a career.

Because as soon as you have more than a couple of kids so many compromises need to be made that sustaining the family/career balance properly whilst remaining sane is almost impossible.

This isn't a man versus women debate (though usually things do default around gender lines) but a what's the point of creating aspirations which aren't sustainable in the real world?

Now if all I knew were home making skills then perhaps I'd feel less frustrated sometimes.

NB I realise that if I'd learnt more about contraception I might not be having this 'what's it all about' wobble

Lucy you sound amazing. BUT i think you can probably have it all with one DC.

3+ and it is well nigh impossible

What do you consider to be 'having it all'?

contented kids, contented self, contented partner, career, clean laundry and bottle of branded gin

I think there's one difference with single parents, and I don't mean this to come across wrong in any way, because I am in awe of those who manage to do everything alone. the responsibility must be massive and exhausting. BUT, when dh is away and I know I have to do it all myself, and crucially have no-one here to talk to or who I want to discuss family finances and the world book day costume with spend quality time with, then I do much more housework. When he's around I do prioritise him over cleaning the kitchen floor.

Friends who are separated seem to do lots of batch cooking and catch-up cleaning when their dcs are with their ex.

You know, it was actually seriously proposed in the US, in the later 40s (I think) that women's education should be further restricted, to stop them being 'discontented' with their slave status once they became adults.

OK, there are some individuals who like some aspects, at least, of domestic shitwork - cooking is perhaps the best example of a necessary task that is, to some people, an enjoyable exercise in creativity. If you're one of them, fine. If you're not fussed, then there's a pretty good, pretty substantial area of 'stuff to feed the kids' that's neither hours of tedious faffing nor a diet of kebabs and pot noodles. Fish fingers, oven chips and peas make up a fairly healthy meal, as does pasta with a jar of tomato and vegetable sauce.

A few people find some satisfaction in cleaning, or at least get a sufficient amount of pleasure from a clean tidy house to make the effort worthwhile. If you're not fussed, then don't bother - a bit of dust never killed anyone. All this 'domestic goddess' stuff is just 'feminine mystique' ie the idea that women are natural slaves - under another name.

I am definitely not amazing, but it was lovely of you to say so. I'm just a normal person, who is very lucky to just be highly organised. I must have inherited it from my Mum, who brought up 4 kids on her own and also worked full time. Holy shit - she was amazing. Spotless house too - I was in awe of how she managed it.

To be fair though, once we all left home and had our own independent lives, my Mum had a breakdown and has been ill now for about 7 years. She is a shadow of her former self.

It has made me realise that you never know how things will turn out in your life, so I just make the most of everything I do.

This thread is really resonating with me, I appreciate the intelligent discussion. I'm put in mind of The Women's Room by Marilyn French where the highly educated heroine puts all her brain power into efficient systems for keeping the house when she marries because it's at the point when married women still can be refused jobs for that very status (I still think of her index card job rotation system).

I am at the weary stage of my second maternity leave. I spend all my time on domesticity with a 4mo and a toddler and am tired of it and wish I could dip into work here and there. I'm mindful that it's hard to drop the housework I'll pick up when I go back to work and am fed up that whilst DH contributes, it's nothing like 50/50 and I feel like a nag. I need to get across to him that, say, feeding the cat is not a 3 stage task of putting the old bowl on the side with food in it, later still scraping the old food into the bin and putting the bowl on the side, then finally putting the bowl in the dishwasher. I need him to notice the basket or airer full of dry washing and put it away. I read thread after thread of women asking these things and am no wiser (I really don't think it's an LTB issue in the absence of other stuff) and wonder if it would actually be better, as op suggested, if I did actually just simply accept (and the economy was such that he was paid to support) that this was all my "job".

On a practical level, I find that if I write myself a list, and then keep it somewhere prominent, dh will take the initiative and do some of those things. He and I notice different things. Sometimes he's not aware of what is niggling me. A simple option is to just say "please would you put the laundry away whilst the kids are getting ready for bed". However, sometimes you just want them to notice and do it without being asked don't you?

i WAS taught 'home making' at my all girls school. Complete waste of time. I could have been learning something useful instead.

I mean who actually starches shirt collars and cuffs? Hand washes their woolens?

If we think about this as a work issue. Like many of you, I expect, I manage teams delivering quite complex projects. Elements of their work is mundane, other elements need judgement. My role is to risk manage and to decide which bits I need to do myself. Sometimes I do indeed do the most unrewarding and difficult stuff, if only as I know that more junior staff will hate it, do it badly, and I will just have to do it again. More often, I do the stuff that matters most in terms of judgement, and I supervise the rest. Certainly, if I tried to do all the work that all my team do, I would explode. But there were stages in my career when I did do the mundane stuff that I now supervise, which is just as well, if I want to review their work.

How does this translate here? After all, running a home would not be a complex work project if someone added it to the day job. It's all predictable stuff. We could choose to delegate all or some of it, or we can do the bits that matter most in terms of parenting.

For me it was about waiting until the workload could be delegated sensibly, which in our case was when the DC hit 6, 4 and 2. Then I went PT, and when they were 11,9 and 7 I went FT, but changed to a local job so there was no commute. At the SAHM stage I was maybe old fashioned but I did take the view that my job was to do the lot. At PT stage we paid for a cleaner.

Now i have been FT for 10 years. cleaning is all delegated. Some laundry is delegated. DH now does his share of what's left, as we both work FT and both earn the same. We have territories. I cover some things completely and he covers other things completely. So within his own territory, he notices things and take initiative, and I don't interfere in his way of doing it. I don't expect him to have the same sense of what's needed in an area that I normally cover.

I guess when you decide to make the move from staff to management, as it were, depends on your DC and on your own view on how much parenting you want to do personally at what age. I do think it is both easier and actually fair that if you are SAHM then your job encompasses the whole deal, but you absolutely have the right to bodge it. A perfect clean house is not the aim, at least, it wasn't for me.

'The problem is that many men now are happy to do the washing, cook the tea, etc, but...'

yeah, but who cares if they're 'happy' to do it or not?

Some housework needs doing, whether that makes someone ecstatic or miserable. We're a household of snarlers rather than jolly house-elves, but even grumpy washing up is better than none.

I think Kitty that if something is miserable long term then the family can decide to work a bit of overtime somewhere and pay a cleaner. That's what we do. Neither of us fancies washing the kitchen floor, so we spend money making sure we don't have to.

I always find delegating food to men works well. They may not care if the kids don't have clean school uniform, but they do care if there is nothing to eat....

Yep, DH does the food shopping here -- I tend to forget!

Cleaner... hmm. What we really need is a tidy-upper and rememberer-of-where-things-are. My uterus didn't come with the usual locating chip for lost possessions, it seems.

What a depressing OP

depressing because it is true and shouldn't be?
because I feel this way?
or because it isn't a feel good doggy poo, parking or in law thread?

Friends who are separated seem to do lots of batch cooking and catch-up cleaning when their dcs are with their ex. Many of us have ex's who don't take our children for weekend access etc. I have to batch cook and clean with a four year old trying to be 'helpful'

I always cook more than it's needed at every meal.
It can then be stored to be used later.

At some point, I may end up with a collection of left overs that can be built into a meal, where each person chooses what they want to eat.

In particular, soup, rice and pasta. Then, I just need to cook the meat/fish components. Vegetables tend to be raw in a salad, apart from the soup.

I think people who argue that "lots of people are doing both" are being a bit dishonest here.

Lots of women are doing both, which is already very telling, and it's even more telling if you look at the careers and incomes of the vast majority of those women.

I don't know any men in high-flying, well-paid careers who also do all the childcare and housework themselves.

Something tells me that very few separated men are spending the time when the DC are with their mothers batch cooking for their return.

Look, domestic shitwork is shitwork but it also has to be done. All societies are structured so that the people at the top have someone else to do it. Unfortunately, in 'developed' societies which don't use 'slave labour' the class of people who are supposed to do the shitwork is called 'women' rather than 'slaves.'

OP, would you feel comfortable calling for people of a certain ethnic group or economic status being taught at school to clean, cook and serve, because that's what they will end up doing? Or do you think that, while everyone should be taught 'life skills' such as budgeting, form-filling, basic cookery and basic health care (first aid plus dealing with common minor illnesses) they should also be taught that essential work needs to be shared out?

I have 3 kids iduntno57

All people male and female need to be taught from very young how to earn money therefore either be educated to do so or taught work ethics AND learn life skills of keeping your environment clean and caring for your young. It's not unreasonable for a grown adult to be able to do all these things at once. That doesn't mean it's easy though.