Should my DH high salary exclude him from doing jobs at home

[Shout]

I am at stay at home home Mum with 2 DS my husband has quite an important job and his salary reflects it. Everytime he has to work weekends or evenings he says that is what I am being paid for.

My biggest grip is that he is getting lazier around the house, meal plates left at the table coke cans around the house, cuff links ties left out and gets more out,gets changed from work, suit and dirty washing left on bed for me to clear wet towels ,floor. The kids get 10 mins of play fighting then he watches his programs/or is on the computer.If he doesn't want to do anything he just ignores it or says its not a problem eg tyres are not flat, toilet isn't blocked!

When ever I get cross that he doesn't do his fair share he says in a jokey mannner but I get paid so much.
I asked him several times to make an appointment to discuss situation he kept avoiding it, I wrote him a letter explaining how I felt, it took him 3 days to get round to reading it and never responded.

I am back to comfort eating putting on weight and feeling crap about myself, hence all physical contact is virtually non exsistent.

Any advise out there?

children also learn they are important by following role models. especially their parents.

i am a classic example of a fucked up child who didnt have a role model to follow. my mother was so caught up in staying with us that i never learnt how to take care of myself. she always put herself last and i had a hard time teaching myself to do build confidence based on that.

I in no way feel I was "conditioned" from an early age to feel unequal to men. But then, I come from a long line of highly educated women - both my paternal grandparents had Cambridge firsts, my other grandmother had been to art school and was an illustrator, so all the next generation of women had of course done further studies, all my cousins have been to good universities.

The first time I encountered sexism was when I started work. It was a horrible shock.

Personally I think the 'divide' has more to do with perception than reality.

Once, when I was working full time in the City, I was struck dumb by a fellow MD's comment's about SAHM's. I had casually mentioned to her that a male investment banker had just been made redundant and how sorry I felt for him as his wife had recently given up work and they had just had their third child. She literally spat "well that serves her right - these SAHM's who think they're better than us make me sick".

The fact was that she did not know this man's wife, had no inkling of what her profession had been or what her future plans might me. Her reaction was surely related entirely to her own feelings - she worked ridiculously long hours with a 90 minute commute each way.

I agree with you Xenia that the media gives working women a hard time and of course I would far rather be thought of as say inane and dull rather than a bad mother (which is what most of the media coverage tends to imply about working wome)n. Nonetheless, surely the answer does not lie in lecturing women about what they must or mustn't do but accepting everybody's choices as equally valid.

I feel for you. My DH is a retired partner in an intl firm and he's a lazy bugger too! He offers to pay for a cleaner but that's not the point is it?

and she worked when we were older, and before we were born.

today she is ceo of a successful company. i feel like she is a different person at work then she was at home, and i wish she would have been more like her working self when she was with us. (something i used to think about when i was young, not just since i started working).

infact, when i was young my dream was to sah and do it differently. just when i was pg w dd1 and landed my job, had to make a decision, and trying to figure out what decision would make sure i stayed away from how my mother did it, i chose working to keep me happy while having children. couldnt really decide to delay the offer then...

Anna8888, why do you think you encountered sexism at work? I mean do you have opinions on why sexism is still so common in the workplace?

recoveringmum - that's very interesting. All the women in my family (three generations) have given up work when their children were small, all were highly educated independent thinkers who thought that part of their role in life was to bring their children up that way, and I can truly say that my family is very egalitarian. Unlike most of the outside world.

So I don't have to prove my worth to myself or those close to me by working outside the home.

xenia, it's not done for thanks from the child. No child will say that, but most children will gain huge amounts of self worth, self esteem from knowing that their parents prioritise them at that time. They may not remember it all but it forms them, that's why some people do it.

It's not easy to measure, or show results; but that does not make it less important.

no proof needed. work is just fun. in my case

bambi - I think most families aren't as enlightened as my own and that lots of men today were brought up by submissive wives and mothers. So they have internalised a model where women take a back seat in decision making.

I do believe that women can make a massive difference to sexism in general by being assertive at home (whether they work or not). And I despise the idea that cleaners and servants are the answer to domestic cleaning disputes - everyone should clean up after themselves, just as everyone should participate in decision making.

But sunnysideup, by working I am prioritising my little girl because of the reasons Xenia stated in her list below plus countless more...

I am sure most working mothers are the same..

I don't think bringing up children is like a mathematic operation. My parents have always prioritized us, my mum stopped working when I was seven and has always been there for me (too much, have to say). Funnily enough, my self esteem has always been very low.

And it sounds like the right choice for you recoveringmum and I think it is absolutely right for your family therefore.

I actually had the opposite situation with my own mother who had worked for 15 years before having me and my sister. She decided to stay at home and really loved it and I remember her as contented and happy in my childhood - always coming up with activities, involved in our school life and the community. My dad lost his job when I was 8 and mum had to go back to work. She worked (even once dad had found more work) through necessity for the next 25 years, and ALWAYS harped on about how the early years when she was with her two girls were the happiest time in her life. She did like her job, to a point. But I don't remember her working years as particularly happy. We threw her a huge retirement party a couple of years ago and she has never looked back - she has a new lease on life doing what she wants not what the workplace dictates (but she is actually a very self motivated person). I love my mum....

And it sounds like the right choice for you recoveringmum and I think it is absolutely right for your family therefore.

I actually had the opposite situation with my own mother who had worked for 15 years before having me and my sister. She decided to stay at home and really loved it and I remember her as contented and happy in my childhood - always coming up with activities, involved in our school life and the community. My dad lost his job when I was 8 and mum had to go back to work. She worked (even once dad had found more work) through necessity for the next 25 years, and ALWAYS harped on about how the early years when she was with her two girls were the happiest time in her life. She did like her job, to a point. But I don't remember her working years as particularly happy. We threw her a huge retirement party a couple of years ago and she has never looked back - she has a new lease on life doing what she wants not what the workplace dictates (but she is actually a very self motivated person). I love my mum....

It's hard to measure but working parents also interact with and spend quite a bit of time with their children. There was a book I read, not that good but its basic premise was right. It was about the process of parenting, the undefinable things. It was saying don't look at the physical things you do like today I changed a nappy, washed his hair etc but the hour by hour interaction. They look in your eyes, you look back. They cuddle you, you cuddle back. They ask for a drink, you get it. That's a really important part of being a parent and I feel I have that and do that all the time when I'm with them (as do whoever has cared for them).

I have luckily not found much sexism. The only real battle is in the home and all these silly women in effect enabling their husbands' lack of help by condoning or allowing it to happen thus perpetuating the unfairness. They need to take a grip on themselves and see how criticising someone beause he changes a nappy differently or dares to walk into your kitchen isn't good and that the asusmption mother but never father knows best is wrong too. Accepting your fallibility as mother with humility is not something many single mothers who like to think for their validation only mother can know best, manage.

As I always say on these debates (why do I get sucked in?) I am pro-choice and believe that most mothers make choices that suit them and their families best. So it is certainly not my place to judge ANYONE about that.

mmmm, obviously we'd all say we're pro choice... but some choices aren't choices, they're conditioning, little girls in pink forced or expected into early marriage, school doesn't matter, snare man, stay home and breed - is she really choosing it? Similarly people like me - expectation you'd of course go to a good university and follow an interesting career - did I really choose this or was it just my family background? Even anna who I think said all those relatives gave up work when they had babies and she has too - family tradition, no working mothers etc.

Xenia - the point was - we all have had the choice to go in and out of the workforce.

And since, as the media constantly reminds us, what the vast majority of women want is flexibility, part-time work etc - the real luxury that everyone seems to want is that choice.

As a matter of interest, for all of you preaching that WOHM mothers are ruining their children's lives by not spending time with them......why are you spending soo much time on MN? At least I know that my child has human company and interaction at the moment, and is not having to deal with a mother who is spending all her bloody time on the internet.

Just had a mc so a bit laid up at present. Haven't been here for long and won't be.

can I honestly say, that my perception is that working mothers are being slagged off more than sahm? (and I am one?)

Well that is an interesting point Xenia, and I am sure that there are people who are doing what they are doing because of gender stereotyping and conditioning (whatever that may be) but it is wrong to assume that everyone makes their choices blindly, even if the choice is NOT to work.

I married young, because I met my husband AT university where we have always considered each other as equals (intellectual and otherwise) . My parents, incidentally, were very much against my early marriage (post-university but still only 23) because they thought it would limit me. I have had a career since then, gone on to get a Masters degree with my husbands support, supported HIM through a Masters too, moved around all over the UK, travelled with my husband through Africa, Europe, North America, and now I have my son and I stay at home with him, while my husband works hard and helps out at home.We have our difficulties too like any situation where compromise is required. Still, I will go back to work, but I don't think there is anything wrong with my current choice. Unless my son is a moron (which is, in some ways, beyond my control) I expect to have his respect because I am a valid person and equal to his father despite our roles being (currently)different. So for me this whole debate is kind of a non-issue.

Franca - thank you. I think its really fair of you to point that out because I find that constant.