To be infuriated by this (school related!)

[ChippaChoc]

I am just about to send an email out to my DCs class to invite them to an event (the parents) via 'classlist'. This is an event for all parents (and DCs). Classlist is the way that parents and the PTA are supposed to communicate about any events, parties, social stuff outside of the normal school day but is also used most days to remind parents about things happening In the classroom too (e.g. Forest school days, sports day) which kids need kit etc for.

There's 30 parents on the list, not one is a father / male. I can't believe that still in 2017 when most of the parents at my DCs school work, plenty of them full time, it's only Mums that are on the school comms list. It has massively annoyed me. I know it won't change anything, but it just feels we are so far away from an equal load in terms of parental responsibility I can't see it will ever change. The class list sign up went out to all parents earlier this year (there's approximately 54 emails on that list, mums and dads) and low and behold only the Mums have signed up to receive communications regarding event / parties / anything outside of the formal school comms. I wasn't involved in that sign up admin process.

Off to hassle my DH about why he isn't on it now (I thought he was!)

t's the fact that 100% of the OP's list is female that indicates that there has been much less of an equality shift in this kind of area than one might have hoped for by 2017.

WHY?

Most women are happy to deal with that aspects, and most men seem happy to take on the weekends on the sport fields. So what? There are A LOT more female PA than male. There are a lot more male bricklayers than female. If a man wants to become a PA, and a woman a bricklayer, no one is preventing them to do just that.

I am all for giving women the same opportunities than men, but complaining that men and women are behaving differently because they are different is boring. As long as everybody is happy, who cares.

I sent my DH in my stead to a meeting once. He says he'll never go again. I know it is tedious but I believe in the principle that you have to be involved if you want best outcomes for our DC. He believes someone else -mainly mothers like me - will pick up the slack. I find it infuriating on many levels, and it is perpetuated by schools and children's activities being considered women's work (even when we have our own work outside the home).

'YABU. Mums are just generally better at remembering all these events and getting things organised for the dc. Thats just life'

I can't believe that people actually think this. It is so utterly nuts. How can a man possibly run a million pound company if he can't even organise a child's school life? Are men really that stupid that they can't read emails and keep track of a calendar??

I'm not at all surprised, but I want to weep at some of the responses here:

"Wouldn't have a clue" "Don't trust him to tell me" "would interfere with his important work messages." "I'm the one who had to step back from work".

Is this really what you want for your daughters? Because I don't, but as long as you're bringing up your kids to think it's acceptable for women to bear the burden of all the family stuff, the harder mine will have to fight to be treated equally.

YANBU.

Them silly dads eh, hopeless, but we luv them. How do they manage at work, LOL!

^ drives me round the fucking bend. It is 2017.

'As long as everybody is happy, who cares.'

This is the key thing Coddi - many women aren't happy to be the only one who is in charge of all the details of their children's lives and many women are so stressed with having to deal with everything to do with their children that they are forced to give up work even when they don't want to.

Coddiwomple I bet you'd find "most" women actually aren't "happy to deal with" the admin for the family and might trade a weekend morning ferrying to activities if it was all they'd need to do all week!

AAAAARGH.

YANBU, depressing as hell.

We can hate the expectations placed on mothers without in any way criticising individual women.

How can a man possibly run a million pound company if he can't even organise a child's school life?

Lol, if my DH was running a million pound company I would still be the one on the list because I wouldn't be working! Plus men that run million pound companies generally have secretaries who literally organise everything for them.

If I were dead my oh would most certainly be capable of doing all things school related, but I'm not dead and I am much happier being the one in the know and in control of whats happening at their school.

Same for most of my friends. Its not that their OH are not capable, its just that they prefer to be the ones in control of this area of their childrens lives. I dont see how saying I think its just more a mum thing is sexist or setting us back 100 years. It certainly doesn't exactly take alot of time out of my day, reading a couple of emails

I find it very telling that even though I'm not main contact for school, there is no way I would ever just switch off from what's going on. I just couldn't. I know DH will deal with it all, but I still want to know what's happening. I can't imagine having so little interest in my children that I would have no idea what's going on in their school life.

then if these women are not happy about their personal relationship, they should start working on them instead of judging others who are perfectly content.

Stop being a martyr and work on your own life!

What you said, requesting, was that women were better at it. Now you're saying that it's really really easy. So why don't men do it then? Is it that they can't be bothered?

We have a family email address for things like this which DH reads more regularly than I do (admittedly he is now a SAHD).

We have both helped out on school trips (at different times) and no one batted an eyelid at school when DH did it (there has been the odd other dad, but mainly mums it is true).

However, i still think there is a lot of truth in that link. When DC were small we both worked. Once my earnings increased, DH became a SAHD (DC about 8 and 10 at the time). When we both worked we divided things up between us based on our strengths and at the time it seemed fair. It was only really when DH first gave up work that I realised how much of the planning and remembering and family glue fell to me (as well as my share of actual doing). I would say that most of the actual doing tasks that we previously did between us evenings and weekends but which he had time to do during the day once he became a SAHD he took over pretty quickly. However, i would say it took well over the year for him to really take over the planning side of things He will now generally work out the need to book dentists appointments etc as well as actually doing it and taking the DCs, whereas when he first because a SAHD I was still the one to remember the need for the appointment, but he would book and take. Over time he has developed systems and the DC are old enough to prompt him in my place!

I would still say I do a lot more of it than my male colleagues who have wives who are SAHMs, but I am happy to do so as I am used to feeling more involved inther DCs' day to day life.

You don't seem to be understanding what the OP is saying Coddi. It's not a matter of being a martyr, it's about recognising patterns in society that cause things to be unequal between men and women. If women take on more of the burden of dealing with children, that means that they won't have the same opportunity as men to do well in the workplace. Many women don't mind that, but many women do.

Men are never and will never be as into their children as women are.

'Recognising patterns in society' is a sadly, and perhaps conveniently, overlooked topic at school.

'I would still say I do a lot more of it than my male colleagues who have wives who are SAHMs, but I am happy to do so as I am used to feeling more involved inther DCs' day to day life.'

I must find it but there's been research to show that in situations where there is a SAHM, the mum tends to do pretty much everything for the children, but when there's a SAHD, there is a much more even split between mum and dad. So men with wives who stay at home just get on with work, never think about anything to do with the children (or housework) whereas women with husbands who stay at home are still divided between work and home.

When I rule the world...

YANBU - in our case, I take the children to school almost every day so it does makes sense for me to do it. However, I think we (as women) really need to force the issue sometimes! I have taken my name off Ds's football club and scouts contacts so I have no idea what they are doing and when they are doing it. It is entirely up to DS and DH to work this out.

might trade a weekend morning ferrying to activities if it was all they'd need to do all week!

why don't they? why do they have to do everything and not leave their DH in charge? What would happen?

There was a brilliant thread recently, about a woman whose DH took the kids out on a Saturday to give her a lay-in and peace and quiet. Sounds lovely? All she did was bitching about him giving the wrong lunch/snack going to the wrong park and so on. Cue a whole page of posters agreeing on how useless men are. That attitude is so common, and so much more dangerous. If my DH was patronising me that way, I wouldn't lift a finger anymore!

2 dc through primary now at secondary the amount of 'school admin' didn't even register.

An odd email 'there is blah blah on at ..' I would then say to dh 'oh by the way are you off on.. '. That's it. I never even broke into a sweat
Yes there is no reason the man cant do it, but if he's working f/t and the mother is p/t its kind of common sense for the one at home most to be contact isn't it?

Re the pp who's dh volunteered and she got asked, that's just schools, they cock contact things up all the time. My dcs contact no. is Grandad. 9 times out of ten they ring me when I'm at work, its no drama though slightly irritating.

'Men are never and will never be as into their children as women are.'

I find this statement really sad. Why do women even bother having children with men if they don't think the men even care that much about the children? Do you think, user, that men lack the ability to care about children in the way that women do?

I really see where you are coming from OP (although I always absent myself from class lists - don't like the idea of everyone having my email address even)

Re: class reps and PTA, for the last few years, two men have run the PTA and I have observed, perhaps not entirely objectively, that it runs more smoothly for them. They just don't get negativity towards them and/or they are ribust in not getting hassled.

ROBUST

Coddiwomple have you actually read the same thread as me?

Nowhere does the OP criticise anyone's family choices. In fact she readily admits that her own family runs on similar lines

and in addition she says that in her own family she is going to "Stop being a martyr and work on [her] own life!" as you so charmingly put it.

She said: "I am glad to have started this thread today as if nothing else it's reminded me I really need to stay on top of things under my own roof in terms of ensuring he takes on stuff and I don't just become the default parent doing IT ALL."

Will that stop you feeling so touchy about it?