Or is life a bit shit for women?

[cosytidy]

90% of childcare falls to me
80% oh housework/family admin falls to me
90% of Christmas stuff falls to me
I earn less now than I did when I graduated so I can have a part time job
100% of bill paying falls to me
100% of financial planning falls to me

Am I right to feel like a mug & pissed off? Or do men struggle too?

To put into context my DH works 60hrs a week & earns double my salary. However he's also caused us to be in significant debt.

I know I'm lucky to have lovely healthy children & I adore them but fuck me life feels tough.

If that is the case, then I can see why you wouldn't want to pay a couple of thousand a year for a few years to be able to keep your career going until you no longer have significant childcare costs to think about and you start contributing financially again, in addition to all the other ways you contribute to your family and the society around you.

Mmm well I wouldn't be with someone who didn't see me as an equal, including splitting housework etc 50/50.

I don't really understand why women stay in this situation, maybe don't have kids with someone who treats you like a second mum?

As for the notion that you are unemployable after taking time out to look after your children... that needs looking at, too.

@MilkyCuppa vanity project? I never saw my fulfilling career that demonstrates to my children the value in working hard and chasing dreams, and having my own independence, as a vanity project. Was your job before that unfulfilling to be so insignificant? It's not all about money, especially when your husband earns enough. I imagine you don't actually have much drive to work or ambition for a specific career, which is fine of course we are all different, but that is skewing your understanding of joint responsibility.

milky were you part time? I'm an academic and even early in my career my salary more than covered childcare....but we never viewed it as solely my responsibility despite my DH earning double my salary.

Op- I was like you when I was married with young children.
Now I'm with a new partner and my dc are older our split is
Dp does 95% of the cooking
Dp does 95% of the washing and ironing
90% of the washing/drying up
90% of all housework
I do 95% of the gardening
95% decorating.
I also do most of the driving if we go on a night out.
DP drives if we are going long distance or somewhere I'm not familiar with.
He also buys and wraps his own presents and those for his family.
He also prefers to do the grocery shopping alone as I " mess about and spend too much! "

I also earn less than dp but he says my job is of far more value than his.

I thought I was in an equal relationship until ex buggered off and left me to get on with it.
The sanctimonious posts about choosing a better man are wasted lecturing women, go after men who fake it until they cant be arsed any more.

If my career costs money rather than earning money, then yes it’s a hobby or vanity project, not a job. It took me a long time to accept that.

@BlaaBlaaBlaa I’m sure you’re aware that academic jobs are hard to come by. I did a post doc for a while, then taught on an hourly basis and managed to get paid for a few research hours here and there, to keep afloat financially so I could continue doing my research and applying for jobs. I earned very little but it didn’t matter. Until i needed to cover childcare and couldn’t.

I imagine you don't actually have much drive to work or ambition for a specific career
Actually I was very ambitious and hard working, as evidenced by the fact that I hung in there for years teaching on insecure temp contracts, earning very little and working extremely hard on networking and publishing papers and writing textbooks, in the hope that it would pay off and I’d land a well paid academic job. Time ran out - I could no longer sustain working so hard for so little reward, chasing a payoff that might never come. I couldn’t cover the cost of childcare so I had to stop working and do the childcare myself.

It depends. Dh and I earn practically the same. Dh work shifts do some weeks he dies more housework than me, others i do more than him. He does pretty much all diy/decorating. He also walks the dogs more than I do (particularly in the winter as it’s dark by the time I get home). I deal with the majority of household admin and but presents.

It kinda works out evenish for us.

@MilkyCuppa I think it's really sad reading that, you're obviously an intelligent woman so why you can't comprehend what we're saying is bizarre to me. Do you want to be a SAHM? Money aside, is that where you would choose to be?

No. I’d love to work and earn enough to pay for nursery. To have some independence and self esteem. But I’m trapped because I can’t earn enough to cover childcare. Unfortunately that’s just how it is for many women, not just me.

@MilkyCuppa I was in the same position but I just had a different outlook to you and managed it anyway, how many children do you have? How old are they?

milky I'll ask again.....why does childcare have to be solely your responsibility?
Childcare costs are a short lived expense and not worth sacrificing your career for.

@userschmoozer anyone can walk away from a relationship. Even before divorce was available to the masses the last century people walked out. However in this society if women walk out it is expected they take their children.

MilkyCuppa - nope, you're just trapping yourself. Why did you alone need to cover childcare? You and your partner could easily cover childcare between you, we've already established that. Why you think you contribute more to your family by earning nothing, being depressed, having zero self-esteem and no belief you will ever now get anything other than a minimum wage, boring job, than you would if you used your qualifications to do work that interested you, I don't know. So, you didn't make it as an academic. What else can you do with your qualifications? What was your specialism? Why was there no hope in what you were doing that you could ever earn more than you did when you stopped?

Don't forget aside from the role spilt, we also have periods (crippling for me) have children (I was torn all the way through and 5 years on I'll never recover) plus menopause. So without all the extra shit (my life almost mirrors yours, except my OH is excellent at saving money and put down a 1/3 of our house value as a deposit)

Women definitely get a worse deal