To think that lots of men think this way

[Flynnshine]

Recently a good friend of my partners has split from his wife of 15 years, they have two young children between 10 and 13.
The husband has decided he isn't happy and wants to end the relationship.

Last week he came over to our house in the evening and I left him and my husband chatting in the living room. I wasn't eavesdropping but I was only in the next room so could hear their conversation. Basically the husband has been planning this split for a while, 6 months before he announced he wanted to end things he sold their beautiful big house and they moved into their much smaller starter home which they had out on rent - they moved the kids out of their private school education and into a state school local to their new home.

They've always had a very comfortable life, beautiful house, nice cars and very fancy holidays a few times a year. They both had good jobs when they first met but when the children came along the wife stopped work and dedicated her life to them. They've done amazingly well at school, both top of their classes, sporty and do two sports for their local borough. They are polite and thoughtful and genuinely lovely children.

The conversation I overheard was the husband complaining that even though the wife hasn't paid towards the mortgage for over 10 years she will still be entitled to half of what the house is worth - he seemed bitter and angry and said he'd been hiding money for ages so she wouldn't get anything when they divorce. He's even planning on quitting his job and becoming self employed so he can fudge his earnings so his maintenance payments could be less. My husband was agreeing with him, I don't know if just to placate him or if that's really how he feels!

This man honestly thinks that because he has been working and paying a mortgage that his worth is so much more. He thinks he has enabled her to not work for over 10 years and that she has been having a jolly all that time. It's like he gives zero shits that he has two wonderful children that he has never had to lift a finger for and she has given her all to those children while he reaps the rewards of that.

Do all men deep down think like this, even if they won't openly admit it? Is money really the be all and end all of everything!?

million I don't know a single family who uses a nanny. Both me and DH work full time and I can categorically say we are raising our child. It's insulting to suggest otherwise.

We use a combination of high quality childcare ( a fabulous village nursery where staff turnover is v.low and the majority of staff are extremely experienced) and flexible working.

We subscribe to the ' it takes a village' ideology.

This idea that children have one primary carer is a relatively new concept. In the past children were brought up by large extended families.

It’s really this simple: there are families with one, both or neither parent working who raise happy, well adjusted, successful children. And some families with one, both or neither parent working, don’t.

Anyone who needs to tell themselves that WOHP aren’t really bringing up fheir own children is simply revealing their own insecurity rather than giving an accurate description of anyone else’s parenting.

Put simply, if you have to justify your choice by denigrating someone else’s, it is no reflection on them, just on you.

I’ve always worked. I don’t pretend that has made me a ‘better’ parent than someone who doesn’t. I’m not better or lesser. No doubt my kids would be the happy, successful adults they are if I’d been at home. (I, on the other hand, wouldn’t have had the career I’ve achieved.)

Or keep searching for the unicorn husband who will be a true partner with domestic stuff/kids and not an asshat either. Mind, you’d better find him by 40 or you risk not having a family at all
How incredibly patronising and insulting to all those wonderful husbands and fathers out there.

I’m sorry you didn’t find one and settled million but don’t assume all men are like the men you know. Because they aren’t.

I’ll admit I only read to page 12 of this thread and then it was too embarrassing how it had been turned into stay at home parents vs working parents. Mumsnet is the most judgemental place on earth. Gross

As a stay at home working father for the last decade, I would say that this is actually the 'working partner's general attitude, it isn't gender specific

Hardly surprising though bluehues, when you read some of the shite that Flynnshine starting spouting. I’m still wondering whether it’s a fake OP. By about her 3rd post she couldn’t help herself from revealing that she thinks WOHP don’t bring up their own children!

I'd agree with aadman- it all comes down to the low worth society puts on sahp. I've done both

Master: I think society should value good parenting. Parenting which promotes sound values, respect for others etc. And that is done (or not) by WOHP and SAHP.

Why should society hold up SAHP as paragons of virtue simply because they SAH? Some of them might be shit parents!

Of course, where a couple choose for one of them to SAH I would expect both partners to value what the other does... that’s a totally different issue because it’s about the dynamics in that particular family.

Oh please don’t tell me it doesn’t matter if you don’t spend any time with your child. To the child it makes no difference. Because the village.

By your logic the disappearing father in the OP has had as much input into the upbringing of his children as his SAHW. Oh yeah, only on MN!

This is what the people have been saying the last however many pages. He can’t take the credit for his home life and his well brought up children as somebody else put in the work to make it all so wonderful. His wife. Doesn’t happen on its own accord or anyway. You get out what you put in, same as in the world of work!

million who says we don't spend time with our child?

I wasn't referring specifically to the man in the op. I was referring to your misguided view that all men are like the one in the op.

You must mix with a very odd group of WOHP Million, who never spend any time with their children. Glad I don’t have friends and colleagues like that

OP, the situation you described happened to my mother and it taught me to never rely on someone else for financial support. She gave up her career to raise children and when my DF left her/ us, we were in crisis. He didn’t care.

I was the main wage earner through my marriage, and I would never have considered giving that up! I’ll be passing on that message to my DD.

The only person you can rely on is you!

It's bracing to think that only a few decades back, this was pretty much standard thinking on families AND the law was much less in favour of SAHMs then. I think the 50:50 split thing came in in the 80s.

Let's be honest though, most men would be quite happy not to have children. It's usually women who press for having them, then have to suck up the hard work for fear that the men will leave.

As for SAHMs having an easier deal of it, I bet there would not be many wealthy men with SAHM partners who would trade places.

As for SAHMs having an easier deal of it, I bet there would not be many wealthy men with SAHM partners who would trade places.

Exactly.

Well assuming the couple have agreed the roles of WOH and SAH, why would they want to trade places?! It’s just as true to say the SAHM wouldn’t want to swap and go out to work full time and earn enough to finance everything singlehandedly.

The problem is very clearly with couples who arent in agreement with each other.

OP said "lots of men" not "ALL men" and there is a big difference.

Certainly MN makes you feel inadequate: all these women having star partners, working in good careers, who come home after a day of demanding work full of beans and play with their children for hours, then cook a wholesome meal from scratch and do their fair quota of housework. Ready to repeat the above the next day, all at the highest standard.

You can tell this a green 20 y.o. but at nearly 40, I have got some life experience under my belt and I know we are all human, got finite amounts of mental energy and physical health. We need our sleep, a rest and switch off time. Even mothers.

Something gives. Always. You can decide what that is. But please don’t make out you can have it all. The only person having it all here is the H in the OP, because somebody else is doing half of it for him!!!

I am absolutely thankful to my grandmother for stopping work to raise me one-on-one. But then my grandfather isn't the type of dickhead who would think she deserves less for enabling his naval career & looking after his kids and home most of the time.

As for SAHMs having an easier deal of it, I bet there would not be many wealthy men with SAHM partners who would trade places

There are lots of women who wouldn’t trade places either..wealthy or not.

Being a SAHP isn’t for everyone and, believe it or not, lots of people actually enjoy going out to work. I love my job and I made it clear from the outset that I would not be sacrificing my career while my DH’s continued to soar. If we had children they were a joint responsibility....and that is how we’ve approached parenting. It’s what works for us as a family and we’re lucky enough to have been able to make it work.

No one has used the phrase ‘having it all’ except you, Million.

Of course no one can have it all. And none of us have perfect lives.

But some of us do choose to keep working, and yes, we do have partners who do their share, cooking, laundry, housework, and yes our children are just as wonderful and happy as anyone else’s. (Most of the time! Like all kids, mine had their moments! )

You clearly aren’t happy with your own set up because you admitted yourself that the main reason you gave up your career was because your dh didn’t come up to your standards when he was a SAHP. Not surprisingly, that perhaps makes you a tad resentful. It very different from a mutual decision where there isn’t a backdrop of one Partner not pulling their weight.

I’ll say it again: that doesn’t mean everyone else has the same experience as you. And resorting to ‘oh well you must all have perfect lives’ is just childish.

No, none of us are perfect. We’ve just made different decisions that we and our partners are comfortable with.

I did work FT while being a parent and I know that you haven’t the same mental or physical energy for your kids after doing a full day’s work. There is little time in the evening and the parent is knackered. The weekends are spent playing catch up for everything. Please don’t tell me it makes no difference bringing up kids whether you spread yourself thin with work or have the time and space to dedicate to them being SAHM. I have lived both realities and it is not the same at all. Indeed, women at work who were honest enough would admit they hardly saw their DC in the working week: collect from nursery, bath and bed was the typical workday routine. No it is not the same at all. My second and third were with me in the day after I left work. I had time and energy to talk to them, play with them, take them for a walk in the daylight. Now they are at school, I can collect them at 3.15pm and they have got the rest of the day to play at home/go to activities/ do extra learning. How is that the same? Working mothers are running like headless chickens most of the time chasing their own tail and never catching it. I lived it. Don’t try and tell me it is anything other than that. Big kudos to them being a superwoman, but I am pass.

Agree.

2. Full time child care - 3. Housekeeping - 4. Cook 5. Ex personal secretary/ assistant 6. Gardner - idiot housekeeping

Agree with this also. He would either have to look after all his kids and work and do all of this all on his own, or he would need to pay people to do these things for him. But when it's your Mrs, it's apparently for free and means nothing and has in no way benefitted the man and his career, since he now believes she deserves fuck all money from the divorce.

million are you this patronising in real life? I’m 39, my DH is 47 and we have a very energetic 4 year old. We’re hardly naive 20 year olds. We both have successful careers and are dedicated to our family. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Do you know why this works ....because we are a team and we treat each other as equals.

Agree Blaa. Dh and I are now in our 50s with 3 adult children. Yes, both retaining our careers while raising 3 children was not always a breeze. Particularly difficult times were the phase when the nursery bill pretty much equated to my take home pay, and a phase when our middle child wasn’t a great sleeper.

But I don’t recognise the picture Million paints at all. We didn’t drop our kids off in childcare at a few months old and pick them up as fully fledged teenagers
And just for the record we’ve pretty much always cooked from scratch - mostly meals which take 20 or 30 mins to rustle up. And our slow cooker was our friend when the kids were small. Prep the meal the night before, job done. Honestly, I can’t imagine the sort of people Million mixes with, where doing the totally normal thing of being a parent, having a job and managing to cook your own meals etc is so bloody awful!

You must mix with a very odd group of WOHP Million, who never spend any time with their children. Glad I don’t have friends and colleagues like that

Don’t think so, my circle is mainly middle/lower middle class, so both partners are often degree educated with reasonable career prospects. Families who I know close enough and where both partners work, it is not all rosy as MN would have you believe. Those that haven’t got a village in the form of extended family and amenable grandparents to take care of their children a lot of the time, are always teetering on the verge of burnout. Mothers particularly.

When it's your Mrs it's apparently for free and means nothing

because in his mind she is not a person she is an item of property
she belongs to him, therefore all the work that she does belongs to him
she does not need to be compensated for it anymore than the toaster needs to be compensated for toasting his toast