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!?

I exclusively breastfed for 5.5 months so I don't think I failed to establish a pattern? I also found breastfeeding easy in that it never hurt and DS gained weight perfectly - but I coped horribly with the lack of sleep. I don't sleep well during the day, at all, and I found never getting into a deep sleep at night absolutely debilitating. I also did it all for the nights throughout that time, but I didn't find it easy, I don't think I found it any easier than DH would have, and I resent being told that I should have done it effortlessly due to my special mummy powers.

Sadly I think that a significant proportion of men DO think like this.

I’ve heard a number of male acquaintances (fathers, in a relationship with their DCs’ mother) mention other men being “screwed over” during divorce. That clearly isn’t going as far as OP’s acquaintance and her DH but suggests they don’t value womens’ unpaid domestic work and parenting to facilitate their partner’s career.

It’s among the reasons I did not and don’t intend to SAH or take any further steps back at work.

That said, was discussing the Bezos’ divorce and what proportion of the Amazon billions the ex-W might get, and the men in the group didn’t make negative comments on that.

@BlaaBlaaBlaa
In an attempt to get some statistics to add to my response I stumbled across the following article which pretty much sums up all I wanted to say about the existence of biological differences between the sexes. www.psychologytoday.com/gb/articles/201711/the-truth-about-sex-differences

I particularly like the following paragraph:
Viewing sex differences as dimensional sex/gender dials makes it clear that there is not one simple sex adaptation that gives rise to male and female psychologies. Rather, there are likely dozens, if not hundreds, of evolved functional mechanisms generating physical sex differences in height, strength, voice, and hirsuteness and psychological differences in personality, play preferences, mate selection, erotic desires, personal values, and cognitive abilities. Each adaptation turns the respective sex/gender dials of men and women in oblique, context-sensitive ways; each contributes a small part in generating the panoply of sex differences seen in our species all around the world

If you scroll to the end of the article the author has listed the divergent traits. Do you not agree that those traits that are more prevalent in females would lead to women as a class having a greater proposenity towards not only wanting to be the primary care giver to their children but also being good at the role (as well as lots of other roles that would use those skills)?

Promoting the idea that biology is the main driver for women becoming primary carers and often suffering huge inequality is dangerous and goes a long way to explaining the poor uptake of shared parental leave, and the lack of men in caring roles
This would be true if biology wasn't a genuine driver for women becoming primary carers, but as I'm convinced of the opposite then I find your denial of what I view to be biological fact as incredibly dangerous and damaging. If women have a genuine proposenity towards this role then we should be doing all we can to support these women in fulfilling their desire to be primary carers and ensuring that the role is respected and valued in society. Why must we look to break biology in the pursuit to prove we are equal to men?

@Hubanmao
Equally, I don’t want to hear that I’m denying my biological instincts or any other such claptrap just because I combined parenting with working. It’s actually a tad ironic because quite a few of my friends saw me as a bit of an ‘earth mother’ type because I breasfed for years. I just wanted to continue working after having my babies and my dh wanted to be as hands on as he could. All seems very normal and no big deal to me
It's perfectly possible to say that women at a population level have a biological inclination towards adopting the primary carer role and for you as an individual woman to not have this inclination. This does not make you any less of a woman or mother, but as with any kind of class analysis there will always be lots of exceptions and trends don't necessarily even reflect the majority but a sizeable minority.

It's like talking about the urge to procreate in the first place. Some people will experience a genuine biological urge to have children, some people may have been socialised to want children and some won't have any desire to have children at all. At a population level you can say that lots of people experience a biological urge to have children but that doesn't mean everyone will or should.

Equality doesn’t mean ‘being the same as.’

I’m also a bit unsure as to what you mean in your final point bumpity.

Presumably if a woman has a very strong propensity to be full time carer for her child it makes sense for her to have children with someone who shares this view, otherwise there will be conflict. If you don’t feel a strong propensity until after giving birth, then that’s the time to have honest open discussion about how to divide responsibilies. And yes, in the interests of the child that might mean compromise. Because I can’t see how it benefits any child to have a parent making unilateral decisions that the other parent is unhappy with. Which brings us back to gatekeeping parenting where one parent is controlling decisions and sidelining the other parent.

And it’s important to keep having those discussions because people, circumstances, life evolves, and what works at one stage of life doesn’t work for another. And then life throws curve balls too... Sickness, redundancy etc so we’re all operating within those parameters.

I’m still confused about how this value towards parents who SAH should be demonstrated though, other than by the WOH partner who presumably supports and values the decision? Surely it’s good parenting which should be valued, and upheld as the gold standard of raising children? Promoting positive values, teaching children respect, supporting and nurturing them? Doesn’t matter whether that’s done by SAH Or WOH parents.

Equality doesn't mean the same. Nobody has said that men and women are identical biologically or otherwise.

Equal parenting doesn't mean both mum and dad carrying out identical roles.

Dads can be primary carers. They may do it slightly differently but that doesn't necessarily mean worse.

we cross posted there bumpity!
Don’t disagree at all about your points about population levels; my earlier post was specifically saying that to talk about mothers who work as ‘denying’ biology is claptrap, and actually pretty offensive (not accusing you at all, as you didn’t say it, but some posters have!)

God, I remember that total overwhelming rush of totally animalistic love for my babies the moment they were born. I was also very pro breast feeding and fed mine long term. (Not that there’s anything wrong with formula feeding if that’s the right choice for other mums.) But none of that conflicted with the fact that I was also very happy to return to work after ML, that I was totally happy to outsource some of the day to day care some of the time to good quality childcare. And I was also totally happy to leave dh in sole charge pretty much from the first week.

Maybe that sounds strange to people who did things differently, but it really wasn’t among my mum friends. Some of them gave up work which didn’t seem strange either... I think in RL we all get on with it, and as I said upthread, we didn’t have the pressures of social media or Mumsnet to agonise over every decision back then!

Having raised 3 happy healthy children to adulthood, and maintaining a close bond (which they have with dh too) then frankly that’s the most important thing anyway. I guess in that way, you could say my career has been a bonus. Not the most important thing- that’s family all the way- but very much another important dimension to life

You have such a low opinion of men.

Well, I don’t seem to be the only one by a long shot. This is why we need law enforcement preventing men walking away and leaving their wives and children with very little. If things were so rosy, solicitors won’t be tipping us off on this thread that the majority of men in their experience think and act like the H in the OP.

This is why a lot of women struggle and burn themselves out working outside home while looking after a family, out of fear a lot of them. As can be seen from this thread, their fear is justified.

I do still love my H though, despite some of the drawbacks and annoying behaviours (I am sure I annoy him just as much at times, too). Obviously he does have strong redeeming features for us to stay married for 14 years. I am just calling a spade a spade, that’s all.

Some women find that breastfeeding gives them magical powers where they don't need sleep but check out the sleep board on this site - I'm not the only one who apparently was absent the day they gave out that woman-power. Saying that it's inherently easier for women is playing into the hands of the worst kinds of misogyny and is far more dismissive of what women do than any of the people arguing for greater equality in parenting on this thread.

But LisaSimpsin, don’t you agree that we don’t have to go down the route of reducing women to a role of little wife at home biologically programmed for it. Why not go the other way and afford women the special status they deserve doing what men can’t do? Why not do that? Men can’t carry a baby, men can’t breastfeed, men don’t have the mix of hormones in their body to aid childrearing on a physiological level. Some absolutely can do a great job, but they can’t do it in the way women can. I am not denying that a father is important in a child’s life, but it is mothers who carry the mental load and the responsibility for the children ultimately.

@BlaaBlaaBlaa
You haven't denied there are differences in biology, but you absolutely have denied that biology will influence women's proposenity towards wanting to be the main carer for their DC or being more suited to the role. All this is at a population level so of course some fathers will have a greater desire to be a primary carer and will be better suited to the role than their female partner. Your insistence that men as a class are equally willing and able to be primary carers just seems unshakeable despite evidence suggesting that not only do they not want to be but also their sex driven traits would be pretty unhelpful in the role.

I think this is important as it ties into the concept of "free choice" that you were writing about earlier in the thread. If we view women's decisions to be the primary carer as a completely free choice then this suggests that any adverse consequences that arise as a result of their choices are theirs to own and that society has no real obligation to step in and assist. If we view these choices as something that has been fundamentally driven by our sex based physical and psychological biological traits then it is more perverse and discriminatory to penalise these choices so heavily.

A good example of the fallacy of "choice" is where you suggested upthread that FFing was a good way of breaking the natural reliance that a baby will have towards its mother through Bfing. Framing bfing as a free choice in this way implies that a new mother has alternative, equally good courses of actions she can pursue. Firstly, men obviously can't breastfeed so the choice is between the mother breastfeeding or using formula. Secondly current guidance suggests "breast is best" as it offers an array of health benefits for mother and child and there is obviously a big drive for mothers to at least try BFing. So basically the woman is left with the choice of BFing and consequently becoming primary carer at least initially or choosing an alternative that is widely considered inferior.

Just to be clear the example above isn't about FF Vs BF as I don't have any axe to grind there, just wanted to spell out why something that would seem to be a "choice" actually isn't made freely at all as so much is dictated by biology.

Bumpity, you put things across so much more eloquently than me. Women rarely have true choice, this is the crux of the matter. Majority of the choices I could have made to benefit myself would at the same time have disadvantaged my child. Is this the true choice?

Bumpity- I suppose a lot of this comes down to things not being set in stone, black and white, either/or.

Eg if a mother chooses to bf (and cant or won’t express but only feeds directly from the breast) then yes, she will inevitably be the primary carer in the early weeks. But there are many different permutations which allow both parents to follow their instincts and to feel comfortable without feeling they’ve got to sacrifice important aspects of their life or take on completely polarised roles

Eg as I said, I was an avid long term breast feeder but combined that with returning to work (when dd was 3 months old first time round.) Hard work but doable. Given that ML is much longer now, and babies will be weaning by 6/8 months it’s reasonable to assume that transferring some leave to the father, or using childcare , is even easier than in the past. Again, I’m not saying every couple should do this- what I’m saying is that it’s not denying biological instincts or natural processes to co parent, or use childcare from someone else.

Your insistence that men as a class are equally willing and able to be primary carers just seems unshakeable despite evidence suggesting that not only do they not want to be but also their sex driven traits would be pretty unhelpful in the role.

I never said willing I said capable. Two very different things. Men as a group ( they aren't a class) generally don't choose to be primary carers but the reasons for that are much more to do with socialisation rather than biology.
These sex driven traits you describe again, are mainly a result of socialisation. These are influenced by media, education, family, peers and even the language we use. How many of us refer to doctors as 'he' but nurses as 'she'? Both require high levels of compassion and caring skills yet we're saying men generally don't have these skills?
How about how we use language to describe men and women? Men can be assertive but women are bossy? Socialisation, social constructs and stereotypes have a lit to answer for.

If you study very young children you will find very little differences in the toys they play with....until socialisation kicks in.

So basically the woman is left with the choice of BFing and consequently becoming primary carer at least initially or choosing an alternative that is widely considered inferior

But there is still a choice. I explained they weren't all equal choices but they are choices non the less.
I didn't breastfeed - I could have but it was medically difficult. I had all of the options presented to me and I made the choice that worked best for us. I was told by two different doctors not to get hung up on breast is best because although that is true there are other factors that impact on a child's development in a much more profound and noticeable way.

I had friends who ebf for 2 years and one who refused to even try as it wasn't something she wanted to do. All choices, all influenced by a range of things.

By choosing to breastfeed you are opting to be the primary carer for a short amount of time but it doesn't mean you can't still have an equal co-parenting relationship with your partner. It's not either/or.....

‘ Majority of the choices I could have made to benefit myself would at the same time have disadvantaged my child. Is this the true choice?’

No, that doesn’t sound like a true choice to me. When you have a child, that child becomes the centre of your life and the decisions you make as parents factor in the needs of the child. The more that what you want for yourself conflicts with the best interests of your child, the less content you’re likely to be as a parent. Ideally, both parents take their new responsibility seriously, but what’s rather depressing from this thread is the number of women who take it on disproportionately.

What’s clear from your posts, Million, is that you are a responsible parent who is naturally putting their child first, but sadly this conflicts with some of the life choices you would ideally make. It’s fortunate when what both parents want doesn’t conflict with the interests of their children.

How many times have you mentioned formula as an argument against women blaa ?! You clearly advocate formula feeding and have open disregard for the close bonding attachmenof DM and baby, due to natures intentions through bio processes.

Have you listened and heard the many birthing stories on here and around generally, and how long it can take to recover from the birth psychologically and physically.

I feel like women are being turned into farm cows with some of the attitudes on here. We should set up pumping stations! Noone can say its the same start poinfor men and women, and as for everyone having choices...equality of choices...words fail that anyone can be that unrealistic

Infant feeding is a bit of a red herring all round, isn't it? The average woman in the UK stops breastfeeding at six weeks, so it's hardly like breastfeeding explains the huge disparity between men and women in terms of time spent with children or impact on career. I haven't personally noticed any huge difference in the families I know who do and don't formula feed - it's not like men across the nation are chomping at the bit to do 50-50 childcare if it weren't for their pesky lactating partners. And it certainly doesn't explain why women are so much more likely to be the primary carers for school aged children. It's clearly a much bigger issue.

That’s a very emotive response! No one has said men and women are the same. But we’re not different species. And we’re all on a spectrum with differing degrees of nurturing/ providing qualities. As a human being I have desire to care, to nurture. I also have desire for other things to.... qualities that I can use in my work life and indeed in many other aspects of life. Why is it so surprising that lots of women and men want similar things from life? I wanted a balance of caring for my children, time at home, time at work.... is it really that surprising that my dh wanted the same?

(That was to smother )

You cannot make a good father out of an unwilling (your words blaa ) man.

No, but I think it's pretty depressing that women continue to want to have children with men who aren't actually willing to parent.

As for mothers being primarily responsible anyway - if a man has not been involved before, of course it is unlikely children would be in their sole custody in case of a break up. They will remain with the primary carer. But for example in Sweden where most fathers use parental leave, in case of a break-up, dads also rarely disappear and 50-50 living arrangements are very common.

How many times have you mentioned formula as an argument against women blaa ?! You clearly advocate formula feeding and have open disregard for the close bonding attachmenof DM and baby, due to natures intentions through bio processes

Against women???? Again you make no sense!! How am I against women?
I'm neither pro or against formula but i'm vehemently pro choice . Mentioning formula was in response to those using breastfeeding as a reason why men can't adequately care for their babies. But hey feel free to continue misinterpreting my posts.

You cannot make a good father out of an unwilling (your words blaa ) man
Then don't have children with one. Easy

Lisa- yes, and bf rates have far more to do with socio economic status of the mother than whether they are a SAHM.

Interestingly, when I was expecting dc 1 I went to NCT classes and also the NHS classes run locally, so got to know two different groups of expectant mums. In the NCT class, most of us were professionals who returned to work within 3 to 4 months but bf long term. In the NHS classes a higher proportion of women became SAHM and didn’t bf.

Also, most of these men won't tell you they don't want to parent up front! That statement puts the burden of responsibility for that on the women, again.

Why are men getting off light there; you can't know upfront their actual intentions unless you're with a genuine man, who loves and looks forward to having DC and being a big mpart of their lives.

I cannot tell you the countless times that women, after splitting take on the responsibility of keeping their ex up to speed with everything going on in their dcs lives for the sake of maintaining good relations between father and DC! When its not their responsibility. I think women in general work very hard for their DC, and are done a disservice often.