To get cross every time I see a woman say her husband doesn't do any night feeds because "he works"?

[TeenTitans]

I'm in a few mum groups online and I keep seeing this and it's driving me mad. Women who's husband's never do any night feeds because they work and women who think that's perfectly okay. Erm do you not think looking after the kids all day is work? My response is always "so do you!" when I see it. My partner has always helped with the nights because they're his kids as well and it's just as much his job as mine.

I'm not complaining about couples divvying up the work as they wish but the justification. YOU ALSO WORK.

53rdWay, did nobody tell you that the moment a woman goes back to work after maternity leave her children start sleeping for 8 hours a night without waking? This biological change is activated by the employer sending the documents through to Her Mage's tax service.

"I wake in the night because I'm exclusively breastfeeding so it makes sense for me to do it, expressing is too much hassle"

Fine

"I wake in the night because dear old Bill works a paid job and therefore can't possibly have a single night of broken sleep

Not fine.

Choosing to do it that way is fine but the default that men who work get out of all night feeds is sexist and unfair.

My husband has to drive on the motorway to get to work and doesn't lactate, unfortunately. Even if I didn't have a bottle refuser I wouldn't want him getting up in the night. I don't want him driving tired on the motorway, it's dangerous. My husband lets me have a lie in at the weekend though. It works for us.

She’s said from her first post that she doesn’t have a problem with women who do all the night feeds, just with the justification that looking after babies isn’t work.

Namestheyareachangin, you do realise that there are loads and loads of women on this thread who say that their male partner's jobs are way more important and harder than looking after children? And their partners presumably agree as they don't do any night wakings. Are all of them shite?

PissedOffProf I’ve read on this very thread that they’re mostly sleeping through by 12 weeks

@TeenTitans

*"I wake in the night because dear old Bill works a paid job and therefore can't possibly have a single night of broken sleep

Not fine.

Choosing to do it that way is fine but the default that men who work get out of all night feeds is sexist and unfair*

Would it also be sexist and unfair if the woman was the one working and the man was the one at home and was expected to do the night feeding?

Are you saying that women who have the arrangement above and are happy with it are, what, internalising misogyny? False consciousness?

EmeraldRubyShark if you haven’t dealt with the level of sleep deprivation that some of us are talking about, you aren’t in any place to tell people to lump it. Getting three hours of sleep a night for prolonged periods of time goes beyond feeling ‘drowsy’.

Would it also be sexist and unfair if the woman was the one working and the man was the one at home and was expected to do the night feeding?

Not sexist, but unfair.

@PissedOffProf

Namestheyareachangin, you do realise that there are loads and loads of women on this thread who say that their male partner's jobs are way more important and harder than looking after children? And their partners presumably agree as they don't do any night wakings. Are all of them shite?

No, not unless the women saying that are unhappy with the arrangement. Distributing labour any way that works for the family is not shit. Forcing one person to do things they are not happy with for reasons they don't appreciate with the outcome that one person is suffering more than the other and resents it is not.

Parent 1: You work outside the home, so I'll get up if baby wakes in the night
Parent 2: Thanks, that's really helpful

Fine.

Parent 1: I'm shattered, looking after this baby(plus or minus other kids) is exhausting, please do equal night wakins and let me get a decent night's sleep every other night.
Parent 2: absolutely not, I work outside the home, the baby is entirely your job.

Not fine.

It all seems pretty straightforward to me...

@TeenTitans

But how is it unfair if both parties are content?

I think you really struggle to imagine anyone might feel differently about it than you would...

I can't sleep if I know I'm going to have to get up at some point. It's like I'm on high alert.

@EmeraldRubyShark
Even if he worked in Asda I’d say the same, if one person is able to stay home with the baby and the other is going out to work the one who isn’t at paid employment the next day does the night feeds unless both agree otherwise
What a depressing statement! So the mother (as it almost certainly the woman intially) must take on all the night feeds unless her partner agrees otherwise. Do you seriously thinking someone stacking shelves needs to be more alert than someone that has sole responsibility for a tiny, fragile baby? Do you have any idea how tiring and completely exhausting being at home with a newborn baby can be? Sure, there are easy babies but there are also incredibly difficult babies that won't sleep without parental assistance and you can literally never out them down. The assumption that the wage earner's comfort and well-being must be prioritised over the person at home no matter what is utterly regressive and shit. No wonder men feel entitled to a life with minimal disruption once a baby comes along.

@53rdway

Looking after babies (your own babies) isn't 'work'. It's bloody hard and knackering sometimes, but it's not work. It's far more important and visceral than that. You have no client, no-one to report to, no targets or deliverables, no risk of being sacked. Moreover, if you don't have a baby you won't be destitute and homeless because of that. If you don't like your baby, you can't go out and apply for another one.

It's a relationship. Not a job. I appreciate that there is a drive to frame it as a job, so that 'women's work' will be accorded the same status as 'man's work' under a patriarchal (and a capitalist) lens. But actually, trying to fit it into that lens to assign it value, rather than recognising its value as its own category of contribution and activity, is just playing right into the hands of the very system such behaviour claims to fight against.

I'm not working when I look after my child. I'm parenting. And in no way does it compare or quantify against the paid work I do, either in terms of investment or in reward. They are not in the same universe.

Another first work problems thread. If your partners were at home all day too and making no income. You would also complain. Stop seeing inequality where there is not. Also shocking the number of you who see raising your children as 'work' whatever that's supposed to mean

*first world problems even

Namestheyareachangin, the way people define "happy" is totally socially conditioned. Women have shut up and put up for millennia and most of them would have described it as "happy" because they don't know and can't imagine anything different. There is a reason why consciousness-rasing is number 1 priority in any liberation movement, including feminism.

I think looking after kids is work - but it’s not the same as work outside the home. If you’re at home and you’ve had a really bad night, you can have a really quiet day in a way that is much harder for someone working outside the home.

That said, a man who never helps with the night wakings is a lazy twat. There has to be balance, even if it isn’t 50/50.

But what if both parties are fine with that set up? We have done it both ways partner staying at home while i work and him working and me at home, i just think that whoever is at home should do the night feeds regardless of the others job.
I don't feel that this is a feminist issue or sexist

@Namestheyareachangin
I think what you don't account for in your examples is the impact of socialisation and social norms. Parent 1 may well feel obliged to accept that they take on all the night feeds as this is what is expected irrespective of what would be viewed to be objectively fair. The more parent 1s that do this then it becomes harder for other parent 1s to declare that actually they aren't coping and need assistance in the night. Worse still, the expectation becomes entrenched that parent 1 should do all night feeds so parent 2 will feel very hard done by when asked to step up, after all none of his friends/family ever had to help out with night feeds etc. Choices and decisions aren't made in isolation.

It's a relationship. Not a job.

I didn’t say it was a job. I consider it work, in the sense that it is mental and physical labour which isn’t optional. (I mean, it’s optional in the sense that babies are, but once the baby’s here you can’t just say “oh I don’t fancy feeding it today”)

In the same way, I’ve done both paid care work for elderly people, and unpaid care work for an elderly relative. Looking after my own relative was a very different experience, but the work involved in doing it didn’t become less taxing and tiring as a result.

@PissedOffProf

Namestheyareachangin, the way people define "happy" is totally socially conditioned. Women have shut up and put up for millennia and most of them would have described it as "happy" because they don't know and can't imagine anything different. There is a reason why consciousness-rasing is number 1 priority in any liberation movement, including feminism

My dear old thing I have been a feminist, raised by feminists, all my life, I have a Masters degree in Women's Studies from Oxford, I think my consciousness is pretty flipping raised actually

I am not happy putting time in with my kid because society tells me to be - quite the opposite in fact. It seems the whole social environment around motherhood these days (at least for middle class professional women like myself) seems to be built around 'light-hearted' derision of that state, whinging about poo in your hair and how boring babies are and how desperate we should all be to have 'a proper conversation' and get back to work/out for cocktails as soon as the cord has been cut. I find it all very strange. It's like there's this view (as reflected in your comment) that mothering is something unworthy and women who like doing it are simpleminded/surrendered. And this is apparently the prevailing feminist view? Not my feminism sister.

How is it not a job? Amazign that being s nanny, a cleaner, a chef and a manager are all actual jobs, but doing them for your own household and family is not

@53rdway

(I mean, it’s optional in the sense that babies are, but once the baby’s here you can’t just say “oh I don’t fancy feeding it today”)

But surely one knows before having a baby that it might need to be fed? So you don't have it unless you're happy to do it?