Invisible women's work

[smogsville]

This isn't really an AIBU but I hope I'll be forgiven for posting for more traffic.

I need to show DH what gets done in running the household - largely by me - as he's getting cross about being asked to contribute to some light shared life admin.

A while ago someone drew up a comprehensive long list of everything she does over the course of the year to keep her family/ house running. Does anyone know how I would find it? It'll make my point to DH much more effectively than a massive argument!

Thanks

Oh, researching work to be done on the house and finding trades people. Have we got that one?

I love how on here 'managing the household finances' is made out to be similar to being the CFO of some FTSE listed company. Assuming you are not living in poverty most bills are are on a direct debit that you review ever 6 months or so, not something you have to look after daily.

Yeah, but if it's on top on everything else then it's yet another thing to plan.

Also, DP pays most of our bills manually as we get payed weekly and we're hardly the only ones.

Remember that if they aren’t an integral part of the planning and allocating tasks - the mental bit, then they aren’t management. They are the junior office guy who doesn’t argue with the tasks given, jumps when you say jump, and embarrassedly runs to redo a task when pointed out it’s not up to scratch

I have used this argument with my DH. If I am the Manager, then I Manage, I do not Do... If you need me to be The Boss of All the Household and Family Things then you'd better be prepared to be the worker bee...

I suggest that you ask him to list all the jobs that you do. Ask him to remember to include the daily, weekly, monthly and annual jobs.
See how he does.
More effective than presenting him with a list

This is what I do, we have two school age DC and I work part time, DH full time:

Sort out car tax, MOT and insurance, 95% of time fill with petrol too. DH does oil.

All washing, mine, kids and his. Very occasionally he will put a wash of his shirts on. If I specifically ask him to put a wash on he does.

All school related admin, and by that I mean everything. All letters read by me and dealt with, all school clubs, sports days, etc etc etc dealt with by me.

All financial stuff eg bill paying, paying on time for kids’ clubs etc.

All food/household shopping and all shopping for the kids.

All present buying and kids’ party sorting.

My older DC plays a high level sport which requires a lot of time- I do 90% of this.

We have a cleaner x 1 a week but I do all interim cleaning. If I specifically ask he might clean the surfaces or unload the dishwasher.

I do all the cooking unless there’s a work emergency or meeting and I have to stay late.

It’s not good at all to be honest.

Fundamentally he's a jolly good husband and dad but FFS the life admin fails do boil my blood You missed out the LOL there OP.

I can't abide things like this when an OP says her DH has done x y or z which is soooo unfair, then everyone says yes this is awful we have experience then the OP comes back and says oh no, lighthearted, cheeky grin wink wink, YOU might all have horrible DHs but mine is fabulous, its only this cheeky little unfair x y z thing he's done.

I love how on here 'managing the household finances' is made out to be similar to being the CFO of some FTSE listed company. Assuming you are not living in poverty most bills are are on a direct debit that you review ever 6 months or so, not something you have to look after daily.
Not a full time job, but work. We have monthly childcare bills of different amounts every time for two children, additional roughly half termly childcare bills for the other setting, also diff amounts so direct debit is not an option, have to pay for everything we buy that’s billed / deposits needed - tonight that will be a deposit for a birthday party, the other basics are pay ccs in two countries, bills associated with the house in our home country, bills for the classes our children do and that’s 5 seconds worth of thinking. It’s not a lot but if you only looked at it every 6 months you’d have to quit work as you wouldn’t have childcare anymore , you’d be paying cc fees, your tenants would have given notice and your real estate agent probably fired you. It’s not a lot but it all builds up to a mental load. That’s the whole point. And some utility bills which aren’t dd , I forget why. I make dh pay them, and the home country ones. I have no idea how these people who say it’s once every 6 months do their lives.

Not that I want anything bad for you all, but it's a relief to see I'm not the only one out there doing hthe thinking on the house. I have pals and all their men do the admin eg bills etc. Dh has no clue what we have in the bank, who does our leccy, if we have home insurance etc

I've seen myself thanking dh for doing the ironing

What's wrong with me????

I don't think dh has ever thanked me for.. Anything.

I once complained I never had a day out myself.. He said but you went to Asda last week... If looks could kill I'd be here alone..

The mind boggles at women finding males like this sexually attractive to the point they have several children with them. And then complain. They cannot possibly hide their entitlement and misogyny completely and only let it loose when they’ve impregnated their girlfriend/wife, it will show beforehand, don’t brush it off, no, having a kid will not radically make him into a functioning adult, no it isn’t not your role to help him, give him lists, ‘just tell him’, ‘nag’, stop this. You’d have less work if you didn’t have the cock of pure gold strutting around your house and he had to parent his offspring 50/50. Stop this shit, it’s 2019.

TBF this thread has made me appreciate DP a bit more as he does some of the invisible chores of his own bat.

He can't use our new washing machine or cook that well, but hey, nobody's perfect.

sunset yy, finding tradespeople is so time consuming.

Dh is good far from incompetent but my classic moment was when he was doing sodding YOGA in the family room while I was running round sorting girls breakfast, minor worries, lunch, flute practice. I could never in a million years do yoga then wtaf!

Dh is good far from incompetent but my classic moment was when he was doing sodding YOGA in the family room while I was running round sorting girls breakfast, minor worries, lunch, flute practice. I could never in a million years do yoga then wtaf!

@confusedofengland

Same here. The load added when it comes to SN is immense. Physio, consultants, wheelchair services, DLA, OT, school meetings, fighting with all of them to get the things they are supposed to just give you. That alone is exhausting.

Ok there are going to be some duplicates here - suddenly up against it with work this morning so no time to edit. But will hopefully prove useful to those who asked for it and I imagine we'll all have things that we don't do ourselves on this list (I very much hope this is the case)!

DH came home with flowers and apologised for 'being a twat' last night. It's just a relief to have the twattery acknowledged really!

Thanks for all your posts on this.

Top of the list has got to be reminding people to do their share of the admin
Kids appts - doctors, opticians, dentist, hospital
birthday planning
paying bills and budgeting
default child carer
arrange holidays
meal planning
organising activities
christmas planning
Organising washing so kids etc have uniform/pe kit on correct days
Organising kids to do their chores
Going on Price comparison websites.
Arranging Home Insurance.
Arranging Car Insurance.
Switching energy suppliers.
Backing up laptops.
Passport applications.
Scanning paperwork.
Emptying DC's moneyboxes and banking.
Buying, writing and posting birthday, Easter, Christmas, Mothers & Father's Day cards.
Posting parcels.
On-line ordering.
Ordering and collecting prescriptions.

Planning family visits, days out.
cleaning
Childcare
Meal planning including taking into account likes and dietary needs
Shopping
Washing
Knowing which clothes need to be clean for when
Hanging clothes out to dry
Putting away clothes
Cooking healthy meals
Making sure freezer is stocked in case
Encouraging children to eat
Washing up or loading and unloading dishwasher
Bathing kids
Getting kids to bed
Getting kids up
Getting kids ready
Buying new clothes and shoes for kids when needed
Keep an eye on things like insurance
Paying bills
Organising childcare
Planning days around naps if kids are young
Thinking of days out
Thinking of date nights
Making sure bins are put out
Recycling too
Clearing garden
Looking after pets including cleaning buying food
Vet visits including remembering flea treatments/worming treatments and when jabs are due
Knowing when kids need boosters
Knowing about school events and planning accordingly
Being available to your kids and teaching them things and spending time with them
Booking holidays
Organising activities in holiday time
Forgot birthdays! Birthday presents, parties, cards, wrapping
Christmas
Easter

taking stuff to post office
Mental load
Kids' homework
Kids' reading
School runs
Hosting/attending playdates
Class nights out for networking/keeping in the loop purposes
Going through wardrobes and removing clothes that have been grown out of
Summerising/Winterising wardrobes
Toy clear outs
Filing
General clear outs
Tip/recycling/charity shop runs

Organising, cleaning for, hosting, and cleaning up after events (bbqs, dinner parties, etc)
Work
Deal with bills (gas, electric, water, council tax, mortgage)
Cook
Clean house
Look after kids 24/7
Take kids to school
Take kids to clubs
Drive
Drive for shopping
Organise to take everyone to outings
Organise ALL holidays, book tickets, hotel etc
Keep time of everything; even when you go to bloody work
Tell everyone how to dress, as I’m your personal weather woman
Drive kids to school when it’s cold/raining
Look after house and deal with leaking and broken things
Fix things in house
Deal with all school things, letters and events, parents evening and all of the clubs.
Help kids with homework
Teach kids right and wrong
Discipline kids
Take kids to doctors/dentist
Drive myself to doctors when I’ve been ill
Organise kids play dates and friends
Take kids to the park
Replace all broken things

Feed, clean, water the rabbits

@DishingOutDone to be fair in the OP I asked if anyone knew where a really useful list I'd seen in the past was - and then the thread took off! If I've misled you I'm very sorry. The thread title probably wasn't quite right and it probably shouldn't have been an AIBU although it does rather make the point about traffic. I just wanted the list quickly and this seemed the easiest way to obtain it. I was no intention of pretending I have a better husband than anyone else here!

This!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/13/a-sex-strike-is-not-enough-women-need-to-down-tools-completely?CMP=sharebtnn_fb

You forgot to add

Remember to write list and know why it's needed.

Drive kids to school when it’s cold/raining

if the kids can walk to school when it's not cold or raining, I am sure they can manage on a winter day? It's nice to help out, but that sort of things needn't to be on your "mental load" list.

A lot of items on your list are a bit weird to be honest.

@ManchesterBorn it's not 'my' list, I've copied and pasted from the lists supplied by a few posters.

Think this thread's done its job as far as I'm concerned, have great weekends everyone.

The mental load of deciding when something is ‘dr’ or hospital bad. Making final decisions on vaccinations (dh is anti vax but won’t commit to actually saying not to vax them. It’s all my decision so vax them on the sly)
Knowing the names of teachers, children and their parents.
I’f we’re helping neighbours pet feeding etc that’s on me.

if the kids can walk to school when it's not cold or raining, I am sure they can manage on a winter day? It's nice to help out, but that sort of things needn't to be on your "mental load" list.

Not if the dh refuses to take them walking if it’s raining or cold, and then they get driven to save me time. I work lates and come home from work at 1 or 2 in the morning. I don’t want to wake up at 8am and take them walking. I want to sleep. SO YES this IS a problem for ME. To be fair, he’s changed a lot since I handed him this list and he does take them in the rain occasionally now and he does a lot of pick ups too.

@Grumblepants Did your ex actually anything himself?