Cycling DH’s or those who do a lot of sports - why is this a problem on MN?

[mrkrp]

I see quite a lot of vitriol against cyclist husbands on here and I do wonder why. I get the whole MAMIL thing and yes, it’s definitely boring if they go on about it too much. But aside from that, what is the problem? I, for one, have a cycling obsessed DH and don’t care when he goes out in his bike. Not do I care about any of his other sports. Am I missing something?

But if you said that your husband like to spend the same amount of time in the den playing FIFA, he would be slammed as a lazy parent who CBA with his kids.

And at least FIFA doesn't cost thousands and an older child can be left in the house with someone playing FIFA while the other parent goes out. Same with gardening as above. DD helps DH garden and he is actually present. Not off somewhere else for hours.

Just seen this thread is still going!

I started this thread on the back of some comments I was reading on holiday where - in my view - people were peculiarly vitriolic about cyclists. I say, peculiarly because, as far as I could tell, they had nothing to do with cycling and nor did their husbands. Somebody said she gets the urge to bump men in lycra when they’re in front of her at traffic lights because they are “bastards neglecting their children” (or words to that effect.

I just thought, blimey... I’d better not post about my husband then

What happens or MN is that a lot of stereotypes her pedalled as “MN lore.” Sometime the “lore” holds, but just as often it who’ll be utter bollocks. As Lola says, men are crap husbands in many many ways. If anyone feels the need to bump my husband on his bike because he’s “neglecting his family,” well no need as I don’t care. Maybe focus on the man in his car in the lane next to you and decide if he is more worthy of your judgement.

If women say they are pissed off with their cycling husbands then that’s that. But, there is no need to assume women who are not massively bothered are “subsumed.” Let them be the judge if that, for god sake. What would you know?

And while I’m at it - imagine going on a thread and proclaiming to another woman that her life will be meaningless when her children leave! Simply because she happened to be a SAHM. No other context or info required apparently.

Would you tell anyone else that they will soon have “nothing” in their life. Imagine saying similar to someone who has no family; or home or children. You wouldn’t dare (I hope). Would you advise them it’s never too late ..., they can always trek around India Its beyond belief.

If women say they are pissed off with their cycling husbands then that’s that. But, there is no need to assume women who are not massively bothered are “subsumed.” Let them be the judge if that, for god sake. What would you know?
Very, very well said.
I'd 100% support any woman who was annoyed that their husband was being a useless waste of space and dumping the domestic load on her.
I'll also 100% challenge the usual eye-roll worthy comments about what cyclists are apparently like, or that women who don't mind their husbands cycling must be some sort of pushover or worse a 'cool wife'.

It would probably do them a lot of good to spend more time examining their own relationship and their own attitudes to interests, hobbies and free time than to spend their mental energy getting irrationally annoyed inventing stories about the stranger they see on a bike.

@mrkrp

And while I’m at it - imagine going on a thread and proclaiming to another woman that her life will be meaningless when her children leave! Simply because she happened to be a SAHM. No other context or info required apparently.

Would you tell anyone else that they will soon have “nothing” in their life. Imagine saying similar to someone who has no family; or home or children. You wouldn’t dare (I hope). Would you advise them it’s never too late ..., they can always trek around India Its beyond belief.

Oddly, I felt that post of mine (which has clearly irked you) was the only one where I tried to be empathetic and work out why you were mulling this now. I did, I believe, put a caveat that it was only a thought. The psychologist in me thinks you've been stewing over it because it's partially true. After all, if someone said similar to me I'd think 'meh' and forget about it because it clearly doesn't apply.

It wasn't because you 'happen to be a SAHM'. It's because you've been SAHM and wife to teenagers now starting to move on and a DH who is almost never there. And you didn't decent time off for 10 years. Which rather does imply you didn't have a lot else going on.

If you are gloriously happy with all this, crack on. If that's true then anything I write is meaningless twaddle which can safely be ignored. But I still hold that other women are allowed to be pissed off with these men who ignore their wives and children to do hobbies especially when the children are small. And their wives have no fixed time to themselves.

@MrsTerryPratchett

What i suspect, and I could be wrong, is that now your children are older you are in the first stages of assessing your life without them being dependent and supplying a raison d'être for you. Your DH still has work and cycling/paragliding/diving and you have... what exactly? It's a sobering and sometimes uncomfortable thought.

You are asking basically, why don't other women make the choices you make. To subsume themselves as a wife and mother.

I think it's possible your defensiveness is actually a form of self protection. If you can deny it to us, you can carry on denying it to yourself.

IME there are two times women become feminists; when their children come into their lives, and when they leave. Seeing your DH lose not an ounce of himself and his needs and that his life essentially didn't change when children appeared and when they became sore independent is interesting. All the joy, none of the work. People work hard whether they have children or not. His labour supplied a lifestyle but if he's a workaholic he was doing it because he enjoyed it. You were facilitating all of it.

Think about what you want now. That may be hard after decades of not doing it. But having seen my elderly mother trek around northern India on her own after my dad retired, there's still time!

I'm quoting myself so I'm not misquoted by you. So I didn't proclaim but merely suspected (and acknowledged I might be wrong). I also didn't tell you to trek around India, I used an example from my life. And I didn't say you had nothing in your life, I asked what you had.

Really not at all what you said I said.

But Mrs Terry, you know virtually nothing about me. Nothing about what I do in my life. Would it not be more astute to ask first before creating a narrative to fit your preconceived agenda about when women become feminists?

People only put a fraction of their lives on a thread. This is obvious I wouldn’t make such assumptions about people I’ve known in real life for years.

It was a suggestion. Which I said could be wrong.

That’s fine. I can see why you might have formed the ideas you did.

Wouldn’t mind going back to India either.

@mrkrp

And while I’m at it - imagine going on a thread and proclaiming to another woman that her life will be meaningless when her children leave! Simply because she happened to be a SAHM. No other context or info required apparently.

Would you tell anyone else that they will soon have “nothing” in their life. Imagine saying similar to someone who has no family; or home or children. You wouldn’t dare (I hope). Would you advise them it’s never too late ..., they can always trek around India Its beyond belief.

Some people do the brilliant faux concern too about SAHM, I always enjoy watching them tie themselves up in knots trying to pretend that they genuinely care for a random strangers financial situation. As if earning minimum wage on the tills is going to protect you. Of course every working mama is on six figures though…

I really hate middle aged lycra cyclists though OP and I know that’s wrong blah blah. But I do.

Lolasmiles,

I suppose it's possible for a person to check out of a family and ruin its finances with railway modelling, trainspotting, stamp collecting, growing turnips, flower arranging, extreme barbecuing, book discussion groups, squash, line dancing or bellringing if that person is sufficiently selfish or obsessive or both.

But there is something particularly toxic about cycling. There is a reason it gets called out here. The MAMIL thing is by the by. The problem with sports cycling is its cult-like culture. It tells its devotees that every second they shave off it a second closer to being a god. All that guff about self-fulfillment, self-challenge, meaning in one's life all comes down to the the cult of self-deification. And how dare anyone get in the way of this noble pursuit with mean things like chores, general family stuff, or even earning money.

Springleaves

Don’t think I really like you either, I know it’s wrong but I find you bigoted in your outlook

@ivykaty44

Springleaves

Don’t think I really like you either, I know it’s wrong but I find you bigoted in your outlook

Devastated

Springleaves

Standard for bigots to make a joke of their bigotry, they seem to think it’ll be thought of as charming

@ivykaty44

Springleaves

Standard for bigots to make a joke of their bigotry, they seem to think it’ll be thought of as charming

Wow you are quite an angry person, calm down, it’s a Sunday. Go for a nice bike ride. I am sure if I AS your posts I would find you have opinions. A little odd with your fixation on having an argument over a light hearted comment. You are not a protected species FGS.

And at least FIFA doesn't cost thousands and an older child can be left in the house with someone playing FIFA while the other parent goes out. Same with gardening as above. DD helps DH garden and he is actually present. Not off somewhere else for hours.

You're right on the price, but older children can generally be left home alone for short periods anyway.

I wouldn't leave a small child at home with someone who was known to get absorbed in video games. Games like WoW or Halo can take hours and are done in "real time" with other people - it's not like in the olden days where you can just hit pause, save it, and go back to it several hours later.

TomPinch
It isn't cycling that's particularly toxic. It's having a group of men who like to find convenient ways to opt out of family life that's toxic. The men who use cycling as a get out have exactly the same attitude as the men who decide they need to train for a marathon the year a baby arrives, and the same attitude as the men who shut themselves away gaming for hours, and the same men who have to go on stupid golfing weekends when their wife has no time off, and the same men who think nothing of getting drunk every Saturday so they're too hungover to do anything on Sunday. It's part of toxic masculinity.

DH and I enjoy cycling, and running and going to the gym and have never encountered this caricature of cycling that is apparently the norm if you did a poll of mumsnetters (when the most experience many will have is reading threads on here or seeing a man on a bike and coming on here to laugh at what his body looks like in lycra). There's obsessive arseholes in any hobby, but the hobby isn't the problem.

That's my main point. It's not the hobby that's the problem. It's that there's some men who are selfish arseholes who opt out. If a selfish git wasn't cycling, he wouldn't be at home being a brilliant daddy and cleaning the bathroom: he'd find another so-called big important man thing to do instead.

I can’t see the problem at all.
It’s usually boring people that don’t have hobbies.

@OhDearMuriel

I can’t see the problem at all. It’s usually boring people that don’t have hobbies.

They're only boring when they go on about said hobbies to the exclusion of all else

*people with hobbies, that is.

A little odd with your fixation on having an argument over a light hearted comment. You are not a protected species FGS.

gosh so much gas lighting in one post, projecting that I must be angry, fixated and want an argument. as I dare to pull you up on your comment

@LolaSmiles

TomPinch It isn't cycling that's particularly toxic. It's having a group of men who like to find convenient ways to opt out of family life that's toxic. The men who use cycling as a get out have exactly the same attitude as the men who decide they need to train for a marathon the year a baby arrives, and the same attitude as the men who shut themselves away gaming for hours, and the same men who have to go on stupid golfing weekends when their wife has no time off, and the same men who think nothing of getting drunk every Saturday so they're too hungover to do anything on Sunday. It's part of toxic masculinity.

DH and I enjoy cycling, and running and going to the gym and have never encountered this caricature of cycling that is apparently the norm if you did a poll of mumsnetters (when the most experience many will have is reading threads on here or seeing a man on a bike and coming on here to laugh at what his body looks like in lycra). There's obsessive arseholes in any hobby, but the hobby isn't the problem.

That's my main point. It's not the hobby that's the problem. It's that there's some men who are selfish arseholes who opt out. If a selfish git wasn't cycling, he wouldn't be at home being a brilliant daddy and cleaning the bathroom: he'd find another so-called big important man thing to do instead.

I've explained why cycling is a particular problem and in my case there was no need involved.

no man involved