To think the phrase "a wife runs a home" is backwards thinking?

[Onlyrainbows]

I was talking to someone and then they mentioned "a wife runs a home" and it got me thinking, I would never think of it that way, a couple should run a home with an appropriate division of tasks/responsibilities within the home. Especially if both work.

Well yes, obviously. What dinosaur said that?

Doesn't it depend if the wife is also SAHM?
If both work equally then yes, it's Dickensian. If there's not an equal split then the one who spends more time at home should do a higher percentage of the housework.

Please don't beat me and start saying SAHM is a full time job that doesn't include work in the home, particularly if the kids are at school.

I can't imagine anyone under about 70 saying that though as a generalisation.
If it suits a particular couple though it wouldn't bother me. I'd just say "whatever works for you."

Are they from a very traditional background? It certainly doesn't sound mainstream UK 2022.

Eugh, sounds like my ex!

Were they saying that’s how things are or how they ought to be?

In reality, it seems to be true even if there’s a fairly equal division of labour. Women still seem carry the mental load for making the house work.

Is she wrong?

In most cases it is the wife who does the majority of childcare, housework, mental load tasks, whether she works or not.

It shouldn’t be the case, but in most couples/families it is.

Obviously it's outdated, it's true though.

I think in practice it's probably true, but not something we should aspire to.

Most women take on more than their share of mental load re running a home though. It's wrong if he said it in a way that implies it's the wife's responsibility but it's probably the reality

Well I do run the home, pretty much. And sadly I think most 'wives' I know do too, whether we work or not. However I would never state it as an imperative or a blanket generalisation.

Not sure who's running our home then, as there's no wife here 🤷

It was some random lady (maybe in her 50s?) I mentioned how my DHs working schedule doesn't work for us as a family, and that comment came as a "suck it up it's your" I felt it was very patronising

Sorry *your role

I run my home, and I take all the credit for it. Husband works hard and provides for us. We both wholeheartedly appreciate the work the other one does. I feel really proud of our set up and it works for us. I get really annoyed at people sneering at it, as I wouldn't suggest how another family should operate. Unless they asked, and then I think I'd have some good advice for them 😊

Yeah of course it is backwards.

Women do acres more labour in the home than men. It's regressive to suggest this is a result of some natural order that women are the home caretakers but equally I'm sick of the myth that there is parity between the sexes on housework at that, where this doesn't exist, women are somehow at fault.

@hangrylady

Obviously it's outdated, it's true though.

Exactly. It might be outdated thinking, but in reality it remains the norm.

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/womenshouldertheresponsibilityofunpaidwork/2016-11-10

Smug women who had dcs at a time when life was easier (no dcs at multiple activities) and were sahm for all their lives say this. If you dare to say otherwise, you are just told to 'walk out of your job'. The man should support his family. They would have the nerve to say that we are 'choosing' to make this hard by 'choosing' to work outside the home.

I don't engage with these types.

Yes, but I have yet to see a family with kids where the wife doesn't! She may well work full time but also carries the load for social planning, booking appointments like forthe dentist, is on top of the kids schedule, domestic issues (like who their plumber is) etc.
You can't complain about the emotional load women carry and then say it's equal - the ideal may be equality but the sentiment it true.

It’s completely backwards thinking, but I’d urge anyone in a relationship outraged by this kind of sentiment to mentally add up the division of labour in your relationship and ask yourself if it’s fair.

I hope it is! We all need to be insisting on a fairer split at home.

It is outdated, unfair, and yet true.

Hence: feminism.

I'm sick of the myth that there is parity between the sexes on housework at that, where this doesn't exist, women are somehow at fault.

Agree with this. Of course its a bloody travesty that women still do the lion's shar of this. But there's this unpleasant counter narrative which has developed which says if you haven't trained your DH to be up to scratch then its your fault.

thepeopleversuswork absolutely.

Lots of posters on MN say things like “I’d leave” or “I wouldn’t put up with this”. In reality by the time you have had DC with someone, leaving them over the fact they don’t pull their weight domestically is not appealing - you’d disrupt your DC’s lives, be poorer, and you’d end up with all the domestic load not merely 90% of it.