Women basically doing everything on family trip

[oha]

We are on a family holiday at the moment. Several families with children, babies and toddlers.

The men are pretty much sat outside drinking beer, whilst the women do everything. Cooking, clearing up and tending to the children.

The dynamic has always been like this in my family and I'm so resentful.

Do anyone else's trips end up like that ?

No… but I grew up with a dad that did most of the cooking and cleaning and so my brothers are the same. When we’re on holiday it’s just split equally. I’m assuming the men in your family are the same when they’re at home too?

In our close friendship circle, no. All fathers are equal partners/parents, just as likely to cook or clean or run after kids. Except for one couple really with very traditional "SAHM/man with Very Important Job" set up, where the dad indeed would call mum to put kids' shoes back on. We would not do self catering with them as I'd probably thump the guy on the head with something..

Families yes, whenever we go somewhere with my family, everybody always praises DH for being such an involved dad and great cook. Nobody praises me for being an involved mum..

It's not always as easy at that. I'll never forget when DC1 was a newborn baby, we went on holiday with DM. DP left DM and I to do everything and when I did ask him to help, he got very angry and told me I was trying to be a victim. (Not true, I simply wanted him to help instead of sit around and watch).

90% of our holidays are self catering. The labour split between DH and i on holls stays the same as at home.

I do the fiddly stuff (food and DC care) and he does the big stuff (car and most of the lifting/carrying).

Entertaining the DCs - mostly him to be honest.

The dynamic has always been like this in my family and I'm so resentful.

Change it then, before your own children start acting the same. 'Hey guys, we've been cooking and cleaning for 3 days now, our turn to have a break!'

Did a holiday some years ago with FIL and MIL. It was exactly like this. DH thought it was funny... I thought it less funny and have never been since. When we have done S/C on our own it has worked well. Share the cooking, get the kids involved etc. S/C can often IME mean more work for women, away from home with poorer equipment and no real holiday at all.

Not here as such.

Before the holiday, I do basically everything, find the holiday, book the holiday, sort out things like passports, airport parking etc etc. Clothes, washing, packing (DH does his own, I do DC) so almost everything. DH does pets including dropping off at cattery etc and 'man things' like emptying the bins, fridge etc before we go.

Once there though, unusually for us as we don't do it at any other time we fall into very stereotypical roles. I do things like sun cream, clothes, packing the beach bag etc. DH does things like playing in the pool with the DC, finding out about boat trips and the like, looking for restaurants etc. I do a lot of sitting on a sun lounger reading my book - excellent!

Yes, what do you do with men who behave like aggressive, overgrown teenagers? I guess ltb in the end, but that's hardly going to fix the holiday situation.

i do remember that behaviour growing up and saw it to an extent on my DHs extended family
once I got old enough to not be one of the kids I took it upon me to be the “cool aunt” aka the one playing with the kids - so never got into the kitchen
my DH knew I was not interested on joining the “other woman” and to be fair his cousins and other young female members of his family would not allow that from their partners…. So not my experience - although did saw it a lot growing up

I think people could do with rethinking their approach to self catering. I am the family cook, and for 50 weeks of the year enjoy making varied and nutritious meals. But fuck that on holiday. I fill the fridge with grazing food on the first day, and we either eat out or just have bread/cheese/salami/fruit. Won't kill anyone to miss a few dinners, and makes for minimal cleaning.

Don’t get the big deal about self catering. Just means making meals and that’s it. Other than the general picking up that you would do in a hotel room. We certainly don’t clean a villa like at home, other than sticking stuff in the dishwasher.

No not at all. I live in a coastal resort. All I see is dads teaching kids to swim to paddle board or sail.

My husband always shared childcare and chores I see that amongst my friends too

Nope. The dynamic in our family growing up in the eighties was just like this, and it was even more noticable on (always self catering) holidays, when my DF would sit on the sofa reading the paper with a beer while my SAHM DM cooked the tea/cleaned/tidied/entertained us children. I suppose he thought he worked all week to pay for the holiday so he was going to enjoy it, but my DM certainly enabled it by acting like a total martyr. No way would I let my DH get away with that, although thankfully he is naturally very hands on anyway. My DM now really seems to resent how much my DH does - we have had quite a few holidays with them where he has bathed the children/rocked them until they fell asleep, and she has made several nasty comments about how "unnatural" it is and how I'm "forcing" him to do these things. She is laughably bitter about the whole thing.

We used to be like this but I've found work arounds. We are away at the moment but I do the packing, organising clothes, washing etc but DH will then take them off for a few hours while I spa/shop/sleep. I will do the same for him but a lesser extent. He has to book excursions, organise taxis etc. it's bit perfect but at least there is a fairish distribution of labour.

I see this on long haul flights on the way to the holidays so I can believe this. The men (not all but many) sit back to watch films with the the headphones on and the woman does the childcare.

I haven’t had this at all actually, my experience is a lot of men step up on holiday and do better than at home.

Is your partner one of these dads? If he is then I’d be making sure you and he are doing 50/50 and tell him what you think about the rest of them.

OP tell them you're having a BBQ for tea

At the very least what you could do I that situation is sort yourself and the children out. Leave the man/ men to sort themselves out. You are not their servants. And if they get angry at you about it then get angry back fgs!

Oh yes, the martyrs are the worst. I once went on a holiday with DH and a couple of his friends (and their wives) so DH and his mates could do a particular activity - we all had tiny babies at the time as well.

I vowed never to go on another holiday with them again when the menfolk had been out all day (8 hours plus) doing their activity and one of the wives suggested we cook them a really special meal as they had been so busy all day. We womenfolk had been looking after the DC all day at this point.

I know a lot of people like this and have witnessed this many times on group/family holidays but I’m happy to say my DH puts in a lot of the work when we’re on holiday. He plays with the kids more than I do; goes in the sea with them or kayaking/paddle boarding, plays bat and ball, goes on rollercoasters with them etc. He’ll also take charge of things like packing a bag for a day out, packing the car with beach stuff etc.

Making packed lunches and cleaning the accommodation (if required) we do as a team.

I still generally do most of the catering (unless it’s a BBQ which he will do) which I don’t really mind because he does so much of the other stuff.

As others have said, I would chat to the other women about it and then get yourselves on a lounger with a drink and tell the men they are now in charge for the next few days.

It pisses me off so much to see this sort of divide going on. It happens at Christmas in a lot of families too. Blokes just chilling out, drinking and enjoying the festivities while the women spend 5 hours in the kitchen. 😡

We are away at the moment, not self catering but I'm ending up doing the snack packing, the getting ready, the sun creaming, checking everyone has hats and sunglasses etc. You might say 'make your dh do it then' but this will genuinely result in the kids being dehydrated, hungry and burnt and him saying 'oh I forgot'.

Surely it just depends , with my dh we would of shared all the responsibility but neither of us like cooking when on SC. Holidays as we do that at home , so tend to try and eat out/ take away , quick fix meals
But each family is different and works differently so you can't generalise

Completely. Not sure why people keep berating the men yet allow them to get away with the behaviour... do something about it, doormats!

We holiday with our 2 youngest children my dad and his partner.
We all have our jobs to do, so share the load.
I made it clear from the start that it's my holiday as well.

Not sure why people keep berating the men yet allow them to get away with the behaviour... do something about it, doormats!

But that's just another chore, isn't it?