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 ?

Nope. DH and I have always shared the work. Just got back from holiday and today he is doing the supermarket shop whilst I process the piles of washing. We are both doing the jobs we prefer, I blooming hate doing the weekly shop, I can relax on Mumsnet between wash loads 😀

It never ceases to amaze me that women put up with this kind of behaviour!
Speak up for goodness sake!!!!

• 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*

Probably the main reason why I did not want to have children. It seemed so unfair to me, as a child, that we would come home tired, father would sit and read the paper while mother and daughters got a meal ready.

Then, if my mother ever sat reading, she would be teased for being anti social. Grrrrr

You get what you settle for. Stop being doormats and martyrs. It's definitely not the scene at ours. We do things equally because we respect each other and I wouldn't put up with that in any case.

Exactly!! Why allow this a second time. Can't feel any sympathy for these poor women. They are part of the problem!

You should go on holiday yourselves, wives only.

My mum and aunt did it years ago. I can still see my dad's flabbergasted face when he asked that evening (8 hours after she'd left!) "Where's your mum?" and we told him

It depresses me to hear people saying that women "shouldn't put up with it", need to "speak up" and are equally to blame or "doormats" for allowing it.

With the sort of men who behave like this and genuinely can't see or don't care about the fact that they're not sharing the load equally, pointing this out to them is unlikely to have an effect. Or if it does, they'll tend to change for a little while and then revert to type. Yes, you can speak up every time, but you may not get the result you want and will probably have to deal with an aggrieved, aggressive partner who feels put apon and accuses you of "nagging".

And it's an extra thing to add to the chore list, isn't it? Get kids up, make breakfast for kids, do dishwasher, verbally batter OH into submission until he agrees to sort lunch or take the kids out to play. At some point, it does become easier just to do it yourself if you're in this situation.

The issue isn't so much with women's expectations of men, it's with society's expectations of men (and consequently men's expectations of themselves).

Two words - all inclusive.

Dont do it, pour yourself a glass of wine and relax

I have been a man on a family trip a lot like this. The women collectively delegated cooking a meal to the men. I was slightly pissed off, because it should not have been my job, under my own family arrangements. I was already being vastly short-changed in terms of the benefits and costs of being in that relationship, and I did not appreciate one of the tiny compensations for the shitness of being in that marriage being taken away from me. I couldn't say anything without looking like an arse, because of assumptions and prejudices like those displayed by most posters in this thread .

I guess group preferences are always going to be a problem on group holidays, the only solution is to never go on holiday with a group.

It depresses me to hear people saying that women "shouldn't put up with it", need to "speak up" and are equally to blame or "doormats" for allowing it.
With the sort of men who behave like this and genuinely can't see or don't care about the fact that they're not sharing the load equally, pointing this out to them is unlikely to have an effect. Or if it does, they'll tend to change for a little while and then revert to type. Yes, you can speak up every time, but you may not get the result you want and will probably have to deal with an aggrieved, aggressive partner who feels put apon and accuses you of "nagging".
And it's an extra thing to add to the chore list, isn't it? Get kids up, make breakfast for kids, do dishwasher, verbally batter OH into submission until he agrees to sort lunch or take the kids out to play. At some point, it does become easier just to do it yourself if you're in this situation.
The issue isn't so much with women's expectations of men, it's with society's expectations of men (and consequently men's expectations of themselves).

So much this. No, women are not "equally to blame." Society and men conspire to make us feel like nags, bores and fun-sponges when we try to insist that the guys step up and do their share.

I don't mean women shouldn't be speaking out; I mean, just please have a bit of compassion and understanding for the difficulties that women face when they try to do this.

Why did the women feel the need to 'delegate' cooking a meal to the men at all?

Surely in a group of adults, all adults should realise that they need to contribute equally to the catering arrangements or agree some other fair split of responsibility. Why were the women "default" when it came to feeding people?

We always do AI and DH has always stepped up more with child entertainment. He is more willing to be in the pool, snorkeling, playing board games etc than me.

I do all the researching, planning, booking, insurance, airport parking arrangements prior to going though.

Well my MIL would think that’s ‘as it should be’

I got told recently that I’m ‘weak’ and how appalled she is that her son has to help with school drop-off and pick up, meetings and medical appts. Let alone day to day stuff!
she is positively proud that her she has always done nothing and told me that I’m her family they are all ‘strong women’ and none of them understand me …..
She also lost her temper when she wasn’t available to her to give her a lift when she demands and she told me her heart is broken that he could put us first and congratulations to me as I’ve now taken him and got my family unit 🤦‍♀️

She signed off with letting me know how she knows plenty of families with SEN kids whose dads don’t have to do anything and that I’m basically using it as an excuse !!!

If she saw these families on holiday that you describe OP she would be ecstatic 😂

You might say 'make your dh do it then' but this will genuinely result in the kids being dehydrated, hungry and burnt

Can you imagine a mother 'forgetting' to feed and water her children? But men poor darlings, can't be expected to..

Let me guess, you earned loads of money so shouldn't have to cook or clean or take care of the kids?

You sound like an entitled tit. I hope you're out of your miserable relationship and manage to wipe your kids snotty noses all by yourself.

I have to disagree a bit with this. "Society" is made up of 50% women so I would say that if 50% of society say enough is enough, don't put up with crap from the very first date, then the other 50% of "society" would soon fall into line.

I see so often on here women saying "Oh, he's always been like this...". So why did they marry him? And then go onto have children with him? And if he was good until the first child was born, why did they go on to have more?! Or why didn't they put their foot down the first time thy refused to get up for a night feed or change a nappy?

And I'm not talking about men that turn out to be mentally or physically abusive once the woman has children, that's a different thread. I'm talking about your average lazy-assed bloke who sits on the sofa because his wife never says "Oi, get your bum off the sofa and be a fully functioning adult!"

I flatly refuse to accept the excuse that sometimes it's quicker to do it yourself. It's like allowing children to get their own way when they are tiny because it's easier than dealing with the tantrums. You are making a rod for your own back.

It makes me sad / mad that women treat themselves as second class citizens. If we said "I'm worth better than this" and walked away much earlier then society WOULD improve as a whole.

All the women saying you wouldn't tolerate it are being extremely native.

Lots of men, when asked to do something, will "forget", "do it wrongly", "make a mess". It's called weaponised incompetence. I was married to one of these. It took me many years to understand that with some people there is no talking, asking or anything.

They don't want to do. It's as simple as that.

You either put up with it or you get as far as possible.

The work in a relationship often doesn't really ramp up until you have children. It can be hard to spot the duffers beforehand, especially as expectations on women often ramp up on maternity leave and expectations on men are lowered. How often have you seen women on maternity leave being told that, since they're at home, they should do the majority of the childcare and night wakings, cook dinner and do most of the housework? Despite men managing to cook, clean and fend for themselves pre-DC. Once these patterns are established, they often persist even when women are back at work. I agree with you on the having more children though... the ultimate goal should be to ditch the duffer not procreate again with them!

I take issue with your "making a rod for your own back" comment. Men are not small children and it is not women's job to train them.

We all muck in. When my late -DH came with us, and just sat around treating it like an all inclusive with us all waiting on him (including me fielding DD as a toddler) I was SO embarrassed, I flatly refused to take him again. I’ve never been sure whether he really was being that much of a dick about it, or if he just couldn’t get his head around the idea of communal labour (he had grown up with all inclusive, and always refused to let anyone visiting us help at all. But he expected not to do anything when we visited other people, which I thought was shit. I always offer to lend a hand, even when I had a baby on my hip)

We go camping with my husband’s family and the men are useless. They will go off and do their own thing like fishing or surfing whilst the women look after the dogs and children. Apart from taking the children to the pool for a bit they do hardly anything whilst the women cook, clean get everything for the beach etc. I really don’t know why my MIL and SIL bother going, it’s harder work than being at home.

Fortunately my husband is much better and shares the chores. He rarely leaves me alone with the children.

Do anyone else's trips end up like that?

No! And there wouldn’t be a repeat trip of it did. If you just went away with your own household, what would happen?

The OH is disappointed that I've not done any cooking so far. I saved up enough money to make sure I didn't have to and we could eat out and buy convenience and picnic foods. Now he's trying to be frugal and eat in the caravan and I'm having none of it. If he wants a full English in the morning, he cooks it.

Yeah I agree this is a common dynamic....I think a lot women have to ignore things for such a long time - longer than is comfortable for them - before a lot of men will take it upon themselves to deal with it, especially when it comes to children.

Had this with my DP recently after coming home from a holiday with SCs - it was all "Can we put their dirty clothes in the washing tomorrow so they can take it home clean?" I did a load but not the full lot...did the rest of it get done?? Of course not.