So angry at all these threads on useless and selfish men

[Winterday1991]

Off the back of the thread where the H refuses to care for his sick child so the OP can get some much needed rest as he is on annual leave from work 😡. I am seriously fed up of reading threads like this, why are so many men so selfish?

Why is it always women who have to do the lions share of caring, pulling themselves in all direction whilst their male counterparts glide through life uninterrupted? Why is it always women who carry the mental load for family life and the men just show up. Why is always women responsible for maintaining the household?

Even in the 21st century, why do so many men get such a bloody easy ride, whilst often their poor wives/partners are running around like headless chickens keeping on top of everything.

I have spent 20 plus years as an engineer working in the oil and gas industry. While there are still more men then women in the industry the ratio is a lot better then it was when I first started. Most companies are falling over themselves make sure at least 50% of the graduate intake are women. So far so good. Certainly from my experience working for the larger companies is that a key part of the graduate training programme is a stint at site or a fabrication yard, often overseas. It is a key part of a young engineers professional development to see first hand the building and installation of the designs they have been working on back in the home office. It is a great experience where you get to work alongside seasoned engineers. To put it bluntly, often the women grads do not want to do these assignments despite being advised during the recruitment stages that it will form part of the expected training. Managers can't force them to go of course and other roles are found at home. Almost all the men travel without hesitation, gain the valuable experience and training and come back better for it. The woman staying at home miss out on this and are ultimately disadvantaged. The women grads who do take these assignments are often non UK nationals which also explains why many of the women in leadership and management roles are often Nigerian, Brazilian, Kazakh, Malaysian etc. Appreciate this is just my anecdotal observations but they often tally with the observations of other industry professionals when the subject has come up. Why don't the UK women want to travel and take up 'hardship' (they aren't really) assignments and capitalise on all the benefits? If you are young, single and have these options why turn them down? Certainly chatting to the non British women it would seem engineering is very much seen as a prestigious career from where they are from and if you have the brains why not do it rather then go into a less well paid humanities career?

Engineering is still seen as a dirty, grubby job. And when you have engineers fixing your dishwasher or the vending machine at work, it's not hard to see why. These people, whilst skilled, are not engineers.

I don't get my hands dirty ever.

It's been intimated that British women see engineering as beneath them, hence why more stem jobs tend to be in tech. I've no idea really but it's just not attractive to Brits.

@PrincessConstance

Parenting isn't a full time role of you only parent for half the week, sure.

Most women have their children full time. Making it a full time role.

It is perfectly possible to parent full time and work full time.

As several of the single parents on this thread have already told you

Yet you are steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the actual point of the thread

If you don't want to discuss the actual topic, why even bother commenting? Your views and experience are completely irrelevant

You have not given an opinion to back up any of your claims.
Most people subcontract out the childcare. That's not full-time.
Dp hasn't done this even before he met me-he took on the role of childcare hands-on in the early yrs. Then he designed a business around the needs of his children NOT his personal/or the business entity's goals.
An example of mental load, despite not being HIS week he managed to organize sleepovers for both of his children. This took less than 10 messages.
All household tasks for the coming week have been prepped and are ready to implement.

I steadfastly do NOT agree with any of the premises of this thread and have continued to state why. Others have also expressed a similar opinion.
You quite obviously do not agree with any of my points.
Cest la vie.

We don't have the issues others have despite managing a business and a 50-70 hrs a week career role because.
Household tasks/parenting are not full-time roles (Daily living is innate to being an independent adult).
We're organized.
Conscientious.
Delegate.
Don't overschedule (This is the key).
Allow for variable attitudes surrounding what is important to each other and timescales.

Then finally mindset, neither of us views the world of being a fully functioning adult via the prism of feminism with its wacky academic theories of unpaid labour or mental load.

You think you're somehow incredibly more conscientious and organised and better at scheduling than other people? On what basis?

It's far easier to work more hours and get through household tasks when your DP has his children with him 50% of the time, so 50% of the time you live like a childless couple. You have no children at all so of course you can easily dedicate 70 hours oer week to work. Before I had children a working week of 80-100 hours for me was standard and I had no problems whatsoever getting household tasks done, because there was far less cleaning to do, far less organisation, no school or nursery runs, no demands from school for ridiculous outfits, no sick children, etc etc. Basically household tasks never really appeared much in my consciousness because there was an order of magnitude less to do in that respect.

I now manage perfectly well with a very demanding full time role and two children with SEN who are with me 100% of the time as a lone parent.

BUT is it beyond your capability to understand that other people's situations may differ to your own? For example, people who are actually mothers and responsible for the wellbeing of children? People who are lone parents like me but without the means to pay for childcare so that they can work the kinds of hours you mention? Particularly people with disabled children for whom childcare - if you can find it - costs many times more?

It's not about "mindset". It's about the fact that people's situations are different, many women still get stuck in situations where they are doing all of the hard work with children and losing their financial independence, and that of course this doesn't correspond to your own experience because you are not a mother and have never been responsible for children and meeting their needs. Your inability to understand this and to assume that it's because you are somehow more capable is baffling.

I would call those people fixing vending and dishwasher technicians. That is not being snobby, just a fact, many other countries the title engineer is a protected status and not something you can bolt on to the end of a job title to make it sound more prestigious.

My job is not hands on 'dirty' although the environments I have been in can be tough (rigs, ships, desert, ports etc). Personally I have loved travelling to unusual places and experiencing different cultures and I have loved working in a very cosmopolitan environment. I have been involved in grad recruitment, worked with local schools and colleges and career fairs. It is depressing seeing smart, articulate young women with decent maths and physics A levels electing to study french or history at uni instead of engineering. It was also interesting chatting to the aforementioned Nigerian, Malaysian, Brazilian women engineers who were pretty much told by their parents to study engineering or maths when it was discovered they had the intelligence to succeed in these fields. Very different expectations!

I tend to agree. The fundamental premise of this thread is that the mental load, which sits on top of the physical work, is what makes being the primary care-giver so hard, and a lament that the 'breadwinner' role doesn't a) appreciate, and b) contribute to lifting that mental load. There seems to be a sub-plot about those roles also being more likely to be associated with males / females and whether this substantiates the hypothesis that all men are shit.

In reality, 'parenting' is no-where near a full time job. Yes, there's a couple of years between new-born and weaning where the workload is really intense and requires adult attention every 2 hours. But the total time committed rarely exceeds 6 hours a day - babies sleep for the other 18. Toddlers are also tricky, but they still sleep for 12 hours a day. By the time they reach primary school age, half their waking hours are in school, and for the remainder, huge swathes of time are spent in the back of the car, or watching TV, or playing by themselves. By the time they reach secondary school, it's quite possible to go days without even noticing them, other than by the trail of dirty clothes and the empty fridge. And in families with multiple children, much of this can be done concurrently - it doesn't take any longer to order an online shop for four than it does for two. So taken over a two-decade commitment, the time burden reduces substantially and the physical work gets much easier, very quickly. But the mental load never diminishes. And as almost everyone has said ... it is indivisible. Contrast this with a full-time role - including commuting, 12 hour days are commonplace. The workload seldom reduces over time, and the mental load it imposes increases with seniority, rather than reduces. Over those same twenty years, I'd estimate the total time at work is triple that required of a stay-at-home parent, and depending on the seniority and pressure of the role, the mental load is probably four times greater. A subjective, not a scientific assessment, granted, and I'm sure others will have differing experiences and perspectives. SEN and disability will certainly increase both the physical work and mental load for care givers in that scenario. But so too will differences in the bread-winner's day job. A schoolteacher will have different capabilities and opportunities for contributing to the home-making than an offshore oil worker or someone on night shifts.

But there's some posters who's immediate retort will be "but what about the person parenting and holding down a full time job"? Yes - that's going to be harder. But it's a choice. And, if that person's capacity to work at that rate is exceeded ... then it's a poor choice, and one they really shouldn't be making. It's really not that vital for the survival of the species that feminism requires women to hold down a full time job as a marketing director or a dental hygienist whilst raising two kids. It's OK from mum to be a stay at home parent, just as it's OK for the dad to be the stay at home parent too. It's a pity that more couples don't pursue this alternative where the woman is the one with a comparative advantage. I'm told it's statistically more likely to be that way ... so why doesn't it happen more often?

The final retort is "well, why can't both parents work full time and share the home-making?" I think this has been covered by the description of mental load as being indivisible. There's also the matter of timing - it's not what needs doing, but when it needs doing. A 3pm school pick-up is challenging for anyone working full-time - it just becomes doubly challenging when alternated between two people both working full time. I really don't think there's any obvious synergies from sharing the home-making between more adults. It's probably the same reason why Co-CEOs are rare. I'm sure it's not impossible ... but there'd need to be lots of other favourable tail winds. Which brings us back to the start of the thread. It makes economic sense for there to be a division of labour. A couple where one acts as the breadwinner and the other as the caregiver / homemaker will, in greater likelihood, be better off than any alternative arrangement. That is why it is popular and commonplace. And the sex of the partner in either role has nothing to do with it.

Maybe it’s just down to the fact that nationals from those countries you listed have a much better work ethic. British people are deservedly regarded as the most lazy, entitled people on this planet (and yes I include women in this statement too so don’t go getting angry at me @Mark19735)

You cannot understand my point.
Because I believe running a home is not a full-time role with or without children.
Most people are NOT mentally or physically capable of managing highly demanding roles that need intelligence, diligence, conscientiousness, and time.
People have capabilities and make choices based on their own physical and mental limits. Not a subjective structural idea of power-the patriarchy.

You and others believe this would be possible if MEN stepped up and managed the mental load. Which is basically the thought processes of life personal to an individual. Not possible, a highly nonsensical idea.

I find this theory baffling, quite obviously people cannot manage otherwise there wouldn't be reams and reams of sociology dedicated to this premise. Nor would there be workplace initiatives to accommodate the family and women's needs.

Definitely. Technicians are a title deserving of their own status. They shouldn't need to steal a title that isn't appropriate. It's not snobbery at all in the same way you don't call anyone a medical doctor just because they know how to do something related.

I too have loved traveling and is one of the beauties of the job, if you can. I agree about the loss of female potential too. I also do careers/outreach and often tell female stem students that our world is so heavily dependent on engineering but when mostly one sex determines our infrastructures, our products and almost everything else, it becomes very one sided. We need women engineering things alongside men to develop a more rounded world. The sad thing is, the opportunities are right there but we just don't have the interest.

But there's some posters who's immediate retort will be "but what about the person parenting and holding down a full time job"? Yes - that's going to be harder. But it's a choice

And your alternative for lone parents is what?

I should give up work and we all live on benefits?

@PrincessConstance

You can't disagree with a premise you appear to be incapable of understanding

The final retort is "well, why can't both parents work full time and share the home-making?" I think this has been covered by the description of mental load as being indivisible. There's also the matter of timing - it's not what needs doing, but when it needs doing. A 3pm school pick-up is challenging for anyone working full-time - it just becomes doubly challenging when alternated between two people both working full time.

As I said to you earlier in the thread @Mark19735 this isn't impossible. Many people do it by varying their shifts/ hours. The reason it is difficult in the UK is because of deliberate policy choices that have been made. Other systems are possible - and indeed exist in other countries - where work is generally more flexible for men and women in most roles, to accommodate family life, where work and home responsibilities are much more equally shared between the sexes, where regulations and childcare structures and tax systems and culture indeed actively encourage this, and it works perfectly fine. Better in fact, based on the international data on not only household income but also wellbeing, as I also outlined earlier.

So your argument that just because the current system in the UK encourages these disparities it is intrinsic to life and must be this way are manifestly false.

You cannot understand my point.
Because I believe running a home is not a full-time role with or without children.

Ummmmm... clearly you've not understood my point because:

a) I have not said or implied that it is; and

b) as I've mentioned several times I do that and provide all of the finances.

So if you and your DP are apparently supreme beings for managing with 48 hours per day to provide financially and have children in your care for 50% of the time, what does this make me when I do that in 24 hours per day and 100% of the time? Some kind of superhero? No. It's just that people's circumstances are different.

And also @Mark19735 this claim of yours that the "mental load" is indivisible is also manifestly false. Just like in an organisation different people can have different responsibilities, this also applies to home life. This is obvious. Cleaning tasks can be split between different people. As can responsibilities for communicating with schools, buying children clothes, organising birthdays, dealing with sick kids, organising medical appts, etc etc. It's obvious that this is divisible, and then each person would have less to worry about/ do in the household sphere. Many such things can even be done remotely if someone is working away/ doing long hours (during breaks/ commutes).

The excuses here are really pathetic, frankly.

@NocturnalClocks - The choice I was referring to was preferring single life to partnering up. Not sure if it was you making that point specifically but up-thread there was definitely more than a hint of casting men aside entirely as they are more trouble than they are worth.

Your subsequent posts - I agree totally. I'm sure it could be possible to build a society that explicitly addresses the needs of, and rewards, parenting and home-making as a two-person activity with the work shared equitably between both. I expect there'd still be some opportunity costs and net/net families would be financially worse off without there being substantial incentives in the tax system (which would just be a way of socialising those costs and making everyone in society slightly worse off instead), but I fully accept that well-being and mental health could indeed be greatly improved - for mums, dads and children - and that is something I think many would support.

The sadness I feel is that there was, once upon a time, an equilibrium that achieved a pretty good work-life balance for many family units existed and had evolved organically, over thousands of generations, independently in many different societies - it was called the 'traditional family' but it was relentlessly attacked, undermined, and ultimately destroyed by a particular kind of feminist. Whilst there were certainly problems with that status quo, I am not sure that we've improved the lot of most women as a consequence of this change.

No, it did not "evolve organically". Women were controlled and treated as property and had absolutely no choice in the matter. Until relatively recently they were effectively prohibited in law from owning property in their own right. They were systematically prevented from obtaining financial freedom or equity in the home. This was not some utopia and even a cursory look at history will show you that women were not choosing this. From your perspective as a man it may look fantastic. For most of us, no thank you!!

You're dividing up the physical work. That's what can be shared. Yes it would help ... so would getting a cleaner. Which, if you had a partner, who was supported in their career and capable of earning well, you could easily afford.
And, once the physical load is taken care of, what exactly is it that remains so burdensome in this "mental load" of which you speak? Really does seem like nothing more complex than stress caused by a perceived inability to cope with the demands of adult life. And that's got nothing to do with structural sexism either.

@Mark19735
But there's some posters who's immediate retort will be "but what about the person parenting and holding down a full time job"? Yes - that's going to be harder. But it's a choice. And, if that person's capacity to work at that rate is exceeded ... then it's a poor choice, and one they really shouldn't be making.

Are you in the UK? Here nearly all couples need to have both people working to pay the mortgage or rent.
If they are on universal credit (the main welfare benefit), then it is a requirement that as soon as the youngest is in school (around 5 years old), the SAHP has to work or prove they are looking for work, for I think at least 12-15 hours per week. But it is extremely difficult to get a job with fixed shifts during the school hours (variable shifts are a total nightmare) that won't require you to work later than school pick-up time. Then of course you have to work during the school holidays, as your annual leave won't be enough, so childcare becomes an issue. In these circumstances, it actually makes sense to work more hours to ensure paid childcare is reliable (childcare is a whole other can of worms).
It is not a 'poor choice' for a parent to work - it is virtually forced by the system we live under.

So in short, having a full time SAHP is a luxury for the well-off parents.

But there's some posters who's immediate retort will be "but what about the person parenting and holding down a full time job"? Yes - that's going to be harder. But it's a choice. And, if that person's capacity to work at that rate is exceeded ... then it's a poor choice, and one they really shouldn't be making. It's really not that vital for the survival of the species that feminism requires women to hold down a full time job as a marketing director or a dental hygienist whilst raising two kids. It's OK from mum to be a stay at home parent, just as it's OK for the dad to be the stay at home parent too. It's a pity that more couples don't pursue this alternative where the woman is the one with a comparative advantage. I'm told it's statistically more likely to be that way ... so why doesn't it happen more often?

Two major problems with this analysis:

a) For line parents it is not a choice to work FT and take care of kids. I’m a lone parent and if I didn’t work my daughter’s life outcomes would be very negatively impacted indeed.
b) It’s pretty vital that women retain some control over their finances in a marriage. Becoming wholly dependent on a man for financial support is like playing Russian Roulette. Women need to work to achieve this financial security. It’s simply not going to work in most modern families for one person to stop working altogether.

And, once the physical load is taken care of, what exactly is it that remains so burdensome in this "mental load" of which you speak?

What people are - I think - referring to with this phrase is the responsibility for actually thinking of what needs doing, deciding when to do it and ensuring that happens.

So my point is that because each part of it corresponds to physical tasks it can in fact be split. If one person is responsible for kids' medical and dental appts then they will need to remember when those need to be booked, deal with correspondance/ phone calls/ book time off to go with them/ inform school kids will be absent if applicable/ actually take them. The other parent can then not have to think about when these things need booking etc because that responsibility belongs to the other parent.

Tasks and "mental load" can be split in this way just as they are between different employees at work. I think it refers to "responsibility for". So not just taking your kid to a shoe shop and buying new shoes, but that it's your job to remember when that needs doing and make sure it gets done. The perennial threads we see about men saying "just tell me what stuff needs doing" when presumably they have eyes and a brain and should be capable themselves of realising that a child's feet don't stay the same size forever and perhaps they may need measuring from time to time and it should not require another adult to remind them of this.

Individually the tasks are easy and insignificant. BUT having to be responsible for all aspects of a child's life: that their home is cleaned, there is appropriate food in the fridge to make their meals, that their medical and dental needs are met, their clothes fit, any issues with their education are dealt with etc adds up to a lot of time spent remembering to do things are organising them, and responding to unanticipated requests for random costumes or a kid is sick or has had an issue at school etc etc. does take up time and effort.

If somebody doesn't wish to be responsible for their 50% of that then they should not be having children, unless the other partner has specifically agreed in advance that they will do more than their share of it (more fool them IMO). The presumption and starting point should be that if you have a child, 50% not just of the task of looking after them physically, but also organising their life, is your responsibility. Likewise providing 50% of their financial requirements. If parents actively agree in advance to split this differently that is their choice, but in no way is it necessarily more efficient nor does it have better outcomes for all involved: I've seen no evidence for that.

These various aspects of caring for children can be split into separate sections and allocated between two people, therefore each person would be responsible for a specific area in its entirety and therefore the other person has more mental space and time freed up to focus on work. That's not to say that if say medical appts were my responsibility and one inevitably clashed with a work meeting that I couldn't ask the other partner to take this on instead, in a good relationship. Just that in general if that was an area I'd said I'd manage then they would not be responsible for co-ordinating it and remembering to arrange it and chasing blood test results etc, for example. That areas of responsiblity can be divided in home life as in work is obvious to me and I find your purported inability to understand it unconvincing.

The point is short Mark, is that "once the physical load is taking care of" is putting the cart before the horse. The organisation and planning has to happen to ensure the actual tasks get done.

In reality, 'parenting' is no-where near a full time job. Yes, there's a couple of years between new-born and weaning where the workload is really intense and requires adult attention every 2 hours. But the total time committed rarely exceeds 6 hours a day - babies sleep for the other 18. Toddlers are also tricky, but they still sleep for 12 hours a day. By the time they reach primary school age, half their waking hours are in school, and for the remainder, huge swathes of time are spent in the back of the car, or watching TV, or playing by themselves. By the time they reach secondary school, it's quite possible to go days without even noticing them, other than by the trail of dirty clothes and the empty fridge.

Do you actually have any children? Do you have a partner/wife?
It really sounds like you don't know much about childcare. If you do have children, it sounds like you don't have a close or caring relationship with them.

Even if you literally can go days without noticing your teenager(s), someone still has to fill the fridge, wash their clothes (or train them to do it themselves), train them to tidy up, encourage them through their exams, keep an eye out for what kind of friends they have to head off trouble, take them to activities and collect them, etc. Not to mention the most important thing which is providing emotional support at that age.

I really hope that you either don't actually have children, or that you were exaggerating for comic effect.

No, that poster has already stated that their views on parenting are informed by not having any children of their own and that their DP has his children with him 50% of the time. 🤣

No, that poster has already stated that their views on parenting are informed by not having any children of their own and that their DP has his children with him 50% of the time.

Are you confusing Mark with Princess Constance? Or did I miss something?