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.

@Stillcountingbeans

Indeed.

Theres also the fact that throughout history most women have also had other paid employment on top of that.

The idea of a 'trad' wife sitting at home looking pretty for her man is a modern conceit that has never really existed in reality outside of an American dream fiction

Maybe let's make it less personal for a bit.

Imagine an operating theatre in a hospital near you. All the employed staff - surgeons, nurses, porters - will have to scrub and wash thoroughly many times per day before and after each operation. None of them will obsess about it. It's part of their job.
In some households, there are people known to be neat-freaks. They also scrub and wash thoroughly - sometimes to the extent that they get dermatitis. Often, this goes unnoticed. Sometimes it is so extreme that it requires a psychiatric diagnosis.

In the context of this thread, would the 'mental load' of that person in their home, worrying about cleanliness, be different based on the employment status of the person washing their hands? Would it differ based on the sex of the person washing their hands? Would it differ based on whether the person washing their hands was motivated by love for their children and keeping them free from infection? Would your prognosis for someone in that condition change based on whether their partner washed their hands more often?

Or would extreme levels of scrubbing and washing it be treated as a normal part of working in healthcare, an idiosyncrasy when running a home, and a mental health condition when it makes someone ill?

Help me understand.

Neither is delegating the raising/day-to-day care to childminders/care.

In the context of this thread, would the 'mental load' of that person in their home, worrying about cleanliness, be different based on the employment status of the person washing their hands? Would it differ based on the sex of the person washing their hands? Would it differ based on whether the person washing their hands was motivated by love for their children and keeping them free from infection? Would your prognosis for someone in that condition change based on whether their partner washed their hands more often?
Or would extreme levels of scrubbing and washing it be treated as a normal part of working in healthcare, an idiosyncrasy when running a home, and a mental health condition when it makes someone ill?

I'm not sure I understand your analogy or question. I think your second paragraph is partly correct (extreme levels of scrubbing in the home are pretty much always a mental health issue rather than an 'idiosyncrasy'), but I am not sure of the point you are making.

For a person without mental illness, there is no mental load in deciding to wash your hands at home - it is a habit which requires no thought.

However, if you have a 4-year old, there is mental load in listening for the tap and reminding them to wash their hands after going to the toilet. There is mental load in monitoring and reminding the children to wash their hands after digging in the garden and before eating a sandwich.

Agreed, delegating to childminders is not what is involved in raising a child - by which I mean that it is merely a tiny part of raising a child (i.e. the mental load of organising and paying for the childcare).

Even if you have full time 7am to 7pm childcare five days a week, there is still the other 90% of raising the child left to do.

You're conflating the concept of mental load with carrying out a single task. Washing hands is one activity and can't by itself be a 'load'.
Mental load to my understanding is a term to describe the things one needs to keep in mind at any given time.
So, as an extreme example, a surgeon who has no responsibility other than to carry out surgery, because their domestic arrangements are fully taken care of by a partner, and their professional arrangements by administrators, meaning all they need to do is turn up, operate, and go home; will carry less mental load than a porter who is a single parent of two children, with a home to run.
There is no correlation between mental load and earnings, and less than you think between mental load and seniority in your paid role. The more senior I've become the fewer things I've had to mentally juggle. I have people to remind me where I'm supposed to be and what I need to do, as I'm now paid for what I know, rather than for a series of tasks I need to remember to complete. My domestic mental load is greater as, while the tasks concerned may be of less value, there are far more of them, so add up to a heavier load.

So it is entirely about capacity then. The surgeon with a PA will be OK, the single-parent porter will struggle. No need to bring the sex of the surgeon or the porter into it.

Mental load to my understanding is a term to describe the things one needs to keep in mind at any given time.

I think is is more about the continuity over time.

Someone planning and cooking a great Christmas dinner has a high mental load for a short time, but that really isn't an issue.

Everyone has a certain amount of stuff to think about in the morning, when getting ready for school or work. The load is higher if you are also getting your children ready. So for that given time in the morning, mental load is high, but it can be relatively equal if both parents are helping get the children ready.

But the real significance of mental load is when you carry it all day long, all week long, all month long, for years at a time. It is not just lots to think about at a single time, but lots of thinking and planning and monitoring and anticipating all the time.
And even a high prolonged mental load is not an issue if you feel it is shared equally. The issue is when it is not shared, when one parent becomes the 'default' parent. Then it becomes utterly corrosive to relationships (unless one person agreed to be the parent who would take this role on).

I didn't.
The reason sex is 'in it' is because its far more likely that a man will be in the surgeon's position, and a woman in the porter's. Or that of the surgeon's partner, who due to managing and remembering multiple varied things, carries a greater mental load than their single focused partner.

@Stillcountingbeans "there is no mental load in deciding to wash your hands at home - it is a habit which requires no thought"

Sure ... but why isn't every single other household task able to just be relegated to a habit then? Booking a dental appointment is just as much a habit. I must've done it many times (dental bills attest to that) and frankly can't remember a single instance, as I will have been on autopilot. Just like when making the evening tea. If no single task can impose a mental load, what then is the critical mass of tasks that crosses this Rubicon? There were some quite ridiculous suggestions up thread - booking a holiday, apparently, was enough to tip the balance. But unless you are in effect just giving a fancy name to the phenomenon "some people stress out when they hit their maximum capacity" I don't know what you are referring to, or why it is a gendered issue for you.

And (but I think you know this already), in the scrubs/surgery example I was referring specifically to the worry and anxiety that causes the need to wash hands, rather than the physical task of wetting them. In a genuine life-or-death setting like a hospital, people cope with no apparent anxiety about this, they just get on with it. What is it about some people in their home settings that means they can't? You seem to brush this off as 'just' mental illness, but we both know there'll be many cases that are excessive but fall short of a clinical disorder. Why limit the analysis to instances where there is a diagnosis - why not generalise further? Are all the people on MN bleating about their mental load suffering some form of mental illness? If not ... why not? Where's the boundary?

Sex comes into it when the porter or surgeon is part of a couple. Single parents take on the whole mental load as there is no choice.
The issue is when a porter's partner or the surgeon's partner is taking on more than their fair share of the load. Studies show that the woman in a partnership tends to take on more mental load, especially when there are children.

The very fact that the surgeon has a PA at work shows that mental load is real - the employer doesn't want the surgeon's mental energy (and time) wasted, so provides a PA so that the surgeon can concentrate on the surgery.

@PrincessConstance

Does your partne and his ex share home schooling as well then?

If not then your oh is doing even less parenting than anyone else.

And you're still missing the point

There's no way that 2 people (one who claims to have a big job and one who clearly fancies themselves as an 'intellectual') could possibly be this obtuse about a simple concept

There may not be any clear boundary between what is mental load and what is habit. Perhaps mental load turns into habit when actions are repeated enough.

If you are naturally a well organised and efficient person with a good brain, then you won't have a direct issue the mental load of running a house and looking after a family, especially after a few years when you have 'got into the swing of it'. You will do a lot of things like planning the shopping out of habit.

The issue will be when you notice your DH doesn't take on his share, and you start to feel resentful that it all seems to be your responsibility, even if you find it easy and you are good at it. This is where the concept of mental load morphs into the concept of being the default parent - related but slightly different.

If you find organisation difficult, you will notice the unfairness more quickly and more acutely, if DH is not doing his share.

I don't think mental load is at all the same thing as being worried or anxious. The illness or health angle is a red herring. Even the most balanced and mentally-healthy parent still has a large mental load.

Yes, Yes, Yes (not Meg Ryan ... just agreeing) but then No.

"Sex comes into it when the porter or surgeon is part of a couple."

Big no. There are many same-sex couples, in which there are no sex differences between the partners, yet many of the other dynamics discussed in this thread persist. Sex differences alone cannot explain this.

I do have some empirical observations to back this up. I have a role as a trustee of a multi-academy trust with thousands of children enrolled. We see data on outcomes correlated with factors known to influence those outcomes. Free school meals is the most talked-about, but far from the only one. There is pretty consistent data to show that children in single parent households suffer greater disadvantage than those in two-parent households. Whether the adults in those single parent households are men (usually widowers) or women (usually never married or divorcees) does not dramatically alter those outcomes. Further, in the two-parent households, those with a stay-at-home parent tend to have lower levels of neglect or disadvantage than those where both parents work. And there is no discernible difference in the data between those cases where the stay-at-home parent is female (the overwhelming majority, it is true) or male (a small, but notable, minority).

Incidentally - @Stillcountingbeans and @Thepeopleversuswork are both spot on in their economic and structural analysis. The biggest indicator of a "two parents working, not coping, and child struggling" scenario is postcode. It is almost always nice families in brand new housing estates, where properties were bought recently, at extremely high prices, presumably with a huge mortgage, depriving the whole family of choices about how to divide and allocate the workload of the family unit.

in the two-parent households, those [children] with a stay-at-home parent tend to have lower levels of neglect or disadvantage than those where both parents work. And there is no discernible difference in the data between those cases where the stay-at-home parent is female (the overwhelming majority, it is true) or male (a small, but notable, minority).

This is the perspective from the child - it doesn't make any difference to their outcome whether the SAHP is male or female.

From the perspective of the relationship, in a heterosexual couple the woman usually takes on more of the mental load, which is an issue of fairness if she is also working similar hours to the man.

That is a good point. Fair play.

Won't even need to go away and think about it - it's so obviously correct.

I liked your previous post too ... I'm still thinking about that one. But need to disappear for a bit to make the tea! (This is an issue of safety, not mental load by the way. Don't like walking round the kitchen with my face stuck in the iPhone)

@Mark19735

Further, in the two-parent households, those with a stay-at-home parent tend to have lower levels of neglect or disadvantage than those where both parents work.

Given that you've described parenting as something that involves very little work or effort you now expect us to believe that having a sahp reduces neglect and disadvantage?

How on earth can that be the case when kids need zero input?

Home schooling????😳

I have no difficulty understanding that having a SAHP in a two-parent household leads to better outcomes for the children.

It is a great shame, a disgrace even, that the current economic system doesn't allow more couples to afford a SAHP, or alternatively afford to support the family on two part-time wages.
This is not the fault of feminists (as I said in an earlier comment).

SAHP's of any sex are a big no no aren't they? Leaving oneself financially dependent is the work of the devil and should be outlawed.

Whether it benefits the child is irrelevant.

@Stillcountingbeans

Really?

I have trouble believing that children of working parents have worse outcomes

Especially as there's no research to back it up

@PrincessConstance

Yes

He must do right? Because otherwise he's outsourcing most of his 50% of the actual parenting

I guess it depends how long the hours are, and how tired/stressed the parents get.
I'm not saying every couple who both work are risking their children's outcomes. But I can see how on average it would be better for the child to have a parent who can cook proper meals, who has time to listen to them talk, etc.

It is almost always nice families in brand new housing estates, where properties were bought recently, at extremely high prices, presumably with a huge mortgage, depriving the whole family of choices about how to divide and allocate the workload of the family unit.

It may be that this is the sacrifice needed to get the children into a good school. House prices within the catchment of a good school are higher. Perhaps if they had cheaper housing the children would have to go to a bad school.
Parenting choices are never easy.

Even if both parents work long hours, there are still choices to be made as to who does what, and whether the woman will end up with more than her share.