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.

Well someone raised them that way and even then you see parents enabling and reinforcing their adult children behaviour.

I've seen some of my uni friends who were raised to think women are there to 'serve them'.

Then you get the likes of some celebrities who reinforce misogyntic views that some men end up listening to.

Then you have women who are too passive and don't set proper boundaries

Its a whole lots of things really.

I think education about healthy relationships should be part for the national curriculum

Yeah like the kids would take it in (ignoring for a minute the fact every parental failure is mentioned on mn as "should be taught at school"). Large parts of kids can't even take in basic map of Europe, can't see them realistically remebering anything from "relationship lessons".

If we’re going to openly tar most of the male population with the same brush, can we do the same for women?
What a sad thread (yes, I’m a man) - sure, some of us are bad but that doesn’t mean the majority are.
That’s like saying because I’ve been cheated on twice, most women are cheats - which we all know isn’t true.

Good luck getting through life and having meaningful relationships with such a jaded attitude.

Me too @Movingsoon21 and having MN somewhere in my mind has strengthened me when I've had my doubts about ending a relationship with someone feckless/inconsiderate, and when establishing good patterns in my current relationship.

And for those buying into the trope about men having it far too easy ... there's some pretty stark statistics about suicide rates that you might want to look up. I know it's easy to get upset and vent on the internet, but it's also important to be kind, and to be thankful for all the things that aren't awful.

I don't know if you're serious about this but I don't think anyone is feeling suicidal because MNers are pointing out that many men are extremely lazy about their day to day responsibilities? And if they are, I should think it's far more likely to be the women who are run ragged and driven into PND by unsupportive partners etc.

Also I know this is not a very popular perspective, but some people with serious MH problems are also not very nice. Just like the rest of the population. Some crap dads feel suicidal, tragically, just as many great dads do. I don't think the threat of triggering a MH crisis should be held over women as a way to put them off demanding shared responsibilities at home. There are PLENTY of women with severe MH problems who self harm and contemplate suicide. No one is using that as a basis for saying men should do everything around the house so why does that have any relevance the other way round?

@timewp he pays £300 a month! I pay rent, bills, car, petrol, food and a whopping £1600 nursery bill each month. I am a lower middle earner. I have to work freelance in the evening to earn more to survive. We share weekends, but I want to change it to full weekends every other weekend. Always here to message if you want to vent. As lovely and understanding many of my friends are, unless you've been in this situation you can never relate xxx

@Deathbyfluffy that's irrelevant because we're talking about trends that have a basis in fact. e.g. www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/womenshouldertheresponsibilityofunpaidwork/2016-11-10

How many women do you know or have you seen threads about or heard of that leave their husbands with the kids and make life difficult in terms of paying fair share of child maintenance or looking after the kids.

Or who refuse to do 50% of the chores or do their fair share of parenting? How many my wife is so lazy and doesn't help around the house or sort out bdays and presents and doesnt help with the children do you see?

Surely the question should be why are so many women allowing their partners to be less than a partner?

I don’t tar men with the same brush. As I said upthread, out of a huge circle of friends, we know 3 couples in which the bloke is a feckless, useless moron. I have little to no sympathy for their partners who had a huge hand in enabling and creating these cavemen. They are passive and meek and seem to think their lot in life is to bear the brunt of domesticity and childcare.

The vast, vast majority of the men I know are bloody fab. I include my 2 young adult sons in this. They are completely capable in every way and have been brought up with the most perfect male role model in their father who puts everyone else before him and respects and adores all the women in his life.

I think the problem with men begins with how we (society) bring them up.

There is no evidence for the 'male' and 'female' brain. There are however harmful cultural stereotypes that perpetuate toxic masculity.

Studies have shown less eye contact, less nurturing, less emotional support and reflection when people interact with what they believe are baby boys vs girls.

Stereotypes driven by commercialism and stupidy compound the idea that boys don't cry, look after dolls or talk about their feelings.

Clothes, toys and sexist attitudes reinforce the harmful stereotype that "boys will be boys", "heartbreaker", "Strong and tough", "daddy's litle monster", "naughty", "cheeky" etc.

Because women often want family life more than men do.
Men may want to have children but not many love the lifestyle that comes with it, and when men get sufficiently unhappy they find it easier to leave the family than a comparably unhappy woman would.
Some women are fortunate enough to be with men as invested in the family as they are. Those women are able to be assertive, insist he does his share etc. Ironically though, they're often the ones who don't need to.
Many other women are with men who probably wouldn't be too fussed if they were freed from the family by a wife whose had enough and threatens to LTB. These women have very little bargaining power so tend to put up, largely shut up, and rant now and again on MN.

some men, some parents, I should clarify

I also asked my ex why he thinks I should have the kids 24/7 and he can swoop in the odd weekend to see them. And he just said to me “its the womans job to do more for the kids, your the mother” 🤔 then he also said “most men wouldn’t even bother to see the kids, at least I see them on the weekends” so basically selling to me that most men who leave their wife and kids will abandon the kids in the process and it’s the expectation of the woman to take over. That’s what he believes

He also said you have a whole house to live in so the kids have more space by living with you, whilst he’s living at his parents house. Well bloody fucking go and rent yourself a place you useless cunt. You can’t use the fact you live in your parents house as an excuse to get out of seeing your kids. Anyway, they have a spare room. And also if he’s got his parents with him, he has even more help at home than I do. Some men seriously I despair

Also he says if I keep asking him to have the kids, he’ll apply for full custody and take the kids away from me. The useless bugger can’t cope having them a couple hours a week and somehow is convinced he can take me to court and take them full time.

Discussions of the mental load and the ridiculousness of the labor division in even supposedly egalitarian households did enter cultural dominance 10 years ago. That means that the women having children now were well warned. The men having children now knew the expectations of being a good father in the current era.

discussions of economic realities of childbearing are also not new.

yet post after post we read of women breaking under the weight of the disparity in the breakdown of home labor. Post after we read about women going broke to have children while their partners are flush with cash.

the problem is that the message isn’t getting through. Older generations try to scream and shout and impart what has been learned, but the next generation barely listens or hears a garbled version of the message like a game of telephone.

You only have to look at the relationship boards to see where it all starts. Intelligent, solvent womens so desperately chasing after absolute wasters with no interest in them apart from a shag. I want to shout at them, sometimes. You can tell they are taking no notice, and learning no lessons in their threads despite often good advice. Its heartbreaking.

Well I'm.sure on a man's site it'd probably be full of rants about wives and girlfriends too, basing an opinion of Mumsnet isn't particularly accurate to reality.

But, yeah there are some useless men around of course - you're just more likely to hear about them on here because well... Who starts threads about how happy their relationship is? And if they did, they'd get shot down for being smug.

I've known many useless men and women are ver the years, men are less likely to discuss it online is the biggest difference I've seen.

This COULD simply be a result of sampling bias. This is a forum by women, for women... so of course you're going to see proportionally more posts from women, about men... and subsequently, only negative posts! Will anyone else come on here and say "I love my husband, he's perfect, discuss..."??? No, of course not! I actually set up a post trying with the aim to compliment your men and it sunk like a lead balloon on a planet with 1000x gravity.

Of course, this post will probably be shot down by some arguing men ARE this way, as they have an agenda and/or have been burnt or are in this situation, but realistically there is a HUGE sampling bias.

And we are only getting one side of the story... for all we know we could have Amber Heard in here saying her man doesn't pick up his mess, and everyone would rally behind her, when in reality, her abuse on HIM is comparably far worse!... but we don't hear that side.

Yes maybe ten years stale but nothing seems to change.

It's mumsnet, where people come to complain. In a hundred years people will still be complaining.

A bit like complaining about all the rubbish men, it's a female based site so you're not likely to get lots of men complaining about the dreadful women.

If it was a forum where 95%+ of the posters are men you'd get men moaning about women

As it's the other way round it's not surprising it's full of women moaning about men

Quite. Also if people are lazy, shit, abusive, cold or whatever themselves, they won't come to MN and complain about themselves, will they?

No you'll get a sob story from crap people as well as great people (ie 99% of MN)

There are many men out there that seem to think women should just be grateful they're not a rapist or violent it's a very low bar. Look how much they are gushed over if they do the slightest thing and the hero worship received if they are a single parent vs the judgement of a woman if she is one.

That sentence looked a bit ambiguous. Obviously the great people are most of MN, not the crap people.

I don't think I've ever seen a thread about a women moaning about these things with another women though.