All women I know are in my situation

[growli]

Pretty useless DH. They're left to look after the kids. Called nags if they complain.

It mostly falls on them. The marriages are pretty rubbish.

I've posted here so many times about my issues with my H and my lifestyle with small kids.

I always get told I need to divorce. I get told that there are other men out there who aren't as useless with their children.

In real life, every woman I know, faces something similar. Mainly responsible for everything to do with kids and house, works full time most of the time too.

Husband works hard, but doesn't contribute to looking after the kids or household. Complains of not enough sex.

The women I know are highly educated and in successful careers. We all feel stitched up. We were told if we study hard and are in successful careers, we wouldn't end up being slaves to our husbands and children.

What happened to the men our parents raised ? For them to expect women to still be like their mothers ? Doing everything for kids and family.

Mothers and mothers in law in general ( even though they raised us to be successful career women with choices ) don't have a whole lot of sympathy as it seems a raise to the bottom and ' how much harder ' it was for them.

I realise I'm generalising

Thank you, your apology is much appreciated.

My children are now mostly grown up and largely beyond my influence. The elder was so damaged by his bullying father that we were barely in contact for a while. Now I’ve left his dad, we’re close again, but I am now so wary of losing him that I don’t correct him much. I hope that he finds someone who will stand up for herself as I think he has the potential to be much better than his dad, but it will probably take someone putting their foot down as the tendency is there.

The other two are lovely and I think will form much better relationships. My daughter is dating a woman, so that might help!

The sexism in our society is so ingrained that we don’t even see it. That is one of the biggest hurdles women face.

To all the mums out there….. This is depressing but absolutely true. Too many historians (I’m so going to believe 99% at least male) believe Hitler was the product of his mother’s parenting. Am going off thread for today. If anyone feels that I’ve undermined women in terms of raising boys I apologise. I have admitted that even with my own children I was caught assigning sexist roles, yet I’ve seen too many women do this without acknowledging it. Of course none on here would do that. Parenting is so hard - why is it that it’s still considered the mother’s fault?

PS DH believes it television - I told him he’s outdated. It’s media!!!

This isn’t me but I will never understand why women have second and sometimes more children with men who’ve proven themselves to be useless, feckless fathers. What’s the saying? Fool me once…

We have got to stop blaming women and mother’s for men’s poor behaviour.

It’s men, it’s fathers, it’s the misogynistic society. Well not just misogynistic, it’s that those with less power aren’t treated as well.

It’s very telling, and very interesting that those who came onto the thread to say that their fathers and husbands are great, are women who have power - security in wealth or finances.

My DH is fantastic and such a hands on father and although I won't admit this to him... probably does a little more housework than me!

Many women have no idea that the men they marry will behave like this when they have children though.
It's fine when it's the 2 of you .
Children make huge amounts of work, admin etc
When they are on ML is when the rot can set in and men think that women are there to mother them.
A male work colleague of mine deeply resented his wife being " off"

The Patriarchy sets women up.
The perfect wife and mother rhetoric blames women for men's incompetence and faults .

There’s a lot to be said for traditional
marriage. Not a popular take but I am happy to carry the mental load, the house work etc as he earns the money and I work part time. I would never work full time and be able to look after the house and kids. Looking to move to a cheaper part of the U.K. so there are less financial pressures.

What about an option for mum for first 3 months (mum’s choice) to get feeding established - I only say this because with each child it took me roughly that long to have it settled. And then an option for week on/week off shared?

Funny that so much emphasis is being put on how we raise boys. Personally, I think we need to be reassessing how we raise girls.

Absolutely spot on. It needs tackling from both sides or it's just not going to work.

The same ingrained sexism that makes you blame women for badly raised men is the same ingrained sexism that has you trying to weasel out of being called out on it by accusing me of "fury" for noticing it.

Stop the sexism, stop the woman-blaming and for the love of Bog stop the pomposity.

I have only read the OP's updates so I don't know if this has already been said, but I often wonder in these scenarios whether the desire to have chidren is more on the woman's side than the man's?

From spending far too much time on mumsnet I get the impression that far more women want to be parents than men. So, how many of these women with husbands and partners who don't pull their weight as far as parenting is concerned have partners who were ambivalent about becoming parents in the first place?

@Ngmi I mean maybe not a modern view....but you've got a better deal than women like me thinking we are so independent and career driven...spending all day at work and all evening in front of the washing machine.

I do think that women putting down and blaming other women, instead of judging the men, is one of the reasons men can still get away with this.

Women stuck with husbands who don’t pull their weight are therefore more isolated because of this false blame. ‘You should have known’ or ‘you should have chosen better’. As if women go around trying to find useful husbands!

And it’s no better when you divorce.

I divorced my husband as it was so stressful as soon as we had a child, he did nothing around the house and I had to practically beg for ‘childcare’. So I did what the posters here said, I left him.

And then had to contend with being judged mainly by women for not wanting the Ex to have 50/50 childcare, and for wanting to have decent maintenance, and for wanting to be supported as a mother and an earner. I didn’t leave my husband, who wasn’t taking care of our kids just to have them be neglected 50/50!

This isn't my relationship and I don't have kids (together 18 years). But I do think it's quite common. Even the dads who do childcare aren't doing everything the way mums do.

I do wonder about the number of women who end up having kids with men like this though. Like were they all fine before babies?

It certainly isn't only working class men under 45 ish. In my experience they are the most proactive!

We have got to stop blaming women and mother’s for men’s poor behaviour.

I've literally just been accused of "fury" for responding to someone who did exactly this. You can look back to my one line and decide for yourself how furious the post is.

But that's lazy, ingrained sexism for you. Women are to blame when men are shits. And then they're just "angry" - implication being "irrational" - when they point it out.

I predict the next move will be either "you are a man hater" or "see, women are their own worst enemies". It'll be pompous and condescending as fuck, whatever it is.

It’s definitely a dynamic for me too.

I’m not sure I got it so much from home, but there’s a massive societal tendency for women to be shown making an effort to please their men. I suspect I may have picked it up from reading, TV and films.

But something struck me a while back about how much I had taken it to heart when I was a Brownie about putting others before myself. I don’t know whether that was ever a general societal thing, and that it has changed, or just something Baden Powell saw as some kind of ideal.

I now think putting others before yourself is a recipe for a miserable life because almost nobody else is doing the same. I think we should definitely be teaching our children to consider their own needs to be as important as the needs of others. Otherwise we’re opening them up to abuse.

I think I'd allow them to have it however they liked during the first year except like you said, use it or lose it.

Just because circumstances are different like I didn't breastfeed at all, for example.

@NagHag my mum was the main earner and I saw how much it burnt her out. I see my friends in the same boat and they are angry all the time. Sorry you’re working so bloody hard, you deserve more help from your partner if you’re working full time. It’s so much.

I'd say it was the exact opposite in my circle of friends!

I would not put up with it and neither would they. My daughter has had a heathy relationship modelled and I'm glad to say she takes no shit either.

I think it's a matter of perception in a lot of cases.

Most women I know moan about their partners together because they're all humans and therefore flawed. If you just hear the moaning you'd think they're awful people but it misses the good stuff because no one needs to offload the time their husband brought back flowers from the supermarket just because or changed the oil on the car because he knows she hates doing it or booked a massage for her because the kids were being a bit stressful and he knew she struggles to put herself first when she needs to.

And that's the other bit - women are socialised to put themselves last and men to put themselves first so some of it we do to ourselves. I was totally peed off with my husband for leaving me to sort out the family Christmas last year and I got so so stressed trying to make it perfect that I shouted at him and told him if it was so easy he should do it. So he did. Was it perfect? No. But it was 90% as good for 10% of the effort and it's just me that doesn't think that's fine so maybe I need to chill out just the tiniest bit. I've noticed the same different standards in a lot of my friends.

There are also total dickheads and the lovely but just don't get it brigade.

@PimmsandCucumbers did you win that fight? To not be forced into a 5050 situation? Its the one thing stopping me leaving. My kids are v little and I just cannot accept losing them to be neglected half their life. Exactly as you said.

I could have literally written this word for word OP - my now ex husband was exactly as you describe. I was the higher earner, carried all of the mental load and did absolutely everything around the house, took responsibility for the children etc. I have divorced him now, after totally losing all respect for him. For those who say I wouldn’t let it happen to me blah blah blah - I agree with OP, I see the same playing out among everyone I know IRL. I’m an educated, professional high earner and move in similar circles, but wouldn’t trade my life now for what any of the women I know are tolerating. The bar for men these days is so low it’s truly sickening. And yes my mum does the same in terms of defending men at all costs - has such a low expectation of all men that if they’re not alcoholic, womanising, wife beaters then they can honestly do no wrong.

No! I definitely have ingrained sexism and I have am 100% open to saying I have to have a head wobble that is ongoing to make sure I’m not making genderised (not good at spelling) decisions. But regardless of gender I stand by my point that those closest to the child have the greatest influence overall. This does includes the person in the role of ‘father’, though if that person is rarely around many studies show that the child grows up with an indifference to that typical role.

I grew up with a SAHM and a shit father.

That's a big reason why I would never be a SAHM and feel it is important to be financially independent.