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

This makes me feel better about being single! I was pretty much in this situation with my ex and he walked out as he couldn't handle the expectation that he does more when I was heavily pregnant and working full time.

Another good thread (whcih I might start) is how do we ensure our sons don't grow up to be like this?

@Emotionalstorm I've been really enjoying this thread and reading about different experiences and insights but found your post about me surrounding myself with like minded people particularly uncalled for. Its my heartbreaking and very difficult experience of marrying a man who has let me down so hugely and so often, and I have read many similar other experiences. Research and evidence shows many many women experience this also. I'm glad that your husband pulls his weight and that he charges £1.2k an hour (a detail you included as so valuable to this particular discussion of course) but the fact nobody has told you about their struggles doesn't mean you don't know someone. The evidence would say you more than likely do. Perhaps if you were less judgmental and keen on stealth boasts about your well paid husband people might open up to you more?

Out of interest, are we all making sure our kids are doing chores, respect family members to try and break the cycle so our sons aren’t lazy and daughters not over burdened?

Mind you, my heart broke when with relatives dad asked mum for a drink while she was changing a nappy so mum asked 6 YO to do it for her.

WTF?? I asked what was wrong with his legs, that he needed to have his DD serve him.
not been invited back mind (same man who was shocked my DH bathed DC from newborn).

That's because on a burning planet with 8 billion humans, losing other species every day, with AI and other tech making human labour more and more obsolete every day, with ever-increasing competition for fossil fuels, potable water, food, shelter, and so on, the act of reproduction is no longer the desirable societal good it once was. Of course it's going to be devalued, the more people do it, just like anything else.

We have reproduced ourselves to commodity level.

And then portraying it as "bad luck" that they chose to marry shit men.

It's not luck. It's observation, prudence, preparation, and willingness to do without rather than settle for a sub-par specimen.

Please start this thread and link!

DH's dad - yes
My dad - no

I was raised with a SAHM and a useless father that could be one of the many described on this thread. He still thinks it's amusing that he doesn't know how to change a nappy.

I knew from a young age that I didn't want that to be my life if I had children. It was scary though, I didn't want marriage or children for a long time and one of those reasons was the fear of it somehow turning me into someone I didn't want to be. I met my now DH and realised that it doesn't have to be that way.

I have a son. He's only a baby right now but it sometimes keeps me up at night.

I feel like it has to start at home with positive role models. Like I said though, that's just a start.

OP, I'm with you. Name changed for this - we are having marriage counselling as in a nutshell I'm unhappy with the mental load and he wants more sex. I've come to realise that in my marriage it will never be equal as I'd like so it boils down to sex. I've noticed when I make more effort in the bedroom he makes more effort round the house. And vice versa - when he's helpful without he asking I feel more inclined towards more sex as I'm less stressed. Its archaic but true.

Good God. We are still expected to put out for 'help' with domestic chores? My DH would be under the patio.
I have posted up thread and I was interested to see what @SouthLondonMum22 said about starting young with boys.
My DS currently shares a house with three others. One arrived who was unable to wash up, put the dishwasher on or use a washing machine. He has been a total pain. His mother didn't work full time and supported her husband's career. They are now divorced.
My son has helped around the house from 3. He is super tidy (I'm not, nor was my mother). He cooks, cleans and decorates. He comes to us and sorts us out. My father was a big influence on him. His mother died when he was 7, he went into the army at 16. My dad even made fairy cakes with my daughter. I wasn't fussy about getting married although I did quite young by today's standards. It is about partnership and respect. We are not hand maidens and tbh rich men's wives very rarely work but they earn their lifestyle every day. It is relentless. I have friends like this and most are now getting divorced. The husbands are vile. And of course they don't like me!
I haven't got the answer other than be on it from day one. For God's sake have your own money and I personally wouldn't have a baby without being married unless you are going it alone. The law is an ass around that point.
Hopefully my son will make a great husband and father or he'll get his bum whooped.

Dh isn’t like this at all though depressingly he has been exclaimed over by other women from the midwives delivering dd1 (now doing a levels) onwards at how “amazing” he is for just being a normal decent co parent. Friends justifiably complain about their dhs but I just keep quiet and get “oh but you are lucky” etc.

This is such a sad read, sad to see some people are still this backwards.
Women’s worth is so much more than some motherhood.
And this exactly why we needed feminism in the first place.

This is a good idea and great topic.
It has been done a few times and it always goes wrong from the very beginning, boy parents moms get angry and defensive and start shouting how people should just make sure they are raising their daughters right.
And just like that, everything stays the same….

That’s a good philosophical point, something that in theory shouldn’t happen but unfortunately it does, even if it shouldn’t.

There is a very good book called Fair Play that is fully aimed at how more equality should be acquired at home. I have found it an amazing eye opener to simple things that look as equality but actually are not at all.

Interestingly, it mentions that the vast majority of men do far more chores at home before children are added to the equation. It is just on the months and years after the children are born when the load starts to shift, unfairly I must add, to the woman.

We honestly did brilliantly before the baby arrived, we were a team, we were not carrying each other, we could keep our shit together, same and throughout the first year or two after the baby arrived but after that… suffice to say I am now divorced.

I have had those rows though?

i was a walking zombie for the first two years of DCs life due to lack of support from DH and late night rows about that.

i did not back down. It took us about four years to work through it and get to a balance I was happy with.

he around then apologised to me, unprompted for getting it so wrong earlier on. Meant a lot to me and saved our marriage tbh.

it recurs from time to time. Eg during the pandemic I felt family things skewed to me even though my work was directly on pandemic response.

i fixed that after things opened up again by getting RUTHLESS about prioritising myself. He’d agree we’re all happier now I’m doing that.

Women have to be prepared to end the relationship. But lack of financial autonomy and the social stigma of being single / divorce hold too many back.

i agree the split is traumatic for older kids. But when I seriously considered it DC was under 2 and would never have known any different.

last point. Have larger gaps between your children. Gallop through having 1-2 years between each and there’s no space to require him to learn in the current Mat leave set up.

we accidentally have a 4 years gap but I gave time for me to see how I need to step back, go out, go away and leave DH to learn how to parent without me smoothing his path or telling him he was getting it wrong because he didn’t do it my way.

Be interesting to see a comparison with Norway, Sweden and Iceland where fathers get much more paid parental leave.

I wrote that capitalism devalues motherhood. I did not write that women's worth is entirely circumscribed in motherhood. You made up that bit all by yourself.

Maybe for you it was but it doesn't seem common and I am talking about societal level.

I mean one person is out of the house (for approximately 9/10hrs a day five days a week) and the other is at home with the baby so it stands to reason that they will end up doing more of the childcare even if not more of the housework/management, just because of the number of hours in the day. Often you see people defending a working father with a wide on maternity leave needing some downtime or needing to sleep as they have to be able to work the next day.

I think that if both parents experienced a few months of being the parent at home with sole charge them less men would opt out after children are born.

I massively agree with this. Of course the majority of the blame for this guileless behaviour should fall on the men themselves, that's beyond question. But there's something in the old saying 'people treat you how you allow them to'. Resisting these behavioural patterns isn't easy. But if it isn't done how do people really expect to effect change? The blame is the man's but the woman also needs better boundaries in these cases. That might be a bit tough love and it's also easy for me to say as my husband is genuinely good at domestic things and does more than his share. Yet I genuinely don't think I would have settled down with him if he wasn't! I have my own career ambitions and I need a partner who will enable that by approaching family life equitably.

It's not remotely 'backwards' to value motherhood, nor to value childrearing.

Feminism is precisely about valuing motherhood and equally about valuing fatherhood: parenthood is central and vital to all societies.

Where does that lead infertile people?

Well, except that those commodities you list are ubiquitous and yet valued more than motherhood, so I don't think it's to do with numbers. It's more to do with the envy at the root of patriarchy.

This is not the case with me

Feminism is precisely about valuing motherhood

I really dislike this attitude. It's one of the focuses of feminism. It is not what feminism is about, full stop.

Be interesting to see a comparison with Norway, Sweden and Iceland where fathers get much more paid parental leave.

I work with Swedes and literally do not know a single Swedish dad who is comparable to the shit ones discussed on this thread. They all take parental leave (in 2022, out of parents using parental leave 54% were women, 46% men), they are just as likely to leave meetings early to pick up kids from school or stay home with sick ones and you certainly get no bonus points for advertising that you haven't changed a single nappy.