To ask why women are expected to do everything?

[HolyGuacamole28]

I read a depressing article in the Economist today ‘How Motherhood affects careers’ and it stated how more and more women are not progressing as they should after having children. And SAHP is on the rise as more people opt out of a system doomed to failure. I just don’t understand how mothers are physically supposed to work full time in a career/senior role (I do), manage a household (I have a 4 year old, 2 year old and a husband, also FT) that includes washing, cleaning, cooking etc and do activities with the kids, keep fit and see friends. Is this what society expects? Who is supposed to do the household role if both adults work full time? And why do we need two incomes just to survive? (COL is so painful re mortgages, childcare, energy, food). Rant over, just can’t see how society has evolved, it’s just put more on our shoulders. I’m personally at breaking point.

On a similar basis, I know of two perfectly nice men who are willing to take on Powers of Attorney and even offer their parents a home, but that's as far as it goes: it doesn't occur to them that elderly, frail people need someone to check they are changing their clothes or taking their medications properly, and that they may need a lift to the GP or the hospital. Not really man's work - sort of thing a sister or a wife should do really?

Having said that I also know lots of parents who favour their daughters.

My PIL just love their daughter more and have supported her with money and childcare. I don't expect their sons will step in to help them when they are old

In these cases, one is an all-sons family, who favour hiring carers, and the other is one of each. For that one, sister is clearly expected to organise all the personal care. When she explained about changes in Dad's medication, brother looked surprised and said shouldn't she be explaining this to him?

I have grappled with this my entire life and I fear it comes down to two things:

1. Men have never seen these things as their responsibility, they diminish and minimise the importance of these tasks, and even when grudgingly doing them, they quickly revert back to not doing. It's a Sisyphean task of pushing water up a hill. And don't lecture me on it being my fault - I'm an aggressive feminist and I arguably wear the trousers in this house. My husband has subconscious embedded beliefs that I have not been able to successfully shift.

1. Men dismiss and look down upon anything seen as feminine. Embedded misogyny means that anything female or feminine is automatically lower status and a subject of piss taking of a man does them. Some women don't help this by perpetuating the "I like a man to be a man" type of cliché. But they are just going with the cultural flow rather than being bright enough to challenge it.

And if this receives patronising responses along the lines of "You have let him get away with this" I will simply silence my notifications, because no-one who had witnessed my struggle, near divorce over these issues, as well as traumatising my kids with the domestic conflict would think that. It's more complex. And I salute the men whose wives have equality but boasting about it and thinking it reflects you rather than them is naive. You have been lucky enough to meet and fall in love with a receptive man.

@anon666

Sorry @anon666I was trying to respond to your comment and posted too early. Your comment sums up what I tried to argue less ably earlier in the thread. In a nutshell, whether a partner does his share or not is on him, not you. If he doesn't all you can do is leave him. There are many reasons why that might feel a disproportionate response. And it's unfair to lecture or criticise other women who have not had the rare good fortune to marry a man who (so far) does his share.

Fuck. The. Fuck. Off.

It's called hiring help. And being intelligent enough, when income isn't an issue, to work out what you need. Do you need to do all the cleaning? Or laundry? Have you made friends with your kids' friends, so you can car-share activities and events? Otherwise, you have to suck it up like everyone else. Your 4 year old will be in school next year. You'll have more spare cash and you can hire childminders so you can go to the gym. The first five years are always the hardest and most expensive. Life gets better and easier.

Not read the whole thread but it seems to me that a lot of women don't really want to grind at the career after having kids. Nobody wants to 'live off a man' so to speak but plenty are happy to not progress as fast or to stay part time once their husband's salary is enough to grant an adequate quality of life.

Try reading the whole thread and you'll see that a large part of why women don't want to grind at the career after kids is because her husband has dumped the domestic stuff on her and she doesn't fancy slogging at two jobs.

Half an hour wouldn’t get dinner prepped much less cleaned up, children chivvied through washing, reading practice, checking bags and notices, making them get out their uniform and anything needed for the next day, tidy up the clothes they wore, some of the mess they created on walking in the door, (or getting them to tidy it, takes 3x as long) , before we’ve so much as one more clean piece of clothes, or anything done at all. Evenings are pretty intense here.

When my DH (of 20 years) first moved in together his mum asked me to make sure he had clean shirts for work. I told her if he wanted clean shirts, he will make sure he has them!

I won’t pretend that we have got the split of household chore right all the time through the years. It was especially hard after I stopped being part time after a few years when the kids were young. It took him too long to realise that I was working full time too and he needed to do more.

I really hope the next generation will get better. It will take us raising our boys to realise all these tasks are family tasks not female only!

It absolutely is possible , how do working class people cope ? Do they really have funds to throw at having others to do it for them .
My parents both worked fulltime when I was a child in 70s because they had too .

Just to add to a misconception that women used to stay at home in the old days , they didn't . Working class women have always worked , sometimes as a child . I can remember they took their children to work with them . I can remember whether my mum was cleaning offices or a home , I would be sitting there with a book .
So for some reason working class parents always coped at home .

Indeed. My dad is in his late eighties, and his mum worked all through his childhood - she was born into a working class family in 1898 and started working when she was 15. Her income was actually higher than my grandad's, so she was essentially the main breadwinner throughout their marriage. My dad and his siblings fended for themselves quite a lot; looked after each other; and relied quite heavily on neighbours when needed. It was just the way that things were!

Sounds like YOU are expecting to do everything rather the general population of women! Why do you feel you have to do it all?

For the preschool years, both partners should apply to do a 4 day week either as compressed hours FT or as part time.

I do get tired with the idea that women stayed at home , they didn't and some say they can't cope . I remember Saturdays as teen being kicked out of bed by my dad . Who was playing music and doing the housework. We wanted to sit around in our pyjamas lounging around . there was none of that when he was in charge 😁 .

It depends on the man. My DH does loads of stuff for my elderly parents - on his own initiative, I hardly ever ask. DD and I were away recently and discovered when we came back that he had been over there cooking a meal for them, cleaning their kitchen etc. He comes from a culture where there is a lot of respect for elders though. He was brilliant with his own mum before she died.

Sounds a nightmare! But kids don't stay small enough to need that much chivvying for very long.

Sadly, you are so right! In 1928 women got the right to vote in the UK. At that time, compulsory schooling stopped age 14. Then in the 60s we fought for the right to work in all fields and for equal pay which hasn't happened even now, 60 years later. I burned my brain Kensington Gardens along with some 50 other girls. What a mistake we made. What has happened is that mortgage companies have made it so expensive that couples are forced to both work. Being a housewife is a luxury. In the days when families stayed in the same city and had far more kids, there were plenty of willing hands to help. This all went to pot when nuclear families had to outsource this job. Having to choose between having a career but spending most of your salary on child care or staying at home is dreadful. I have 4 kids in their early 40s. None want kids ever. 2 because of the planet, one because she is allergic to children and one because she loves her job. How many of you out there are seeing the same as me?

I think this will make you laugh . In 1985 his a City of London byelaw made is illegal to hit your wife between the hours of 10pm and 7am because then noise is keeping people awake .....

40h a week jobs were designed when 1 income was still enough to live on for a family with 2-4 kids and 2 holidays a year. You can not both work 40+h a week and do the household chores and raise kids. The human race will die out in the next 2-3 generations as less and less children are born due to corporate greed and political mismanagement!

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia

I am now running a very time sensitive division. You have to execute and do so without running people over. It’s hard to do it here in Texas because of the prevalent sexism.

I am expected to remain professional on very little sleep. Everyone in my department is working around the clock and driving this to completion. I run because it is excellent at reducing my stress levels. I have a sofa in my office for the team to use to take five mins to chill out. I need it after my intense runs which I do once a week. We eat dinner as a team at 7pm. It’s in the office but I also cover the cost of the team walking over to Starbucks for a coffee mid afternoon.

For reference I’m 3 levels down from the ceo and report to a c suite executive. Everyone is working around the clock at this level but hides it.

No they weren't .

Our standards of health and safety were lower and childhood death rates correspondingly higher. What our forebears let their kids do, we would not tolerate now.

Then in the 60s we fought for the right to work in all fields and for equal pay which hasn't happened even now, 60 years later. I burned my brain Kensington Gardens along with some 50 other girls. What a mistake we made. What has happened is that mortgage companies have made it so expensive that couples are forced to both work.

It is not a mistake. I am glad to be able to work and not be railroaded into marriage that I never wanted and kids that I never wanted.

The mortgage crisis is caused largely by right-to-buy depleting the social housing stock, which has not been adequately replenished. Right-to-buy transferred taxes to individuals, making them wealthier at everyone's expense, whilst depleting the supply of affordable housing. Overseas "investors" and speculative purchase have also pushed up rents and prices alike. New homes are not built fast enough to keep up with the population and are often priced to match the rest of the market. Lastly, this country is not creating land whilst the population climbs. As land gets scarcer, it will increase in price.

This is not the fault of feminists.