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.

I really hope your current and future salary are worth it. Someone is making a huge profit out of your and your team's overwork.

I am not kidding when I urge you to please stop. You are likely to make yourself ill on so little sleep.

"Long-term consequences of sleep disruption in otherwise healthy individuals include hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease, weight-related issues, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and colorectal cancer."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5449130/

No salary is worth that. No job is worth that.

I urge you to please stop. You are likely to make yourself ill - I agree! Your post really worried me, @Notfeelingitwasworthit. OK if this were only for a few weeks but doing it week in, week out is going to cost.

Please look into ways of simplifying your workload and home-load.

Sadly it’s the 8yo that is still the most effort so it’s been going on for a long time. Parents whose kids do tasks and go off to bed don’t know how lucky they are!

It wasn't the fact that employers or parents let their kids do things like come to to work with them . People wanted the work done like cleaning there was no childcare set up for working class women . They wanted the work done single women were in factories, so they employed married women with kids or employ no one .

Sorry but your DH sounds lazy. So he grew up in a household where his father earned enough to keep the house. On the other hand, your DH has not managed to accomplish this and yet he is happy to pretend he has, by expecting you to do everything his stay at home mother did?

Well, you have your answer right there.

I'm currently pregnant and working part time. I was home all day yesterday and did absolutely nothing because of the fatigue. My DH, who is the main breadwinner, was on stressful work calls all day. In between he still managed to clean the kitchen and do two sets of washing. He was then working until midnight.

The issue is your DH. Stop enabling him.

Ultimately if men don't step up, women will vote with their feet and will increasingly have no or less children. The birth-rate will tank, with all the associated implications for society which that brings.

The experiences of Japan, South Korea and Italy are instructive in this regard as examples of what happens when women have greater professional and economic freedom in sexist and patriarchal cultures.

I was talking to a friend of mine (late 30s) who has decided not to have children a week ago. Her partner does want children so she's not sure she sees a future in the relationship. She said "I wouldn't mind having a child, but I'd definitely want to do the dad role, not the mum role. And the problem is that this is what Tom (not his real name) wants too. And neither of us earn enough to outsource the mum role to someone else. So I don't see how it could work."

Why? Because nobody else will and it needs to be done.q1

Another thing I notice is female partners ''mothering' their male partner whether it is making their husbands medical appointment for them, buying their MIL a birthday card, and other things they put upon themselves to do

just don't - don't blame your partner or IL's if you choose to do it and then use the get out clause 'but then my MIL will think I am bad' so?

How many long drawn out posts have we seen on here with the women creating a drama when they don't need to about something they have decided to take on themselves?

Of course, I fully recognise that things can be way more complicated when SEN/neurodiversity etc come into the mix.

In some cases, though, I suspect that it's a question of work expanding to fill the time available. Parents who haven't got time to spend hours chivvying every day may invest more in teaching their kids how to become more self sufficient at an earlier age.

This is interesting. I would say I'm slightly more stressed than my OH but he is as stressed sometimes. I'm not great at dealing with stress though. I do more housework and he tends to do more errands. I would leave more life admin to him, but i am a bit controlling about it. We both work FT. Neither of us have particularly senior roles but can feel the pressure in our jobs most weeks. I have lots of deadlines and different facets to my role (I would say OH job is easier and gets paid more!).

I have always found working FT stressful, but I now have a child with ASD and severe LD. That's a whole new level of stress as the SEND system is broken. He is in a mainstream school as there are no specialist places, so we have had to learn about SEND law, appeal and constantly chase the LA for updates. They are so under funded by the government its shit for them too as they want to help, but can't.

I think the issue more than anything is services being broken. If things fucking worked in this country it would be less stressful for families. What's more stressful than anything is you put yourself through this just to tread water - we can't even afford to save to buy our own home. Its depressing being this stressed just for nothing. No progress, just being thankful you are not in the red. We can't take on more senior roles because of our son's needs and the stress that accompanies getting his needs met. We can't access holiday or after school clubs because of his high level of SEN. So we can't just do what other people do, we have the stress of funding another more expensive solution. Other people have to deal with shit transport, health issues they can't resolve, housing issues that are all too common in our country. We are stressed because this country has gone to shit.

I find the health services we have encountered tend to hold the most archaic views. Health visitors, doctors, the LA and other professionals are shocked we both work FT with a disabled child and that I'm not a SAHP or very part time. I'm always asked about claiming DLA. It hardly covers my wage and we are still being assessed after weeks of waiting. One professional said she couldn't help me with our issues because most mothers SAH or worked part time with disabled children which solved these problems! So even in services that are meant to be supporting women the attitudes are that the women are to make the sacrifices. This doesn't help.

@Updownleftandright

Im in the same boat. It’s hard. It’s why I work very hard. My elder two have ASD, ADD and my son has depression and is suicidal. My youngest i has dyslexia and ADD. Now, being honest, my ex husband/their father has contributed greatly to their issues. My son who is suicidal, is a great kid who is bullied by his big sister. This is why I have FT childcare. My ex husband doesn’t so misses the bullying.

DLA in the UK is ridiculous. They told me I should stop working and they would pay me. I said well why don’t I work and you pay for my children to have a carer. I got the ‘what do you think this is’ lecture. I told her manager and my father’s MP, I’d been offered a role that paid so much my taxes would have been £250k+. Those taxes would more than cover the services my children need. Why wouldn’t you want me working? Why don’t I have the right to work?

I would recommend looking to move to New York. Figure out how to get qualified and get over because they offer excellent support. You have a good amount of advocacy to help you with navigating the system. Medicaid will kick in at some point and nyc is not income dependent which is great. I went private in NJ and did 2x speech therapy 2x occupational therapy and 3x play therapy until Covid. Yes you will work hard in nyc but at least you can get what you and your child needs.

You just do it. Like lots of women have done for years. You choose to do everything and complain or get your husband to do his share. It's not impossible. I did it for years as a single parent.

@Aintnosupermum because in the long run, parents being carers saves the local authority money. You may be earning that much but the amount you would pay in tax wouldn't compare to the cost of them having to pay for full time care. It is an inherently sexist system and I see it for myself as a worker in a local authority.

On the one hand we offer support to people providing unpaid care, such as respite, direct payments, carers assessments. On the other hand we do that so that the unpaid carers don't stop doing it. Because then we would have to pay either for foster care, nursing homes, a package of care, supported accommodation etc.

I can honestly say it's an absolute stress maker. I have a 10 and 7 year old and have been having the conversation about emotional load plus running a house since going back to work after my first. I am a senior manager working full time from home and up until last year earned more than my husband, he now outstrips me by far! however, in all that time and even before we had kids, I did the bulk of the housework, the cooking, the shopping, the tidying, the life admin, the guest maintenance. and now I still do most of that plus kid stuff.
I get to breaking point at least once a year where everyone swears things will change and they do for a short period then go back.

I totally lost my shizz last weekend and have now arranged to get a cleaner despite the husband's reservations. I have had enough! we now have a formal chores chart and if chores don't get done, kids don't get electronic time or treats, husband does not get his treats either!

you can have it all but you compromise yourself and no one else. I have lowered my standards but am now putting myself and my wellbeing first. I don't see why I should be the only one working 24/7 365 a year!

I recently asked for respite to cover a bit of school holidays so I dont have to take unpaid leave. They basically said its not for that, but didn't offer it for stress relief/time with other siblings either. I was just told to work opposite shifts to my OH. We both required to work office hours, but I've still had to move my work pattern to do the afternoon school run because of no wrap around care. It's shameful really. I felt embarrassed for my SW because she had literally no resources to help me,so I just discharged myself from the service instead.

If I did not actively seek help (still waiting for some to actually turn up despite speaking to different services), my support would have amounted to a leaflet on ASD!

Don't marry shit men who don't pull their weight. Household chores, bill paying, and childcare is 50/50 in our house. I would never accept anything less.

I married an adult. He acts like one.

That's the only way we manage to work full time with a child.

And even then we accept we always chase our tail with keeping the house in a fit state.

I'd refine that slightly, it's because nobody else thinks it's necessary to be done. Women tend to have higher standards than men in many areas, cleanliness being one. If the female partner didn't do any cleaning at all, after a couple of years the male partner would probably give the place a quick tidy-up. Women tend to see dirt and clutter much sooner than men, and therefore take on the job of tidying it up.

Why did you do the bulk of all that? I don’t understand why women do this.

I'll be honest and say I don't know, I really don't. It is a bone of contention in my marriage and always has been. But I will not nag my husband, he gets reminded once to do his jobs and if he doesn't do them, I don't either. and this is what leads to me losing my shizz because I cannot live in a house that messy and unclean but no one else sees it!

If there is a magic solution, I'll hear it!

My husband isn't a shit man, he's a kind, caring, loving gentleman who was brought up by parents in an emotionally abusive relationship where his mum did all the cleaning because that's how it was then even though she worked as well.

He does loads for us as a family, he does chores and jobs as well as I do, he just doesn't do as much because I 'see' more that needs to be done than him. that doesn't make him shit, it makes him male!

She said "I wouldn't mind having a child, but I'd definitely want to do the dad role, not the mum role. And the problem is that this is what Tom (not his real name) wants too."

Although it's easy enough to understand what she meant, women's problems will never go away while working outside of the home is classified as Dad role, and Mums get to be stay-at-home carers.

Hmm. What part of being male means that they can't see what needs to be done? And why is it that some males seem to be able to see these things when others can't?

My dh was brought up in a very traditional, patriarchal society where women did all of the cleaning. However, he also has the critical thinking skills required to recognise that there is no real reason why these tasks should be undertaken predominantly by women, and the decency to adjust his own behaviour accordingly.

I'm not sure why other men can't do the same. Is it because they're too thick to realise that things can be done differently from how they were brought up or because the status quo - and the notion that they just don't see what needs to be done because of their inherent maleness - actually suits them quite well?

Some examples of higher modern health and safety standards surrounding children would be:

• My employer does not allow staff to bring children to work on the grounds that it's not a child-safe environment. I went to work with both my parents as a small child, accompanying my mother into what we now call class one biosafety labs whilst still at primary school.
• There is now an expectation that unrelated carers will be DBS checked and trained. My dad would leave me with his PA to disrupt her work instead of his and DBS/CRB checks didn't exist back then.
• Children were expected to be "latch key kids", alone at home after school, from a younger age.
• It was deemed acceptable to place a child in charge of younger siblings at a younger age. I was often left to supervise my sister for up to half an hour whilst still primary aged, this is not deemed appropriate by most parents now.

that's more a failure of women not to live with things how they are and just do them rather than with men.

In my view men are far better at guarding their free time in order to destress and relax. I can't do that, and I know so many women who can't as well. That's not a man failing or a woman failing, it's just a thing.

Ultimately, each partnership has to find a way of making things work. that way may not make sense to others looking at it from the outside, but if it works for that couple then it works. and that constantly changes and shifts. I'm sure if you ask my husband he will tell you he does more than his fair share of keeping the house running because there are things he does that I don't see or value as being important. I will tell you the exact same thing, I'm the one that does the most and keeps things moving. My husband will also tell you that he is impressed every day at how much stuff I keep in my head to get 2 kids organised plus after school club plus various kits and needs to take to clubs plus my job plus being a school governor. he regularly calls me to check what he needs to do and have a kid where and with what if he is on duty but he will do it and he will do it well.

Maybe we should stop being critical of each others partners and focus on our own relationships and finding a balance that works for us