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.

We live in a tourist area so jobs are seasonal. Obviously it's winter at the moment so holiday parks are closed. They usually alternate between bugging me or my husband. They're useless at communicating. Its shocking. I could do their jobs properly and a lot more effectively.
Millions of people claim UC and there's no shame in it as its replaced all the other gateway benefits so not just for people out of work. My youngest is still at home so I will be staying home with her until September.
I used to work but my job no longer exists thanks to crap decision making by local council. They don't care about the young people in the county!
I don't physically do everything but definitely feel the strain more.

I’m divorced with four children and work full time. I have a cleaner who comes fortnightly (can’t afford weekly) and a childminder. Of course, they are women too!

I gave up on dating as I’ve so little free time, and am lucky if I see friends and family once a month.

I'm sorry - but what does that have to do with women who are living with men, not ensuring/insisting that men play their part/do their share of household tasks?

Whether you can afford them or not 5 kids is a lot in this day and age. It’s definitely a choice that will impact even some of the most robust people. Which is partly why so many people stop at 2 or 3.

I have a few friends with more than 3 kids but they have very equal partnerships, lots of family support and while they’re very busy they don’t seem to be overwhelmed or feel as if “everything” is on them. Needless to say noone know how anyone else feels but from what I’ve seen this appears to the case.

You know, we have a cleaner (thank fuck for that) but DH and I still have household tasks that have to be done - and we share them. Bins still need to be emptied, food still needs to be cooked, laundry still needs to be done. The dishwasher needs to be emptied, the kitchen surfaces cleaned, the shopping to be done.

Etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. We share it all. Sometimes he does more of them than I do, sometimes I do more of them than he does - it depends on who is where/doing what at the time. But the critical thing is that neither one of us assumes that it's the job of the other.

I do everything, but when ex decided that's how it would be, I left with ds.

So now I do everything in terms of parenting, ds helps with the chores, and ex - well, who knows. It's not my problem any more. He can cook & clean and deal with his own laundry.

And I'm happy. Ds is happy and doing well. My finances are healthy. We have none of the disadvantages.

Sometimes it seems like feminism is only for middle class women . Middle class women working full-time . What is the answer with how to cope with it all ? Is it really employ another women on a low pay job (women usually) . Feminism done , but is it ? What about the female cleaner where is the advice for her ?
Maybe men should help more .

We both do the household role, why should only one person do it? It isn't fair. Mothers aren't supposed to do everything.

I wouldn't be with a man who thought it was acceptable to treat me like I'm his personal maid.

Why on earth would you conclude that?!

Of course men should help more. Whatever class they are.

And I'm sorry, but I still think that it's often women's fault for allowing this to happen. I don't think this is a class issue.

You're fucked if you let yourself get into that situation, yes.
My wife wouldn’t stand for me doing nothing around the house; if you let your partner slob about that’s on you.

Its up to the couple to have the man help, not 'feminism' or class structure

It's men's fault for not stepping up. It shouldn't be up to women to keep them in line. They have eyes, they can see that the laundry basket is full.

Blaming women for men not using their eyes to see that the dishes need washing is another example of the first rule of misogyny.

We also really need to stop calling it 'helping' because it is still implies that it is ultimately the woman's responsibility and the men are doing them a favour.

A man doing his fair share around the house isn't 'helping', it's a minimum standard of being an adult.

This has never been the case for me. We earn 50/50, we contribute to the house 50/50, we've looked after the kids 50/50. Too many people set the bar too low.

A former colleague more or less said she had a “perfect husband” and that her “only issue” was he didn’t spend any of his free time with their 7 year old kid. She would look up activities he could go to with their kid or they could all go as a family and he would make excuses or go and come home early.

She did get wise to it though eventually and refused to have a second child with him which infuriated him. He kept saying things would be different once they had a second child and they’d figure it out with childcare which was ridiculous and she saw it for the BS that it was.

More women need to think like that before they keep having kids with a man who doesn’t pull his weight.

You share all household tasks both physical and mental and you have a reasonable amount of children, every single one obviously adds to that load and those children have one or two hobbies at most where they need ferrying about. You also as an individual with or without children only do things you want to if they are a choice.

As a woman my top tip is stop worrying about everyone liking you.

I'm married, have a 6yr old with additional needs and a 11 month old. I've just gone back to work full time after having a year off for maternity leave and my husband is going to be stay at home dad after 6 years of me doing part time (32hrs) and looking after the house. I do feel that I've kept everything in order for the past 6 years!

He's bricking it as he's never had to do tea time, school runs, washing, appointments etc. He use to work 8-4 but I do 14hr days, so 4 days a week I am still around. If you want to be pedantic I work nights, so I'm around more than other working parents.

Oh for goodness sake! Of course men should step up. But they won't, and don't, whenever/wherever they have a woman at home who is taking on the burden of the household chores. And you don't have to be on Mumsnet for very long to see just how many women do that.

Unless you haven't been here for long?

It's fucking depressing to see how many women just settle for men who won't take any responsibility for the running of the home.

@BIWI i think your post above was referring to @Notsoslim.

I will say this as a divorced mother of 3 children. I work on a very full time basis. My ex husband is now running his own business making millions and working every other week. I worked this weekend, had to pay for childcare. It’s extremely expensive but I have to keep my job to pay the bills. Their father doesn’t pay 50% of child related costs and the work that goes into getting him to pay is ridiculous. He made $15m in 2022. He pays no more than $35k towards child related costs. There is no alimony.

The system is stacked against women and until you end up on the wrong side of it, you have no idea how awful it is. I earn good money thank goodness but it’s ridiculous I don’t get a full time nanny, a housekeeper and all the tutoring, activities etc fully paid for by their father while living in a home purchased by him in full with zero mortgage and property taxes paid for in full each year.

Im at the low end of senior leadership (3 levels down from the c suite) and the number of women at this level has majorly thinned out. Lots left during covid and they have not returned to similar roles. Many are still not working and I don’t expect they will until their children are 18+, at which point they will be picking up lower level jobs as their skills will be completely out of date.

I am very angry that my ex husband has been able to insist on having the children 50% of the time when he has never done 50% of the work. When I pointed this out, the judge said it was a difference in parenting styles. No, it’s neglect. He doesn’t do the doctor, vision or dentist appointments beyond taking them to something I’ve booked. All 3 have SEN and it’s me doing the work all the time. Like the US, why don’t courts in the UK enforce these men paying their fair share for their children. It would really help women a lot.

@donteatthedaisies0, who on earth told you feminism was done?!

A lot of women are able to have their successful careers because they outsourced their household’s domestic chores to a woman who’s poorer, less educated, and unlikely to be having her own fulfilling career complete with company stock options and a corner office. When the media pays attention to the problems of lower-income mothers, the topic is “poverty” or “the economy.” When the media pays attention to the problems of higher-income mothers, the topic is “feminism.”

@HolyGuacamole28

It's a natural consequence of women's own choices.

The vast increase in women working full time and staying working after marriage/kids hugely pushed up the prices for housing because now women were including their salary in the affordability whereas it was just the man's before. Of course house prices radically increased since a couple's buying power radically increased. Therefore it's significantly harder now to have the equivalent of what previous generations had.

Many women, who blindly follow whatever theyre told, have fallen for the "having it all" trap, which simply means "doing it all". Many women are full time workers which means their job is the priority time wise over their child. Any non-work time is trying to unsuccessfully squeeze in everything else in life and women are undertstandably utterly burnt out. They're trying to do their best but priorities are all wrong.

Some women have sussed it out though and when able to do so, are SAHP while their kids are young or work very part time as they wisely see no need chasing their own tail trying to juggle an impossible amount to do and just ending up doing nothing optimally.

Excluding necessary reasons, I see no point having kids just to choose to leave them in outsourced childcare all day, each/most weekdays so the majority of their childhood is spent being looked after by someone else who can't pay them the same attention and love as a parent would. It makes much more sense to prioritise properly at each life stage. Prioritise work/study before marriage and kids . When kids arrive, prioritise the kids. When kids older, can prioritise work/study etc again. Kids are only young for a relatively short time.

And i dont get this obsession that some women have with how men have it. Why on earth would I want to be competing with career obsessed men to spend less time with my own children?? 😵‍💫 Surely anyone's kids are more important to them than anything else in life, including their career anyway 😵‍💫

There's ultimately no job more important than forming human beings and the next generation.

I've been here for eight years.

The answer is not to train them, it's to divorce them. Training them is mental labour in itself. You shouldn't have to teach your husband how to be an adult, his parents should have taught him that already.

if you let your partner slob about that’s on you

I don't have a partner. He left me holding the baby. If I'd done as he did and dropped the baby, that baby would be in care. Or, I guess , dead. And I would be a monster; the unthinkable, a woman who won't care for her child. He, meanwhile, is not a monster. He is simply a bloke.

@BIWI

There was no training my ex husband and post divorce my children are returned to me with red bottoms, matted hair and hungry because he is incapable of caring for them. A real man would ask for every other weekend with a burger night during the week between. Alas, the system supports his neglect of the children.