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.

DH grew up in a very patriarchal family but did not carry those expectations into our marriage.

Housework is split fairly equally, we tend to have certain roles, eg I do the laundry, he does the ironing. I buy food, he buys all the other stuff. In nearly 35 years of marriage I don't think I have ever bought toilet rolls or washing powder and we never run out.

I was a sahm when the DC were small. His view was that I was there for them, I might do some housework if I could fit it in, otherwise he did it after the DC were in bed or at weekends. Or I did it while he looked after the DC. He did most baths and bedtime stories.

It does not have to be the way so many women describe. Anyway, I must get up, we are expecting visitors and he's downstairs hoovering.

Is it? Isn’t it on the men? Houses need cleaning and food needs to be provided. in my experience the men play a game of household chicken whee they see how long they can go without engaging. Women crack and do it - usually because it’s the children that miss out - and boom: precedent set. If that doesn’t work men move on to tactic two: weaponised incompetence. They feed the kids but only freezer tapas, they clean but not well, they shop but don’t meal plan. Woman picks up the rest; boom: precedent set. It’s not women ‘letting’ men get away with shit, it’s that the people they love are affected and they step in.

@LilyWater you are totally right about everything except I would say you lumped women with the fault for "wanting it all". Why it is assumed women be the ones to do the important job of raising the next generation? Why don't you also say MEN shouldn't expect to have it all a career and their kids and they should just be happy to stay at home and raising their wonderful children and see it as the most important job? Did their career and their financial independence the men should care more about their kids instead of "chasing their own tail"

It shows naivety when people think that everyone has total agency over their own lives

It usually comes from a place of privilege- the privilege of never having needed to go against the stream , someone who has never felt how society can affect the individual

Your hopes ambitions and expectations are formed by the society around you as from the smallest baby you meld to fit in to get foods and love

I’m not saying shut up about it I’m saying direct it at men. It’s not like 99% of them are great at being equal with housework and women are just picking the crappy 1%. So berating women that it’s their fault and they need to pick better is not going to help.

Teach boys at home and in school to see domestic work as valid, necessary and worthwhile. Stop (not you personally, but us in general) judging women about being slovenly or grim if they don’t wash their sheets every week or whatever other standard, because this is not ever being directed at men. There will probably be a lot of things we can do, it needs more thought, but just blaming women saying it’s all your fault you should have picked better doesn’t seem very feminist to me.

The one that gets me on MN threads is meal planning.

Because for the vast majority of human history and across huge parts of the world globally, food production and management is either a) the responsibility of someone who isn't employed outside of the home or b) something outsourced - streetfood, restaurants, chefs etc.

We don't meal plan. We take turns adding stuff to Tesco, work out who wants or needs to cook each day and get takeaway when we've not bought enough/fancy a break. There's no such thing in our household as meal planning.

Senior management for medium sized organisation here, still rising in my career.

Lessen your standards… that’s what I do. My house is not spotless, we limit the amount of activities our kids do as I can’t be doing with ferrying them around constantly, I don’t always get time to read with them, I am never on top of the laundry and beds don’t get changed as often as I’d like.

Also get your partner to do stuff. Mine does all cooking, hoovering and I’ve given him some of the regular school tasks. I’m definitely more organised so I project manage all the life/ household tasks.

Working from home has helped me- time to unload dishwasher while kettle is boiling etc.

Life is for living and fun. I have stopped being so precious and perfect, that’s how I cope with it all. It’s not too bad but it can be monotonous and boring at times!

Oops wrong thread!

Absolutely, this as well.

Definitely this!

DH and I have an equal relationship where we both do most of the chores, tidying/ laundry/ cooking and the rest are split evenly. We earn the same and are both around the house a lot, to be here for the kids or get stuff done. He has fixed shifts but lots of time off (4 days on/ 6 off) I work FT 5 days a week but flexibly at home. When we both worked in offices and were out of the house 7.30-6.30, life was far more difficult.

@midgetastic Yes, yes they are. We are of course shaped by that BUT if we reflect, think and are aware we can make different choices. It's hard though. And it's easier if there is someone around us, someone on social media a crappy mums website who says.."it doesn't have to be like this". DH escaped a really toxic family story of horrible expectations about gender roles religion and abuse to do things differently. I've gone against the stream (family not speaking to me) and we've both had to create a network of friends outside of this. It's fucking hard and lonely at times. But we're buggered if we were going to pass that crap on to the next generation.

There's that saying, the concept of the 40 hour week dates back to when it was mainly men and unmarried women going out to work full time, and there would be someone at home looking after the children and the home. So we have to adapt and if you're both working FT it shouldn't be on one of you to do it all, or even to do more than half.

I'm not accepting of it at all. I think it's quite shocking in this day and age that men not only behave like this, but that so many of their partners seem to allow it. It isn't allowed in my marriage at all - and never has been.

But if men themselves don't see that this is unacceptable, then how will this change? Who has to make things change?

And I quite agree with @VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia:

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.

I think you make a very good point. Have women gained equality or do they now just do more than ever? I read a good book about motherhood in a capitalist consumer society. So many women at breaking point feeling like they are performing badly in the private and public.

I do think this impacts men too though. They are now pulled in more ways than ever before too. We are just not meant to work and live at the speed we do.

One thing that is often overlooked in these discussions is the changed nature of work and what one is expected to do. My mum worked full time but her job, like my dad’s, was actually 9-5, Monday to Friday. Still tough but with enough time for them both to do household work and raise children etc.

Workplaces now expect far more to be done, often by fewer people. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do much longer hours than they are technically contracted to do - with a knock on effect on how much time you can spend on spending time with children, housework etc etc.

I’m not a full blown anti-capitalist by any stretch of the imagination, but companies chasing profit by working fewer people, harder, has definitely caused some of the problems too.

The fact that the burden falls disproportionately on women is just good old fashioned sexism though.

I simultaneously believe that it is 100% mens fault that they are shit.
Whilst also believing that women enable it, by going ahead and doing the majority of the domestic work. Now, it's important to note here, that as women we are TRAINED to do so, so sometimes it's easy not to realise you're doing it all until it's too late. You are trained to pick up the 'pink jobs' that need doing day in day out, while he does the 'blue jobs' that need doing once a week, month, year.
We raise women in families where this is the default, so they do what they know.
And some awful men pull their weight up until a baby arrives, when they then expect you to do 24/7 hours for the price of whatever maternity pay YOU secured in YOUR job, acting like they are doing you a favour to ALLOW you to stay at home with YOUR baby, while they do 40 hours a week and put their feet up the rest of the time.
It's always the man's fault.
But - we do enable it! Because we reward the useless man who can't do his own washing, with us doing his fucking washing???? And then we have kids with them? Because really the problem is that women are still, to this day, across even the most enlightened parts of society, told that you need a Very Big Reason to exit out of a relationship you aren't happy with, and you are judged if you don't 'try and make it work' or 'understand noones perfect' - the patriarchal conditioning of romantic relationships is the core root of patriarchal structures everywhere else - it starts when you fall in love, and everything follows from there.

I've been a lone parent since DS was a baby. So I've done everything myself but that's because I had to. Honestly I'd rather that than have someone who could pitch in but doesn't. Hell will freeze over before I ever run around after a man.

It’s ironic that women moan about doing everything whilst also raising sons that turn out exactly the same as their father’s allowing the woman to look after the household, raise your sons better!!!!

Are you able to find any flexible work that you can do from home? What was your job before? It might be enough to make up the hours. Have a good look online and on some freelancing websites. I only have two kids (now 16 and 14), DH works shifts, no family support and tbh that was the only way I could work. Yes, sometimes I did (do) bits of work over the weekend and in the evenings, but it has worked or us around our kids. My DH does do some household stuff, but tbh all the house admin/basic cleaning does need to be done somehow, I remember Grace Dent saying that in one of her books. Yes, it shouldn't all be the woman, but its very hard to leave things undone. It does get easier as kids get older and more self sufficient, but there are still times when you need flexibility. My DH can not take odd days off so I've always had to work round things. I'll admit, I've recently got a cleaner to come 2 hours once a fortnight, but before I get slated, that's cause I'm recovering from having breast cancer.

Agree with this, my teen DS is expected to do a lot at home.

I feel the way you do. I think one of the first answers on this thread is my parents had a cleaner, so did all their friends. And thats that. I thought...maybe the cleaner was working full time and managing kids and a busy house too...but shock horror...WITHOUT a cleaner!!!

Its like being overwhelmed with everything is only allowed if you're middle class. If you're working class its just to be expected and tough shit, you don't count.

My DSs were both raised to be very self sufficient and more than pull their weight at home. DS1 has had 2 girlfriends (his only serious gfs) who fuss over him and do everything for him. It drives me wild.

I’m as feminist as it comes! Both in very well paid jobs and I ensured tasks were split - but note that I say I had to ensure. The fathers and husbands of this era now (GenX/Millenials) grew up under the same conditioning we all did, it’s like it’s ingrained in them regardless that we, unlike their mothers, are also equal breadwinners. Early marriage he’d ask me if he had clean pants - so I immediately stopped doing any of his washing, even though he’ll wash my things.

I am really looking forward to seeing how our childrens generation split tasks and parent due to growing up and seeing their fathers had equal input into the household/parenting.

I've told my family that the only things that were 'my job' were things that only I could do... for example, gestate babies, or complicated stuff that I'm qualified to do in my job.

Anything else is 'anyone who is able'. You don't need female reproductive organs or a special degree to empty a bin, put the shopping away, hang up a coat or run the hoover around.

This thread is really interesting.
When I was married (21 years married, divorced 20-odd years ago) it was expected that the woman did everything. I didn't question it.

As the children grew into teenagers and I was overwhelmed, I realised how wrong I was. No-one did anything except me, it was a bad example for the children too. I can remember asking my husband about it, his reply was "he earned the roof over our heads" and also that I'd "agreed to obey" in the marriage service!! True but that was just the marriage service we had, I hadn't thought that I was agreeing to a life of servitude at the time.

I retrained and began working, so I was contributing economically by then too. So I decided that everyone was capable of doing their own washing at least. The children were late teens and so were perfectly capable of loading and operating the washing machine and tumble dryer, they managed....so did DH but he just used it as an excuse to indicate how insane he thought I had become. The shock that I could actually ask a household of adults to wash and dry their own clothes was palpable.

Sadly the whole thing contributed - amongst other things - to our divorce. I look back and think it's dreadful that such a reasonable request was apparently so shocking, and that women still find themselves in this same situation even now.