Having it all. Who decided women want it all?!

[Helladay]

Anyone else just fed up of doing everything? I hear so much talk of women “having it all”. It almost seems a competition to who can have the craziest schedule without complete burnout.

I work. I do all the childcare. I do all the cooking and cleaning. I do it all and the truth is I’m exhausted. I am not living I am existing and simply trying to get through the days. Incompetent ex partner left when he decided children were actually hard work.

Who actually decided women want to have it all?!

It's definitely not a done deal. And it's the current working woman with kids that bears the brunt of a very slow revolution. But hopefully the tide will eventually turn once men realise and women decide in the majority that they will no longer come with subservient wife bot zip installed as standard.

Wholeheartedly agree. I remember those awful motivational books written by rich, bossy women, who no doubt had all kinds of paid help, exhorting exhausted women to work even harder.

Sorry but you seem to be conflating doing it all with having it all. If you have it all, you are not doing it all. My real question would be why are you doing it all?

And the reason if you have it all , you will not be doing it all is because you have aspirations for yourself rather than settling with the notion of propping someone else life up.

I think it's more the ability for you to say 'I don't want it all' now without seeming like you want to be a looked after housewife and your not holding up the womenfolk who flight for your rights - it's no longer really seen as the social 'norm' to not want it all.

However, if you want it all, go get it. But please don't see us lot who are happy not to reach the stratosphere career wise, run 30 marathons in a day whilst breastfeeding some orphans all while doing a PhD in volunteering services to mankind and blogging about it to make our millions as being below par.

I'm quite happy NOT to be those things, whilst still achieving my own personal goals in life both career and personal. What's important to each of us is different and we just need the general respect as humans to say you do you and I'll do me, as long as we're both happy.

I suppose technically my gran had it all: house, husband, kids, job.
Except, she had to work to help pay the mortgage. Her mil lived in the front room and watched the kids while she worked in a factory.

I would say I do have it all.
Career
Kids
Nice house- if not always completely tidy or clean
Holidays
Hobbies

But I have an equal partner, so I don't have to do it all.

We don’t all fall into the trap of vagina = housekeeper, nanny and organiser of everything.

I married a man capable of doing everything except birthing children. I highly recommend it.

I work away half the time. He literally does everything because I’m not there to do it. But we’ve shared it since day dot which gives us both freedom to not be chained to the domestic drudgery of life.

I think equality in home life is still to catch up with equality in work life for a lot of women? I see lots of women on here complaining that their husband is pretty useless domestically (and it seems many of their men would like to be an effective domestic god, they're just not very good at it).

My husband has always been happy to do his share of chores at home, indeed I used to leave the hated jobs (bathroom, stairs) to him, he just never did them quite to my standard/expectation. He's not as particular (fussy, if I'm to be fair 😂) as me.

I chose to go part time at work when my daughter was young (I was desperate happy to go part time). I gave up work entirely a few years ago (my daughter is 14 now) and the novelty hasn't worn off yet (I suspect it may never wear off 🫣😂).

Before having 2 kids, I worked in a finance job in NYC 8am-8pm or later for socializing. The women who were high up on the career ladder had lots of money for childcare & home keeping but rarely saw their children during the week. I was pregnant during the financial crisis of 2008 and saw about 25% of my coworkers fired. I volunteered for a redundancy package and was able for stay home for a year.

I tried to go back to work but after taxes and childcare (which has since gone up 2x or 3x what it was!!) my salary would be negligible and I was also absolutely exhausted with a baby who really didn’t STTN until older.

I'm still very disillusioned by the idea of having it all that was proposed in the 1970s. Yes, it was necessary to bring women to a sense of financial freedom and I am very grateful for those struggles of early feminists. But it left a hole for childcare unless you were blessed with family. I’m proud of my mother’s career but I was also a very lonely and alone child - and I saw the stress and unhappiness it brought her (as well as illnesses).

if you can achieve a high level of education that affords a job with benefits- that is wonderful. But it’s not the norm for most women who need to piece together child care.

I have no answers. Living and surviving is hard and caring for another human is hard. Mothers don’t get nearly enough recognition for the emotional work they do. The tightening economy is certainly making more people ask if it is all worth it.

It's something men who want women to stay home penniless and dependent used to say in the Sun and other rags of the day. Today's modern women want to have it all - but at what cost?!

There are no women anywhere saying they want to have it all or ever thought they could have it all.

It was a phrase invented by men who want women to stay home penniless and dependent, and those men's cheerleaders - because some women are always cheerleaders for shitty men.

The ONLY reason it's so difficult is because women went into the workplace and that's now a necessary fact of life due to house prices etc

But men did not step up. Their mums raised little princes who couldn't wash a cup.

You absolutely can have it all if your husband isn't a fucking arse.

We women are our own worst enemy sometimes- we judge each other and not the man, if I had a penny for every time I hear how wonderful a man is because he did some one off event either his kids or put a fucking washing out (including from my own mum. Who cooked for my husband when I was at work, but didn't lift a finger when i got out of hospital after brian surgery.

Single parents. I salute you. You don't get to have it all because there is not
A) sufficient good childcare
B) the ability to live close to family (house prices again )
C) boomers wanting to sail the world in their twilight years (see todays news Julie & John )
D) lack of good affordable social housing
E) gender pay gap.

Mothers, buy your sons household toys. Don't try to make them "men" don't make housework women's work.

Grrrrr

If a man is so useless after the first, or even before, why have another with him?

Women do have choices it they want to be a martyr that is on them

And yep, women have absolutely ALWAYS worked for pay. A tiny, very privileged minority got to stay home. It's not the norm and it never was.

I hear you! It’s so exhausting to hear all this talk about women "having it all" when it often just feels like a competition to see who can handle the most without losing it. Juggling work, kids, cooking, and cleaning can be way too much, especially when you’re doing it solo. It’s like society expects us to just power through without acknowledging how hard it is! Just know you’re not alone in feeling this way, and it’s totally okay to not have everything figured out. You deserve a break, and sometimes it's alright to drop the ball on a few things.

My husband is an equal partner - perhaps even the one who does more. He carries as much of the mental load as he does the day to day housework, childcare etc. We have two small children (3 and 6) and it’s pretty relentless with two full time workers in the household. I earn double what he does and sometimes I think - if I were the man, I could be the main earner and probably expect my wife to pick up the slack at home!

Despite that, it still isn’t possible to have it all - I work full time and therefore I’m not there with the children. It’s a compromise, I still feel guilty and uncertain whether it is the right one, but I grew up in relative poverty with an unhappy sahm so I’m choosing career and financial security.

I’m with you. Personally, if I am going to be with a partner who leaves me to deal with all the work or even mental load of the house chores and child rearing as a 1950s wife… I’ll rather want one that pays the bills and keeps me living in style so I can go and talk shit with my friends at Tupperware parties.

Many women think that equality is achieved if they are earning their own money in a fulfilling role, but most of those women do at least 75% of the chores at home. Meanwhile the man works hard as well but with only 25% of the home load, and a woman too busy with house, work and kids to pay too much attention to him, needs to go and find a hobby or activity to keep him busy and amused.

Women may be ready for equality, men are not. Yet… most married women I know think the husband pulls his weight at home even if the only thing he does is cooking a very few times a week, filling the dishwasher, taking the bins out and the children to the park for 2 hrs a week.

I have found since I split from my very affluent husband and considerably more helpful at home than any other married man I have ever known, that husbands are by far the most time consuming and demanding housechore, even if they are rich, good fun and fantastic lovers.

I am in a very similar situation to you OP, raised my son in my own since DS was in primary school with no respite from his dad in terms of contact or maintenance (high earner but with his own company so easy to trick the system and pay far less maintenance than he should). Yet I think that despite a higher level of financial worries compared to married friends… I have far less work to do at home than them.

So I would say, cynically, that women should not aim to have it all, as no matter how equalitarian we claim to be we are still in charge of most house chore and child rearing.

Its an idea from the men that she can earn some money and do everything at home. Enabling them to do fuck all and not have the sole financial responsibility 👏 Quite a clever con if you ask me.

I'm in a fairly equal relationship where we both earn the same and both get stuff done at home. Having seen my mother work herself into ground trying to do everything and work, no way was I going to do that.

I think this is true. I always thought it was odd that apart from when it was a main part of the story, Rachel's baby in Friends just wasn't around. She has this amazing job in fashion, hanging out with her friends and the baby was always asleep or otherwise off screen. There was never any episodes of all the others hanging out but Rachel not there because she was with the baby. (Or Ross to be fair). SATC did it better with Miranda actually.

'But men did not step up. Their mums raised little princes who couldn't wash a cup.

You absolutely can have it all if your husband isn't a fucking arse.

We women are our own worst enemy sometimes- we judge each other and not the man'

Their mums raised little princes... we judge each other and not the men.

Such an easy trap to fall into isn't it.

Their dads raised little princes - by sitting on their arses, acting like kings.

Erm men decided women wanted it all

What we actually wanted was fair and equal access to it all (whatever it all is)

I’m a single mum after leaving my ex. I worked full time and I wasn’t ‘having it all’ I was doing it all. HE was the one having it all because he got to work, enjoy the extra income I brought in, and took on no domestic or child related responsibilities. That’s why he’s an ex.

We don’t need women to change, we need men to start doing their share.

As it happens, I’m exhausted but much happier without him.