To think men and women are actually programmed differently?

[Isittjustme]

I have spent many years believing a lot of men just don’t get on with things in the same way women do (ie ‘seeing’ the jobs to do in the house etc) because they are socially conditioned not to. But… since having ds and watching my partner really do his best but basically be far less good at parenting than me, I have started to wonder if men and women are actually just programmed differently.

DP really does try (at least I believe so). But he doesn’t get a good system going with ds when doing a nappy, just one example, he will often be flailing around or forget to wash his hands etc. He will forget to blow on the food every once in a while.. there’s so many more examples and they are small things I guess, but in contrast I rarely do these things. And I’m not saying I’m a perfect parent, I’m not. But I recognise this with my friends and the men in their lives too, it’s the same sort of thing.

DP has a good job and does it well. He’s quite a sincere man and I think he really does try his best. This makes me think perhaps some of it is innate for women and not for men?

The examples I’ve given are silly but they all contribute to the general sense that he gets far more overwhelmed by me with it.

I think men and women are different, boys and girls are different. Society has spent a long time trying to tell us we are all the same, we're not. We need the same opportunites and can do the same things as each other, perhaps in different ways, but we're not the same.

And thats ok.

NO
You’re describing personality, socialisation and habit. Men aren’t genetically programmed to do parenting tasks badly. It can be mastered with practice (if he want to)

Please let’s not have a thread of tropes and men are from mars women are from Venus ramblings

No, men are perfectly capable of remembering to blow on food or wash their hands after a changing a nappy. A lot of men are good at pretending to be competent but still not really giving a shit and happy to look ineffective so more work is done by their partner.

Agree.

It's the nature v nurture debate isn't it. Yes nurture plays a part but overall yes I absolutely think women and men are programmed by nature to be different. There will always be outliers to this obviously but overall, yes.

Men and women are different in many ways, but they can both preform simple tasks consistently and responsibly if they want to. In many cases men just don't seem to want to.

I think maybe your examples are just that you have different variations of the way you complete tasks, and that would be the same if you compared your style with another woman’s.

However, yes men and women are innately different in lots of ways. I don’t mean better / worse, but absolutely there are differences.

I’m afraid your dh need to get a bit of practice in and become competent
its not genetic it’s volition

So how come the majority of directors are men? Most of the high powered jobs have been taken by men? You can’t be in those jobs by not noticing things, not remembering to do basic tasks. It’s social conditioning of decades of men not having to remember ‘household’ chores and not having any consequences of not doing them. If they ‘forgot’ things like that at work they’d be sacked. They don’t get sacked at home, occasionally their partners wise up and dump them though. My husband has a very technical, high responsibility job and can also manage to do all the household and childcare jobs. It’s not rocket science, it’s some people are lazy and are enabled to act like that.

Wholeheartedly agree

@Zone2NorthLondon 😂😂 fair. But I do honestly think DP is trying his absolute best!

Ok so he practice til his best gets better. Really as simple as that

@Spaceid this is what I used to think but now I’m not so sure. I have a v high up job and huge responsibility. I’m not saying women aren’t capable of those roles but more that I think that men don’t have that innate way with parenting and associated parts of life

@WhereIsMyLight i used to have this view too but I’m not so sure after watching DP with ds.

My husband and I were clueless when it came to our first baby. We both learned how to care for them and sort out a workable regime. I wasn’t born knowing how to do my choice of paid employment. I went to uni, got experience and worked hard to get where I am. My husband does a similar job. He wasn’t born with innate knowledge either.

But you are describing one man here, on a planet of 3 billion others.
I agree there can be generalisations, but my ex was very astute/measured/conscientious at the fatherly tasks in your example.
Thinking of the many males in my wider family, they are also of a similar nature.
Sometimes it can be a cultural upbringing too.

I think some of it (at least in my house) is just down to the sheer repetition of it that mothers get which dad’s simply don’t get. Taking my husband & I as an example, I’m on maternity leave and our daughter is 8.5 months old now so things like nappy changes, blowing on food, weaning/giving her new foods to try, guessing which toy will keep her happy for 5 mins, packing the bag to go out for the day etc is really just automatic for me now, I don’t even really consciously think about these things because I do them all day every day. My husband is an amazing dad and husband, really couldn’t ask for better from him and he is very hands on, but those things aren’t second nature to him like they are to me because he just doesn’t do them as much as I do so he does have to more proactively think about things and it takes him a bit longer than it would do for me to do it.

The problem comes where the mum (and I’m not saying you do this but lots do) immediately steps in to do it for him or to do it her way, rather than letting him find his own way. My husband doesn’t do things exactly the way I do them and that’s absolutely okay, he has his own way of doing things and it works just the same, but if I had jumped in every time I saw him doing things differently to correct him then he would never have found his own way and he’d also never have bothered trying because he’d feel like everything he did was wrong anyway.

I think that might be just your husband. It’s not something I have witnessed with my husband or any of my male friends. Not sure if it makes a difference but my circle of friends did some element of shared parental leave and both partners work full time so both learnt together, both had periods when one was at home and one at work and learnt how to look after their children on their own and sort out everything they needed (making food, packing a going out bag etc.). Did your husband ever do this?

This really is not true. Men don’t lack the cognition, recall and executive functioning motor skills to parent . They have the same skills, up to them if they use them and are adequate . However, some men know a certain type of woman will bluster in and interrupt and take over the task
Let’s not make excuses for inadequate parenting by saying their brains just cannot handle it

Quite.

Most very well-paid surgeons are male. They don't fanny about 'forgetting' to wash their hands. Because jobs and status are important.

The socialisation is that they are taught women and children aren't important. Some of them fight this socialisation and most don't.

Here's my twopence.

Neither women or men or born to be good at childcare.

There are hormonal differences which may drive a woman to certain responses like waking up in the night to check on a baby, feeding a baby when it cries.

Everything else is learned, and women know that society does not accept her being bad at it, but men are allowed to be bad at these things. So they are not motivated to do them well.

I think there are differences in socialisation (which effectively is part of your programming) and observable across a large group, but there are overlaps and outliers. Some men are very much better at, say, childcare /family stuff and some women aren't.

If you start going around saying "Women are better than men at childcare" it's unhelpful when you really mean: a higher proportion of women than men are good at childcare.

I do think that on average women are more bothered about mess etc so often end up doing more housework.

It's averages though - my husband is much tidier than me and probably does slightly more housework.

He hasn't cracked breastfeeding yet though!

Well I didn’t have that innate way of parenting either. I read some books, learnt through mistakes. My husband was the one who got up in the night to check on them, worried if they were still breathing, was checking their temperature to see if they had enough layers. I don’t just let him do it though as I couldn’t be arsed to learn or care if I did things wrong.