Are we lying to our daughters?

[Granville1]

I would like to start by saying that my husband is a really good guy. A lovely, kind person & a doting dad. Yet here I am, a burnt out millennial 40 year old mum of two girls (age 4 & 6) feeling utterly overwhelmed & exhausted by life. My head is barely ever above water

My mum is one of those superwomen. Always has seamlessly held the family together by doing everything. The full mental load is on her, but she never complains. In fact she seems to thrive on it. She always worked but perhaps not in the same “career” sense that our generation do, so perhaps didn’t quite have that additional pressure

I have now fallen into the same role as her. Although both my husband & I work full time so no reason I should take it all on. He does earn more but I also have a decent, fairly well paid & highly stressful job. Sadly we don’t earn enough for any additional help (aside from a cleaner). Yet I have become so accustomed to doing everything, I’m now stuck in a trap where my husband is -25 years of practice down & no amount of explaining or “training” 😂 would get him even close to taking on what I do

But I can’t help thinking that we are teaching our daughters that taking on everything is the norm. And even more cynically, that marriage & kids is great. It’s not. There might be a handful of exceptions but most of my friend’s (admitting it to varying levels) are miserable as sin. And most of it comes down to utter resentment of them having to balance full time careers & pick up the vast majority of the mental load (as well as physically carrying it all out too)

What do we do? Show bad role modelling by continuing to do almost everything & them thinking that’s normal? Also do we lie & say marriage & having kids is great? Or (if asked) do we generally encourage open conversations that alternatives do exist. I would never go on an aggressive tirade telling them that all women take on too much & will end up even more miserable if they get married & have kids, but at the same time, they are learning from me that masking the misery of working full time / having a career & taking on everything is normal

Has anyone else had similar thoughts? What do we do about it? How do we break the cycle? Would welcome comments about the future of our daughters not judgement on whether my husband does / doesn’t do enough

Thanks for reading

The only lie is that it is possible to share everything out equally 50/50. You need to play to your strengths. You can’t have two people doing the same household/admin jobs half the time and expect it to all work harmoniously. It is easier to take on areas of responsibility. Also, if one person is very controlling it can create problems unless they are happy to do all the work.

Stop being a martyr and infantilising your DH. He doesn't need "training" he's a full grown adult. Of course he can do housework, school runs, cooking etc he just doesn't want to. Write down everything that needs doing, tell him you are no longer doing all of this and if he doesn't step up you are done with him. I presume he manages to do his important job without having to be reminded incessantly how to do it all? Tell him once what you expect going forward and let him sink or swim.

Can you help explain the main differences in culture/ society that make things better? I’m genuinely intrigued, always looking for ways to improve!

I disagree that most sahm’s situations at at all like this. In a stay at home parent set up each partner has defined roles, one works to support the family and one supports the family at home during that time. It might be traditionally gendered but it works better because each side knows their role and their value.
The problem is women in OP’s situation who take on all the child rearing and house work while also working full time and explain away why their husband working means he couldn’t possibly do any of the things she does outside work.

I think you’re putting a huge expectation on your daughters to break a cycle that you haven’t been willing or able to try to do yourself. You basically have three options here:

1. Keep going as you are, and pretend everything is rosy.
2. Keep going as you are, but tell your girls you’re unhappy and they should do things differently.
3. Work with your dh to change things.

To me, only option three feels really palatable. You deserve to be happy yourself, as well as trying to make the rest of your family happy. And showing rather than telling is always more powerful in terms of setting your girls up for more equal partnerships in future.

The thing that struck me most is how young your girls are. There’s still loads of time for you and your dh to demonstrate to them what a fair division of labour looks like. I completely get that it’s incredibly difficult to find the headspace to change when you’re feeling overwhelmed. But it’s worth it - it really is.

Haven’t read the comments yet - but i bet they mostly blame you rather than the patriarchal society we live in

Would welcome comments about the future of our daughters not judgement on whether my husband does / doesn’t do enough

But the crux of your issue is that your husband doesn’t do enough. It’s clear he’s just got used to you doing everything and he’s never been challenged on it or wanted to do better to lighten your load.

Therefore the advice to your daughter to ensure she has a good future is:
Do not accept a relationship with an equal partner where there is an expectation that she picks up the load.

I don’t know any man who is as useless as you describe. Training? What is it with men from the UK, I mean it has to come from somewhere? Why are men not like this in most other countries?

Sorry, OP, but it’s essential that you rid yourself of the belief that your husband is a ‘really good guy’ who can’t perform or ‘learn’ that same tasks and ‘loads’ that you do.

This is the crux of your dilemma, and it would be really interesting to know exactly why you don’t think so.

Is it because fundamentally you believe that your husband simply has the inability to do certain things?

If you died or left tomorrow, do you believe he could handle caring for your daughters? If you believe he could manage - albeit not with quite so many bells and whistles as what two parents can bring – then you either a) have too many exacting standards which is your issue or b) are performing things that he indeed can manage.

If you believe, in that event, your husband would HAVE to take on a nanny and housekeeper (and not just to manage working hours), or your children would have to be taken into care then he is either suffering from some form of mental incapacity (unlikely) or he simply does not want to.

So which of the above is it? Because this is what it boils down to.

And look, I get it. I’m a burnt out millennial too, as is my DH (we have 7yr old twins). I can swear hands down that my DH takes on as much or maybe more than I do, but the difference is that we have taken on too much that most couples don’t - I have a second job (passion project), a long work commute (3hrs round trip) and we’ve taken on a project house meaning a lot of DIY and renovation.

Without those extras, with my DH picking up the load equally as much as he does, we wouldn’t be struggling anymore than big standard ‘busy life’.

I don’t write this to claim your husband is a bad guy, but I honestly don’t see how you can truthfully claim that he can’t pick up any and all of the same tasks that you do.

I 100% agree with you op. I could have written your post

Yeah this is a DH problem, not ‘lying to our daughters’

The people I know with the happiest marriages are gasp the ones where the husbands pull their weight.

Me and my DH muddle along fine.

We’ve always worked on the premise that one of us isn’t sat on our arse/doing our hobby while the other is still tidying/cleaning etc. Basically we just respect each other. That’s what I’m modelling and teaching my DC.

I do worry about my daughters experiencing the burn out I have at times. Me and DH had kids in our 30s so all being well we hope to help them with the load if they start families. Our lives became so much easier when I started working term time in a school and my husband from home. He cleans on his break and now we don't have to waste our holiday entitlement to cover the school holidays.
I pray flexible working, funded quality childcare and generous maternity leave offers are the norm for the next generation.

Very few of my friends are happily married - they stay with their dh's for financial reasons. They work but they can't afford to get divorced.
Many have got "adult kids" problems - don't get on, can't get a job or still living at home into their 30s. Very few are living a "happy families" life. Maybe we expect too much.
Aren't single women without kids the happiest group?

I don't recognise the cycle and unhappiness you describe.
Most of my friendship group are content with life most of the time with some times of absolute joy and happiness and equally, times of misery.
The allocation of tasks for all of us has established itself organically and changes as life changes. We all play to our strengths. What is an absolute chore to one person barely registers with another. The only difficulty arises when both parties dislike something and then it tends to be based around which partner hates a task less and what makes more sense. For instance, I really hate driving and only drive when I have to and so DH does most of the driving. When he was driving the children to hobbies etc it made sense for him to take on all the admin around the hobbies as he was the one responsible for getting them where they had to be with the right equipment. He didn't like doing it but anything else was double work. I, in return, did more cleaning. Not because it was "wife work" but because I was at home whilst he was driving children everywhere.
The children have all left now and so DH does more around the house. Some of the original allocation of tasks remain the same though. He still drives and I still do the majority of the admin. It suits us.
Two of my children are happy in long term relationships and, as far as I can see, they all split tasks fairly equally according to the situation (and not gender) the same way we did. Their partners don't seem to have any issue with the split of tasks and so I imagine that's how things worked in their homes growing up.

It wouldn’t work here. I don’t think anyone would want to live like this. In the end (and as you see on MN every single day) it’s the SAHM who ends up with nothing and as a single mother. Nowhere else have I heard women complaining about useless men all the time, it’s like you hate men. And so many single mothers, who can barely afford to out the heating on or buy food.

Yes I think we're lying to young women.
And I think many of the responses on this thread perpetuate that lie.

That men and women are basically the same, should take on the same roles, and this can be achieved by women successfully socialising their sons and husbands.
(It's funny how the work of achieving this feminist utopia always falls to women!)

And of course socialisation can effect social roles but the idea that it will eradicate sex based difference in roles so men and women's roles become indistinguishable is utopian nonsense.

And it's utopian nonsense which is leading women to stressed frazzled unsustainable lives which is their own fault for not training their husbands better.

Or they're told the better alternative is not having children at all to avoid this hell.

Its going to be tragic for these young women who are going to find out too late they've missed out on the most fulfilling role of their lives and have a heart ache for something that no-one helped them name.

I think we need to organise families differently so they work better for everyone and base this on reality not utopia.

But the economics created by the belief women should contribute equally financially and be as equally active in the work place throughout their lives as men are, has created a prison for women preventing choice on how they organise their lives.

Let me correct you here: Your friends are NOT happy 99% of the time. They may want you to think that they are, but they aren't. It would be extremely odd for ANY human to be happy 99% of the time. It's human nature to question and want more from life (whatever that may mean for various people). Humans are, to put it another way, hard wired to NOT be content: evolution doesn't allow that to happen: the vast majority of people want to be better/do better/live better...and that only happens if you have a level of discontent with what you already have.

Or, consider the stats on divorce and relationship break down: there are very few groups of people who are "99% happy" most of the time. Granted, certain groups of people (the very highly educated for example) are less likely to get divorced than people from other backgrounds...but not getting divorced does not necessarily = a happy marriage.

What you may have are a bunch of friends who don't really have much more than a superficial relationship. Or are a load of "keeping up with the Jones's" types - they tend to convey super-happiness because they want to be viewed as having a better life than other people. It's a rather sad way of going through life, but there we go.

Getting back to the OP; Clearly at some point she either took on the role of cook/cleaner and failed to set clear boundaries/expectations for what she wanted from others in the house hold....or perhaps she's ignoring things that her husband does around the house that she doesn't do (paperwork, maintenance etc etc). People in long term relationships often "fall into" doing certain roles - and some women even tell their husbands that they don't clean/cook as well as women so there's no point even trying. The key here is better communication: convey that you want a better division of household labour AND propose the solution to that issue. It's usually far more effective if you propose a solution along side pointing out a problem. And be prepared for the husband to have a list of things he does that the OP doesn't/can't/refuses etc to do. So, for example, if you want DH to do his share of the laundry you'd better be prepared to do a share of DIY.

My DH takes on more than most of the mental load although there are some areas where I feel we aren't equal and that causes conflict in our marriage. I had a role model where my dad was expected to do more than most too but my mum had most of the mental load. I do demand better when I perceive fairness and my DH is open to growth and change. And my daughters do see us arguing about it from time to time. So I think the main message I'll give to my daughters is to pick the right partner and that they don't have to be male and they don't need a partner or kids at all.

This.

Mumsnet is full of high earning women whose husbands more than pull thier weight.

My experience working in a school is that mums are generally (not all) putting in far more effort. So dad's show up for big hitters like the nativity or sports day and parents evening (but still not as equally as mums) but they aren't dropping off forms, asking if there is a second hand jumper for sale , signing reading records etc.

The other trend I noticed is we always called whoever the parents listed as the primary contact to pick up if a child was ill (we didn't default to the mum, the parents had on the form) This was generally mum. But when it was Dad, at least half the time he organised his mum or another female to come collect.

This is one of those things where mumsnet normal doesn't match what I see

@Sofiewoo SAH model certainly doesn’t ‘work better’ for most SAH mothers in the event of divorce. Money and housing wise. It has pros/cons.

Those of you who say your husbands share the domestic load, do they really? Because it’s not just about the cooking, cleaning etc but it’s the mental load that’s absolutely exhausting. My DH will do stuff like hang out the washing (if I ask him) and do lifts (again, if I remind him that so-and-so needs picking up from work etc) but the actual THINKING work still falls to me. One DC is doing a-levels at the moment - I know what she has on what day, that she needs to be at school early that day and so on, when she goes on holiday with her friends, has she sorted a lift to the airport, is her passport up to date, does she need to book her hair for prom, etc etc - he would not have a clue about stuff like that. It’s the constant thinking around very busy lives that I don’t think men still do, even if they do, on the surface, look like they’re sharing the load.
I’m exhausted from it all. I’m 49 and feel we were sold a lie that we can have it all. Either the career or the home/kids have to give - I gave up the career and have worked PT for nearly 20 years. My sister is the other day round and chose a career but had nannies/cleaners/boarding school. You can’t do both well.

I do accept that there is a certain amount of societal pressure/expectation that feeds into this but the only people who can break the cycle are women and they can only do it by refusing to be martyrs.

When our first child was born my partner would say things like “we need more vests” and “can I feed baby x?” I would say things like “go to the supermarket then and get some more vests!”/ use this resource to find out what you can/can’t give a baby”.

We then had a conversation where I said yes just now I’m on maternity leave and I am therefore taking the lead on most baby things - which is fine because you are working full time and I am not but once I go back to work it is not going to be this way and you are going to have to up your game. This does not mean that I will give you a list of jobs to do or ask you/remind you to do things because the point is I can’t be responsible for everything related to our home and our child.

And he does.

If your husband is a great guy and a doting dad with a successful career then I simply don’t accept that there is no amount of “training” that can get him to take on 50% of the load. He’s an adult man right? You are not HIS mother.

You need to have a conversation with him, tell him your struggling and agree on the things he is going to take on.

Would welcome comments about the future of our daughters not judgement on whether my husband does / doesn’t do enough
Well, I'm not worried about the future of my DC because they haven't witnessed the utterly depressing sight of a misogynistic set up like the one you describe.
I've just woken up... The first thing dh said to me was 'I've paid dance club' then we had a conversation about the day. I'm still a bit sleepy, but he has planned a food shop and will chase getting DC's laptop fixed.
We both work full time and there is no way I would put up with an unfair division of labour. I'm not doing that. Any competent adult can monitor school emails, pay bills and cook and clean.
You are modelling this shit to your daughter's, the rest of us are choosing not to and having explicit conversations about gender roles, misogyny in general and why the boys in DC's class appear to think that they are the maths and science geneii (despite evidence to the contrary).

Someone earlier said this is more to do with work culture rather than marriage and I agree with this. Over the last 30 years, what has changed is the pressure of work as there is an expectation you will always do more and never switch off. However technology has also enabled greater flexibility to WFH so that can be a trade off.

I don't recognise your description of everyone marriage being miserable though. I know many happy couples, they are busy but they get a reasonable life balance by WFH so share the school pickups, load laundry during the day etc.

Does your DH do no household tasks?