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

My experience is totally different, we both work full time and both do equal shares of housework, cooking, things with the kids etc and I'm teaching my dds the same and my son. My mil taught my DH how to do things in the house and was strict about always having his room clean and tidy. Il also be teaching my son the same and he obviously sees it modelled to him by dh.

I know a family who fall over themselves to not make the man do any childcare/ etc. He is a professional (NHS manager) and has two primary age children. The nan will cancel her own plans to care for them if there’s an inset day (mum works in a school) because they say he’ll forget to feed them or just not do anything with them and they’ll be bored.

He’s clearly laughing at them all- he gets out of so much. He is the first to tell everyone how much of a family man he is and how involved he is. His wife would describe him on here as a ‘good dad’. All these useless wasters seem to be ‘good dads’.

OP, I'm the same age as you, also with 2 DC and a full-on job. I don't really relate to your post. Life is busy, but I feel DH and I are a team and that we share the load. You have decided this is just how life is for women of your generation but the men in my circle all pull their weight at home and with the DC. I wouldn't say any of my female friends are "miserable as sin" either. You seem to have given up trying to change your situation by telling yourself this is just the way things have to be, but I don't think that's the case.

I have to agree with pp that you have a DH problem.

@NerrSnerr youre right but my life on maternity leave is pretty chill TBH while he’s working 10 hours days…will see things differently when I’m back at work so will have to have a talk about expectations maybe lol.
@Bluebellwood129 well he does clean , I just have to ask him to/write a list….nobodys perfect! He does the cooking and driving as I’m not such a fan but actually enjoy a good clean.
was just joining in conversation for light hearted chat really. We all enjoy a moan about our other halfs sometimes don’t we , doesn’t mean they’re not good people!

You need to talk to your husband and work out a system that works. From my own experience it is unsustainable to have two parents focusing and building careers with young children. From my experience (husband and dad of two boys age 7 and 10) my wife took on the majority of the childcare and I focused on building my career. This worked for a time but my wife (understandably) wanted a career for herself too. This meant increasing her hours at work and starting an apprenticeship to develop herself within her role. This inevitably put more pressure on me to support at home which eventually led me to taking two months off work completely burned out trying to do too much. I've since reduced my hours and work a 9 day fortnite with an earlier finish the week I work 5 days, my wife works 5 days per week but has some early finishes are later starts for school run and time for herself. Our parents also help with school run. This has given us both a much better work life balance and we are now both happier than we've ever been. Time together, time for yourselves, time for the children and time for work, its hard to get it right but if you do, it's so worth it.

Wife does the house and kids and works .. Husband does the garden and puts the bins out once a week followed by a massive round of applause and a blow job for gratitude. Not in our house. He wasn't inept, its not that he couldn't its that he wouldn't and that's the massive difference. It's ok for men to think like that, the huge providers they are (rolls eyes) but I have never done it all. He doesn't want to do things that's ok but we both have the same 24 hours in a day and if he cannot be arsed then he pays for it to be outsourced. Laundry picked up and returned, cleaner, nanny,housekeeper. My H got a choice I could work and do the same,minimum, pathetic attempts at household management as he did or I could be a wife and mother with the added help included. We get what we settle for and I am not my mother or grandmother.

No. Don’t have sons .

Did OP ask about sons?

Yes. This. ^

Stop doing everything

Tell him he needs to do stuff too

As he's such a good kind man, he'll jump at the chance to equal up the load

The vast majority of which are women in both Sweden and the UK.
15% of single parent families are fathers in the uk vs 12% in Sweden.
Facts do not back up what you’re saying.

It is a valid question OP, and really really interesting that your instant initial thought is that WOMEN are to blame (your mother, women in general), as this highlights EXACTLY the problem of internalised misogyny that even you did not escape from. Can you see this?

it is almost impossible for a single person to change the patriarchy, women are not as free as men are. It is good of you to question things (but please do not blame women or your mum)

In my 30yr marriage my husband very clearly remembers the point in our marriage where I made the conscious decision to think like a man. In other words: what would my husband do? He would go for a bike ride and not think what the family would eat for lunch. So I took his approach. If he ever had comments (he did) I said: I just thought what you would have done in the situation ☺️

he has a sense of humour and also thought I was right, so it probably saved our relationship for me to be become more “selfish” but to be fair I only did this once my kids were teens and could feed themselves 😅

This is a husband problem. We share everything. If we see something that needs doing then one of just does it. He mainly does laundry and I cook due to out work hours. But I'm sitting here waiting for that elusive 1 minute on the washing machine while my husband cleans the bathrooms. We use Google calendar so we both know what's going on and when.
I have 3 girls and I hope I'm setting a good example of them being able to have a career and also being able to have a family.

I honestly “trained” my partner after having been together for 15 years. 20 years down the line now, and we have a much better balance.

sadly it took for me to properly lose my shit and scream at him one night that I would be better off on my own with the kids.

It’s not the 1950’s!
Why would the woman work part time - why not the man?
Of course we can make it the norm for both parents to take equal responsibility at home and in childcare.

You say ‘no amount of training will get him close to doing what I do’.

This is a DH issue where he has weaponised incompetence and/or you are complicit in feeling he will not achieve your high standards of doing those jobs.

You need to to draw up a rota and insist he does his share - you are both working, you are both parents - and if he does his jobs poorly, you ignore it, and let him keep doing it. When he has to go to work in poorly pressed shirts or rewear underpants because he didn’t get the fresh load dry in time (for example), and you didn’t step in to fix it for him, he will consciously have to get better at it. Just as he would if he was tasked with a role at work.

My DH is in a senior role, works all hours, earns a truck load but he shops, cooks and cleans the kitchen readily. We chose for him to do the bulk of the garden in exchange for my doing the laundry/ironing and being the parental uber, but he will as happily clean the loos and hoover if we have guests coming.

She posted advising her daughters to pick a career you can do part time - why?

Is she advising her sons the same or treating sons and daughters differently ?

YANBU- marriage and children are a trap. I looooooooove my children to bits and will walk through fire for them but my goodness, I’ve mostly hated motherhood- it’s hard as fuck. In my case, not helped by marrying an undiagnosed Autistic man-child with ADHD (diagnosed). I’m a children’s professional with a title and have no idea how I’m passing it off as holding my shit together when I know for a fact that I’m heading for burnout/a nervous breakdown. I think women need to speak more openly about our struggles to allow the next generation to make informed choices. Sadly, those of us that do, are seen as charlatans.

Make a list, hand it to him, let him get on with it, sink or swim.
HIS responsibility.
He is an adult, he copes at work presumably so he can cope at home.
Value yourself as much as you value every member of your family.
You can leave them to it from time to time, get up , get dressed, go out all by yourself and they will survive.
They might even appreciate you a bit more...

Obviously I don’t know the ins and outs of what exactly is happening in your relationships and that does sound really annoying.
But out of interest do you also monitor and arrange home insurance/ car insurance / life insurance/ MOTs/ estate planning/ critical illness/ broadband arrangement/ council tax/ parking permits / travel insurance/ home maintenance/ family budget/ tech in the house - sound systems/ alarms/ Alexa/ smart appliance systems/ mortgage renegotiation.

I know I sound like I’m making excuses for your DPs but sometimes these tasks can add up. And in terms of wrap around care and extending or cancelling it - is this done on an app or via email and does everyone who needs to have loggins so they can extend it easily.

If you’re also doing all of the above and your DP has the app or email and has been told what to do to alter childcare arrangements then yes, he’s pretty useless!

Agree with this. I’m a bit younger than you @Granville1(only marginally!) and have two daughters aged 9 and 7. My husband is good, but he’s got a stressful and high paying job and I only work part time so- naturally- stuff does fall to me. But I feel it’s a disproportionate amount because he so often needs directing. He will do anything and does, but more often needs me to tell him what and how. And he doesn’t take on much of the mental load. This all seems pretty much the same amongst my friends, but I wouldn’t say that anyone is miserable as such. But everybody I’m thinking of works part time…. I do think that it’s probably working full time that’s the thing pushing you over the edge (not that I don’t understand all of the reasons that you’d work full time).

This is interesting. I haven’t read all the responses but to those saying ‘well just get your DH to do half of the domestic duties’, it’s not always quite that straightforward.

I think inevitably patterns often get set (in the UK certainly) when women go on maternity leave. If you have 2 or 3 kids, you’re probably looking at 2 or 3 years out of the workplace, while men progress their careers. Coupled with the cost of early years childcare/nannies - and the fact many of us have kids later and are therefore perhaps less likely to have grandparents able to help - many mothers then go part time. It’s pretty tough to work full time with kids under 5. Then by the time the kids are school age, the men have progressed even further, so the higher income gets prioritised, and on it goes.

This isn’t the case in all families, but I would say, sadly, in perhaps 80 percent of families I know (people mid forties and onwards), the men significantly outearn women at this stage in their careers. And if you are married to someone who works long hours to provide the bigger income, it’s just unrealistic to expect that they can contribute as much to the domestic sphere and share everything absolutely equally.

I’m lucky in that both DH and I work and he really does share the load domestically. I probably do a bit more during the week, but most evenings he gets home and cooks dinner. He also picks up a lot of stuff at weekends….

But I also have good friends who are married to corporate lawyers and city types who earn masses. The wives don’t work now - they don’t have to - but now find themselves a bit lost and resentful. They often complain their DHs don’t help enough domestically but really - if someone is in the office or travelling for work, it’s not like they can load the dishwasher at the same time is it?!

Not saying that long hours and high/sole income earners should be allowed to check out domestically and there are many men who use this an excuse! But it’s not realistic to expect everything to be ‘equal’, always.

My advice to my own daughters will be to not let their careers take a back seat when the kids are young, even if that feels like an easier option at the time!

I was the opposite. I saw my mom killing herself trying to do everything and everything perfectly and she was a stay at home mom. I already knew when I was quite young that I didn't want that kind of miserable life. I am happily child-free and haven't regretted for a second.

Im married nearly 25 years and living together almost 35.
I find it utterly bizarre that women put up with husbands who dont do the housework, or cook, or clean or get up with the kids or collect the teenagers.
DH does more than his "share", as he says himself, its his house and his kids.
I have never ever ever in all my years had to "ask, nag or persuade" him to do a chore, he usually has it done before I realise.
I went to town yesterday to bring DD back from uni, came back, all our holiday washing was done, ironed and put away, the floors mopped and dinner on.
Why> Cos hes a grown up and doesnt need to be told.
WTF are these women doing with these lazy twats?
My dds would absolutely laugh a man out of it if they attempted to sit on their backsides.

I agree with pp. You have to break the cycle. Whoever is home first cooks dinner. Divide the things that need doing so each of you is responsible for half - school admin, bins, cleaning/arranging the cleaner, car tax/insurance/MOTs, paying bills, garden tidying, lawnmowing etc.