To think most men wouldn’t survive a year living the life of an average woman?

[ThatRealLimeBee]

The daily grind of sexism, safety worries, juggling expectations, emotional labour… Most men have no idea. AIBU to think they’d crumble under the load if they had to swap lives with us for a year?

Nope, just amusing myself on a rainy Sunday

YABVU
You can’t generalise.

Your post is quite closed minded and insulting.
My DH is an amazing man and goes well beyond anything you could possibly conceive. Perhaps try raising your bar.

I really don't see the point in posters repeatedly saying how wonderful their husbands are?? If the op is making generalisations then then this sort of response is anecdotal and also useless.

And now it's turned into a post about bashing SAHM's, how original.

I would stick to facts.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/womenshouldertheresponsibilityofunpaidwork/2016-11-10

Thus is interesting. I'm a big fact fan, but I love an anecdote too and am guilty of sharing.

To balance this men do more paid work than women. The uk average hours for women according to ONS was 27.9 and men 35.3. Both seem low to me to be fair!

Anyway the unpaid labour has an average 10 hour gap and the paid labour an average 7.5 hour gap.

So I guess our question is would 'most' men not survive a year of an extra 2.5 hours a week of stuff. My view is most would.

Unless we are thinking its not so much the stuff done, but the circumstances its done in that men would not survive? (Eg doing it on a period, or when met with sexism or to a different standard due to different expectations)

Great point. Also worth asking would women give up 2.5 hours of stuff a week in return for doing all the dangerous, horrible jobs in society and having to spend much less time with their children to do so. My guess would be no. I love being a woman and don't see it as a hardship.

The point all along has been that dutiful housewives add to/skew those figures, and the only way to change that is for women to not shoulder the responsibility of unpaid work.

Beautiful post recognising the effort and care that goes into the million details that truly make Christmas, birthday parties, etc. magical and enjoyable for other people. Thank you very much for your kind and accurate words ☺️

Agree. My husband absolutely pulls his weight with house and childcare and would take my role over and perform it just as effectively as me tomorrow if he had to without any whingeing. He's an ethical, hard-working, committed parent and partner and I knew he would be and that was part of what attracted me to him.

I'm not blind to the patriarchy in society but it doesn't get a look-in under my roof. I wasn't going to choose a big man baby to live and parent with.

I’ll be honest, I did initially - my first husband is a man child.

The house was a bombsite after I left, he was an adult man with a can pyramid.

When we divorced, I made absolutely clear I would never be in that position again.

As far as relationships are concerned - partner, not parent. I will not mother adult men.

I’ve been in the position where a man relied on me to breathe in and out, never again. Doing far better with an actual grown up!

Absolutely. This is Mumsnet. This is not a place to use sweeping generalisations to bash SAHMs. It's a place to use sweeping generalisations to bash men.

If it’s a case of his mind in a woman’s body, then yes he would not only survive but he would be living high on the hog.

I understand what you mean and I don't intend to bash SAHMs. But OP has said that most men just wouldn't be able to manage the work that she thinks women usually do and men don't. So I think that some of us are posting to say that men can be effective parents and homemakers, and they probably wouldn't fall apart if they suddenly had to do it.

In fact I would say this trope - the man who would fall apart if he had to do a woman's job - is a trope that actually upholds the patriarchy rather than undermining it. There's nothing innately impossible about the work women do, any more than the work men do. They're just as capable of doing the home-making and parenting as we are of doing all the jobs that they do. Many of them don't, but it's because they haven't been raised with the expectation that they would and because that sort of work has always been massively undervalued and taken for granted. And I do believe that women should consciously and deliberately select their partners for their ability to be fully contributing partners and parents, and that many women - not all - who shoulder the majority of these homemaking and parenting burdens could have seen that coming ages before they ended up feeling that there was no way out of that.*

And to be clear, it is hard for anyone to make those sorts of choices when society pushes drama and romance so very hard over staying power, commitment and hard work, and where lots of women, including women in very high-powered jobs, kind of still think that there's no point in expecting men to do more or better because the message that they can't or won't is just pushed so hard from every angle from cradle to grave.

I suggest you head over to another thread on here about economic activity. It’s been quite the eye opener. Many, many facts and figures shared by those caring at home for disabled children, etc. What pittance they receive compared to the cost to outsource that care is a disgrace- they are far from scrounging, and actually save the government a great deal of money through their own care directly themselves.

It’s absolutely up to you and more than reasonable to decide to stop you hours because that’s what your teenagers, and you, need. What a brave and honest post. I’m sorry to hear things have been tough, but I applaud you considering changes to best suit the needs of your teens. Ignore any negativity from anyone. Good luck with your decision ☺️

Hear bloody hear. 👏

Caring for your own children well yourself instead of being distracted by paid work absolutely is a ‘service to society’, especially in the context of drastically falling birth rates and higher than ever child mental health issues. Children and teenagers requires high levels of emotional, responsive care from their own parents. This used to be understood and respected by society, not sneered at and outsourced.

Reform are the only political party that even acknowledges the existence of SAHPs, their right to have this choice, and excellent suggestions of adjustments to how we tax families and how a higher percentage of child benefit would make more sense to receive for ALL parents with children under school age. Have a read of their policies on this for yourself. Make no mistake though- SAHPs, both male and female, are openly discussing how impressed they are by this in parks after school. They have had enough of the disrespect and have already switched their vote accordingly.

I suspect you’re a poster who I’ve previously discussed this with but you’ve changed your username - if it’s not you then you and this other potter have remarkably similar posting styles and views.
You’re under the impression that society has a vendetta against SAHMs yet the language you use to describe working mothers is incredibly negative. It’s so hypocritical.

I thought the same, I’ve got a feeling we mean the same person.

I did ask - she apparently doesn’t know what/who I’m talking about.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Yeah, changing nappies and getting hit on by strangers is way tougher than working on powerlines, sewer systems, or building sites!
😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Yeah think we were both involved in that particular wild ride of thread 😂😂
The similarities are uncanny and I know my view, but I’ll leave it at that!

Praise be, under his eye, etc!

(Hoping that’s not lost on you 😂😂)

😂😂😂
Indeed!!
May the lord open

It’s not lost on me…I actually watched the whole 6 seasons and have a sense of humour, so I will take this as a joke 😂

I was extremely disappointed with the ending may I add!

Their husband's might be paying for their house and bills and the food they eat but they are certainly not paying for everything they take from the state.
most people aren't, how is that relevant.

What's your acceptable cut-off then? How much is a single person supposed to earn to pay everything they "take" from the state?

What pad job is "a service to society" and what job isn't?

Let's see how well things will work out if we also remove every single volunteer and people only work against a paycheck.

while all the posters here are agreeing with me and not you,
your comprehension and reading skills are out of this world 😂😂

Reform making policies that drag women back into domestic servitude, what a surprise!

Paid work is not a distraction from raising your own children. It sets an example in how to be a productive member of society, if we all just stayed home and tended our children undistracted the world would stop turning 🙄 women are more than just mothers, to call anything other than mothering a distraction is misogynistic to the core. We are still people!

If Nigel gets his way and all the working women are sent back home and their childcare taken away, I hope you don't moan when you can't get medical care because all the nurses are back at home and your children can't get an education because all the teachers are back at home. If you take all the mothers out of the workforce and sne them home everything would collapse. It's clearly lost on you that it's only everyone else working that enables you to stay at home and focus on dinner parties.