AIBU to ask you to help me make a list of unseen labour that you do?

[Oreoqueen87]

Background is there has been ongoing tension between DH and I about division of labour. We have agreed to a make a list of all household tasks so we can see who does what. I am the default parent to a newly 7 year old. I do all the childcare organising, all the emotional labour, anything that requires thought basically! . I also do all the cooking and food organisation. I also do more childcare.

Can I please ask for your help in thinking of all the unseen things I do? I do everything apart from vacuuming, most of the washing and home maintenance eg mowing lawn.

He expects a lot of emotional support for himself. He wants to talk through every little decision and it’s exhausting.

DH can sometimes be reasonable when presented with facts, so I want him to acknowledge all the work I do. I doubt it will change much, but it gives me a basis for better boundaries in the meantime.

Longterm I need to LTB. Our child is undergoing evaluation for suspected autism/adhd, and I need to make sure it’s completed and a we have agreed how to manage it before any split.

If nothing else I want to have the list to look at so I can remember not to cave.

And this is why I’m not having children or planning on getting married.

I don't know how many different ways I can say this, because you seem determined not to grasp it.

The majority of men do not pull their weight. The majority of women want men who pull their weight. So a lot of women have no chance of finding a partner "on the same page", no matter how much they try.

And these men will try every trick in the book to avoid pulling their weight, and getting a female partner to do it for them. Lying, evasion, manipulation, downright abuse. Pretending to "have the same values" until they have bought a house with their partner, or got her pregnant, at which point the mask slips.

After all, why would they want to change and give up their easy lives, living off the labour of women?

I don't think all women are unhappy with what their men do at home. I think it's a problem in the dominant culture for sure but I think other people have figured it out. We don't all have these awful experiences with men tricking us like this either. I think sometimes it's about looking at why these issues are so dominant in your network. If you say it's the men who do this, where do they get these values from? Are you passing it on to your own sons? Are you breaking that cycle?

Which "people" are we talking about?

Every large scale time use survey in the UK backs up that women are doing more of this stuff than men.

There's lots of statistics on the National Statistics website.

I dislike the blaming of individual women for not being able to change structural issues. Like it's not enough to have the problem...we're also responsible for solving it!

No! Men need to improve.

I mean we live in a world where the elected leader of the most powerful nation on Earth is on record as having done awful things and yet there he remains. Never mind the many figures in UK public life.

Where oh where could poor values be coming from?!

Enough of the victim blaming.

I’ve been thinking about your post because I recognise the gendered parenting/housekeeping roles you refer to from my childhood in the 80s and early 90s.

Basically, the boundary between the big men’s household jobs and the women’s household jobs gets eroded as an indirect result of women becoming more economically active. So the boundary becomes eroded and the women start doing the housework jobs traditionally attributed to men. But - and what a but! - the men don’t willingly or competently start doing the household tasks traditionally attributed to women. So now we just do everything at home - bins, hauling around of heavy stuff, late night driving. Everything.
So essentially mothers are now more put upon than they were in the 80s. This has blown my mind. No wonder my own mother doesn’t get it! She wasn’t out of the house for 12 hours every week day and mistress in charge of absolutely- fucking- everything when at home. She was a mum doing a mum’s job out of the house and also inside of the house.

Not all groups of men do as little as each other and not all groups of women are so unhappy with what the men in their community do. It isn't about blaming anyone, it is about asking yourself why the group you are in seems to come off the worst in this respect and whether you can break the cycle.

Isn't that what I/we're doing though? Also "the group I'm in" is "the majority of women in a country of nearly 70 million people" according to reputable time use surveys. Surely trumping anecdata!

I don't just sit on Mumsnet whinging about sex inequality (or refusing to see it).

I teach a male dominated subject. I work hard to address these issues in my own life personally and professionally.

What I need is MEN to take more of an interest.

No actually, for instance, Black men have been found to do more labour in the home and other research has found that some women are happier with how labour is divided than others, despite it still being unequal and gendered.

So again, it isnt all equally unequal and not everyone is equally unhappy with the inequality. This is demographic dependent.

Me and you, despite probably both being mothers, life partners to a male etc, we arent in the same group. We are just the same sex.

Then you have to raise the sons of these men to do better. In fact, I think what has happened is that those standards of slipped for girls/women, too. So instead of making sure that all of their kids are equally domesticated, people just stopped making sure their girls learned those skills. So now we have a generation of young adults who can't mop a floor.

I don't have a son 😂.

This is all just making it women's responsibility.

The DADS of sons should be doing a better job but why would they when they haven't even noticed/cared about/called out/done something about the inequality in their own relationships?

I will be honest; if I had a me making my life run smoothly, I wouldn't be rocking the boat either. Most people don't want to actively make their lives more unpleasant.

It's a cycle that has to be broken. It's the job of parents for sure but if a guy hasn't been raised that way himself, he won't necessarily be able to teach it. That's where choosing a guy from a culture where things like daily bathing and everyone doing all chores are a norm.

Daily bathing?

Sorry I'm a bit lost now.

Keeping track of deliveries, arranging to be at home. listen out, take in parcel or collect from locker or depot. Rip up packaging and dispose in correct bin, Put bins out and retrieve. Remember which waste gets collected on which day. Do the recycling.

Yes, the same groups who have issues with domestic inequality often have issues with male hygiene practices. Yet will.argue that they don't need to teach their kids to shower every day, so again, literally raising these dirty, smelly adults who cant clean a house and don't wash properly either.

My MIL and FIL (born in the late 1930s/early 1940s) do have a much more even split of responsibilities in my opinion but a) I have always worked whereas she quit before having her kids so hasn't worked out of the home for more than 50 years and b) FIL worked for the same company for his entire working life from 16 to 60. Both kids went to University on full grants.

I think there's limited role modelling potential when economic situations are so different.

They also both shower daily for what it's worth 😂.

I probably live in some kind of middle class bubble but while I know plenty of people in unequal relationships (generally to the detriment of the woman) I don't know anyone who doesn't wash or who doesn't know how to clean. Not doing the cleaning, yes, but mopping and hoovering are pretty simple to do.

Lots of women on here and everyone else complains that the guy doesn't do the cleaning properly even if he does do it. They may insist it's on purpose rather than inexperience but if you've never had to wash dishes from childhood, you won't be very skilled at doing it well.

People very frequently do things badly when they don't think they should have to.

Or they have never been made to wash a cup by their enabling parents so they have no skills in managing the cleanliness of a house by adulthood.

Even with things like 'parties', so much goes into it. For my daughter's birthday last weekend, I did the following:

• Talked to her about what she wanted to do
• Researched the party, emailed the venue multiple times
• Booked the party
• Sent out invites
• Dealt with responses / allergy requests
• Ordered stuff for party bags
• Ordered and bought all presents
• Bought all food / cake / candles/ napkins
• Wrapped all presents
• Bought card
• wrote card
• told all relatives what she would like
• Took the kids to the activity
• Liaised with parents about drop off / pick up times and what kids needed
• Ordered and picked up the pizza
• Made the chocolate fountain
• Sorted out all the 11pm tears while they were having a sleepover.

My husband bought and wrapped one last-minute present and washed up after dinner, then spent the whole of the next day telling my sister how stressful it was organising kids' birthday parties!!!

I feel like this started out as a really interesting thread with some potential for good discusssion. But it’s been derailed by someone who just isn’t engaging with the real issues so other posters are having to explain again and again. So it’s got a bit boring now.