why are some women content to do all the housework?

[honeydew]

I meet lots of mums in my local area who, like me, are stay at home mums with very young children but are prepared to do absolutely everything for their partners and DH's! They slave away cooking, cleaning and washing at home with no help and at the weekends, they still don't expect
their partners to do anything! I have friends who never get a proper break from their children, even if it's only for a couple of hours. Their DH's leave them to it 24/7. Is it just me who has found that old style patriarchy is alive and well in society once a woman gives up work to raise her brood? My DH does help me with baby DS, he also puts my older daughter to bed and washes up after I've cooked each night, so we work as a team. So many women I speak to say that their DH's are not 'hands on' parents and do virtually all the chores and baby changing/feeding. Oviously, if one partner is working during the week they can't do that much, but some men don't want to contribute at all it would seem! Are they just lazy or simply 'expect' women to fulfill that role?

Argh - I can't believe I used that rocket science phrase. I hate that

Re Gemmitygems post of yesterday afternoon, you said that if you decided to stay at home your DH might secretly like it as it would be great for someone else to picking up all his crap.

This is exactly what i don't understand about the attitude to SAHM's. I did not give up my career to housekeep and tidy my DH's crap - I gave it up to look after our children. That is my job, obviously I tidy up the general mess and if I am able to a bit of housework, but if my DH leaves his socks on the floor at night he doesn't 'expect' me to pick them up the next day just because I'm at home. I would spend far too much time doing all the house stuff and not being Mum.

Beatie, shocked and delighted that you're agreeing with me on some things . Just on the financial thing, I did say 'a lot of women are vulnerable' (and of course this doesn't mean there aren't a lot of finacially vulnerable men too)) and just because you are involved in finacial decision-making (which BTW makes me happy beyond belief) doesn't mean this isn't true. Likewise with snacking. It may not be true for you but it is for me. That's not evidence either way.

I don't think Mr Kittywits is a complete masculine stereotype. I was initially imagining him as Grant Mitchell, but I don't think Grant Mitchell would take time to post on mumsnet. I completely and absolutely agree Kittywits that a successful marriage is based on supporting one another and not arguing about who is doing more - you seem to have this very well sorted. However... you initially came on this thread critiscizing mothers who go back to work with young children (unless through absolute financial necessity) and said that it is preferable for mothers to care for their children than fathers.

If we can accept we wouldn't want to do what you do, but that your choices are right for you, can you agree that the choice of who stays at home and who goes out to work is down to individual circumstancesn and skills, not what bits you have between your legs?

Being the kind of obsessive individual who puts together spreadsheets to check that we are not being cheated on the mortgage repayments and finds changing nappies quite relaxing, I am not jealous of your division of labour, its just not for me.

Glassofwine your post said it very well, my dw is a sahm and I would never expect her to pick up after me just because she is at home.
The way it works in our house is that dw does everything for the children whilst I am at work and then we do half each when I am around. I am not a child and she ids not my mum , she wouldn't have scivvied for me pre children and I don't expect her to now.

Hope you're not going to feel victimised when you come back to these messages Kittywit and I echo whoever it was earlier who said don't feel you need to defend or reveal if you don't want to. I personally feel we just need to recognize that the decisions we make that we think just affect ourselves personally often have much wider-reaching consequences (i.e. for our kids and their kids). As a teacher I really see how my students have been affected by their parents and I always try to think how my decisions will affect my kids long-term and short-term even if they're not immediately and directly affected by them.

BAWC - I always knew we had some things in common.

I don't find SAHM/WOHM generalisations helpful that's all.

E.g. I was at one of those play places the other day and this woman was there with her 2 grandsons. Both were behaving badly e.g. snatching dolls from my 2 yo even though they were old enough to know better. One of them was crying and explained the other boy had hit him and her response was, 'Well, why didn't you hit him back for God's sake?'. My instinctive reaction was that I am so not looking forward to teaching these kids in another 10 years because they are not being taught how to manage conflict well and deal with their emotions. I know it's a digression but I just think what if my girls got together with Kittywits boys in another 20 years and they didn't think it was their job to change their kids' nappies.

Good point too wheresmyfroggy - DH would be insulted I suspect if he felt I was treating him the same way as the children. He has the day off today and got up to do the school/nursery run and let me stay in bed, in fact that's why I',m posting here and not out. He asked to do it because he doesn't normally get to see the children in the school/nursery environment - team effort that's what I say.

My job didn't come with a part-time option (unless working from home on a Friday while meeting the same targets as those in the office counts as part-time), so I gave it up to be a SAHM.

Am I more financially vulnerable now than when I was earning? Of course. I have a stakeholder pension from work but I've got nothing to add to it atm. And dp and I aren't even married so I've got no rights over his pension (which incidentally is currently smaller than mine - lack of financial forward-planning isn't limited to SAHMs).

I see this as the sacrifice I made to spend time with my ds and not be the frazzled harridan I'd be if I still worked full-time at the job that left me knackered every night even when I didn't have a child.

I very much hope to get some kind of satisfying job in the future, but as others have pointed out, that only gets harder when your children are at school. I found Tigermoth's post about how your needs change over time very heartening - tbh I've got no urge at all right now to go back to reviewing hundred-page contracts and sitting through boring meetings.

bawc, my dp's mum did just about everything round the house when he was small. He didn't know how to operate a washing machine and had never ironed a shirt when we moved in together after university. I taught him how and he now does both admirably.

It's not as set in stone as you imply - I think for men, respecting your partner rather than being happy to treat her as a drudge and being willing to share the workload (in whatever way you both agree) is far more important than whether your dad ever changed a nappy.

Bawc, You are so so wrong on So many levels. mr kitty decides to write because HE wants to. Fighting my battles? I don't think so! He would be the first to say that I am a very feisty person. I think it's great that he contributes, we are talking about him so surely he can have a say. I also don't feel very inclined to respond to your posts because you tone is attacking rather than interested. I do not have to qualify my decisions to anyone, least of all to someone who approaches me in the way that you do.

Beatie, he does his own sort of dirty work that i certainly wouln't want to do!

I think Mr Kittywits was great coming on here tbh, he also said he would change a nappy if necessary!!

However I agree with tigermoth that nothing should change the inherant masculine part of his nature, changing a nappy or a spot of hoovering.

Looking at someone who is famously quoted at saying he has never changed a nappy - Gordon Ramsey. No-one who watches the F-word could ever think he wasn't a devoted and great father. All interviews I have read on him and his wife give that view too. So although I don't see what is emasculating about nappy changing, I don't see it as the beall and end of of parenting IYKWIM. I seem to remember another thread on this particular subject where it was suggested that a person who doesn't change their childrens nappies are not great parents - this involved Madonna!! here

Nappy changing and the lack of it (!) is obviously an important subject to spend loads of time debating

Kittywits (or Mr Kittywits, if able to come to the pooter): I am completely intrigued by what Mr Kittywits does. He works from home, is involved in the family (albeit not into nappies or housework), is able to help out in the school run but STILL brings home a big packet and sustain a household for 7 or even more.

What DO you do? Where can I have some of that?

BTW, I have worked in a few City institutions and seen how hard men (and women) work there. Truly. That is stressful. Working from home? Hmmmmmm.

bawc you have already said that you kids sit in poo whilst yo and your dp pretend you haven't noticed! my kids never sit in poo because it is my job to do it. I don't try and shirk (sp) my responsiblities.

I don't have any gripe with the personal choice of someone living their life with their partner in a certain way. It is not illegal, it sounds secure for the time being & the children enjoy the company of both parents.
However, I don't like the idea that these are "traditional" roles, manly vs womanly, that people shouldn't have children unless the mother is the full-time carer. I think these views are based on incorrect assumptions and are reactionary.
The woman at home as full-time child carer is a 20th century concept, the manly vs womanly thing is incredibly difficult to define & one that varies hugely depending on the individuals concerned & the idea that you should only have children if a mother devotes her life to it, is absurd & again harks back to some brief aberration in the mid 20th century.
I am very much live & let live, make your own choices etc, but don't justify your choices by condemning other peoples.

I think it sounds as though you and your dh are both happy with the way things are done in your home kittywits and that is what counts, if you are all happy then tbh your children will be happy too.
If parents are unhappy\unfulfilled\depressed then I changes need to be made but if not then what is the problem?

In my office there are some very well paid people and there are some very overtly stressed out people. Levels of pay and stress do not correlate to levels of hard work (although the levels of loud stressedoutedness do correlate with the levels of earache in co-workers).

what bugsy said

Totally agree with Floating on the Med's last post.

Blueshoes, Working from home? Hmmm.... Please don't think that working from home is a soft option. It cuts out just 2 bits of stress - the commute, and the necessity of negotiating with your employer when your child is sick, there is a sports day, school assembly, etc. Apart from that, it is exactly like working in any other office, except that it is in some ways harder, because there are loads of home distractions so it's harder to concentrate, people feel free to drop by and interrupt you in a way they wouldn't dream of doing if you worked in an office and you don't have the cameraderie of office networking. It has its own stresses. So much so, that I'm actually thinking of giving up working from home and looking for a job based in a normal office. Even though it would give me the headache of dealing with sick children, school assemblies, sports days, etc. - all the things which are such a PITA when you are a WOHM. Working from home solves all those things, but it is not a panacea - it presents its own problems. In many ways of course it's the best of all worlds, but it can also be the worst of all worlds - the necessity to spend your time doing something you don't really want to (which is what paid work represents to many, many people) without the compensating friendship, social life and human interaction that outside work provides.

Sorry for that little rant, as you can probably tell, the prevailing view that working from home is a breeze is a little bugbear of mine!

Cali, oh, absolutely agree with you about the stresses of working from home. That is why I chose to commute to work.

But I was asking Kittywits in the context of her dh's situation - where I assume Kittywits puts her dh's work above housework/childcare and would shield him from all the things you described.

"if you are all happy then tbh your children will be happy too" ..well.. that's isn't always true is it? Parental unhappiness might taint a child's life - their happiness doesn't neccessarily translate into kids being happy themselves.

However I agree that if the Kittywits household model works for them then so be it. And I have to say that KW has responded with commendable patience and calmness to all the questions and comments.

Still don't agree with some of her views mind you.....