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?

Can't quite get my head round why SAHMs are more likely to be obese. I get plenty of exercise, doing vacuuming, walking to and from school, walking to the shops, mowing the lawn etc, as a SAHM. Dh, who works full time, drives to work and sits in an office all day! Not that either of us are obese, but I definitely get more exercise than he does.

I have to come back on your question bawc, "do you really think a feminist position would encourage payment of SAHMs with children in school? Wouldn't a better feminist position be to fight for better, more flexible and free childcare, better more flexible and family friendly employment and sharing house-work among the whole family?? So everyone does some paid work outside the house and everyone does some house-work?"

No it wouldn't be a better feminist position bawc. The two aren't mutually exclusive. People who care about women and children should be fighting for both, because both choices are valid imo. But as soon as you start getting into the position of "let's just fight for one position" you are automatically judging the other position to be inferior. And I don't believe that to be a valid feminist position.

I also think you're ignoring the fact that school ends at 3pm and homework, reading, after school clubs etc. all have to be sorted - Tigermoth's post said it all. Who is going to sort that if all the adults are at work? And also, the logical conclusion to the idea that both parents have to work in the cash economy, is that we should be fighting for the 20 hour working week (as opposed to the current standard 40) so that the domestic work can also be fitted in. The day is still only 24 hours.

misschief maybe im just weird! i have always enjoyed cleaning up and i hate mess, even when i lived at home i was always cleaning up for my mum - she started paying me eventually as i did a better job than her cleaner!

i am ridiculosly houseproud, before i had dd my house did look like a show home and at times i still manage to get it like that!

if im at home i hate sitting doing nothing and end up cleaning

maybe i should go to cleaning anonymous and admit i have a problem!!

nnc - just came round to mine, we'd keep you nice and busy

misschief dont joke as i have been known to absently start cleaning up when round peoples houses i cant help it!!

still put clothes in correct size order when im out shopping and i not worked in a clothes shop for 12 years!!

ha just realised my family make jokes about my dd little obsessions i said i didnt know where she got it from hmm penny beginning to drop!

Smtb, I think that any studies done will be comletely skewed by the fact that if a large number of women who stay at home are unemployed, shall we say working class, with poor diets and poor understanding of nutritional health , then it would say that they are more likely to be over weight. The majority of women here, and I am only supposing, please don't shoot me for this, are well educated 'middle class' women who have an understanding and inclination to exercise and eat healthily ( well, apart from the obligatory pms choc stash).

I can see what you mean, although, I thought it would be more likely that women in households with lower incomes would be more likely to return to work, as they couldn't afford not to IYSWIM.

I expect I eat too healthily and am too vigorous with the housework

Just read the thread - LOL

I particularly think Poppyflower's contributions are very funny - the master of sweeping generalisations!

Facts are - some people are lucky and can exercise free choice whether to work or not to work. Many more do not have that luxury and either have to work or have to stay at home because finances dictate.

B&WC does make some valid comments - particularly for those who are SAHM and are not married. They have precious little protection - just see the many relationship threads for the painful consequences! However perhaps a little more subtelty would not go amiss!

I think perhpas society has too little expectations of men - afterall plenty women who work full-time still manage to come home and do housework, childcare, domestic admin etc etc etc and still attend every school play, sports days, parental consultations and so on. If they can, then why can't men?

soapbox, I wish society didn't expect so much of women rather than expecting working men to do all this extracurricular stuff as well. Having a demanding full time job outside the home AND making it to every parent consultation, music class pick up, swimming lesson, school play - and doing this year in year out for the whole time your child is at school - is IMO an awful lot to expect of any working parent.

If you and your partner can share the duties - and I think this is what you mean - life is easier, though.

I sometimes feel the school my sons attend - and some of the teachers themselves - just forget how time poor working parents can be in the evenings.

If I actaully did everything by the book - the suggested amount of reading time (two books one challenging one to read to ds, one less challenging for him to read himself) spelling practice, music practice, cooking a good meal from scratch, bath each evening, not forgetting any trips to and from extracurricular clubs my son might wish to attend, plus spotless clean and tidy house, orderly children's room, etc etc I reckon I'd have to start at 4.00 pm for a 8.00 pm bedtime. As it is, I don't get home from work till 6.00 pm so have to cut so many corners - usually housework is the first to go.

I haven't read all this thread, but get the impression blackandwhitecat is saying housework is rather unimportant and easy to fit in around work. Whatever my views on keeping a house spotless ( I'm not that fussed about a bit of dirt), IMR fitting in housework round a full week's work week after week is not at all easy.

I found some of what you had to say amusing B&WC. I about your facetious comments regarding having to be taught how to mop a floor or clean inside a toilet bowl. As a student I worked summers as a housekeeping assistant in a hotel and I had to attend a course on these two tasks!

Good lord though - I found some of your comments so pompous, I have to wonder if underneath you're terribly insecure about your life choices. Is this really a choice? The way you and your DH work out your finances seems a bit bizarre to me. Why do you each get a disposable sum of money relative to your income? So, you're married to someone who also devalues the role of caring for children in the home during office hours?

"I do get on with my job and I don't have to fantasise about doing people favours (unlike some people who don't seem to do anything much except clean their own house all day and look after their own kids) because I know I do and so do my students."

Are you saying that doing work beyond the call of duty (favours for your students - during unpaid hours) is even more important than looking after your children or contributing to keeping the household orderly?!

My DH is a teacher and I'd be pretty pissed off if he cosnsistently stayed at school beyond the final bell of the day because he felt it was a better way to spend his time than put his children to bed (oh the monotomy!) or put the family's laundry away.

?Not the same as knowing I've brought part of Hamlet to a bunch of 20 kids or written 30 UCAS references or written part of a text book which will be used by teachers thoughout the country.?

Again, my DH finds teaching a very satisfying career but when he is an old man and retired, I like to think he will remember the times he taught our dds to swim, to write their name, to blow bubbles in their milk with a straw, to tell the time, to ride a bike etc, etc... with far more clarity and poignancy than anything he taught his school pupils as part of his job.

I don't understand why women have to downplay the rewards of spedning time with children in comparison to their work whilst men don't appear to have this tendency. They don't even try to compare the two.

"That I take more interest in the financial, emotional security and job prospects of SAHM than many seem to themselves? If I'd realized that that was going to cause so much offence I would never have started."

This is patronising. Mumsnet is full of women agonising over these elements.

I'm glad you think so soap box, I try not to be so up my own arse as to infuriate and insult and I don't believe I have done that.

My statements tonight come from recent experience.

To say I make sweeping generalisations is a sweeping generalisation in itself.

Also I am not a master I am female!!!

I'm glad you think so soap box, I try not to be so up my own arse as to infuriate and insult and I don't believe I have done that.

My statements tonight come from recent experience.

To say I make sweeping generalisations is a sweeping generalisation in itself.

Also I am not a master I am female!!!

Totally agree with Tigermoth. We shouldn't be wishing men were as harassed and overworked as women, we should be wanting women to have as much leisure time as men.

I blanched when i found out how much homework etc. I am supposed to supervise next year. I can currently fit it in because I work at home 2 days a week. But I'm thinking I want to get a new job (am fed up being skint) and if I do, there is no way I will have time to do everything. There simply are not enough hours in the day, and lots of things are going to have to give, not just the housework.

I should add that I am NOT one of those women who is happy to do all the housework. I wasn't pre-children, and I haven't changed post-children. Despite the fact my parents lived out stereotypical roles (although my mum now works and has a pension!) I always gravitated towards boyfriends who were able to take care of themselves.

I've had two children very close together and have been introduced to a very different world than my career orientated, younger and perhaps more naive self. I've discovered just how hard it is to raise a family in today's society and the issues surrounding a woman's role. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to my thread so far and it's SO good to hear that other people feel strongly about what a woman's role should be within the family unit. I will always put my family first no matter what the cost, but believe feminism has failed me and others and only served create yet more work for women, employed or not. I thought women were equal until I had children. Until men and society value childcare, nothing will change and women will still do the bulk of the housework and looking after the children. I think women have won many battles in the struggle for equality but we have yet to win the war. In my opinion, only women themselves and the Government through public pressure can change the staus quo and provide women with real choice for their families. There are no easy answers it would seem and sadly I don't think SAHM's will ever be appreciated by the wider society. The fact that the Inland Revenue will pay a childminder to look after my
young children but not me is insulting and destrucitve to family life, especially in the pre-school years. I have no answers unfortunately but I hope that one day Government policy will change. My opinion hasn't changed and I agree with BAWC that men should share the chores.

I haven't read all the comments but I don't understand how BAWC gets such a huge amount of satisfaction when writing UCAS forms which I always saw as an admistrative chore, even more than washing my DH's socks! Teaching can be very fulfilling, but my goodness! Don't knock teachers though, they're a dedicated bunch and often treat their pupils as their own!

Mr. Poppyflower here, Mrs. Poppyflower will read this in the morning and put a flea in my ear for posting in her name but here goes:

Yes of course it's mad that Sahm's are not fully appreciated by society. Your time will come; in this house Poppyflower is queen cos she's bringing up our children, there is no more important job on this planet. But Honeydew, is your bloke supposed to go out and work and then come home and share the chores? I have to admit that I don't understand, surely the work should be equally divided? And I'm sorry to hear that feminism has failed you, maybe just a little more time is needed? I hope so.

because they watch Andrea Turners How to be a good Housewife

have to say I agree with BAWC broadly, and I think the volume of comments shows what a sensitive issue the whole thing is: there is so much pressure on women from all sides from society:

working mum = accused of being un-caring, irresponsible to kids, cold, unnatural, moneygrabbing

SAHM= accused of being lazy, worthless, boring, unfulfilled etc

Either of those combinations, does most housework: = must be a martyr, slave, stepford wife
doesn't do housework= lazy slut, bad mother/wife
shares housework with partner= probably not doing enough, doing too much..

We can't win! The thing is, I don't think BAWC should be vilified for saying she really values her career and gets things out of it which she doesn't get out of home life. That's not a crime: no-one would criticise a man for saying he has a fulfilled career and home life.

And like it or not, society (and the pension system etc) does NOT equally value childcare. We get value from it, the joy of bringing up the kids etc, but if you want to be valued truly by society, and if you care about fitting in with and succeeding in the system which we unfortunately are faced with, yes, career is important.

So I see it as two feminist positions, both of which would aim to give both women and men maximum choice in bringing up the next generation and doing lots of other interesting things:

1. fighting for the upbringing of children to be valued as a career, and remunerated as such, including in the pensions system. Raising the profile and importance of early years education.

2. Ensuring that mothers and fathers have every possible help in succeeding in a non-childrearing career through flexitime, parental leave for fathers too, etc, to level the playing field

Housework will always be done by whoever is more willing to do it, and SAHMs will naturally struggle as their partners probably assume they can do it during the day..

It's such a tense area, where future fathers don't really even consider seriously giving up their jobs/careers, whereas we do, and it causes a lot of resentment.. roll on the Swedish system where they bend over backwards to make it fairer!
ok, rant over!

Gem bawc was vilified mostly because of her attitude, choice of words and turn of phrase. I think if she not been so rude she would have been able to have had a more reasoned discussion with people.

but was she really that rude? Maybe biased towards her side of the argument, but she kept saying she wasn't attacking SAHMs.. and tbh I thought she got some quite aggressive replies back...

it was a choice of words gem and her turns of phrase. As an English teacher she would have been well aware that they would have come across ina certain way. For example she told someone that they had "a warped interprtation" of what she was saying. Now to my mind that is not pleasant. There are so many ways she could have put that. : You have misunderstaood me... I didn't mean it like that....
She chose to say it that way and those sentiments are echoed throughout her postings. I think that is what has done her no favours.

why are people mixing up 2 seperate arguments - staying at home with children and housework.

you nutters.

this isn't about sahms ( again) though am sure the vigilante SAHMs would like it to be.

i dont understand why any one person in the family should be the lacky, slave, dogsbody for the rest.

i dnt understand how people feel pleased with themselves after donning rubber glves and getting mr sheen out.

housework, is a thankl;ess, menial task that a trained mnkey could do. it goes on forever and will never be complete, its repetitive and boring and the most liberated pinko liberal man will still expect you to do it - if your at home with a baby unless you ell him to shove it up his arse.

so i dont understand why cleaning up other peoples shit - that other people can't be arsed doing or help you with - so other people treat you like a piece of shit shit shit, why you get satisfaction from this?

"But Honeydew, is your bloke supposed to go out and work and then come home and share the chores?"

Er, yes If both DH and I are home and there is work to be done in the house - we both get on and do it. I don't have to ask him to help. He knows what needs to be done and instinctively gets on with it. Why would he want to sit down and relax whilst I still work away? He wants to spend time with me relaxing so if we both help, we both have more time together in an evening. The same with caring for the children. If we're both home, we both do it.

As a SAHM there are tasks that I naturally do in the day. Put laundry on, wash up after breakfast and lunch, grocery shopping, clean kitchen floor in the area DDs have eaten, keep toilet clean, wipe down kitchen surfaces. I guess I clean up after the children because that's what would happen if a childminder or nanny or nursery were looking after my children.

But I do not take 100% responsibility for cooking for the family in the evenings and weekends. DH and I both cook. I do not take responsibility for cleaning the whole house. It either gets a weekend blitz by both of us (and honestly only takes an hour!) or one of us takes the children out so the other can do it in peace. I do not take 100% responsibility for the laundry. It's often folded and put away in the evenings by DH or hung on the line by DH at the weekends.

I find it hard to understand households where the model is very different to mine. I cannot understand a household where a father comes home and does something for himself whilst there is still work that needs to be done in the house.

But most people cannot understand my household and I know that my mother and my Inlaws and friends probably assume I am lazy because of the huge contribution DH makes to running our home.

I think it's good to take the long term view on being a SAHM or working outside the home. Your children will be financially dependent on you and need your care for at least the first 16 years of their lives. That's a very long time to have a set idea of your role in the family.

IMO phrases like 'I want to be there for my children every day' and 'my career is important to me' might be true at the time, but you may radically change your views over those 16+ years.

Ask me 9 years ago if my career was important to me and I'd have said a resounding 'no'. I had a toddler son at home - my precious firstborn - and longed to spend more time with him. I hated my job and the long commute got no pleasure from it. Money was the only reason I did it.

I did become an SAHM for 18 months after being made redundant - by that time I had another baby son, so took time off to be with him. But when I got offered a local job in an area of work I loved, I was ready to go.

4 years on, I really love my career again - I have got back all the enthusiasm I had pre children - enthusiasm that I thought I had lost forever. The job is family friendly - flexihours, 20 minutes walk away from home - but challenging, too. I would not swap this now for being a SAHM - unless I won the lottery! I enjoy the company of my colleagues, I like being involved in a life away from children, I like earning money, and I do not miss my children during the day or feel guilty that I am not giving them enough of 'me'. They are at school now. When we all gather at home we do not rush into each others arms - they play with friends, watch TV etc I do some housework, talk to dh - I do not feel the driving need to give my children input every minute I am there.

The only problem I have is the tiredness and stress of fitting in the eveing homework and bedtime routine. In an ideal world, I'd end work at 2.00 pm - along with all my colleagues.