Ways that men "check out " of family life

[Whatwouldscullydo]

Inspired by another thread where its apparently unreasonable to expect someone to stay and help on Xmas day and wanting them to do so is controlling, it got me thinking of all the ways in which partners , very often male partners, check out of family life

We see many threads on this also

We have- hobbies. The ones that seemingly involve alot of time and/or expense. Often involve smoking or drinking or getting dirty and smelly so inevitably upon return showers etc are needed before they can hug or pick.up.a child.

Luxury poos. Never is it ok to wait for u. You must wait for them by any means necessary. Strange how even bodily functions can be used to assert dominance or unavailability.

The " I've been at work all day" excuse. We all know the house cleans itself. The dinner miraculously appears in the slow cooker and the kids can walk several miles to school by themselves even in reception.

The " we can't afford the time.off work " excuse. Usually followed by a day off fir them to do their hobby.

The " you have the car" clause. Because buses don't exist.. nor do trains . I mean how did i manage before I got the car?

The falling asleep on the sofa method. This is a particularly frustrating one because fir some they honestly believe their presence in the house is enough to be considered to be contributing.

And last but not least the " I don't know where anything goes/how to get there/ I don't know anyone / the kids prefer u to do it" method used to excuse no one putting washing away or getting home work.done while you are working.

Feel free to add any more

And its all very well saying it doesn't matter when something is done as long as Its done but when it has an impact on what everyone else needs to do then that's just another way of point proving isn't it?

No nothing bad will happen of the dishes aren't washed until 11pm but then if you need the stuff that's not been washed up yet to prepare for the next day its just thoughtless isn't it?

Making everyone wait until you feel like it ir do half the job yourself first which gets the other one off the hook fir doing it.

It's completely a cop out. It's a legalistic fiddling with the definitions of things to your advantage while the stronger definition still exists when it's someone else's job.
Because we don't all live by contracts written by lawyers we don't have a series of definitions to refer to before we make requests which say things like:

"Giving the kids dinner" means cooking or otherwise preparing and serving a range of items to include representatives of each of the following food groups: proteins, vegetables and starches; at least 75% of the volume of the meal should have been prepared in the home from fresh, whole, non-commercially-prepared ingredients with no industrially added salts or sugars; breaded commercially frozen items do not satisfy this requirement and can be considered to be substantive dinner ingredients only in exceptional circumstances, for example "rush kids dinner" which is defined in clause 3 iv. It will be acceptable to serve pre-prepared, home frozen food on condition that this is part of a framework in which the server regularly prepares and replaces such food at least as often as the server serves it, considered on the basis of periods of a fortnight. The service of such dinner takes place between 5.30 and 7.30 pm; serving of food outside of these times does not constitute having given the kids dinner."

If you hold yourself to these standards (and your partner is cruising on the implicit understanding that you do) while his standards are "throw a sausage roll and some crisps at them at 4pm and then look surprised when they are having hunger tantrums at 8pm" or "get some crap out of the freezer knowing that you fed them properly yesterday and will again tomorrow" then it just isn't fair to say "it's just different standards."

That's exactly it.

For instance I'd always prepare the packed lunches when I got home from.work. it may seem just a " different standard " to do the dishes at 10.30/11pm but that standard was only such because he'd be asleep on the sofa. Not because it was some active decision to do it that way.

This always meant that I'd be trying to work around him in a tiny kitchen with no surface clear or clean to work on on and none.of the tubs etc i needed to put stuff in having been washed up yet.

My options then were either then to jut wit til he'd finished meaning I'd not get to go to bed when I wanted..or add another job to the list of things to get done in the morning. Now him.lesving early for work meant he had the luxury of getting just himself up and out the door and me with myself akd 2 kids to get up fed dressed and out the door.

His alternative was just to do the damn dishes befire he bloody sat down and inevitably fell asleep. Maybe he'd get to bed earlier if he wasn't having to clean the kitchen at 11pm.

You can say it's different standard but should these different standards have such a negative impact on others?

Why does the urge to " not allow themselves to he told what to do " take iver what is act just common sense and occasionally thinking about how your actions affect others.

Somebody mentioned "I wouldn't put up with being treated like a servant."

The "servant" part is the nub.

Just dropping things / responsibilities / grime / whatever for somebody else to deal with is treating that somebody as a servant.

In other contexts, the person responsible for managing everything is a manager. The boss. She/he decides what needs doing, when it's to be done, what standard it's done to. All those elements are missing in this situation.

All of this is pure male entitlement, quietly benefiting from the caste system that somehow never has anything to do with them. If it wasn't, they'd be doing what the manager said.

Or doing their share. All of it. Including the managing.

This shit is why so many 70s feminists became political lesbians.