But WHY does care always fall to the women?

[falcon82]

I keep seeing discussions about how childcare costs keep women out of the workplace. I know the reality is that it IS women who take on the bulk of the childcare responsibilities - and care for older people too - but why is that?

And more importantly why are we just saying 'oh that's just how it is'? Why do people, on a personal level, not expect more from their male partners and relatives?

I see a lot of (heterosexual) female friends complaining about the above issue - that childcare costs and/or employers refusing them part time work hours amount to sex discrimination and I always want to ask, 'why doesn't your husband go part time? Why doesn't your boyfriend take on some of the care?'

But that never seems to even enter the discussion.

I think with a lot of blokes sadly if you waited for them to do it it just wouldn’t get done. Honestly I think if my partners mother was in hospital and I didn’t arrange him visiting he just wouldn’t go. Let alone think to stock her fridge for when she went back home. Doesn’t make me happy to write that but I think it’s true.

For childcare it’s almost always down to income disparity. For more complex care needs or care of adults it can be a bit more complicated - care of elderly parents often comes at the peak of a career - but for the most part it’s because most women earn less then their male partner.

I earn just under triple DH’s salary, so when I became pregnant it was taken as given that DH would go part time. The only person who’s ever mentioned it as unusual, AFAIK, is the health visitor, when she phoned and I asked her to visit on a certain day. It works well for us but in an ideal world we’d both be part time/condensed hours. Even though my relationship is great compared to so many on MN and DH pulls his weight, I still carry a heavier mental load and it’s tiring.

Why?
It’s called “sexism”
We live in a sexist patriarchal society. Women are raised from birth to expect to take on the bulk of childcare. Men are raised from birth to expect women to take on the bulk of childcare. This sexist cultural view then influences employer decisions to not hire mothers, not promote mothers, sack pregnant women and so on. Yeah we have laws so there’s lip service to equality, but the sexism has gone away.

*has not gone away, typing too fast!

Partly income disparity but partly through want

I am highly qualified and senior in my field and before I had children I had very strong career aspirations. But honestly some of that has really sloped up now I have children and the prospect of going back to work for all those hours to work for someone else isn’t very appealing when I could spend my day potato printing with a toddler.

I’ll still go back after mat leave as I didn’t before but the want isn’t really there the same. Ideally my husband will also drop down to 4 days a week.

a lot of my female friends in my circle say the same thing whereas our husbands feel a bit like it but it’s nowhere near as strong. Biology has a lot to answer for!

You can’t make someone care for a parent or child or whatever. I just think girls tend to care more. I have met v dedicated men who care for their relatives, visit them in hospital etc. so they do exist - it’s just they are in the minority. My kids have fantastic grandparents - and I hope that I can show them that care is an important and valuable thing - you can’t really tell how they will turn out though.

Well, I mean I guess I know it's sexism but my question is more about why women don't challenge it more in their own relationships.

I see numerous examples of women on their high horse about the patriarchy on a societal level but at the same time making excuses why they let their own partner get away with refusing to take on the mental load at home/leaving it up to her to sort out anything to do with care (child or otherwise) "oh he works so hard" "I don't mind, I like doing it!" "He does help out loads when I ask him"

Maybe my question is why are men so shit, and why do women put up with them?

Just look at how many women post on MN everyday about wanting to give up work and spent every single waking day with their babies cos they love them so much.

It's cute when they're 6 months old, less so when they're 6 years old.

Because after enduring pregnancy and recovering while caring for a newborn (often working hard to establish breastfeeding or suffering from an inability to get breastfeeding to work) then just as the babies get more fun and a lot of women find they just don’t want to give up their time them. They actually WANT to spend the time with their child.

I was desperate to do shared care when my eldest was born, but my exH refused to even ask. Eldest had additional needs meaning 8-7 nursery care wouldn't have suited him so even though I was the higher earner at the time, I gave up work because our child's needs were paramount and I was the only one prepared to do what was necessary.

Nothing much has changed. He's now ghosted all three of his children. Because he's Billy big bollocks in industry, off the back of my bloody sacrifice, and thinks he's hard done by because he has to pay more than he'd like for child maintenance.

Sorry. Rant over. Apologies for the detail but a pp had it in a nutshell - too many men don't see it as their problem to solve.

I know the reality is that it IS women who take on the bulk of the childcare responsibilities - and care for older people too - but why is that?

A generalisation, but most people, to an extent, grow up to be their parents. Or at least have a tendency to follow the role models we grew up with.

That is especially true when you’ve just had a baby and are struggling just to keep going. There’s little energy and strength to fight to force a reluctant father to do more. Personal experience suggests that, given a choice between getting up and going to a crying baby, and trying to get the father to do it, while all the time listening to that baby crying, tends to result in the lazy father getting his own way, and this the pattern begins.

Add in his willingness to work outside the home, which is pretty much the only thing he’s really up for doing, then the path of least resistance is to let him work, and work around that.

It was shit, but nobody warned me. Nobody taught me to stand up for myself. There were no Mumsnet vipers to suggest I shouldn’t have more children with such a loser, so I built my family.

I had the expectation he’d do more. But when he didn’t, I didn’t have the assertiveness or energy to fight it.

And the pattern repeats, because children are still growing up in families where that is the norm. By the time they work it out, like I have now, It’s happened again.

It will take many generations to change, if it ever does.

I think it probably is a mixture of the lower income being more expendable and a lot of men not doing what they need to. I know one women who pays for all the childcare because she is choosing to work and her husband feels it is her responsibility. They are not rich, they actually need her to work but apparently thats her issue to solve.

I think it’s just that in general men are more selfish and put themselves first more often (not all men, but in general - so they are more likely to walk away from their kids and not look after parents).

I know a few couples who were extremely fair with the first child or where the DH went part time and the woman went back full time after maternity.

However, having a second child with a period of maternity leave made this impractical. You cannot have a family of at least 4 supported by maternity pay and a part time wage.

All the "equality" legislation looks at a single pregnancy in isolation.

• a couple who both worked part time weren't eligible for shared parental leave (maybe this has changed)?
• a DH working 2 days a week could not afford to support his wife and children on maternity, nor was he eligible for paternity past 2 weeks.

Law of unintended consequences.

Women (on average) look for partners with a salary that matches or exceeds their own.

Women (on average) are more likely to want to personally provide care for their children.

Both these factors mean that (again on average) a disparity in pay grows in a relationship with the man earning more. And once its developed most couples can't afford to ignore it when making other decisions about who works for pay and who picks up the unpaid work.

When it comes to caring responsibilities the picture can be further muddied by women surviving men and the relative support that parents provide to adult children in different cultures.

I can only speak for myself, but after carrying a baby, then spending 10 months solid caring for him, going back to work while he was hitting major milestones was torture. So I went part time to a) satisfy my need to be with him and b) reduce child care costs.
After being part time, I fell behind in my career so even when I went back full time, I was still a way behind DH who earns more. Therefore, as my job is worth 'less' financially, it can take the hit over DHs

Well for the elderly it doesn't. I feel very sorry for the elderly man a few doors away who is caring for his wife with advanced dementia. He probably isn't the only one.

I can't say this is my expierence to be honest.
My dad was our primary carer when my mum was ill. He did all the school meetings, made sure we did the homework, he did the housework etc. He sent a woman from social services away and was outraged that someone thought he couldn't cope with 3 children.

Dad cared for his very elderly parents ( He was elderly himself at this point)

My husband has done a lot more for the children in many ways as I have been a shift worker. Not so much now as there are only two of us but he had a day that he did the 'big shop', he ironed on Sundays and got the uniforms ready. He never missed a sports day, parents evening or nativity ( neither did I to be fair)
He cared for his mother when she was ill before she went into a hospice and she came to live with us.

My son's shop, clean, peg the washing out, sort bills etc with their partners. They would never utter the words ' I washed up for you' DS tried that once when he was 15. He soon learned he is not some sort of god where people lay at his feet but part of a household!
They are not exceptional people, just decent people who share a load.
I bloody hate it when people tell me I'm 'lucky'. Nonsense. I throw plenty of fish back until I found someone that was a decent partner to me and respected me.

Because woman are more likely to be the lower earner in the relationship, so it’s a practical, non-sex based decision that if someone is going part time, then it’s the lower earner. If you are going to compare the costs of option of both working or one staying at home, then the childcare costs will be compared against the lower earners wage.

why woman are more likely to be the lower earner is more complex - that’s the bigger issues.

plus our system that means many woman have had a year at home with the baby has set a pattern that mum looks after the child and dad goes to work.

All excellent points made - other contributing factors i've seen in couples:

• Not actually talking it through properly beyond MAYBE mum going 'i could work part time for a bit after the baby is born'. No discussion on when babys sick, impact on mums career or pension, no discussion of alternatives.
• The constant unrelenting narrative that anything dad does that mum doesnt do means mum is lazy and dads a hero. And i see this from women the most. We hold each other to incredibly high standards but men incredibly low ones, women bond over how 'useless' their husbands are. The internalised misogyny runs deep.

I think many women don't actually want their dh to share the childcare - we are biologically driven to want to look after our babies, having invested so much hard work into growing and birthing them.
I suspect that quite a lot of fathers would love to go part time or take a long paternity leave, but not at the expense of the mothers' preferences and own mat leave entitlement.

All the sahm and pt workers I know it’s been there preference to do this

With kids I think that women often positively want to care for their kids. I really enjoyed it and felt my husband had the bum deal by working. ( I was unable to work due to visa issues so it was never in question that I'd care for the kids)
I'd love to know how often that it it the women that push to have kids ?

I knew at about 12/13 it would be me that would be looking after my parents; I was born late, 12 years between me and my brother and older other siblings

My brother told me escaped because he didn't want the responsibility and he knew waht would happen too

I was the youngest

So its not just about children