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.

That should say hates everyone else 😂 I guess they’re more sweeping generalisations as i definitely don’t bother with politics

I think with caring for elderly parents, there are more widows around than widowers and women prefer another woman to help them with personal care.

That generation is very sexist too! My mum was impressed by my 50 year-old brother pegging out a washing for her!!! This apparently makes him “very domesticated”. 🤦🏽‍♀️

In our case, I paid Creche and Dh paid mortgage as relatively equal sized bills and avoided complications (we don't share bank a/car). But when it came to time off when DD was ill, that was very much split 50/50.

What a load of nonsense.

I agree when they are older yes that should be the case. The problem though stems from maternity leave and unfortunately we are the ones primarily affected. Now we can say that we have more progressive options now with shared maternity but my personal view was fuck that shit I'm taking the leave! I did not have a baby to go back in five minutes. I could not have coped mentally or physically until they were at least 6 months old. I think the shared leave may place unnecessary pressure on women to go back earlier. I went back when my baby was 8 months but even in that time my career was pretty much fucked for a long period. I was not allowed flexible working and had to change role. My husband wouldn't have been allowed flexible working either had he asked. But I don't believe I could have worked in that 6-8 month period so there wasn't an alternative to let my husband do it.

Biology has a lot to do with it. I had a number of friends who were miserable being trapped in roles at work where they couldn't take the time they wanted to be at home with their babies/children. One was a self employed vet and the main breadwinner. She was resentful that her husband got to be at home with the baby more. Another was a lawyer that had created a career that led to a powerful job with long hours. Another managed a family restaurant and hated having to work nights and weekends.

Admittedly this is all in the USA. I advise my daughters to figure out a career with some flexibility so they haven't painted themselves into a corner if they feel differently once they have children.

Its not all patriarchy. The industrial revolution moved families away from lives where work was more integrated with homelife (women were brewers etc.) and instead home and work became very separate spheres.

If you have 30 babies crying women can identify their baby. Men can't. Mother Nature has a strong impact. Many women don't want to live and work just like men.

If you have 30 babies crying women can identify their baby. Men can't.

Yes I can, as can my husband, while there aren’t 30 babies at baby sensory, if a few were crying we always know if one of those cries is our daughter.

I think with caring for elderly parents, there are more widows around than widowers and women prefer another woman to help them with personal care.

I think most men also prefer personal care to be given by a woman. As one resident put it when I worked in a care home, 'I don't want a bloke washing my bits'. And it will still be a generational thing - men (and many women) aged 70+ think care is 'women's work'.

I haven't been going out to work for 14 years now so things may have changed. I found it was the case that if a woman needed time off, flexible hours, etc to care for elderly relatives then managers usually did what they could to help. If a man asked, the first response was always 'Can't your wife/sister/daughter/any other random female deal with it'. There is just no expectation that men will, or should, take it on.

Biology

www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/womens-mens-brains-respond-differently-hungry-infants-cries

time.com/4992130/motherhood-crying-babies/

m.newhealthadvisor.org/Do-Babies-Cry-in-the-Womb.html

why they let their own partner get away with refusing to take on the mental load at home

Why we let our partners? Fucking hell, add it to the list of jobs! "Train up partner"!!!

The bottom line is for many of my friends is that if they - female partner - didn't do it, no one would. Which is fine in theory, or when talking about housework or whatever. But when it's feeding a child, or responding to a teenager's emotional needs, or taking a clearly declining parent to an appointment, not so much. A lot of men just don't give a shit. That's a man problem.

And the worse thing is, society encourages it. Kids got nits? Phone mum! Christmas cards didn't get sent? Blame daughter-in-law.

I'm not a parent, but my mum friends WANT to spend time with their kids. The dads? Not as bothered.

You should read WifeWork by Susan Maushart she covers the double standard of women being feminists but then martyrying themselves unknowingly as default carers

And discusses a potential idea of the origin of wife work/women being default carers - she says it's evolutionary advantage and to be more attractive/more worthy of being kept safe, fed and cared for in the past by husbands, when women had no contraception, no job prospects, food poverty, higher maternal death rates etc
She then says this has permeated into the culture/sex expectations of being a woman/unconscious bias

Obviously one idea but when I read it years ago it made sense to me

FairPlay is a good read too for immediately rebalancing things

It feels to me (from my experience, my friends and my friends parents) that women often make the most sacrifices to be at home with their children such as working from home full time or part time, taking on more flexible roles so that when their parents or in laws need care they are already in the position to be able to do it so it automatically falls to them.
Also I do find that when I have been dealing with health care professionals they speak at me - ‘your mum needs to be in hospital at 9am Monday’. My brothers are in the same room stood next to me but they don’t say it to them!
Default parent default child I guess.

Why we let our partners? Fucking hell, add it to the list of jobs! "Train up partner"!!!

I just can't fathom why anyone would stay with a partner they can't rely on to do basic things like provide adequate care to their children. I wouldn't just shrug my shoulders and say 'oh well, that's men for you!'

I don't think women are more caring, I think the majority of men are selfish and always put their needs /wants first. It starts as soon as children are born, the subtle conditioning to fit societies 'norms'.

Society expects women to do it all for free and pushing back is possibly more exhausting than just doing everything. Women are thanked for 'putting up with their partner' ie thrown a little bit of praise to keep them happy and make them feel 'special'. Some people are lucky, they assume these roles happily and have an understanding that works. I don't think this is the norm thought.

What I often wonder is why women continue this 'doing it all' once the children have left home and it's just them and their husbands/partners. Do the men suddenly step up? I suspect not.

I think initially a mother is designed to be linked to their baby and a lot of women don't want to leave their babies to go back to work. Society often portrays this is lazy but I believe hormones and feelings play a bigger part for a lot of women vs men.
The men then end up with better careers and salaries and women end up widening the gap between earnings more and more.
I often wonder if we had longer (and better paid) maternity leave how many women would go back to work ft eventually.

I thought I'd always be in my career and was very very driven but after dc that massively waned and I kept telling myself to hang on but I just couldn't I wanted to be with my dc. I really couldn't believe how I felt. In a way it a shame I was a career person because I'd saved hardly anything before having dc on the basis I would just happily go back to work. I did go back but very very unhappily and then eventually ended up giving up my career. Happily! And if I'm poor one day because dh runs off so be it I will accept that vs missing out on my dc.

although I am hoping of course that never happens!

I also don't understand why women do the caring for their partners parents. This is something I would not do. A bit if shopping maybe but not full on care and organisation etc. just why? Let them do it, it's their parent. If they can't be bothered that not my problem it's a reflection of them.

There's two different arguments here - why do women earn less is different to men being crap. You could have a woman earn next to nothing and take her full mat leave entitlement, but when she goes back to work with bigger kids it's not a reason for the father to still mentally opt of his fair share. See the poster above with the birthday parties, and the husband who wouldn't think to bring a gift. That has nothing to do with biology, it's pure thoughtlessness, it takes two minutes to order a cheap lego set on amazon. But I don't think there's any harm in acknowledging that for many women, there is a strong biological drive to be with their babies when they're small. The societal issue is not that women aren't racing back to paid employment 4 weeks after giving birth, pumping on their tea breaks, it's that caring work isn't valued because it doesn't generate profit.

I went to back to work two months after my baby was born. I did have the connection and concern everyone describes but I have a female partner who I knew would care for our daughter exactly as well as I would. I wouldn't have been so keen if I was leaving her with someone who might forget to do some of the basics.

Sometimes I think we kid ourselves that it's 'biology' making women want to stay at home with the kids when really, it's 'not being able to trust men not to be thoughtless and selfish'.

Men should make more effort for their partners to keep working. I earn double my DH salary so it was a given I would return to work after a short maternity (the only way we could afford it).

It would make more sense for me to work full time and my DH be a SAHD. However, I've dropped to 4 days a week. He has gone to 3 days a week. We pay childcare one day a week and work opposing days (one day off together). We both work, we both have NI contributions, we both do childcare and housework, we are both still working towards furthering our careers (DH now close to finishing further qualifying exams and getting a pay rise).

Slightly less money than if I did all the work and paid no childcare, but in the long run financially better for him individually and both of us as a couple. When DS is in school we could both work full time and DH will still be in a good position in his career and therefore earning more than if he had been a SAHD.

@falcon82 your experience is anecdotal but I'd say most of the women I speak to felt they wanted to stay at home with their new babies longer. I went back at 6 months had a ft nanny who we all adored. But I was unhappy as are many women. I only found out when I stopped working because I stoped pretending to myself that my career was more important to me. It wasn't. It might be for some women but I'd say it isn't for a lot of women even so far as to say a majority and I know I'm not alone in being surprised how differently I felt about it after having my first dc. No one expected me to give it up. But I knew I was doing the right thing.

Would I like to have the opportunity to go back one day, yes but often society writes you off as if to say after the years off you are useless. Which also is just a load of rubbish. I'm always pleased when I see the bigger corporations opening up more back to work schemes for parents returning to the workplace.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy really. If women take too long out of the workplace then employers start to think of female employees as unreliable and avoid hiring/promoting women (if there's a good enough male candidate ). So the woman gets more of the home responsibility by default.

I don't know what can be done though - I think women are biologically programmed to want to be with their babies. The employer just wants the person the hired to actually be at work and do what they were hired for. In the end it's often easier just to give up the job. But then this makes it harder for women to get hired.

Sexism and patriarchy.

Women are raised to be more ''caring'' and to put the needs of others first.

Often the woman will be the one in the partnership who brings in a lower salary and her career is deemed less important. Men are raised to think that success in the workplace and money is what matters most.

I am sure it is also the case that some women simply choose to spend more time with and focus on their young children over a job and there is nothing wrong with that either.

The workplace is still quite inflexible when it comes to combining a job with family commitment. It is really hard to find a well paid, fulfilling part-time job for example.

I personally refused to do any elderly care. I had a dreadful relationship with my toxic parents and I have been estranged with them for most of my adult life. My father is dead but when my elderly mother had some health issues her relatives expected that I would just come back to the fold and be involved in her care. I made it very clear that I would continue to maintain no contact.

This site seems to have an awful lot of women on it who chose to have children with useless or awful men and who are now upset that they have had children with awful or useless men.

Maybe they don't know how useless they are until they've already had a baby. It does seem to bring out the worst behaviour in some people