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 partly it’s that society expects far less of men when it comes to do things like unpaid caring work (or low paid carer jobs as well). And conversely expects more of women who are expected to toil away and never ask for anything in return. I don’t think that women are inherently or biologically better at caring work though. Just that we are socialised to do it and are valued on whether or not we do it and do it well.

For example my mother goes on about how lucky I was that my ex has a particular profession. I also am in that profession and am more senior and better paid than my ex. Yet many women (and men) still value women on who they marry rather than their own achievements. Conversely men are not generally valued as much by society if they go part time and take over brunt of the child care (although they are still valued more than women who do this a man with a part time job or non earning is seen as a bit of a loser on mn and in society).

imo we need to start valuing care of children and relatives and start expecting men to do their share. However that does also mean that women should be equally expected to contribute financially. For me that’s fine but a lot of women on mn would not be happy with that.

In our case, my DH would have been happy to do 4 days a week but the managing director (small company) is very patriarchal/sexist in his views.
e.g. Doesn’t really see why men need paternity leave.

If DH had gone down to 4 days a week to look after DS he absolutely would have been treated differently at work. He wouldn’t have had promotions, pay rises, bonuses.

Where he works these are all at the discretion of the MD and we weren’t willing to sacrifice our family finances for our principles.

Useless men and motherly insticts aside, caring for kids can be a way of getting out of the workplace. It was for me.
I hated my job and jumped at the chance to quit it to raise children.
I suspect a lot of men hate their jobs and would do the same if it was socially acceptable.
I was surprised when I went to mum groups, the friends I made, so many of them were the same. Almost none of them have gone back to work and the youngest kids are 15yo or so now.
Reading threads on mumsnet by so many women saying how they hate work and would rather do nothing (me included), it doesn't surprise me that looking after kids is a valid way to escape this, which men can't really do.

Tbf my ex did cut down on his hours so I could go back to work full time when dd2 was 10 months. He could be trusted to care for her and her sister. I think we need to push men to step up and expect them to do so. Some women do get controlling about the childcare and housework (it has to be done their way) and that certainly is a barrier to sharing responsibility.

I absolutely agree with this. I used to work in a high stress job in the city. While there were lots of junior women, more senior staff were about 95% men. It was such a stressful job that most of the women would go off and do something else and their status wasn’t tied up in their job. especially if they had children it’s not at all a loss of status to get another job.

The men (children or not) however felt they could not get a lower level job and many were extremely depressed (even one killed himself). But ultimately that’s why so many men ended up with huge salaries too. Most of the men (and women) in this type of work are from wealthy backgrounds too so it’s not like they need the money to survive.

Same for me. It suited me to stay at home - I had never found a job I enjoyed and dh was a very high earner so it suited him too. We run our own business now and sometimes I wish I could just drop it all and go back to my hobbies 😂 but it's payback time - dh could not run the company without my support and I no longer have child-rearing as an excuse to lounge around - being your own boss is more bearable though in terms of office politics etc but at times it has completely taken over our lives and we always have to work on holidays!!
In terms of elderly parents - my brother does most of it as he's the only one who's local. My sils look after Mil as they are local. Dh and I do very little.

Possibly, but there also seem to be plenty of cases where they haven’t done their due diligence, and have just jumped in with both feet. It’d be great if these awful men weren’t awful, but given how many are, it’s a very good idea to wait to at least try to be certain before starting a family.

For me this would mean that if you get together in your twenties getting married and living together for a good few years first.

Yes, and if he turns out to be shot with the first baby, fgs don't have a 2nd!

Because in general men get paid more than women, so it doesn't make financial sense for them to undertake childcare instead.

This isn't a new issue. Most couples I know the men earn more - even before kids come along. Those that earn more or less equally do continue to do so by getting a nanny or other childcare so they can both continue to work, though I know a few where the husband stays home or goes part time.
But in every other case it was the decision of the couple that if one was to stay home or go part time it was the female. And most were quite happy to. It's when the kids are self reliant and she wanted to return to work that issues arose, mainly from skills needed had advanced, and jobs had changed.
If the problem is early years child care, then one does have to acknowledge that women are usually more capable of it and more wanting to do it. There are biological and psychological differences between the sexes. Sure some women are not good at it and some men can be great carers, but generally it's women who nurture.
Other housekeeping roles can be done by either but if one is at home they are more likely to do it and once returned to work harder to readdress.
Societal default to always look to the mother does need addressing, as for example a recent thread where a full time working mum explicitly told the school to call the father first which was ignored. As does the 'hero' dad image when all he is doing is being a parent.

I have 3 dc - i went part time after my 2nd dc to save on childcare. The plan was to go back to full hours & focus on my career once my third is in full time schooling (two years away) however just as I'm making plans to return to full time hours my mum is experiencing some health problems and her mum (my maternal grandmother) is also being incredibly frail and eldery - normally its my mum who picks up the slack with my grandmother. With my mums health declining, I'll take on the role of helping both her and my gran as there's noone else to do it.

In the time I have raised my dc my husband has taken promotion after promotion and has surpassed my salary (min wage) for me to earn his wage it would take several years of dedicated work and studying.