Men not pulling their weight at home

[Judy1234]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml?xml=/education/2008/03/09/st_housewives.xml

Why do these women tolerate it? How do the inequities start out?

Just thought i should add, just incase you think i am some kind of soft, wimpish person, i am actually a relatively strong person and pretty capable really. I am just fighting a losing battle with him. I will not give up quietly though.

blossomsmine - I think that stepchildren are a minefield when it comes to division of parental labour in a couple and that there probably aren't any hard and fast rules.

I have two stepsons, and my partner and I have a daughter. I very strongly do not believe that I should treat all the children the same - my stepsons have two parents, and two sets of grandparents, of their own to take responsibility for them and were I to treat them as I do my daughter (or were my parents to) I would be doing my daughter a gross injustice. As it is, I think I do rather a lot for my stepsons and am consciously in the process of pushing back a few boundaries at present .

"Two people both working part time rather than one working mega hours and the other not at all may be a compromise some use." Yes Xenia... I think there is quite a consensus on MN that this would be nice. It is just very hard to manage in practice - most worthwhile/well paid jobs are full time.

B - kwym.

My dh is a fab step-parent to dc1 and we now are lucky enough to have dc2 (together) - he calls dc1 his own.

He's amazingly good at many things, bathing the baby, paying me the odd compliment, organising dc1 birthdays etc, finding good family holidays and family fun times, helping with hwk, earning a decent wage, making me a cup of tea EVERY morning (though that's partly self preservation, as I am very unpredictable without caffeine )occasionally cooking at the weekend, enabling me to waste days on the computer, organising mortgages, doing his own washing (I refuse - do washing for 3 other people with no help, plus b4 we were together he never had a problem finding his way around a washing machine)

BUT

Although he is capeable of pushing around a hoover without causing himself permanent damage (lol) he is utterly utterly crap unmotivated when it comes to housework. V. ironic as he often talks about the HUGE mortgage we have in order to live in our lovely home, but is unable to maintain it's loveliness iyswim.

It can be so bloomin frustrating, specially as he is a housework terrorist - he heats up the curry on a Friday night as a treat sometimes, but I usually end up scrapping it off the kitchen for the next week ...

Sometimes it just seems easier to do the wretched jobs yourself, while waging a gorilla war!

I did spoil DH by him not having to do much of the grind with dc1, but then he wasn't around when dc was small! We both work FT and v.similar hours...

I found the dog training principles worked well - lots of praise (for anything), lots of rewards and 'oh, i love it when...' plus ignoring negative behaviour, but it's a high maintenance programme and since dc2 splashed down I haven't had the time or patience to invest (at my cost).

Like you I find it hard going at times and am yet to find a magic bullet, laying down the law just has the opposite affect (stop oppressing me - teenagery whining voice) but, God love him, he was just the same b4 we got together under the same roof! Now I spend time warning single female friends to look out for men who DO do their own housework, as they never rarely change!

Anna, you're right, step parenting is a minefield and I take my hat off to all step parents (it's a real compromise and good s/parenting can make a real difference to the kiddies).

My dc1 sees dad a maximum of 4 times a year and he buys good, if often late, birthday and xmas pressies - his choice not ours. He always found being a dad tricky, we were young, and does his best, but I would be mortified if children were treated differently by dh version 2.1. We came together as a big fat package two for the price of one!

Also dh 2.1 has been around for more of dc1's life than birth daddy iyswim. Dc1 did actually confess that BD feels like a lovely uncle and DH2.1 feels more like a daddy...

THIS DOES NOT MEAN I THINK YOU ARE WRONG, btw, it's interesting - horses for courses I guess.

Should housework get an even split RE: hours of labour outside the home vrs hours of labour inside the home? (In my ideal world it would! )

bb99 - I completely agree that the amount of input you give as a stepparent will depend on how much input your stepchild is getting overall from his/her biological family. What most people want is for all the children in a blended family to get a similar deal and set of opportunities in life so that things are as fair as possible overall. In my children's case, it would be unfair to my daughter if I and my parents gave my stepsons as many opportunities as we give my daughter since my stepsons get loads of opportunities that my daughter doesn't (and will never) get.

Housework? Very hard to advise other people. I manage our household - that's part of our deal - and I'm fine with that, just so long as I can purchase lots of services to make my load lighter . I would not be happy if I had to physically do all the chores - that would be very unfair, given our overall standard of living and the number of leisure pursuits my partner and the children enjoy, and our entertainment budget.

TBH though all of the women in the article have the means to buy in domestic help which should surely make a difference. DH was away last night and tonight and I am working today. So I have to juggle my son's football and beavers etc with caring for my daughter and also getting in a reasonable amount of hours at work! It all went wrong last night when I realised DS had left his school shoes at his friend's house and DD was already in bed. Fortunately his friend's mother realised, knew DH was away and brought them round.

bozza - domestic help is useful but it doesn't makes family life OK if one half of a couple spends his/her life either at work or recovering in order to go back to work. I know plenty of families where one half (not always the man) works long hours and does loads of international travel, where there is full-time, live-in domestic help... and where the partner with more domestic and childcare responsibility is very unhappy and lonely.

FWIW, I actually don't like having a cleaner in my house. To the greatest extent possible I purchase domestic services that are professional and where I have no personal relationship with the person concerned. So having a full-time maid and/or nanny would in no way compensate me for my partner's absence - I'd be miserable.

Purchasing services, now there's a thought .

Have been working on that one for 10+ years now, haven't got off the starting blocks (yet )

Agree about the s/parenting bit - overall input counts for a lot and I know a lot of g/parents aren't always able to absorb new half/siblings to their grandchildren into the family, so there has to be some parity and equality iyswim.

The loveliest example I ever saw of a complicated family was where 2 brothers (who were 1/2 brothers through birth) just looked on each other as brothers and were SOOO supportive and lovely with each other (they were adults at the time). It's something I really hope will happen in my family - that the children will grow and stay together .

to go back to the original question, it is not really an issue of tolerating the inequities in our house it is more of a recognition that dh simply does not perceive mess and dirt the way I do. He will clean if I ask him to but he would seldom look at anything and think that it needed to be cleaned. To avoid nagging and unpleasantness, I clean at the weekend, however he now has to take the dcs out while I do so. I do not particularly think that this is fair but it is certainly easier and a happier situation to live with than striving for that elusive concept of equality.

We have and equal partnership where both of us work full time, I do a reasonable amount of international travel, and DH travels round in the UK. We split all the chores/ tasks, and thats the way it always has been.

We also know, that if I didn't work, DH would have to take a city job where he would be very tied in to much longer hour days and wouldn't see DS in the week essentially. We consider that seeing both of us most mornings/evenings and weekends is better than only seeing his father at weekends.

I do have a friend who works at least 29 hours a week outside the home, and is the major income source for the family (she has a 4 year old and 18 month old twins) whose partner does absolutely nothing round the house. When she goes away she has to leave every meal in the fridge or freezer and make arrangements for her mum to pick up and drop off the kids. He won't do any washing when she's not there, and a few weeks ago wasn't working for a bit and still she had to take the kids to their childcare and do everything. But she lets him get away with it. Drives me insane !

GL -

My BIL is good at seeing mess, to the point where he really upset SIL on mat leave when nagging about the state of the house (baby was only a few weeks old, and it is maternity, not housework leave!)

BUT my DH is the same as yours I think, he just doesn't see that things need doing around the house - doesn't notice the toys at the top of the stairs or the wet towels strewn around after the bath, or the little piles of nappies he leaves behind when he does sort out dc2!

Maybe, like us, they are all unique and different in their own ways, some being utterly blind to the demands of a house!

I see your point Anna and your previous post which crossed with mine does discuss managing the household which is something that is very rarely bought. However I think that a lot of strain can be taken off if you are able to pay your way out of some of the chores. Even just getting the bulk of the shopping delivered makes a difference. And if you have full time domestic help at least you don't have to forgo your gym session every time your DH travels like I do.

But what is a reasonable division of labour when you are a SAHM to pre-school children?

My DH is out from 8am-7pm and sometimes later than that. He is away overnight a minimum of once a month.

I look after ds- 3 nxt wk, dd- 20mths and am 35wks pg.

Dh does most DIY and car stuff but isn't happy about it, I know he thinks I should try harder with DIY and should be able to put up shelves etc.

He also expect me to mow the lawn (which is absolutely massive- takes about 3 hours for just the back garden). Last summer I managed it about 5 times but is SO hard while trying to look after 2 tots!

What I really hate, though, is the assumption that all child related chores fall to me- i.e. putting their clean clothes away, sorting out their old clothes, sorting out their toys, making sure we have everything for them if we're going out/away, organising stuff that we can do together at weekends, planning what they are going to eat for every meal at weekends etc.

I expect him to iron his own shirts, help with loading dishwasher, general tidying and emptying the bin but I always need to ask/nag him to do it. It's all very well to say just leave it till he does but our bin is full now and if it isn't emptied I can't clear the kitchen properly and I hate that!

W

Bozza - I think that it is easy to idealise what having full-time domestic help is like . In no way at all does it replace a partner, and it can actually be pretty annoying having another adult present in your household.

My sister got quite serious depression when she had a full-time maid (at her husband's insistence).

Anyway, I love being able to purchase ad hoc services (shopping delivery, window cleaning, mending etc). I would hate having another adult permanently present in my home (and I could afford to have one and choose not to).

soph28 - why don't you iron your DH's shirts and get him to mow the lawn? Mowing with two children around is impossible and dangerous. Ironing a few shirts while they are napping should be possible.

Anna, that's true but I tended to do the lawn while they were napping anyway but I still feel that mowing lawn is a 'man's job' although don't mind doing it on occasion. I hate ironing and don't iron any other stuff so I feel it's not much to ask for him to spend an hour at the weekend ironing his shirts for the week. If my children were at school and I was still a SAHM then I would definitely iron them. Do youthink that's unreasonable?

If I'm honest, I think it's a bit much of you to expect your DH to do his ironing . In your position I'd certainly expect him to do heavy work (you have enough hard physical labour with 2.5 children), but I'd feel it was my role to do the lighter stuff, like his ironing, that is reasonably compatible with motherhood

I don't iron. Dh does.
He doesn't change nappies (unless I have a strop which I do only occassionally).
I don't do laundry. He does (though he's crap at it)
I don't iron -- ever.
Dh doesn't wash the kitchen floor. I do.
Dh doesn't cook (and on the rare occassion he does, I don't eat )
I don't take out the trash.
I don't vaccum (often).
DH does take kids to parties (but I'm likely to have a strop about this one day soon).
I do the grocery shopping.

Gosh, we have most chored divided into his and mine. I think we'd kill each other if we didn't.

I can't imagine why women stay home and do the tedious unpaid boring work and allow their man to go have a rewarding career. I certainly wouldn't allow that in my life. But, I think DH would be quite happy if I was to sign up to that life -- but he knows it isn't going to happen.

DH doesn't take kids to parties (but I'm likely to have a strop about this one day soon).

Mine does bugger all (except cook the tea as he quite likes doing it).

But then his Dad did bugger all.

My challange is to raise a son who doesn't assume housework is womens work (I've given up on DH, he has other qualities ).

The thread just shows how different people manage things in different ways I suppose. My ex husband did notice things and like me if there was rubbish on the floor or a plate of food left by a child would automatically take it into the kitchen - we were just similar on those kinds of things. I think each having your own tasks works well.

Some stay at home mothers end up having too much put upon them. Our hardest time was both working full time and children of a baby, 1 year old and 3 year old - then it was survival from one day to the next and we couldn't afford a cleaner. It gets easier when they're older and when you've more money too.

I don't have any step children but if I did I am sure it must be very hard to ensure fairness particularly if his children were brought up differently but I suppose people sort those things out. 65% of second marriages where there are children fail however often because of the step children problem.

I do almost all domestic tasks. Dp will only do anything if asked and then it has to be in his own time and without being prompted again. If he then actually does the task, he expects praise!! He will iron his own shirts though and cooks if I have gone on strike .

Anna- i know what you're saying about the lighter stuff but the reality is that I do most stuff.

I shop, I cook, I tidy, I change the beds, I do all other laundry, I do almost everything to do with the children- why should he not iron his shirts?

I agree with you Soph. I specifically buy clothing that doesn't require ironing. Like I waer turtleneck with my suit instead of a blouse. So, why would I want to spend time ironing his shirts?

When we were first married I asked him if he'd iron my trousers. He refused. I've never forgotten it and use it as a perfectly resonable excuse to never iron anything for him. I have sooooooo got the better end of the deal on that one!

Some of these men sound like out of the dark ages. In the early 80s when we married there was no question but that we'd both be happy to do any tasks. We both worked full time so may be that was one difference so we never had gender defined roles but also I think because he's looked after his own home, had his systems for washing, ironing etc