Do women have it harder these days? To work full time and still be the primary care giver?

[Fra167]

I am 30 and hoping to start a family in the next few years with my partner. I was of primary school age in the 90’s/early 2000’s. My own mother worked part time and was around the house a lot and always the one to take me and pick me up from school etc. I also remember that my friends mothers worked part time too and were always around at school times. To give some context, we were a working-class family, I went to a comprehensive primary school and had one holiday a year in the UK. My parents were sensible money and cut their cloth accordingly, but the mortgage of a nice semi-detached 4 bedroom house etc could be paid mainly on my fathers income.

In contrast, nowadays, it seems that we are a society that relies on two full-time wages just for even the basics, not even talking fancy cars and holidays. But are women still expected to also be the primary caregiver to children and one who takes care of most of the domestic chores? I know it’s brilliant that there have been developments in society that mean that more women can have careers now! But from my point of view, it seems like we are worse off in some ways! I work as a social worker, and I’ve seen so many colleagues working full time with children and being absolutely burnt out and stressed to the max, in a draining job and then going home and giving much needed attention and love to their children!
My partners mum didn’t work, so she did all the cooking, cleaning, life admin, childcare etc. I can foresee that these things would end up becoming more my responsibility! So I’m expected to have to commute to work, then work full time, come home and still be able to have the energy to be able to give the best of myself to my children? Whereas a lot of the women of my mum’s and grandma’s generation were able to prioritise the children because if they did work, it was a bonus to the family income and not essential like it is these days.

I admire and have huge respect for the vast majority of women who work full time and are mothers. I myself, will probably also be working full time or nearly full time once I start a family. I just feel like at some point, something has to give or society needs to catch up and realise that women can’t still be taking on the bigger share of the responsibility of the children and housework if they are also working full time.

To be fair to OP, there is survey after survey and thread after thread showing that the woman seems to doing much more of the domestic labour and primary care work regardless of working full time.

I dont think its as easy as chosing your partner and expecting it. I think a lot of men dont live up to expectations. A lot of women are left as single parents too.

I dont think its harder now though as we have lots of labour saving devices, and some good employment laws around maternity and flexible working..

Mothers being part time/at home has always been a middle class luxury. WC women always worked including when I was a child (and I'm guessing I'm similar vintage to your parents). I grew up watching both parents work and both parents contributing in different ways on the home front.

My children had a more MC upbringing in a material sense, like most of their generation, but both of us worked. I expected their father to be an equal partner, it never occurred to me to expect otherwise. He expected the same having watched both his own parents work.

Raise your expectations of your partner. If your friends want to be doormats that is up to them.

But why would you even contemplate marrying and/or having children with someone who is lazy and sexist? You’re already in a relationship with the person you plan to have children with — who does the housework, cooking, shopping etc now? You don’t need a crystal ball.

My parents in 1980s in India didn’t have this working model btw. Both worked. My dad did his share of housework and my mom was more professionally successful than him in the end.

Your friends without kids who are doing all the housework are setting themselves up for failure.

Also I earn a lot less than DH does (I am a tenured academic and I don’t work PT but he’s a physician and a scientist- we are in the US so his earning capacity is far more). This has never ever meant that I do more cooking and cleaning. Our housework load is not tied to our salaries. We don’t have a hierarchical household where the big man of the house who earns more gets to not load the dishwasher.

DH has made sure my career didn’t suffer esp after we had kids. He’s worked shorter hours on some days, turned down opportunities. And to be honest I have done the same for him. This it turns out is very rare- for the woman’s career to be considered as valuable as a man’s and according to some people he deserves a medal for it. Nah.

We've split it evenly and both have careers - however we have a different understanding of what a clean house looks like so which has caused massive arguments in the past so we now have a cleaner once a week who does the bulk of the heavy cleaning which would have fallen to me.

I think if you agree it all up front it works fine!

• lunches and get kids ready in morn - me
• school drop off and collect - him
• laundry - me
• dog walking - him
• garden work - shared
• alternate nights to cook dinner
• whoever cleans up after dinner doesn't do bedtime
• lie in each at the weekend
• split bringing kids to the 4 activities they do
• he plans holidays
• I do xmas, birthdays, clothes etc - I do not do birthdays / Xmas cards for his side of family

Then they have a partner problem, we can't keep on blaming society for peoples choices, if you (not you personally) choose to stay with a useless partner and be a martyr nothing will change, if a person does nothing now why would they just because a baby is around?

I think every generation thinks they had it harder than the last tbh.

I probably fall somewhere in between yourself and your mother age-wise, and my husband and I are very much 50/50 these days. I’ve seen so many friends, myself included to a degree, who have given up, delayed or stalled their careers to facilitate their husband’s career (“it just makes more sense”) and by their 40’s, half of them aren’t even with their partners anymore. Post-break the narrative often seems to change to the woman being ‘lazy’ and ‘lucky’ to receive maintenance for the children. It’s an angle that we don’t often get to see until it’s too late.

Although there are never any real guarantees that women won’t be left holding the baby anyway in the event that a relationship breaks down, I would always encourage a woman to be married to the father of her children, be upfront from the outset with the expectation that both parents will be sharing the childcare burden (sharing parental leave, both going part time at work and sharing school pick ups and drop offs fairly, for example) and insisting upon a fair allocation of cleaning, maintenance and mental load from the very outset of the relationship. My experience is that even the most reasonable of men will happily ‘let’ their partner start carrying the weight of the domestic setting as well as relying on her for the household income if he thinks he can get away with it.

Rock solid boundaries are necessary imo.

My DH has always done 50% of all housework and kids lifts etc - he used to do 6-2pm when the babies were little so would do the 4am feed to let me sleep in! He isn’t great at getting up at night once he is asleep! He does 80% of the garden stuff and I do all the life admin etc…. We both work full time - its the only way to do it!

Marry someone who shares it all with you.

I just feel like at some point, something has to give or society needs to catch up and realise that women can’t still be taking on the bigger share of the responsibility of the children and housework if they are also working full time.

You’re right actually, the research out there shows that women who work as much as their male partners end up doing majority of the childcare and housework.

I also agree you need to hold to high standards and not put up with it for yourself, but the reality is that this situation of working women doing more at home is not uncommon at all. So yes in some ways I do believe women have it harder now.

A pp described their partner as progressive but yet said they’d never ever deal with kids parties or play dates. I have a friend who works just as many hours as her partner but is the one getting stressed out over each kids party and Christmas present organising as her partner is completely hands off for that - and I think nah that couldn’t be me!

I think women are giving out medals and cookies for men doing a half decent job, as so many men in society don’t even do the bare minimum we subconsciously lower our standards and expectations. A lot of women that say their partners contribute equally are over exaggerating the reality.

I am dating someone who cooks from scratch and cleans more than I do. I have nearly almost always dated men like this because I know if I do end up with them they are less likely to look to me as the default parent/partner when it comes to childcare or housework.

And also what I find wild is some woman who have partners who leave most of the housework ,childcare, mental load etc to them turn a blind eye to their men taking the piss. but insist on loads of support from mothers, sisters, female in-laws and friends.

My friend seemed put out I didn’t attend her teens birthday dinner last year, but her own live in partner, who is stepdad to her teens, has never attended any of the kids birthday dinner and doesn’t contribute towards presents either. I have attended more of her children’s birthday events than he has!

I'm not sure it is even about a woman working part time and taking on the primary care role. We are in a household both working full time with two children. My DH and I split things fairly like many on this post.
What strikes me is that we are both often quite drained by it and exhausted. We have to be thinking of the next thing all the time; for example sorting shopping delivery and making sure school uniform is ready. We find if we drop one thing then it has a knock on effect.
I'm not saying it was any easier in the past than now, just that having two people work and having a family is a slog sometimes!
Some of the things we used to do to take off the pressure like having a takeaway or going out for a meal/having a night away somewhere are less possible because the mortgage has increased and leaves us less wiggle room.
The more you can do to find someone who will be respectful of your work, time and happiness that you return the same to then all the better. This is quite a ramble - it's hard, but is harder with a useless partner.

I think it happens a lot that the woman ends up doing more of the childcare and housework, but that doesn't mean it has to happen to you. Expect your DP to be doing at least half and make sure he knows this expectation before you get pregnant. He may need to be doing much more than half while you're pregnant. Me and my DH try to split things fairly equally, if anything he does more than me (he works 4 days and has DS on the 5th, I work 5 days). You might need to take it in turns to have last minute time off work if your DC is too ill to go to nursery.

Basically you need to have a good conversation about this with your DP and work out a fair way of doing things - it will evolve as your situation changes but it doesn't have to get worse for you. It sounds like you haven't talked about it but assumed he will expect you to do what his DM did, so give him a chance to be better than you think! But don't tie yourself to someone who doesn't respect your right to have a career and a life just as much as him.

Most of the mums at my dc's primary work pt rather than ft, and the partners wfh at least some of the week. So it's far easier to split chores and childcare. I work 2 days and DH works ft, and he still does a lot around the house, does morning drop offs, clears up after dinner, deals with the trash, we take one child each for bath and bedtime. We've never really had to discuss it, he just recognises what needs doing and pulls his weight.

Probably because no one can afford to pay for full time childcare at the moment.

Yes and of course your partner should be sharing the load, 50/50 if you work similar amounts.

But even for two people working full time it's an enormous amount and it really does take a lot out of you.

Ideally both would work shorter hours and have more time for family. It's an extraordinarily difficult and consuming effort, bringing up children, and in the past this was recognised, with single parent benefits until a child reached 16, so a single parent could actually fit everything in and not be run down and burnt out.

Simply - yes.

Even with the most helpful partner doing 50% at home - yes.

My mum was a stay at home mum, she did school run, house work, life admin, no job.

My dad was the sole earner, but didn’t have to worry about any of the aforementioned stuff mum did.

I am the main earner in my house, stressful job which uses lots of mental energy. If I was a man 50 years ago, I’d be doing this job, then coming home to a glass of scotch and putting my feet up (can you tell I fantasise about this a lot?).

Instead, I do a really hard full-time while doing school/nursery run every morning (husband does pickup), cooking dinners half the week (husband does other half), plus 50% of everything else.

It’s simple maths. The world (at least UK) is now set up that you have to have two working parents to have a decent quality of life. This is harder on both parents tbh (although I’m inclined to think working mums still bare the brunt of it, as the default caregiver and comforter for children waking at night, poorly children etc).

I would rather be a working mum with a stay at home dad to support me, OR a stay at home mum who just does a little bit of part time work (with no burden to have to earn well).

Give me one more stressful school run before sitting down at my desk five minutes later and having to be 100% performing at my job and I might have a mental breakdown.

Our generation has the worst of both worlds.

You can put it even more simply. Two full-time working parents means 40 less hours a week going towards family life. Yet the same amount of chores, childcare and life admin needs to be completed.

It’s a cost of living problem, really. If the cost of living was lower, I’d still choose to work, but I’d hire a bloody cleaner for a start.

I think OP is raising a completely valid point that exorbitant housing costs require multiple incomes. Not sure why everyone’s focusing on OP making sure that she picks the right man. Of course talk about that before you have kids. Definitely do not have a second or more child with a man who doesn’t do 50/50 with you. Fine.

But there’s a much bigger picture stacked against parents and mothers specifically. Systematically women are paid less than men so then if something has to give with childcare then usually the lowest paid person (who is usually the woman due to how the economy is structured) looks after the kids.

Depends where in the country OP lives but bearing in mind exorbitant housing costs in most parts of the country, the answer shouldn’t have to only be for both parents to be working full time. What if there is only one parent? What if one person is sick or disabled, or both? Waht if the child/ren are sick or disabled. The reality is housing costs and childcare costs are completely detached from real incomes and this is a huge government responsibility that they have shirked for decades.

Don't fall in to the trap of allowing your career to become the less important one and have a lot of conversations with your partner before getting pregnant. If he thinks it should be your job to be the default parent, do the housework etc then don't have a baby with him.

It's absolutely possible to work full time and share childcare, housework etc with your partner but only if it is wanted by both parties.

A very interesting and well worded post, I agree with what you are saying.

In my situation husband is main earner. Since child started school, I work self employed during school hours. I don't work the same amount of hours, not earn the same amount of money. But it just brings a little extra into the family and god forbid if something happened to husband I had something set up earning money.

I refuse to do more hours because I feel if I have a child, the child deserves my attention. Also I take on 95 percent of jobs around the house.

I think it depends with what you deem acceptable. To me both people most of the time choose to have a baby that means they are both responsible. I don't accept my DH not doing his fair share and that includes childcare. It's all split between us. We have different strengths so I do the cooking mostly but he cleans the kitchen etc.

We each get equal free time and we each contribute. I have friends who are frazzled out because frankly their husbands are lazy arsed who don't think they should be responsible for rheir own children

My view is that if you want to work full time when you have kids, you absolutely must have a partner who will share the domestic load 50:50. But for women who want to stay at home or work part time the social and economic changes are terrible. Also for children who undoubtedly prefer to come home to a parent at 3pm. And most mothers would prefer to be part-time working and part-time caring for children - this is borne out by survey data. As feminists we spend a lot of time talking about childcare, which is clearly important, but not enough talking about choices for women who want to be at home at least some of the week.

I can’t see why you’d think this now unless DH already does nothing? If he already contributes half (which he should) then why would you expect to pick it all up after kids?

i have the best of both worlds really as I earn more than DH but I also work slightly part time and nearly always from home. So I do do all the school runs and look after the dc when they are off school. But we do 50/50 pretty much on household stuff - not regimentally it just works out that way. Technically if we wanted to maximise earnings I should be the one to work full time or send the kids to after school clubs. But we can afford to choose and I choose to earn a bit less.

Most of the families I know, the mother either works part time or they use breakfast clubs/have cleaners etc if they work full time. Most of the inequality is where womens’ earning potential is drastically reduced by Mat leave / career breaks / part time working or lack of ambition, so it doesn’t make sense for the man to work less.

the divorce rate is 50%. Basically it means that its a flip of a coin whether your marriage will survive. and if you are a single parent, then it is a lot easier if you have a career. Furthermore, if you examine the divorce stats, it is lower earning couples who have a higher divorce rate (i guess arguing about money doesn't help a couple stay together). And as couples tend to be more equally matched in terms of qualifications/ earning power these days, higher earning couples (with a lower divorce rate) would be able to hire a cleaner and get childcare which would make two full time careers a lot easier. And they tend to want to do this anyway.

But yet at the same time, lower earning women are making themselves very vulnerable in later life if they don't work. the state pension isn't enough and neither is part time work. staying in the job market at least means things can improve or at the very least your wages will rise in line with inflation hopefully.

The courts are also changing the way alimonies are calculated so that it would be more equitably distributed and take into consideration that a woman would work after divorce.

What do you mean ‘nowadays’ I started work in the 70s, had kids in the 80s , they’ve all grown up and left home and I worked all through that and still do !