when mum is dad and dad is mum

[sahdad2]

all i mean by that is that mum is out in full time work and dad is at home full time with the (2) little ones

there's endless controversial stuff here about gender of course. of course men can do childcare and women can do work - that is too obvious to stress. i'm trying to say something about why this set up can be so peculiarly hard for both parties that does not depend on stupid generalizations about gender.

i think that if dad stays at home and looks after the babies he is going to need (moral - personal) support even more than mum will need when she does this - and i think that mum will be distinctively bad at giving it.

the other way round is true too:

mum - in being separated from the babies - will need more support from dad than dad would need from mum were he separated from them - and he will be distinctively bad at giving it.

why?

because dad has the very thing mum is pining for - constant closeness with the little ones (so she finds it impossible to understand why he's under so much strain)

and mum has the very thing dad is pining for - a role in the adult world of work (so he finds it much harder to appreciate why she is under so much strain)

the point of this post is to ask if others find this familiar

but also to try to provide some relief for those in this situation - the only thing that might relieve the distress caused by this combination of incompatible problems is if both partners can understand better why the other finds it so hard to appreciate what they're going through.

I'm pregnant with baby2. Last time DH was made redundant when I was 7 months pregnant. As he didn't get another job and I am in a stable job I went back at 6 months and he's stayed at home for the past 2 years. He will be at home with the next one too (with DS at nursery half days).

Last time round we kept hoping he'd get work so I breastfed and then we introduced daddy bottles at 4 months which was hard. This time we'll introduce them at 4 weeks.

I physically felt the separation last time (breastfeeding!) but once I was working I was happy and busy with it. Don't feel at all jealous of DH. Although he hadn't planned to stay at home he's great at it. DS is a bit of a daddy's boy but that's only to be expected and doesn't bother me. He's still excited when I come home and as a teacher we have the holidays together.

Due to the collapse of a local (male dominated) industry there are a few SAHDs that I know of. The mums seem to find the same.

OP if you're finding it hard being the SAHP, and your wife is finding it hard being the working parent, than maybe it's time to switch? Nothing to do with traditional gender roles though, just your own personalities.

As for "modern", my DM was a SAHM when we were young and she hated it, and went back to work as soon as she could. Through a switch of fates my father lost his job around the same time and ended up being a SAHD, and he enjoyed it a lot. Turned out he was pretty handy round the house and a good cook, and was able to do some work online to fill in the gaps. Stayed home till my little brother went to college. My DH is the same. He likes being home working on his projects and doing DIY (sadly he is NOT a good cook though).

It's about personality, not gender.

how hard is it to understand the difference between the claim that everyone grows up in this or that way with these or those expectations and assumptions and the claim that people tend to grow up in a certain way with these or those assumptions? the first claim is crazy - the second is irresistable. (just take a look at how much talk there is about the differences between little boys and little girls on this site - all those claims construed sensibly are claims about tendencies too. and the tendencies can be quite loose - but still worth trying to identify...)

people in britain TEND to be richer than people in ethiopia - that claim is not falsified by an ethiopian who is richer than a british person - or even by a significant number of ethiopians who are richer than british people. (its not clear - with claims about tendencies - exactly what would falsify them - but that does not make claims about tendencies pointless or uninteresting)

PLEASE!

'we have told you how we grew up and now you tell us that we're wrong - weird' - well well

it must be a bit difficult for many of you to deal with a bloke who has spent such an enormous amount of time home with the kids on his own looking after them. it is i suppose very unusual in modern western societies for EITHER parent to be at home ALL THE TIME with the kids (i did one night a week of work after they were in bed - otherwise i have been at home with them the whole time). this is just because in most traditional families one person went out to work and in most modern families two do. i am not an easy target for classic man-bashing - however many easy and appropriate targets there are for that kind of treatment. (all xxx-bashing is crappy - but, it often strikes me, man-bashing is much less bad than most other kinds most of the time.) its very probably true that i've spent way longer alone with my little ones than any of the aggressive - oh god this guy's clueless - posters on this thread.

i'm not sure how many parents i've met - if any - over the last four years who did no work - who made staying at home and being there all the time with them their top priority. and i'm not talking about something i might do - or will do - but something i have done. i have all the wonderful closeness with my two that comes from that - and i've been through all the extraordinary challenges that it involves too. (i have been profoundly changed by the experience and it is certainly true to say that i have turned out not to be resilient enough to come through it all without significant issues.)

i think - from the feel of most of the responses here - that a great deal of hurt will be being caused in our modern western societies by women breadwinners who have a very aggressive attitude towards their parenting partners. primary parenting men will tend - i suppose - to be profoundly committed to some form of feminism or other - and this will lead them to be very slow indeed to ask for the sort of understanding they need. (might that be a good thing given that if they asked they would likely get very heavy treatment? - i don't think so.) of course primary parenting women over the eons have had all the same challenges that primary parenting men in modern societies are now facing - and they all deserved understanding and support for handing the isolation and strain of early years parenting. and of course they have rarely got that support - and of course that's rotten.

but that should make 'modern' women quicker not slower to acknowledge the need to provide special support for their parenting partners. what i've tried to argue here is that the characteristic difficulties faced by stay-at-home parents are going to be different in interesting ways for modern men primary parents than it has been for traditional women primary parents. i've also argued that breadwinning women will tend not to face just the same spread of difficulties that breadwinning men tend (and tended in traditional societies) to face.

for a long long time now there has - RIGHTLY - been a great deal of cultural consciousness directed at the difficulties women are likely to face playing roles in the working world traditionally reserved for men. there ought to be much more of this sort of consciousness directed at the difficulties men are likely to face playing mothering roles in contemporary society. the 'suck it up' vibe of many posts here makes it seem to me unlikely that this is going to happen any time soon.

of course its about personality - and of course personality issues cut across gender issues (there are lots of men with traditionally feminine personality traits and vice versa)

but its about gender too

why is everyone so freaked out about that? my identity is partially constituted by my gender - and my social class - and my nationality and my generation

but none of yours is - how arrogant and presumption of me to think it could have been

OP I think the problem is that you're saying women tend to think xyz, but there are lots of women disagreeing with that as a general proposition (and giving specific examples in support).

I think it is wrong to say that most women today expect to be sahms, or even primary carers for their children, except perhaps in the very early days. It's probably true that men think the same way.

The attitudes you are talking about are pretty old fashioned. I would say that both men and women these days, generally speaking, expect to have a role in looking after their children, and also expect to work.

In couples where there is an imbalance, where one is doing all or the majority of childcare having previously worked, that person is likely to find it difficult (though not necessarily). This isn't dependent on their gender. I know if I became a sahm I would struggle, and who's to say I would struggle less than a man - you have no idea.

@sahdad2
What sort of extra support are you talking about? What does your partner do to support you or what would you like her to do?

This is making me giggle a bit.

Why would I be aggressive towards my husband because he's at home with our children? Why would he not ask for support (what with?)? What is 'some form of feminism or another'? Why does that mean that a man is less likely to ask for help?

Honestly, I've got no idea where some of these ideas have come from. My experience has the major wage earner, who has had periods of husband being at home on parental leave and as a student, is that I still maintain a lot parenting responsibility, but that it's made a whole lot more possible by having a partner who wants to parent.

He's taken out son to groups, and no one has overtly excluded him. I don't think he imagines he's playing a mothering role, just like I don't imagine that I'm the 'dad'. We're just parents - no one is having to suck anything up, we're just doing what works for us.

What a load of bollocks

You’re just enjoying the sound of your own voice now OP. You’re not listening to anything anyone has added.

I feel like you have some kind of anti-feminist agenda you're trying to push here rather than having genuine dialogue TBH...

how hard is it to understand the difference between the claim that everyone grows up in this or that way with these or those expectations and assumptions and the claim that people tend to grow up in a certain way with these or those assumptions?

It's not hard; what we (women on the thread) are mostly saying is that we don't believe that women tend to assume they will stay at home anymore.

it must be a bit difficult for many of you to deal with a bloke who has spent such an enormous amount of time home with the kids on his own looking after them

No, it's very easy. Since my DH is this exact kind of man.

it is i suppose very unusual in modern western societies for EITHER parent to be at home ALL THE TIME with the kids

I don't think it's that unusual in my area (South East), mainly due to the cost of childcare and the fact that a lot of people have moved away from family for economic reasons (jobs) and so can't rely on family. If my DH worked we would have less money as he earns less than childcare + commuting costs.

i am not an easy target for classic man-bashing - however many easy and appropriate targets there are for that kind of treatment. (all xxx-bashing is crappy - but, it often strikes me, man-bashing is much less bad than most other kinds most of the time.) its very probably true that i've spent way longer alone with my little ones than any of the aggressive - oh god this guy's clueless - posters on this thread.

Which bits have you found 'man bashing'? You have proposed some thoughts, some of us disagree with you. This isn't any kind of 'bashing', it's normal discourse.

The bit some of us have objected to are where you tell us how you think women 'tend to feel' and we have disagreed but you feel you know how women 'tend to think/feel' better than we do, which is ultimately quite a strange concept.

i've been through all the extraordinary challenges that it involves too. (i have been profoundly changed by the experience and it is certainly true to say that i have turned out not to be resilient enough to come through it all without significant issues.)

It is very challenging and I do think things need to change to be more inclusive of SAHDs so that there is the same level of support as there is for SAHMs.

i think - from the feel of most of the responses here - that a great deal of hurt will be being caused in our modern western societies by women breadwinners who have a very aggressive attitude towards their parenting partners.

Can you expand on this? What aggressiveness?

I'm never, ever aggressive with my DH and provide a great deal of support to him in his role. I'm not sure what you mean by aggressiveness?

primary parenting men will tend - i suppose - to be profoundly committed to some form of feminism or other - and this will lead them to be very slow indeed to ask for the sort of understanding they need

Why would bring feminist lead them to be slow to ask for understanding? I don't understand the link here...

As a feminist I think I have a better understanding of the grind and challenges of SAHP as a lot of feminism centres on all the work traditionally left to women and how hard it is and that people don't appreciate it so I

In fact before we had DC it was me that sat DH down and had serious conversations about how hard being a SAHD was potentially going to be, the downsides of it (isolation, loss of identity, etc) so he could make a choice knowing what it involved (he'd never had much contact with children and I don't think appreciated the challenges). We also discussed that he shouldn't feel obligated to carry on being a SAHD if he did it for a while and found it was making him unhappy; that we would find another way of making things work and that he should feel like he can say if full time childcare is not for him once he tried it.

I also appreciate how difficult it is to do FT childcare and keep on top of the house (mainly due to reading posts on here from women whose DH's expect them to do both) and so was adamant about continuing with a cleaner even though DH said not to bother.

that should make 'modern' women quicker not slower to acknowledge the need to provide special support for their parenting partners

I totally agree with this. If you're not getting support from your partner then I think you'd maybe get better advice by sticking to that as a topic (my partner isn't supporting me with being a SAHP) rather than generalising to other relationships/women.

I feel like you're saying 'I'm not getting the support I need from my partner so there is something fundamentally wrong with men staying at home and feminism' when what is actually going on here is 'I'm not getting the support I need from my partner because my specific partner has XYZ issues'.

what i've tried to argue here is that the characteristic difficulties faced by stay-at-home parents are going to be different in interesting ways for modern men primary parents than it has been for traditional women primary parents. i've also argued that breadwinning women will tend not to face just the same spread of difficulties that breadwinning men tend (and tended in traditional societies) to face.

This is what I disagree with. You are taking your very specific situation and assuming it applies to the majority and I don't think that's the case. This is a specific issue for you and your partner that doesn't necessarily apply to others and, according to the responses so far on this thread, generally doesn't. You may find some people in the same situation but if you just generalise to 'most people' you'll end up with a thread full of people saying 'nope, not us' which won't help you as much.

there ought to be much more of this sort of consciousness directed at the difficulties men are likely to face playing mothering roles in contemporary society. the 'suck it up' vibe of many posts here makes it seem to me unlikely that this is going to happen any time soon.

I'm on the fence about this. I don't disagree that more discourse is useful to support men now undertaking caring roles but presumably the place to first find this is from other men?

Given that there's so much left to do for women to be equal it stands to reason that women will generally be focused on that...there are just so many serious issues impacting women today (domestic violence and murder, rape, being paid significantly less, unequal representation in society, etc) that while I recognise the need for more support for men in a caring role it's not at the top of my priority list. It's not that I don't appreciate that it could do with some work but right now, as a woman, it's not my focus. Why not find a forum where you can get together men for the kind of support you're looking for? Or find other Dads on here?

I also object to the use of 'mothering'. You're not 'mothering' you're 'parenting'...there's nothing fundamentally 'female' about what you're doing in a parenting role...

there's a distinctive thing going on in non-traditional families as i have defined them - certainly in mine - and i'm guessing in others too

I think you're having problems in your marriage, OP and trying to externalise it/ excuse it with other reasons.

You are NOT a special, distinctive snowflake. Some marriages have someone who work away some of the time, some marriages have someone who is sick, some have a parent with a chronic condition who needs lots of care, some have someone who works nights and someone who works days, someone who struggles severe depression, plenty of single parent families, that's before you even get into people's characters. Everyone's family has a challenge and I don't think yours is 'distinctive' in the sense that it is makes your marriage more challenging than anyone else's. Yes, it is a challenge, but other people make their challenges work and you can too. There are far too many variables in any marriage to say that your particular dynamic makes it more/ less challenging that anyone else's.

I think you probably need to talk to DW more and MN less. Try and stop excusing your issues through outside pressures.

couldn't disagree with you more, OP. I don't find it hard being away from my babies, DP has loved being a SAHD for the last year. It was a family decision to do it this way, we talked about our expectations before it happened. Before DC3 we were both working full time. We support each other, I tell him about my highs and lows at work and he does the same about being at home. Honestly in my house it's not the big deal you want it to be.

My wife doesn't understand me. Is that what you're actually trying to say Op?

My wife doesn't understand me because she's been conditioned to stay at home whereas I've been conditioned to go out to work. Now we've decided between ourselves to do it the other way around it is proving impossible to fully support each other because of that conditioning. Is that what you're saying, only with more brackets and profoundity?

I know of 5 SAHPs, including me, 2 of which are men. People are very, very surprised when I tell them I'm a SAHM because it is very unusual. Very few people assume that they will not work when they have children now. I'm 38 and when I was small my mum and the vast majority of her friends worked too. I'm not generally slow of understanding but I don't see where these tendencies are.

You are getting more and more patronising with every post, OP

OFFS every arrangement has it's own challenges. If you don't like being a SAHP ( neither DH or I do) why don't you go out to work OP ?