Let's talk about cognitive dissonance ...

[colditz]

My relationship with my children's father broke up because he lied about money and hit me, and I finally, after many years of misery, refused to tolerate it. But why did I tolerate it for as long as I did when I was miserable?

I believed that children need their parents to stay together and that I would not cope alone. The facts were that children do not need one parent to be abusing the other, and that my life would have been easier without him merrily fucking it up.

The stress caused by the gap between my own personal beliefs and the reality of my situation was causing an uncomfortable feeling, often described as cognitive dissonance.

Is this the reason that people who consider themselves fair minded nevertheless perpetuate an unfair system? Intelligent women who do all the housework and childcare 'because he goes to work' must see the difference between theirs and their husband's exhaustion levels - why do they accept it, and decide that 'going out to work is really hard' when they surely must remeber the time when they went out to work and had no home responsibilities as being a darned sight easier than the life they live now?

I think it's bcause cognitive dissonance is a very uncomfortable state of being, and if you cannot change your situation, you must change your way of thinking to bring it in line with your situation or suffer the misery of inner conflict.

Which brings me to the rejection of feminism.

Why do so many women reject feminism when it would clearly improve their lot to be treated fairly?

Is it because they cannot easily become fairly treated individuals, not without huge conflict and arguments in their home and at work, so they decide, unconsciously, to believe that they are already treated fairly? And therefore feminism is defunct in their minds.

Intersting.

'But don't you see that your behaviours have caused all this?'

Quattrocento - Are you talking to Sunny? How could her behaviours have caused all this? She lives in society; there are other people involved too. Plus upbringing etc.

Are you blaming her, or saying that you think she should learn from her mistakes, or what? She seems OK to me. She has to work hard but she says 'my job is the best in the world' and 'the good points outweigh the bad'. Sounds to me as if she's got it sussed.

footlong - please can you link to the forum which you said had a link to this thread?

I can definitely recommend the book recommended above - What Mothers Do - Espcially When It Looks Like Nothing.

For you footlong - because you don't think that your wife is "working" at home.

And for all the Mothers here on this thread; you will read it and go "Yes; OMG - here are some words to describe Motherhood: the relentnessness/the constantly on call/the instant interruptability".

Two things for you to think about Footlong:

• if your wife worked as a Nanny and you had no children would you share the housework?

• you talk of coming home from work and being tired; your wife will be tired in the evening - that's what happens - we go through a day and towards the end we get tired - (even if we've been having "coffee" and going to the gym ) - during this evening period you are leaving your wife to do all the manual work cooking/cleaning

SUnny: but when one is employed to do shitwork, one not only gets paid, but one gets to clock off. If you have a menial job, your employer has to pay you the minimum wage and give you regular breaks to eat, have a fag, talk to your colleages - if you are employed and your employer doesn;t give you set breaks or pay your wages on time then the employer is breaking the law.
The Housewife'N'Mother is seen as being expected to be on call 24/7 for subsistence wages ie her keep. AND she's constantly told that what she does isn't 'real' work, that it's easy, and yet at the same time she should find it incredibly fulfilling and rewarding, and if she doesn't she must be a Selfish Cow of a Career Woman.

hm, so, i should imagine that there are many households where both parents work, but the woman does more of the housework & childcare, even if her work hours are comparable.

This may be justified by one/both of them thinking, well, she earns less, so she should put in more work, or that she likes the house tidier, or she is better at that kind of thing.

It may be that he contributes in other ways, like doing more diy.

however, once in that position, what can be done about it? yet again the pattern is being set for the next generation, she may well harbour resentment, as may the husband - after all, he may think he believes in equality, but is subconsciously aware of the inequality & be questioning the set up.

but do we advocate divorce to resolve the situation? to really change it both parents would have to overcome years of subtle 'programming' and socialisation, in order to even discuss a change in their roles, let alone actually live it out.

how do we achieve that?

For you footlong - because you don't think that your wife is "working" at home

I never said that. But it does seem common around her to insert words and meanings into other peoples post to suit a straw man argument.

if your wife worked as a Nanny and you had no children would you share the housework?

Interesting question. If my wife worked as a nanny, I am sure her employers would expect her to look after and entertain the children at all times and not indulge in long lunches, going to the gym and coffee meets.... whilst the children are in playgroups or with grandparents. I would track exactly what a nanny did and expect value for money at all times, she would need to justify herself to me at my request. My wife has no such obligations, I am not her boss I am her partner.

you talk of coming home from work and being tired; your wife will be tired in the evening - that's what happens - we go through a day and towards the end we get tired - (even if we've been having "coffee" and going to the gym ) - during this evening period you are leaving your wife to do all the manual work cooking/cleaning

This makes no sense. Are you seriously saying one partner having coffe and going to the gym for her enjoyment, is the same as working all day at a job? Really??? I think you have made my point for me about some mothers.

Footlong, a fortnight, that you knew was ending is not the same as doing it all the time. Like that politician who lived on benefits for a week, bears no relation to the reality.

Nonsense. If it had been a 3 weeks you would say the same thing, 6 months? 1 year? Is there some magic time period where suddenly you are allowed to decide if a job is easy and you can do it without issue?
I can do the job she does easily, thats not to denegrate the importance, it is simply a fact. There are plenty of people who can do my job.. I dont get in a tizzy about it.

'SUnny: but when one is employed to do shitwork, one not only gets paid, but one gets to clock off. If you have a menial job, your employer has to pay you the minimum wage and give you regular breaks to eat, have a fag, talk to your colleages - if you are employed and your employer doesn;t give you set breaks or pay your wages on time then the employer is breaking the law.'

I have my own kids there so my breaks I spend having lunch with them at the nursery. I walk to and from there with my kids and never get a break from doing that unless my husband takes her. Thats my choice but I do that to be a good mum. I dont moan about it though because I cant think of anything I would rather do. I eat with the kids because I love my kids and all otheer kids and dont feel like I want a break from them personally. I dont want to miss anything they do through the day personally. I dont clock off but I dont want to but I live for children so am a bit of a strange one lol. If I had my way I woul have 6 or 7 of my own.

'The Housewife'N'Mother is seen as being expected to be on call 24/7 for subsistence wages ie her keep. AND she's constantly told that what she does isn't 'real' work, that it's easy, and yet at the same time she should find it incredibly fulfilling and rewarding, and if she doesn't she must be a Selfish Cow of a Career Woman.'

I do ir all for a tenners spending money to myself a week. Thats all I get out of the household budget. Any big bits I get I do a second job such as waitressing, more babysitting or cleaning. I do that through agencies when I save up for something oe need a new thing. I think we are coming from way different angles here as personally I couldnt think of anything more fulfilling and rewarding. I have no idea why someone would do long hours away from their kids in a job they dont have to.

Also before anyone says yes my husband gets a tenner to himself to so its fair and other than that we have a budget to share between us of £25 a month that we usually spend on a bit of alcohol, mcdonalds or a dvd from blockbusters so we get to do stuff together through the month. Our luxuries though are sky and the net so wouldnt be able to have them without us both working.

The housewife isnt just getting her keep though she is getting her accomodation, food, stuff for the kids, utilities paid etc. Thats what I work for I dont get to spend my wages or my husbands wages on myself obviously as they are all used up for living costs.

Also with my job everyone always says wow your so lucky to get to be with your kids all day and I know I am. Its a job everyone is jealous of but again we are coming from a place where you cant really stay at home or are priviledged enough to be able to do this.

No I am not but I am saying that I think that as I said before if you fully discuss all aspects of parents and how many kids you want etc in depth. You wait for years of marriage and living together before having a child, you set out how you are going to live then you are highly likely then to have a man that helps. It needs to be one of your main subjects for years as it is the biggest decision of your life imo.

What I have wrote above is conteracting sgbs post obviously most people dont get money to spend to themselves even though they both work as they have kids to pay for.SAHMS do get something for it though they get their house, utilities, everythig for the kids etc. If they have any money left over for them then bonus but most families dont get money to themselves really.

I am also saying I think its ridiculous to say you only want to do childcare and nothing else as childcare is a full time job. Of course it isnt unless you are not giving your child any space to play on their own, nap etc. Kids need to be able to play on their own and its not normal to spend all your time playing with them and not doing any other tasks. How on earth actually does that? As you are at home you are bound to do more at home as the other partner isnt there. Thats why you are never going to get a 50/50 spilt.

sunny"Thinking about this do you think that childcare seems like a bigger deal if you havent been brought up around loads of kids and have contact with loads of kids throughout your life? "

Nope, when my mother threw in the towel with the SAHM thing and went off to make her thousands (which I do not blame her for one bit BTW; I blame my father for undervaluing her, and society for telling her moneymaking is the only thing to do of value) I was put in daycare until I was old enough not to be there, and after that, it was left to me to raise myself and my four other siblings. I was the only girl and the eldes, so it was assumed I would take up the slack. My father, to be fair, did take up the slack as well. BUt because I was a girl, they relied on me far too much. I think I changed my youngest bro's nappies more than my mum.
So I realised then, that even if a mother works, somebody has to take care of the kids. My mother still believes she worked full-time and raised 5 kids. Every time she says it I think , well who was raising your kids when you were working full-time? Child-rearing is just not visible.

Funny, it's a full time job when a nanny is doing it.

She worked very FT, not getting back until 9pm, almost every weekend. Any time she did have off it wasn't spent with us. I do think if society valued child-rearing more then she would have spent more time with us.

exactly colditz. If you get paid it's regarded as a Proper Job. If you don't get paid, all of a sudden the work mystically evaporates.

Loads of people live with their partners for years before having children and they discuss ad nauseum how they will parent, do housework etc.

Then the kids come along and reality hits. They find their emotional connection with their children is different from what they thought it would be (either more or less intense, someone who thought she would go back to work within 3 months finds she can't bear to leave her DC for 3 years, someone else gets PND, someone else feels alienated and left out and jealous and guilty for not bonding and not being supportive). All of these things may have been anticipated and dismissed as a bridge the couple would cross when they came to it, but when they get to that bridge they realise they had no fucking idea what that entailed because spending 8 years talking about it, is nothing like doing it and having children stirs primal responses that people weren't aware were there.

You've obviously never heard the old jewish joke Sunny: how do you make God laugh? You tell him your plans.

TBH people who say everything will be all right if only you plan for it, just sound either very childish or very simplistic to me. Adults know that the best laid plans of mice and men go askew.

Sakura - I come from a different type of place where childcare and family is the most important and most people work as you have to to put food on the table etc. Most men I know dont want to work they want to be with their kids the whole time. My husband used to cry every time he had to go to work for months after he went back to work . I suppose seeing how children are so important then in my life everyone thinks the ones with the kids are the lucky ones.

I also want to make another point.

When a manually working couple have children, if one of them stays at home, that person has swapped one manual job for another. The other partner still goes aqnd physically works.

When an intellectually eworking couple have children, if one person stays at home, that person has swapped an intellectually challenging, physically easy job for a frustrating and physically exhausting job. The other person gets to carry on in the intellectually challanging job.

This society does not value manual labour, so by changing your intellectual job for what you know in your heart is a manual job, you feel a drop in status - UNLESS you can somehow make motherhood Special. Not A Job - It's A Pleasure.

So you then cannot complain about it. After all, it's A Pleasure, not A Job.

It's no coincidence that intellectual workers are more likely to become frustrated with the very different challanges of motherhood. We all know the cliche of the ex office manager who has her 7 week old baby signed up to 4 different classes because she cannot accept that she now has a MANUAL job.

And for that reason colditz I am glad we are both thick but satisfied lol

'We all know the cliche of the ex office manager who has her 7 week old baby signed up to 4 different classes because she cannot accept that she now has a MANUAL job.'

So whose doing the judging then? All the men I know say the best thing about mums is the things they do and how much they appreciate them etc. If someone is so stuck up they cant bare doing a manual job then they are just a snob in my eyes. I think some women and men have been brainwashed in to thinking manual equals pointless and dumb but I am glad I live in a place where people arent this small minded.

'TBH people who say everything will be all right if only you plan for it, just sound either very childish or very simplistic to me. Adults know that the best laid plans of mice and men go askew.'

My husband looked after loads of kids in his spare time of family and friends. I know how desperate he was to be a dad and how good he was at it for years before doing it. I didnt just talk about it. I know my husband would find it extremely hard to be away from the kids as he does now after kids. It still upsets him a lot and I thank him for the sacrifices he makes. I would feel upset as well if it was the other way round.

It's not about being thick and satisfied, sunny. IT's about not putting up with unfairness. YOur job is really bloody hard, really it is. Society has told you it isn't, that what you're doing is women's work and therefore isn't even real work at all. IN fact, without that 6 pound an hour, if you had eight kids of your own (my nana had seven) people in our society would tell you you weren't doing anything, that you were a benefits scrounger, or if you were footlong's wife, that you were spoilt for complaining about it.

I dont think when a man or woman does it it is still like real work. I know men who are single dads who say it beats working for a living and it does. I think you must realise how lucky you are and how priviledged to be at home or in a job where you get to spend time with your own kids. I dont think its easier because society says it but I know its easy as out of the loads of jobs I have had it is by far the easiest. I know through experience.

And I am really about the "but there are menz out there who do harder jobs than us so the fact we are underpayed and undervalued is okay. That's not an argument. Men, on the whole, do not have harder jobs than women. Most manual labour is carried out by women all over the world, for very little pay. Women do the world's agricultural heavy work for example, while men stand about supervising. IN Japan where I live it is women who plant rice, backs bent over, while the men drive tractors about. WOmen went down the mines too. More men are in the army, but they have pay and prestige to show for it.

lol @ this from wifework:

"Since moving to our new house more than a year ago, I swept debris from this tree off our patio with a stiff-bristled broom at least three times a week, " she explains. "My husband did it once. (And even then it was because his mother was coming over and I forced him) Finally I decided there were some problems that technology really could solve, and this was one of them. I no sooner returned home with my new gadget- a nifty blow-or-suck job with detatchable leaf bag- than Alan asked shyly if he could have a go. Within a few days, clearing the patio with this giant, motorized phallus had become His job."

When women work, it is invisible.

I've been a bum-wiper in a nursing home, and a cleaner there too. It was a home for elderly people with psychiatric problems and every morning when I arrived one man had smeared his faeces all over the walls and sink in his room. Every morning.

Hand on heart, society rewarded me more for that job, that they do for SAHMing. Firstly, because it was paid, secondly I had somewhere I had to be, thirdly because I had people to chat to, a change of atmosphere, fourthly because when it was completed, it was over and people could see what you had done, so sense of achievement etc. CHild-rearing is nothing like that. It is harder.

I wouldnt ever mow a lawn, I dont drive, I dont do the garden, I wouldnt fix anything on a car, I wouldnt fix anything in the house etc. I dont want to as its not my cup of tea really.

I definitely also wouldnt be out sweeping the yard ever either so maybe I wouldnt be a good person to ask about that type of thing. The man next door does my garden for free and my dad and husband would do the rest as I dont want to get involved in those types of things. Probably could do them if I wanted but I cant be bothered and they dont interest me. That would probably make me a bit sexist there you go.