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.

Caoimhe, no to be honest, I don't think you are in the wrong. Well, only a little bit.
My recipe is equal amounts of time spent working & equal access to finances.

I think maybe you are wrong when you come to notice dusty windowsills and the like. He has to structure his time autonomously, he has to do it his way, so so really have to let go of imposing your standards on him. The WOHP has to respect the role and the person doing it.

Caoimhe, I think you sound like you do lots of planning too, this is the absolutely invisible part of parenting IMO - in workplaces thinking and planning is seen as super important, teams might have briefings and brainstorming sessions etc. As a parent very few people recognise the planning that goes into life.

That's the bit that would bother me rather than the housework.

(disclaimer, its entirely possible I'm reading too much into one paragraph)

caoimhe - as someone in a similar situation to your dh, i find that i just don't see the point to a lot of the housework. the house is mainly tidy & clean, but things like dusting windowsills etc don't often happen - not many people notice & they just get dusty again.

instead, i spend my time doing things like redecorating the house & i'm doing a big gardening project atm. is your dh doing things like this?

i think couple should play to their strengths - so why not sit down each week with a bottle of wine & do the planning together?

in fact, is it possible that he's struggling to adjust to his role & feeling that it's all a bit pointless? many women find it hard to get used to being a sahm, he could well be going through the same thing?

you see, this brings us back to my earlier point that it is so hard to be logical about these decisions when it's our personal life we're talking about. who wants to spend their time having 'meetings' with their partner? who wants to feel like the relationship is employer/employee?

somehow we have to get rid of the notion of 'service' - that doing things like housework is serving others. the phrase 'service industry' carries many connotations, and we don't respect those jobs, but they are essential to society & individuals. perhaps we need to rebrand some of them so that they are given more respect?

well yes, I didn't want to sound sexist but I think a WOHM does far more than a WOHD, and SAHM probably does more than a SAHD, in general because a SAHD hasn'T got any wifework, has he...

Caoimhe, your situation is very interesting and is making me think a lot.

Do you feel that if the roles were reversed you would be doing more in the house than your DH does?

If I were you I would be pissed off at having to remind the SAHP about school planning type things.

I do think that when the children are at school the SAHP, not only can easily get things done, but doesn't have as much to do because the kids aren't there making mess.

As you say, you were the SAHP in the more difficult early years when the kids were tiny and at home - did your DH do as much to share the work then as you are doing now?

i was wondering why it bothers me so much when the wohp expects the sahp to do everything. with dd at school all day i have a lot of time. i choose to spend it doing garden & diy stuff as it makes me feel like i'm contributing & is investing in the family home. but if i didn't, there really wouldn't be the need for dh to do any housework at all, but as a matter of principle, i expect him to do things.

so then i questioned what principle?

thinking about it, i really do believe that every adult who is able to, should do enough to cover the work that they create, and help towards the childcare. it would be ridiculous if each adult cooked their own meals, so families pool resources. they can also outsource them, but i still think that adults should put in enough effort to support themselves.

even the very wealthy, who could pay people to do anything for them, shouldn't rely on others for everything? why, because i genuinely believe that people gain confidence and happiness through independence. so, the sahp doing everything for the wohp, is effectively turning them into a child - i should not be having an employer/employee relationship with dh OR a parent/child one. we should be two equal & independent adults, working together.

now, there will be things that make an adult less able to contribute fairly, health issues would be one, and i would see long working hours as another, BUT i still think that should put in what they can.

otherwise, they never move beyond the dependent child stage of maturity, even if they tell themselves that they're the 'lord and master'.

that makes a lot of sense. I house share with related adults (mum, uncle, brother, me) but no couples. I'm the only one with a young child.

Sometimes we get on each others nerves because we all have different standards for different jobs, and we all have different schedules. Sometimes we help each other out if we know someone isn't feeling great or is really busy. Sometimes we all do our own thing.

There's an expectation that everyone helps each other out though, not an expectation that some people need to be looked after the way my DD does. And her role in the house is very clearly the only child role, I don't end up looking after all 4 of us adults because I happen to be looking after her anyway.

Good points.

I think it is important that everybody plays a role in the household so that everybody is invested in keeping things at an acceptable level.

For example; for a while I was the only person who cleaned the bathroom in our house. When DH and I shared this task we both had a tendency to try to keep things nice for a day or two after the bathroom had been cleaned. When it was just me cleaning it, only I made this effort because a)I knew it had just been cleaned, b)I knew the effort required to clean a bathroom whilst slinging a screaming baby, c)I had a vested interest in spacing out the cleanings by keeping things okish in between times.

DH very quickly got careless about whiskers in sink, pubes in shower, etc because none of this registered with him anymore. (He is a normal, thoughtful man).

Now we are back to whoever has the time/inclination does the bathroom and we are both careful again.

I think it is the same with anything. I know I'm careless with crumbs, etc in the car because it is nearly always DH who cleans the cars. This sort of carelessness is disrespectful, even if it isn't born out of actual disrespect for the other person.

It makes others feel like servants because it is basically treating them as such.

When you don't deal with stuff all day, sometimes you just don't see it.

And the person pointing it out feels horrible, and the other feels put upon, (I suppose).

I must admit I was slightly scared to come back to this in case I had been shot down in flames! But I think it is an interesting situation and gives a different perspective on the whole SAHP/WOHP issue.

I've also wondered if my attitude to dh is partly due to society's training, i.e. a WOHP is allowed to expect the SAHP to do everything and so I'm just fitting into that mould?

The situation is relatively new (about 5 months) so it is true that he needs time to adjust. Beachcomber, you are right re the school organising stuff - I always did that before and I think it is okay for me to begrudge doing it now when I need that headspace for something else. Re the cleaning, I must point out that I never criticise him (I just seethe inwardly!). I know there is more to life than dusting!

I think if I was at home I would be doing more but would that necessarily be useful stuff or is it stuff that can indeed be left? Again, when I was a SAHM his work around the house was probably less than my contribution now. In fact, I deliberately try to not do stuff because I think it is his job now. Not sure how that sounds?

He is doing loads in the garden (the DIY is a whole different bugbear, though).

ooh don't underestimate the time spent on gardening - says she with 6 cubic yards of mulch to shift this weekend!

Caoimhe I refer you to my post of Thursday at 16:14:

"When I was with my xp even though I'd always been a feminist since about the age of 15 and ensured he did his fair share, the bulk of actually thinking and planning fell on me. So I would say "the laundry needs doing, please do a white wash/ coloureds/ wool wash" or "think you should do salmon for dinner, we haven't had fish for a week". Even though xp was doing the stuff, I was put in the position of feeling like a control freak because I was telling him what needed to be done as otherwise... er... he wouldn't do it. If i didn't tell him, he would phone me up at work and ask what he should cook for dinner.

And I had a low level resentment about that all the way through my relationship with him. It really pissed me off that I had to do the mental work of the household while he could claim to be doing his fair share. It's not a fair share if you're not taking responsibility for the planning of it."

I also thought that if it were the other way round and I was at home, standards would have been expected to be higher - by me (I was always acutely conscious of the undervaluing of the SAHP role), by him, by everyone who entered our house. Because if men do housework, that is considered so brilliant and amazing, that the idea that they might be required to do it well, is simply not on the cards. (Oh and what used to really irritate me is that if the house was in uproar, I would be asked why I hadn't told him how to do it properly. ) So I have some sympathy for you, but yes, you do have to be careful not to devalue the work that he does.

oh and yes gardening can take all day every day. That's why only retired people have good gardens.

kickassangel - to answer your question from several posts back about where to draw the line I would definitely say it's at respect. Dh and I have an unequal [house]workload at the moment which we are trying to redress, but he doesn't treat me as a person who deserves less respect or 'status' because I am a SAHM versus when I was working. He still asks me how to handle situations when they come up at his work and he leans on my professional opinion quite heavily. He knows without a doubt that being a SAHM has not suddenly turned my brain into porridge, even though it feels that way sometimes. He treat my goals and ambitions with the same amout of weight as his and he is never patronizing. I think, compared to some of our family/associates that it is most telling in the language we use when we talk about ourselves as a couple. We are buying a house (even though he is the only one earning a salary), we are saving for x, we bought x, we paid off the car (that he bought and paid most of before we married, but we still paid it off and we are both on the title), etc.

When he talks, he talks about me as though I am an equal contributor to the relationship even though I don't earn any money and I believe that is the difference for me.

If he ever treated me as though I was a lesser being for not being out in the corporate workforce I would be out the door in a flash. If I encounter men who even seem to have that opinion I won't befriend them.

TBH, most men in my circle don't seem to think that way, in spite of the sexism of the tech industry. Once you reach the level I am at there the women have more or less had to prove that they are more skilled and more intelligent than the men at every turn (and still won't be promoted, but that baffled the men too) - so by that point the boys will have had plenty of examples to prove them wrong.

Really, I think it's up to your personal judgement where to draw the line, but I won't tolerate people who are condescending.

The nice part about moving back to the US and leaving all my friends and associates behind (although it is desperately lonely) is that I can build a new friends group fresh without any assholes, and as a SAHM I don't have to associate with anyone I don't want to

The hypocricy of the responses to Caoimhe situation is simply hilarious! I am loving it!

I agree sexism is alive and well. You guys have proved this in a spectacular way, just not the way you would have wanted.

Invisible organisational.. brilliant!

Still playing 'Gotcha' are you footlong?

"On the big blogs, it's pretty near impossible, I think, to have a conversation about male privilege without someone like Burton (comment 23 in that feministe thread) coming along and derailing the discussion in some way. Part of the problem with a guy like Burton is that he's not interested in the actual discussion of privilege and oppression. His comments aren't intended as thoughtful analysis or even a result of unintentional misunderstanding- they're intended as a "Gotcha!" moment."

Did you read the link I posted earlier?

nocookiesforme.blogspot.com/2007/10/this-post-really-is-about-menz.html

You see footlong you can consistently take this tone in this discussion because none of this actually means anything to you as a privileged person. Why don't you try to analyse the comments rather than playing top trumps? Do you think societal expectations of men who SAH are the same as those of women?

Do you think a man who has retired from his career, experiences the same frustration and lowering of status, as a women who takes time out from her career to SAH (thereby irrevocably changing the path of her career)?

I think when I have time tomorrow I'm going to start a thread on unearned male privilege, entitlement, The Gaze and obliviousnesses.

I look forward to reading it!

I could explain why you can take the tone you do, but I would just have whining and complaining with the end result of getting the post removed. As I have discovered, truth and debate is not wanted here, you all just want to play in your sand pit and validate yourselves.

You are your own worst enenmy in the fight for credibility.

Footlong, her husband has no wifework, and he is not looking after any children all day. And the YOu said I was lazy for looking after a baby and a three year old.
So who is the hypocrit?

LOL at the thought of needing to appear credible to a ronin male like Footlona

Lenin, I don'T think there's any problem in outsourcing childcare for a break. We live in a post-industrial society and there is no extended family for most of us. So paying someone to take the children can make up for that (like I do with my 2 hours in the weekday). Raising children is not a 1 or 2-person job

INterestingly, in Wifework, research shows that women who do lots of wifework for their husbands (stepford wife style) are more likely to dislike their husbands, and in turn, the husband is less likely to want sex with his wife because a woman that role reminds him of his mother. Slightly shocking but makes perfect sense to me.