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.

Alleluia re the conditioning.

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.

Meant to say, I didn't question the fact that I was having to do the thinking about it all for ages. Because of conditioning. Even though I was aware of the feminist issues around the doing of it.

Similarly, it is not a solution when people say (as people breezily do on MN, as if this renders the whole thing a non-problem) ?just ask him to do it, explain how it is done, negotiate with him so that he sees that it is fair?.? Yes I suppose doing this might be better than doing all the housework yourself, but why should you have to be a manager of another adult? Why can?t you both be joint project managers? At work, managing people is recognised as tricky, demanding, requiring skill and energy and emotional and mental resources. It isn?t always easier to do manage a person (especially a resistant person who has all sorts of issues with what they are being asked to do) than just clean the bloody floor, and I don?t blame those who cave in (sometimes or always) and clean the bloody floor.

I agree with everything you have said Colditz.

I think there are two points raised on here that I disagree with. Firstly, the idea that some people can do less because the other partner has different standards. I agree this can be true to if someone has very high standards. But my standards are complete tip level. Yet even to keep a house at complete tip rather than letting it fall to a state where social services could be called in involves a huge amount of work. So someone not really contributing does make someone's life a misery.

The other thing is the leisure time idea. What concerns me about that is that childcare and housework get bundled up all together within the same time period. That means that a woman who originally gave up work to spend time with her children is ignoring her children in order to clean things.

So I think housework rather than time has to be shared between both partners rather then the SAHP attempting to do two jobs at once. It puts a strange perspective on the SAHM/WOHM because the reality of the debate becomes - is a child better off being played with at nursery by a woman who does not love them or ignored at home by a woman who does love them but is busy cleaning the toilet?

I think the best solution is to allot tasks rather than have a rota. One person does the washing/kitchen another does the bathroom/correspondence and so on. The household tasks have to be divided up roughly in half and seen as a quite separate task than the time spent on childcare.

I really identify with a lot of what meg has said, even to the point of being v heavily pg, so DH doing the bulk of everything.

We actually did have a housework rota for a while, mainly because both of us hate housework and it was a motivator for us. We did it together, discussed fairness, so both parties got one day of most chores. At least if you have a pre agreed arrangement when you are sitting there thinking 'he hasn't done the laundry' you can be justifiably cross as you both agreed that was the arrangement, rather than the impasse you sometimes get over household chores where neither of you will budge over the washing up.

Being pg and having a newborn are special circumstances though where the balance can seem out of kilter, but fortunately my DH has understood the physical toll being pg takes on me.

I used to wonder at my friends with their newborns when they said they were so exhausted keeping on top of the housework etc. I had a no housework during nap time rule! When the baby sleeps I get to mumsnet rest.

Meg: It's not, actually, unreasonable for your DH to be doing more housework at the moment while you are so heavily pregnant. Nor will it be unreasonable for him to do extra housework when your LO is here: women in late pregnancy and women with newborns need a bit more rest than other people.
THough, tbh if you can afford it, the first few weeks after the birth might be a good time to get a cleaner/au pair or some such person in to help out a little so you both get to catch up on a bit of rest.

AFAIC women who hve newborns shouldn't be doing any housework at all.

All I did was sit there with the baby breastfeeding for about 20 hours per day for the first couple of weeks.

There was no question of washing up. There was hardly time to make a cup of tea.

That's why in most cultures, lots of older women in the family come to help out - precisely because a women with a new baby is not expected to lift a finger vis a vis housework.

.

is a child better off being played with at nursery by a woman who does not love them or ignored at home by a woman who does love them but is busy cleaning the toilet?

Or one who does love them and never cleans the toilet. Feminism is about expanding what's possible, not narrowing the options available.

I'M a SAHM , my mother was the main breadwinner. I felt, as a child, that my mother had been fooled by society into thinking that her paid work was more important than her children. I vowed never to make that mistake with my own children, no matter what the cost.

That does not mean it is my job to clean the toilet. And people who say it is just need to expand their views on the way "women's work" is regarded by society.

WOmen with newborns should not do any housework. THere's a supersticion in Japan stating that a woman should not touch water in the first month after childbirth (apart from when she has a shower).
This means she can't do any cooking, washing up or laundry, because all of that involves water.

superstition

i was just pondering some of these issues today & wondering how people do make families work without this happening? i've noticed here in the US (i'm in small town america, quite quaint & old fashioned) that there is a far greater assumption that the woman does the work. whenever someone i know has a baby, people take round food. whilst that's lovely, it rests on the assumption that the woman needs a break. ok, i know the dad is at work, but surely before the first child arrived, someone was working all day, then coming home to cook dinner, so why can't dad manage to do that once the baby is born?

somehow it just seems to get passed on from one generation to another. i always swore i would be no man's skivvy, yet here i am as a SAHM (due to visa restrictions) & doing the bleeding ironing. dd has even said to me that it's my job to do things round the house. what am i teaching her?

There are some seriously spoilt people in this world.. and I am talking about some of the mums in this thread.

I dont help my wife much when I get home, I am usually very tired. If she is unwell, or had a really tough day, I will help out. But other than that, i see that as her job. She is a stay at home mum with a couple of very cruisy kids. She has a full social schedule all week, meeting friends for coffee, swimming, going to the gym. meanwhile I am at work. No problem, I like to see her have a good time. But then when the evening time comes around it is her busy time, and she is no busier than I am all day at work.
The modern woman is spoilt with the assistance they get, and if they got transported back in time 50 years.. many of them would have nervous breakdowns with the workload. Modern technologies like dishwashers, washng machines, vacuum cleaners... all make modern housework a fraction of the work it once was. And modern man is also spoilt, I am spoilt. I readily admit that. But it seems many woman can not, they love playing the victim.
I dont sit at my desk stewing when I know my wife is out having coffee or lunch with friends, I dont resent her, so whn the roles are reversed and I am having my days downtime, I dont want her resenting me.
People claim they want equality, they dont really, posts in this thread have shown many people who just want to whip husbands into what suits them.
If a woman works full time, then the rules are clearly different and equal duties at night are a given IMO. Equally gender is irrelevant if I was staying at home and the wife was working, I think she should relax after getting home, in fact I would feel guilty if she didnt.
I spend alot of time witht he kids after work, but as play time and a chance for me to bond wth them, not because she requests it.
If we have more then 2 kids... then things will change as well.

And maybe some of you could take a good hard look at the possibilty that cognitive dissonance isnt to blame. But actually the fact that SAHM doing more housework is just fairer, and not the result of some head fuck theory.

Footlong - who did the housework in your house when your wife had babies under 3 months of age?

Are you too tired to do housework but not too tired to play with your kids?

Why can't you do the housework & play with the kids footlong? It's because looking after kids is a full time job in itself.
Can I suggest you read this book www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d.html/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1284705156&a=0749926201&sr=8-1 (sorry can't link, can't find the right brackets on iPhone)

SAHM doing more housework is not fairer, it just suits the person sitting in the office all day to say that.

Footlong my father had your attitude, as did many men and women of a certain generation. IT is a capitalistic, industrial wage-earner-is-more-valuable-than-childcarer attitude perpetuated by society to ensure that people who undertake the work of child-rearing are treated with contempt. If a woman has a child with her,she cannot be anywhere else. Your wife cannot work because she is caring for your children. You do not have to pay for childcare (or a cleaner, by the sound of it). SHe cannot chill out in a room of her own and compose poetry and literature, as you seem to be implying. CHIldcare is undervalued drudgery.

The fact that my father had Footlong's attitude was what made my mother throw in the towel and out-earn my father by tens of thousands... good on her in many ways...she became the breadwinner so my father could not tell her she was "spoilt".

But the reality was, my idiot of a father had no idea that the effort and intelligence his management job required was nothing compared to what she was doing when she was at home with the babies. Just because he earned the money, he believed it gave him privileges over her. THat is the definition of spoilt. He saw his bum when my mother jacked in the SAHM thing, outearned him by loads, and still had more energy than him, and a lot more energy than she had when she was a SAHM

Can I give you a lovely quote from my freshly-delivered "Wifework"

"INdeed, for females, depression and marriage go together like the proverbial horse and carriage. Wives report levels of depression two to three times higher than unmarried women, and, if they are unhappily married, three times higher than that of their husbands (Bizarrely, the depression rate for women in "happy marriages" is higher still!)"

Clearly, women who describe themselves as "happily married" are more likely to be depressed because the lie of the "happy marriage" is too far removed from the truth of their lives i.e cognitive dissonance.

"...few realise that two-thirds to three quarters of divorces are initiated by women. The inescapable conclusion is that women are more dissatisfied within marriage than men. Perhaps even more telling, the vast majority of divorced women- more than eight in ten, according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies- report having no regrets about their choice"

The author found that after divorcing her husband and becoming a single mother with three children she had more leisure time than when she was married, whic is the opposite to what you would expect. WHy? Wifework is the answer.

Excellent posts Sukure and Bumper.

It is rather sad that Footlong does not realise that his wife is working at home.

He might find out one day a la my father.

Sakura I dont understand why you wouldnt just do what you wanted to do in order to get leisure time and then just both do a few jobs each and then its sorted. If I want to go out or have time to myself I just tell my husband and thats it. I go out clubbing every 2 weeks and shopping without my kids and out wherever I want whenever.

My husband gets the same amount of time but we both still spend ages with the kids. With jobs if you care more then thats your job. Like I care about the room looking tidy and my husband cares if he has to go out unironed etc. If you havent sorted all this out before you have kids and how your house/marriage works then it is just bad planning.

I also dont know how anyone can think childcare is drudgery.