Equality at home - Can this really be achieved?

[marga73]

There is an issue I've been wanting to discuss for a long time. It's the issue of equality inside the house.

Even though women now work and are able to gain respectable positions in the workplace, and we can say that some level of equality has been attained, it seems to me that once they have children, women lose more than men in terms of work opportunities and financial independence. And all because the house and the children still seem to be a "woman's job".

It's all great to find women who are happy being the SAHP, but don't these women feel sometimes that being 100% financially dependent on their husbands is frustrating? Doesn't this situation make them feel trapped and powerless? Is it OK for women to sacrifice their independence for the sake of their children and the house keeping?

I work part-time, and have two small children, and still feel trapped sometimes. I'm grateful in many ways that my husband earns enough so we don't have to worry about paying for mortgage, food, childcare etc - and I contribute to this too - but I feel it's far beyond from the ideal I had when I was young and it really annoys me. If I'm honest, it makes me very angry.

I would like a society where men and women work part time, share domestic tasks 50/50, and look after their children part time, and therefore pay for everything on equal terms. Is this too much to ask in the fierce capitalist society we live today? Am I naive to think that should be the case?

Then how many hours sleep does she need?
If, like a few people , she only needs 3 hours sleep a night, then maybe she has time to fit everything in, so long as she has the quality time with them when they are awake!

She will be back to tell you soon!

xenia has five kids and breast fed them all for extensive periods! She has said before that they weren't great sleepers eighter.

I think she has said she needs little sleep and is as strong as an ox. She sailed through all her pregnancies.

And that is a point to consider. My DH needs little sleep. He can easily pull an all nighter with little fuss. I have always needed my sleep. Can't function wihtout it. I do think that makes a huge difference as to how much a person can manage.

Did I really read a post by Xenia stating the women with lower IQs tend to be the stay at home mothers who are not so clued up on childrearing and therefore do not do it so well. What a ridiculous comment to make, sounds as if it could have come straight from teh pages of the Daily Mail.

I think that was one of the posts I couldn't even be bothered to reply to! She did!!!

Your DCs are so precious so I don't understand why she wanted to leave hers with a person of lesser intelligence, who she despises for not having set their sights higher! It is rather an inconsistent view that in order to go off to work you need to employ a woman who 'let's the side down' -or maybe she found a woman who found child are boring and was studying for 'better' career prospects. Perhaps she employed a man.

Exotic Let it go, you are protesting too much

3 of her children have graduated. I dont think she has many children at home now anyway.

I know. I must sit on my hands. X enia and her views just rile me!

Im beginning to think she is trying to mislead people.

She fully believes it all-and will continue to do so which is why fancynancy is quite right and I ought to take her advice.

If she wants people to follow her, we need to know her circumstances.Not everyone has a high earning DH, is of a high IQ, clearly requires very little sleep, a husband who will willingly muck in or is even about every day to do so, etc etc etc.

Perhaps I will sit on my hands too now, exotic!

She is a single parent,she does it all alone. I admire her BUT just wish she realised we can admire without being at all envious or wanting to do the same. We are all different.

I don't think it's a good idea to personalise things too much or people's identities are exposed. My youngest are a prep school. There will come a point when I will be too old to be a current example of working parenthood although of course our past experiences remain relevant. I thought about that a couple of weeks ago when the paper wanted the youngest in the photo and not the next oldest. If you're writing about women and work you want women with the younger children not with graduate children. However it does give you perspective and wisdom and experience. I will have done more childcare too than anyone on the thread over 27 years even though I work full time simply because of the large number of children over so many years.

I think sexist comments about whether a working mother spends quality time with children but which are never comments made about working fathers exposes the sexism many women and men still have and need to eradicate from themselves. I have worked with many men and women who are parents over 25 years and just about all try to spend a lot of time with their children as they love them. If you earn a lot and have a good career everything is much easier. Yes I accept the average UK IQ if 100 and average pay £20k and most people are really pretty mediocre and plenty who aren't don't work very hard at all. That's fine but we do need more women in positions of power and thankfully a lot of them are prepared to and want to step up to that plate.

Plenty of people who earn a lot are happy and plenty who earn a pittance or are housewives are fed up. It might comfort the poor to think the rich are miserable but there is no such correlation.

It is important to get a variety of views.

Xenia's views stand out because it is important for women to know that it is possible to have a demanding and high paying job and combine that with raising children that are successful and (much as some posters on this thread would like to think otherwise) not dysfunctional.

It is by no means the easy route and one I personally do not have the energy to follow. I will readily admit to letting the side down, having taken a pt job after my first child was born. But that is not to say I do not admire those who tread the high road.

There are tons more examples of families where one or both parents have stayed at home or downscaled their work commitments. I am sure that works very well for their family. But what is so special about taking the easy route (I speak as one who did just that to a degree).

I am quite bored of reading of the high flying professional who 'gave it all up' and is much happier as a result. That myth is peddled all over the media and it is frankly bosch. What City professional who enjoys the cut and thrust of their work would be happy raising chickens or making cupcakes? For the rest of their lives? Honestly.

"I will have done more childcare too than anyone on the thread over 27 years even though I work full time simply because of the large number of children over so many years".

How on earth do you know?
I, for instance have many children and have also been a foster carer at the same time.
Others may well have looked after others peoples children as well as their own for a variety of reasons.
And what about other people on this thread, and other threads.
And you had a nanny, do you call that your childcare?Or someone else doing your childcare.

Oh, and I wouldnt dream of expecting other people to do the same, be the same, follow me etc. Every single mum or dads circumstances in this country is different. We all come from different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, etc.

Amillion years - yes it is true every individual is different, and can make their own choices.

But the fact is that somehow the individuals who happen to have the xx chromosomes end up doing the majority of the childcare, and earning the minority of the money. And the ones with the xy chromosomes get the reverse situation.

Is it that more women are women are better at domestic stuff and
more men are better at the excelling in public life and we should just accept the status quo. Or is it that there is something systematically wrong in the way we organise the domestic set-up?

Most men just wont do 50% of domestic stuff and childcare.You could argue that women have the choice not to do it as well.

minipie IMO employers should be in a position where anyone they employ, of either gender, is likely to have some domestic responsibilities - but not 100% of the domestic responsibilities. In other words, they can't expect an employee to have handed over all domestic responsibilities to a SAH spouse, but neither should they have to put up with an employee who is bearing 100% of domestic responsibilities and so is always being the one to take a day off when a child is sick, etc. (except, I guess, in the case of lone parents - who will need a very understanding employer and/or a great support network.)

Oh, somewhere upthread I said I'd look up the marriage ages.

From the Office of National Statistics, via Wikipedia: for 2005, average age at first marriage was 30.7 for men and 28.5 for women, so just over two years' difference.

As blues says liots of women enjoy pretty exciting careers and it's important women know yes it's possible to have al arge family and adore your job and make a lot of money as so many people say oh woe is me, women can only earn the minimum wage as class room assistants and all want to work part time hours.

Himalaya, they only do that because they are mugs. No proper feminist woman accepts sexim at home. They just don't. the firs ttime sunny Jim expects them not him to do the dishes, they laugh in his face and throw with dishcloth at him or call off the wedding. We need to acecpt that women aer adults and have power and also have responsibilities to avoid sexism (unless they like it of course or think it's religiously ordained and all the other excuses).

As for how many hours of childcare I have done (and the suggestion people with nannies do no child care is ridiculous, it's like suggesting you send children abroad for 18 years if you work and never see them again) on the basis most women have 2 children 2 years apart who are housewives and say their children are about 10 and they were at home for the first 5 years with them then surely I over 27 years at weekends and evenings and holidays and in the night with 5 children will have done much more childcare than a housewife of 5 years with under 5s who has the chidlren alone from 8 - 7?

sweet - but is the men's age the cause of them earning more, or do women choose men who earn more (so are likely to be older)?

Xenia, other women can only do what you did if they had your circumstances.
You say for instance that anybody can write 30 books like you have.Rubbish.
Most do not have your IQ, most need a lot more sleep than you do.
You say if a woman does not like it where she works, she should set up her own business. That too is beyond many women and men too for that matter. The majority of men and women in this country struggle with even basic maths.
You are pretty unique. By definition, most people are average.