Minor male entitlements

[kentishgirl]

It's not just the big things, it's the little things that are in some way more irritating to me.

Just got out of the dentist. It's a small practise and I guess the receptionist is off sick as the reception desk still had shutters down, so they were a little bit late opening up. One woman was sitting in waiting room when I arrived. A man came in a little after me.

The dentist came out and opened up the desk.

Guess who quickly jumped up and got there to be dealt with first?

Me three TeWi. I used to do a four day week and it was perfect.

I think you were right first time Pan.

No one can have it all. I've never understood this term, nor why it's only ever applied to women.

Actually, I do. Because your average successful man has it all by dint of a wife actually doing stuff that means he has a family to appear in weekend mags and carry his name.

yes 'have it all' - ladened, isn't it? I simply meant both me and dd's mum wished to be around dd all of the time, but necessity meant it wasn't possible.

You see, I think you did have it all. Or all that it is possible to have whilst balancing everything you need to balance.

Has there ever been a "Have it all" magazine feature with a man demonstrating career and child involvement?

Did I 'have it all'? Possibly yes Crotch if I'm honest. Really, really fecking busy. Keeping dd happy and seen to, getting the basics re house/her done, getting worky stuff covered, chatting constantly to anyone even mildly interested and meeting new folk, so yes if 'having it all' equates to 'happiness'..yes you're right. But not knowing it at the time..

But that's what it means! Busy. How can it not. Now, for those magazine features...

Busy? Well, dd's mum had severe PND, and had suffered from depression previously. so being 'busy' wasn't a choice? It meant doing basic stuff at the end of the day which hadn't been done in the course of the day. Two 'high-functioning' parents with one little one wasn't the situation.

But re mag feature... really would a mag feature with a wonder-dad sell to anyone? I'd doubt it. I don't think anyone would wish to read about a successful bloke who did the nappies, party bags, bathing, reading, and hair washing etc at all. But then I'm a big cynic.

Pans, but busy is what 2 parents having it all means, that's all. PND is shit - my mum had it with my younger bro which kinda fucked things up for us.

And of course it won't sell. But why?

tbh it's a bit more than being 'busy' isn't it? Engaged and developing, yes.

Sorry, I don't know why I said "that's all". I think I was countering the lazy fucks who are all so tired after staring at a monitor and swapping pics of people running into stuff.

I've had a day...

Having it all is just a sexist phrase used against women to keep them down and in the home or on flexible or part time working - the poisoned chalice which they accept at their own risk.

A balanced life for men and women is one with children and work in it. For most people when their children are under 5 life is very busy and very hard whether you work outside the home or not. The long term damage to women and families caused by women giving up a career path though can often last for 30 years after children are grown so it is in my view better to plough on as a man or woman working full time in those difficult years and take your jam tomorrow (the future riches both materially and in terms of personal satisfaction) which keeping a full time career going gives you.

Well, I'm massively late to this thread, but here are my observations FWIW:

I live in a "nappy valley" and yes, I have suffered entitled behaviour from mums with buggys. But if this has happened, say, a dozen times, still doesn't compare with the thousands of times I've suffered armrest hogging, knees well out to the side, and aggressive pavement behaviour by mostly men. I am very little and I have had to learn two things: 1) to psychically take more space than my physical form, and 2) to gauge when I can do this without danger to myself (once, in the City of London, right round the corner from BoE, a guy in a suit rugby tackled my shoulder so hard he gave me a bruise, because I hadn't got out of his way, even though we were in a broad passage and there was no one else around).

At work, well, where do I start? I have learnt that I have to be really direct with requests, but at the same time I have to be seen to be "nice". I had one direct that thought himself above his station and was incredibly rude to me in public several times, and yet I was always encouraged to "solve our differences" rather than put him in his place. Eventually, he wrote in my annual manager review that "I'm too emotional". I've also learnt to smile graciously through gritted teeth every time I'm asked if I'm the receptionist or the secretary because, petite and blonde, what else would I be?

late to this thread too

our departmental assistant is a man who sits at the desk next to me, and his role is identified by a sign on his desk. he has access to the schedules of members of our department and also knows where most of the meeting rooms in our massive building are located. but i am always the one interrupted by people asking for directions or help locating someone in our department. never him. in the past i would jump to be helpful, but now i will just direct them to the DA for assistance.

if i go to another department to meet someone and i don't know what they look like or where they sit, and if i can't identify a departmental assistant, i will approach a man instead of a woman if possible, purely to redress the balance a bit in terms of interruptions to their work

But Greengrow - doesn't that fail to recognise that some of us ( male and female) chose to have children because having and raising them was an important part of our life satisfaction? Dh has deliberately chosen a job which allows him to be home by 5 so he can spend time with our child even if that has some financial downsides. Being fully involved in our children's lives is more important to us than money, else why bother?

Let us not get into that - I would argue men and women who work do raise their children. I know few full time working parents who don't rush to get home to see their children. I work from the house most days. I recommend working full time whilst making a lot of money. More fun than working part time on the minimum wage with hardly a pot to piss in.

Ah, a why bother having children post. Always one just around the corner on mn even when the discussion is not about wohm!

Pomme, I think eatscake was speaking personally.

Green, you know your own household economics don't work if everyone in the country makes a lot of money, right? your nanny would have been unaffordable for one thing!

Thank you Yonic. I was. I just didn't like Greengrow telling me that I should only receive my life's satisfaction from my career. I see work as just a means of making the money to do other things. Those are my priorities. I fully support others having different ones, but it pisses me off to have someone suggest that I can't find joy and satisfaction in spending all my day with my young child. God knows he won't want me about this much when he's bigger :)

And, Greengrow, I don't find 'a lot of money' very exciting. Stop assuming that what's true for you is also the case for everybody else.

whichever choice men make (to focus on career, or scale back to do more at home, or become a sahp) they are praised for it

And whatever choice women make will always be judged and criticised, sadly, often by other women.

I also think that the whole 'career vs SAHP' thing is a slight red herring. Not every woman or man has what could be termed a career, most people have jobs. A goodly number of those jobs offer little in the way of progression. Of that type of job, the better paid ones (trades etc) are generally male dominated, while retail, caring etc, which are much lower paid are female dominated. Suggesting that people in that type of job are in some way just not trying hard enough is pretty awful.

yes, a "career" is often something that only the privileged are able to have (among men and women)