Are women better than men at childcare?

[charlotteabigailharris]

I am currently a SAHM and have a 3yo DS and am 6 months pregnant.
I am doing an Economics degree with the open university and really could use your help for my dissertation....
I am researching whether it is accepted/not, that women are generally better than men at carrying out unpaid work - specifically childcare?
Let me know your thoughts,
Thank you.

To echo what cailindana said, when I became a mother, one of the hardest things I found to deal with was the fact that in the end, it came down to me to settle the baby. That I had to just suck it up and cope. There was no other option. DH was and is a good dad, but the times when only mum will do can be draining. Father's usually have the option, particularly in the early days, of passing the buck to mum.

I don't really want to describe myself as 'better' than DH at childcare, because I don't feel I am a better parent, but more often than not, I can settle the children quicker. But that isn't because I'm better, it's because it's me that's always done it. Maybe it would be different had our roles been reversed. If it had been him primarily meeting their needs, they'd probably ask for him first over me.

I think the 'nurturing' role goes beyond childcare too, such as when caring for elderly parents or other adults. Women are more likely to be providing unpaid care than men, and are more likely to reduce paid work in order to do this (which can also end up with them having smaller pensions).

Anyway, to actually answer your question OP, I think society in general accepts/assumes that women are better than men at childcare. But I'm not sure how this joins up with the attitude that fathers that take on the primary childcare role are somehow better, as has been mentioned on this thread. I agree with others here that if women are 'better' than men, it's only because women do the most of it.

The only difference is that women are expected to be good at it and men are not.
I would think a man who couldn't deal with his own baby, change it, bathe it, feed it, put it to bed etc. utterly pathetic, DH was a hands on parent from the second DD was born 25 years ago, he did the early baths/ changes etc. as much, if not more than me.

Cailin, re the correlation you asked about. There is an assumption, in this thread and others, that men opt out of this 'shit' stuff like childcare in order to do the 'good' stuff like work. And that this is part of some dastardly plan men have concocted to a). make women feel inferior, b) establish male superiority and c). go out and have a rip-roaring, fun-packed, totally spiritually fulfilling 40 hours away from home.

I have to say, if I as a man was drawing up such a plan, I would construct one that didn't lead to my death several years before my partner. It seems like quite an oversight.

Cailin, if I am mistaking you for someone else her, I apologise. But I think I have seen you post previously about your partner, the dad of your kids, who was rather a lazy twat. Didn't participate in bringing up the kids and left it all to you. If so, I understand how it shapes your views, but it really isn't fair to extrapolate this to the entire population. There are some awful dads, like there are awful mums. But there are some pretty good ones too, who take a full and active part in their kids' lives from birth. I was one, but so were my friends and most of the blokes I know. And we do it because we love our kids, and frankly for me and most being a dad is 99 per cent brilliant. At least until the 13th birthday, then it drops to about 65-70 . And I would not change a second of it.

I see what you're saying Yops but I don't understand this bit:

"I have to say, if I as a man was drawing up such a plan, I would construct one that didn't lead to my death several years before my partner. It seems like quite an oversight."

I haven't read anything that says that men's shorter lifespan is due to the fact that more of them work rather than look after children. I have read extensive research that says shorter lifespans are down to health behaviours and a greater tendency towards heart disease, which has nothing really to do with childrearing.

Agreed - I think that the lifestyles men are channelled into, and have been for millennia, lead to health problems, including heart disease, which has links to stress through long working hours.

If work was all it is cracked up to be in here, why don't us men take the other option and hand it over to the women? I could happily give up 18 years of my life doing a crappy job and then take leisurely lunches with my mates while our wives work themselves into an early grave. Then, once they have croaked, we can take the insurance payouts and go on the piss and golf in Spain for 20 years.

Obviously I am exaggerating, but to insinuate that working non-stop for 47 years at (for most people) unfulfilling jobs just to pay the mortgage/bills is more enjoyable that 18 years bringing up kids is a fallacy. The expectation placed upon men to work themselves into an early grave is as insidious as expecting every woman to be the perfect mother who forms an instant, loving bond with their baby at first sight.

Buffy - my wife had PND after our second child. I know how awful it can be and I would never minimise it's impact. I was trying to make a point about the downside of the life of riley that us men are leading. Maybe there are biological differences that make men more susceptible to early death, but I am not sure that such differences are something feminism gives credence to, given where that conversation can lead.

Yops, most women work and bring up kids. And always have. My mother worked, teaching and running a small business and bringing up four kids. My grandmother worked, typing in an office as well as bringing up a dozen kids in a 3 bed council house. My great grandmother worked, sewing leather straps in a mill with her children beside her on piecing. And her mother worked, cutting peat and hauling ash, with her children strapped to her back.

Most women work because most women are working class because most people are working class. Women do most of the work. Women do almost all of the childcare. And women of course bear all of the children. It's not a case of one or the other, for most women.

How many women actually spend 18 years at home going for long leisurely lunches??

What actually happens, and what all the research confirms, is that men carry on in their careers, while women stay at home for between 2 and 10 years looking after small, dependent children, before having to try to get back into the workforce at a much lower level than they were before while still doing all of the housework and childcare.

Yops this statement makes no sense: If work was all it is cracked up to be in here, why don't us men take the other option and hand it over to the women?

Surely if working is so bad and staying at home with children is so great, men would be clamouring to do it? But clearly they're not. Why is that? Men are the ones who have run the world for hundreds of years - so why have they set up a situation that you claim disadvantages them so much? Seeing as the people in power are mostly men, why don't those men change things to suit them? Women would love men to step up and do more childcare, we are constantly calling for it. So what's stopping men from doing it?

Firstly, cailin, yes it makes no sense - brain ahead of fingers with that statement. My point was that men were deliberately taking the option of lifestyle A (working full time, minimal childcare) instead of option B (prioritise childcare, fit work in accordingly) just because it was the most fun, why do they choose the path of premature death? Is it a die young, stay pretty option? Are we all wannabe James Deans?

Buffy/cailin, my reference to leisurely lunches and golf was stuff to do after the childcare has ended, not during.

Buffy, I haven't been a SAHP. I would have done, but it wasn't an option for us. And re beliefs underpinning statements, I don't believe for a second that being a SAHP is all pixie dust and laughter. But equally, just because you found it unfulfilling, doesn't mean that everyone would. Obviously, academia and PhDs are your thing. But not every man and every woman would find SAH parenting as tough or demanding as you did. There are plenty of women on here who will tell you that their partners thrive on it. Horses for courses.

Finally, I think there is a lack of distinction between those in power - and yes, mostly men - who are really very few, and those who are just small cogs in enormous fuck-off wheels, who find the daily grind about as interesting as changing nappies and extracting peas from toddlers ears.

I am in agreement with most of what people are saying here. It's not women's job to bring up kids, it a parent's job, and being a man does not excuse you from nappies, sick and 3am feeds, nor GCSE revision, nor attending your umpteenth nativity play. What got my dander up was the suggestion that men deliberately choose a path of all work and no parenting and that this somehow leads to a life of pleasure and no responsibility. We all have our shit to bear, all have our pressures and expectations, and we all pay the price, whether its a loss of career enhancement (which by the way for the vast majority of jobs amounts to the square root of fuck all - chief bin man, head miner, top road-sweeper or ditch-digger?) or dropping dead within 6 months of retirement.

Again I'm a bit confused Yops. Men don't sit back, look at the life expectancy of men and women and then choose the path that other men take, assuming that that will lead them to premature death. In fact that premature death thing is a total red herring, as far as I can see.

My point about men in power is that, if men are so disadvantaged by working, why have they chosen that path for themselves? I know most men aren't in power, but most people in power are men. So is it the case that men have benevolently chosen the hard path of working and kindly allowed women the break and rest of looking after children?

I think it's ironic actually that you choose life expectancy as the disadvantage men have when it comes to the labour divide. You do realise that across the world 800 women a day die due to childbirth? Rates of death in the UK are low, but rates of injury due to complications are high. Women don't just lose their careers, they lose their health (often their mental health also, as your wife experienced), the strength and fitness of their bodies, their status as desirable women (which society tells them is important) their identity, their income, their ability to just eat or go to the toilet on their own, a whole lot more than just careers.

Not sure why mention life expectancy - why not highlight the stress, pressure, long hours, shit commutes, etc. that comes with working a paid job.
There are certainly a few cliques of "ladies who lunch" or "full time mums" at our school.
Like everything involving people, people are different.
Career types, home types, etc.
Employers will hopefully be (forced to be) more amenable to the idea of extended child rearing career breaks for men.
Just like women could be sacked for becoming pregnant, men have until recently been unable to take these breaks (apart from quitting, then looking for another job later).

Buffy, re parental leave, there is a good article on the new UK laws here;

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32130481

From a skim read, it is significantly different from previous legislation, and gives far more rights to fathers. Given that this only came into effect in April 2015, it is maybe too early to say that dads are not jumping at the opportunity.

I don't get all of your reasoning, cailin, like you don't get mine. Most men work because that is what is expected of them. Forty-seven years of uninterrupted work brings stresses, depression and heart disease. Ergo, men die first. In most western countries, the gap is somewhere between 5 and 10 years. When work finishes, as Buffy says, a lot of the social networking dries up, and they quite often just drop dead.

Re worldwide deaths and childbirth, surely that's a consequence of their environment? I would imagine most of the 800 also have a higher risk of dying of malnutrition, thirst or other health issues. Could you lower birth mortality rates in isolation? I can't see how.

Re the other stuff - physical damage to their bodies, mental issues - there are male equivalents in the work environment. Asbestosis, emphysema, white finger, industrial accidents. Who was the last woman to fall into an iron-ore smelter or die in a mine collapse?

I don't want to downplay adverse effects on women, and I feel like I am 'whataboutthemenz'-ing here, but I think you are being really one-sided. Loss of desirability after childbirth - what about male patterned baldness? You could argue that a natural process diminishes male desirability. And most women can choose whether to have a baby - I can't choose not to be a slap-head. It is bollocks - I should not be judged in terms of my shagability by my hairline, but bald men are often a figure of fun.

I get the feeling I am taking centre stage here, and I don't want to. I was enjoying the discussion, and I am in 95 per cent agreement with the sentiments on here. I should probably leave it at that.

When my DCs were small I searched for the nappy changing gene, the wiping sick off my blouse gene, the sitting up half the night with screaming baby gene…

No what OP? I never found it.

If you do anything long enough you get "better" at it, whether it's building space rockets or cleaning lavatories.

Same with childcare.

Again though Yops, it is men who have set up the situation where they work continuously for 47 years. Because up until less than 100 years ago women couldn't even vote, never mind influence any sort of legislation or change any societal practices. Once women married they became complete non-entities, unable to own any property, or basically take any action as a person. So men have been the ones to set up the system we live with. And men can change it. But they're not changing it. It is women who are trying to change the system and to get men more involved in child rearing. That's my point. And my question is, why is that? Is it because they see that actually staying at home with children isn't that great?

I don't deny that men live shorter lives and suffer ill health due to work. It is feminists, women, who are trying to change that.

looking after your own children is not unpaid work - its not work of any kind.

Oh peggy? So it involves doing nothing?

I think women are better at childcare, but certainly no better than men for raising their children and parenting.
I like to separate the two as imo childcare is something done by others not the parents.

Most men work because that is what is expected of them.

Most women work, too. Their careers and health suffer due to childbirth and the extended household responsibility they take on in tandem with working, but most work outside the home. It's not all gin, fags, diamonds, hairdos and lunches paid for by the largesse of your long suffering husband.

Or "Know what" even?

Seriously, when my DCs were small, especially the first, my husband was much better with them as little babies then I was. I could never work out what babies were for.

I did get to enjoy them a lot when they became little people with their own personalities and was glad of the early years with them.

But better at all the domestic drudgery that is part and parcel of childcare? I really don't think it is vagina-dependent. It's like wifework - something that is just expected after millennia. Men expected it and us women kept falling for it….

Peggy you're avin a laugh.