Demanding job

[FayKorgasm]

Not a TAAT but inspired by years of threads. Frequently I read threads on here by women posters who have husbands or partners who do the very bare minimum of child rearing. One of the reasons given is the all inclusive Demanding Job. Extra points for Long Hours in aforementioned Demanding Job.
It really gives me the rage. Lots of women work in Demanding Jobs and yet come home and just bloody get on with it but men are excused the daily drudge because of it.

If it's a job like any other then, can you tell me:

• at what time is the day of the SAHP starting and finishing?
• when are the breaks in the day?
• are you entitled to a day off if you are ill?
• what about overtime? Can you get it back? How many hours should you work? Surely working 12~14 hours a day plus weekend and nights would make it an extremely demanding job. Does it mean that the SAHP can get more support from the WOHP then?

serioulsy, you can see how easy it is to show that being a SAHP can NOT be compare as such with a work. Even if you compare it a live in nanny (who gets paid btw), you would never imagine to ask as much from an 'employee' than you do from a SAHP.

The comparaison re being a SAHP is work is about recognition that
1- it takes time and energy to do it
2- it's hard work
3- the work done is actually valuable, just as valuable as being 'at work'. A SAHP is at the same time the cleaner (who would be paid a good £8ph), a nanny and night time nanny. If those people are regarded as doing a valuable job that will be paid for, then surely what a SAHP does during the day is also valuable? Oh and yes these people would also get some breaks in the day etc... as any other worker would. So why being so hang up about the 'free time' a SAHP has?

Btw larry have you ever been in the place of the SAHP with children not at school?
And then with children in primary school?

Not fully but have shared role when we had toddlers/babies. I know what it entails.

I agree pre school is tough but that is very time limited. It totally depends on circumstances but most sahp parents manage breaks (grandparents, home help etc) and most take holidays where whop is equally responsible for children. Again depends on salary band but even adding all those salaried together, most SAHp I know earn multiples of it. Agree, not national average.

Pretty sure that classing the hours worked by a SAHP as employment would ensure that the working time directive was broken with alarming regularity.

Plus, larry seems only able to talk about a tiny minority of households, whereas the vast majority of SAHPing is done by women in far less salubrious socio-economic groups.

Baking,

A lot of grandparents (of all classes) do a lot of parenting these days. You only need to look on these boards to see grandparents taking children for whole days and sometimes even several days at a time.

The idea of a SAHp being a slave to house and children (especially school age children) is, I suspect, not that common these days. I agree, however, intersectionality (as it would be called here) plays a big part. I don't know many men who feel that they can come home from work and put their feet up. They normally help with bedtime and bath time and the cooking and clearing up of dinner Andy, in many cases, do most of these.

lasrry if you 'shared' roles then you have no idea sorry. You would have an idea if you actually had been in full cahrge of said baby and toddler for several days in a row, whilst been expected to maintain all the standards of washing, ironing, cleaning, cooking to the same standard than a SAHP would have. Do that for a few years. Then, only then, you will be able to say you have an idea (and even then, know that you won't because you will get the breaks at work, the mental stimulation and the opportunity to talk to adults!)

A baby and a toddler, if they are 2 or 3 years apart isn't 'just a short time'. It's 6 b*y years! Would you be happy to do a job that is so demanding for 6 years and get no recognition whatsoever? Would be happy to then have someone coming over to tell you that 'your job isn't up to standards'? Serioulsy?
Because I don't know anyone who would be staying in that job if it was the case tbh. (And actually many women do bet divorced because they are so taken for granted. Being divorced, at least, they DO get a break every so often...)

As for having help nearby with grandparents... well I'm happy that YOU do have some support but bear in mind this is far from the case for everyone. Some people have family nearby who they don't get on/don't want to help etc... Some people have no family nearby (When I look around me, this the case for most people tbh).

As for your 'not national wage' again, I'm happy to see that you are financially wealthy bit this is far from the case that only people who earn well have a SAHP. Lots of people on low revenue do. By default because they can't pay for the childcare :(

In effect you are talking about a few select few with non average situation where everything is so easy that they can have breaks, help at home, grandparents AND enough money for a holiday etc...
Maybe stop thinking about that very small group of people and look at the bigger picture.

Larry I would suggest that you also read all the threads about people not getting on with their parents or PIL, all the ones who have massive issues with said grandparents looking aftre the dcs (there is one atm about a MIL that refuses to give the baby back after one night away. I doubt they are going to ask her to look after the baby soon again...).
Masybe you should also look at threads aboyt people sep[[arating and how often they say 'I have no family nearby. We moved xxxx'.

People move nowdays. A lot more than beofre. And with that comes the fact you have no help.

And again read threads aboout women who have enough because their DH does fuck all, doens't know the baby routine, never puts the chiild to bed, so much so that said baby/toddler doesn't settled for them so mummy can never go out etc etc...

Your view of how the world is NOT reflecting reality.

Fan,

A lot of people have either some money or helpful grandparents. You need one or the other, not both.

In the worst case scenario (as you outline above), it is very tough. Six years is slightly overegging the pudding though. If there is a two year gap and they start nursery at around 2.5, you only have both of them full time for 6 months and the total period before both at nursery is 4.5 years. If three year gap, the period of one 2-3 year old is not that tough, before the second one is born. You are picking an extreme scenario, too, to illustrate your point (as, maybe, am I).

A lot of people put children into 'nursery' a long time before 2.5 as well.

I am sorry if you have had it very tough but, again, this is not really typical.

Let's take another point then, larry.

Why do you think there are so many threads on here where women describe the homework and childcare balance between them and their partner as (a) unequal, and (b) exhausting to the point of desperation. Do you assume they are merely a vocal minority? Or lying?

Put another way, do you really think that in the majority of cases, the man does a fair and equitable amount of housework and we're all just being a bit hysterical about a non-problem. And further, that this imbalance doesn't systemically limit women's ability to fully realise their potential (eg doing jobs they like and want to do)?

I'm a bit worried about the bubble you live in if that's the case.

"A lot of grandparents (of all classes) do a lot of parenting these days. You only need to look on these boards to see grandparents taking children for whole days and sometimes even several days at a time."

Yeah, that tends to be when their grandchildren's parents aren't SAHPs.

Let's just end the thread here - Larry is right and we're all wrong. The proviso of the thread is redundant because it just isn't an issue, OK?

Also Basil, it also fails to take into account the fact that an awful lot of the not living in gated communities demographic older generation are still having to work, and so can't take care of grandchildren.

It's irrelevant anyway, as they're almost always helping out working parents.

Larry, are you seriously suggesting that 2-3 years of 24hours a day on call (with 6-18 months of that being up multiple times a night for each child), plus the expectation that you will pickup, cook and clean, all for half the minimum wage (ie. half whatever the WOHP brings home) - which is capped at a working week, so 40ish hours (despite being on call for all 24). Is a good deal? Is one that the SAHP should be grateful to have, and they don't deserve a couple of hours during the day once the kids are at nursery or school, and they should do housework in that time?

That's not a job I would take for the money. That's a job I've done because I love my kids and someone has to look after them.

SAHP is not in any way equivalent to a WOH job. If my partner thought that he could demand standards above those I was setting myself then I think we would have words. Splitting, and having the kids half the week would be a much better deal - the time I would save on clothes washing alone.

Going back to the original post, I think sometimes women are their own enemies. I work a demanding job as does my husband and we do more or less split the household jobs. What I find more galling is the effort it takes me to get things organised and have to think about. Eg buying x presents for x number of birthdays coming up, planning holidays, doing play dates, what's for dinner etc.

He doesn't feel the need for any of that. If he forgets to buy a present he just pops in to the nearest shop and gets it. Kids don't need to eat proper food all the time, they can have frozen chips and egg. Holiday? What holiday? His idea would be to pop up to his parents 6 h drive away and perhaps ring the night before to organise.

Again, all non life threatening but would probably drive most women crazy. It drives me mad.

If he doesn't pay the cleaner, he'll drive her to the ATM and take the money then. I've never ever done that - i always get the money at least the evening before if not the weekend before.

I suspect that's why women 'take on' these jobs.

Also women have higher standards for each other than for men. Why else do we not thump each other on the back for babysitting our children and yet congratulate the man for taking his kids swimming?!!

Another point I would like to raise in the primary school free time issue is that sahm not sahd are more likely to be in a position of providing care for a family member voluntarily or not.
Most people do not have home help or grandparents on tap.

Not everyone has grandparents near by, either through geography, or because they are dead (my parents both died before they reached retirement age).

Grandparents may still be in full time work themselves. One of my school friends was a grandparent before she was 40 - she might get to look after her great-grandchildren, I suppose.

There are a lot of people who have neither grandparents nor money to spare. My parents left just enough to cover the costs of their respective funerals, and it's not that unusual. Not all the babyboomers bought houses.

Larry I'm just astonished given how bloody awful being a parent is being described on here that any women would ever have a child.

So far as housework it seems odd that a paid cleaner manages to do in a few hours what apparently takes all day every day for a stay at home spouse/partner.

So far as housework it seems odd that a paid cleaner manages to do in a few hours what apparently takes all day every day for a stay at home spouse/partner.

It's almost as if SAHP's have more to do than cleaning and housework, isn't it?

Yes, because paid cleaners morph into your kitchen to wipe the bench down every time it needs it, and put daily laundry loads on, and cook dinner each night, and ...

It's almost as if SAHP's have more to do than cleaning and housework, isn't it?

Really at the end of the day don't get married and have children with a lazy twat. Make or female, presumably the warning signs are there to see before you take the plunge? Do men suddenly go from doing 50% of everything to expecting wifey to do it all? Or do women hope that their spouses will suddenly step up once kids arrive? Cos that always happens.

I'm a SAHP, DH has been out of the house for 12 hours, he has done about 2 hours of chores and child raising whilst I stay on the sofa having some TV me time. He gets breaks at work, I don't.

One of the reasons I fell in love with him was that he was prepared to take 6 months paternity leave (and did) and he can clean a toilet and wield a Hoover just as good as anyone.

Teach your children to pull their weight at home, warn them no one wants to live with a lazy person. A marriage is a partnership in more ways than one.

I grew up with my dad working FT manual work and doing most of the chores because mum was too inebriated. I never got the whole, "men can't clean as well as women, it's not in their nature," thing.

There are women out there who wouldn't dare dream of letting their husbands do so much as change one nappy. Women sometimes are their own worst enemy.

Yes, there is seemingly such a poster on this very thread.

However there are also many, many women that really are not hogging all the mundane chores, and would love their partners to step up to the plate even a little bit.

And it is all too common for the dynamic to suddenly and substantially change when babies arrive, and women take on a more domestic role.

Yes MN evidence does seem to suggest that having a baby changes the dynamic.