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.

really? These men went from doing 50% of everything then just do nothing? Do they not get involved with any childcare? Do they just switch off from the household once baby arrives?

My experience from my friends is that their DH do not have a clue, cannot even fathom out how to change a nappy out of the home, never done a shop. Oh yes they may do the token Sunday Roast, bins out, washing-up once in a while, stuck his footy kit on to wash chores. But the man who actually always spotted the fridge needed defrosting and did it, and perhaps cleaned the skirting boards or instigated a spring clean. Are you telling me he won't want to then partake in a bit of child raising (bonding) after work, at weekends. He will surely have more of a concept of how tough it is. He is more likely to keep on doing 50% of the chores.

my friends who always did the house chores before children came along are still doing it after. Their man child husbands swan off on bikes clad in Lycra, or triathlon challenges, or just down the pub as they always did.

You got an uphill battle there.

Why put up with it though? Your not have to stick with the first bloke you marry. You can try going on holiday for a fortnight and give them a taster of life on the front line, or perhaps even divorce.

If you don't want your children to go through it then teach your sons and daughters.

You don't have to put up with being a domestic slave.

MN experience is not everyone's experience and if the bloke you married suddenly turns into Mr Hyde then why would you then go on to becoming his housewife and make yourself totally financially dependent on him once maternity leave is up I don't know.

You do have to accept that it most circumstances we are the masters of our own fate and no one is forcing you to put up with it.

captain DH did that.
Very helpful, 50/50 share of all the HW etc until I had dc1 and went on ML.
Then all HW became mine, he became used to have the evening meal ready when he came back home. He did bath time etc... only because I sort of forced him to do so (ie put the baby in his arms and walked away).
He also started a new position in his company thyat required travelling 3 days a week the week I gave birth...

He isn't like this anymore but it took years of 'educating' for him to take responsibility again.

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)?

Actually that is a very good point.
I would have never managed to have my own business and live from it if I hadn't decided to 'act like a man' ie put my work first and forced DH to take on HW and childcare duties. Mainly because to make my business work, I need to be able to work late so DH has to pick up the slack. (Only 3 days a week mind)
But also because of an issue of attitude. When your 'role' is to keep the house tidy, that you are the only one to know about the school stuff and the latest dressing up thingy happening at school and the only one to actually sort it out, etc you end up in a situation where your dcs are reliant on YOU and only YOU to keep things going. Giving priority to all these 'little' things because you don't want to let your dcs down means there is little space left for the rest and certainly not to build a business up. Changing that attitude and starting to give work more importance is hard. It's hard because you don't want to put your dcs in a situation where they feel let down. And hard because you have a DH that just doesn't know and doesn't want to know because let's face it it's not fun, no more than it is to calm a teething baby down
Having two working partners means a share of the HW etc.. From what I see around me, what we have is women working part time/school hours because otherwise they can't cope. They can't cope because it's might on impossible to do two full time jobs (one of which is highly demanding as we established before, long hours etc etc). As for the 'demanding, rewarding' jobs outside the home... how could you even think about doing that when yoou have another full time, long hours, demanding, job waiting for you at home?

'I would have never managed to have my own business and live from it if I hadn't decided to 'act like a man' ie put my work first and forced DH to take on HW and childcare duties.'

'Forced', 'educated'. Might the 'power imbalance' here be not quite what this thread makes it out to be?

Finally, a house is a shared environment. The consensus on this thread seems to be that the WOHP should have zero say in this environment. Any say he/she might have would be interpreted as 'controlling' or 'being the boss'. It seems to me that the SAHP seems to feel that they should be in sole charge of the shared environment and should not have to contribute to the WOHP's life at all (other than doing weekday childcare, again within their own parameters). So, the WOHP is merely a worker ant, sent out to work daily and having no say over their environment other than when they are at work (where they also generally get little say).

Funny sort of equality.

It's almost as if SAHP's have more to do than cleaning and housework, isn't it?
And what exactly is that once children are at school? The enormously onerous task of taking them there and collecting them?

I haven't read it all in detail but how exactly is looking after your children (and I'm sure the "looking after his children " card has been played) and doing some housework unfair if you are not doing paid work but expect to be kept by your partner?

The consensus on this thread seems to be that the WOHP should have zero say in this environment.

That's not the consensus at all, Mr Strawman.

It's just nobody agrees with your ridiculous (and obviously sexist) notion that since men who have jobs have bosses to answer to at work, it's only right that their SAHM wives have a boss to answer to too.

Because that's "equality" to a sexist man - making sure women never, ever have anything worthwhile or nice that men don't have.

The very idea that a SAHM needs to have a boss at home because their husband has a boss at work to make things equal is laughable

And here you are saying that people who are giving it way more respect than it deserves (none) are "reverse sexist" because they think equality in marriage is based on mutual respect, not evening scores.

Your ridiculous arguments on the thread are only getting so much airtime because you are a man, and a sexist one who constantly tries to shut women down and define equality for us.

And you are oblivious to that and think people are paying attention to you because what you are saying has merit.

It doesn't. It's embarrassing. Like something in a 4th year school debate about how domestic work should be allocated.

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.

Golly! That cleaner must be astoundingly good if he also makes all household arrangements, books holidays, packs, unpacks, washes, bathes children, supervises homework, books and takes cars in for their service/MOT/winter checks, finds the best insurance deals, sorts that all out and on and on and on and also still feels sexy feelings about the lazy ass man who's been festering on the sofa since he got in from his work, all in a few hours...... Such a paragon! And all for minimum wage. But still a wage.

The consensus on this thread seems to be that the WOHP should have zero say in this environment. Any say he/she might have would be interpreted as 'controlling' or 'being the boss'.

And now who's throwing up strawmen.

Bathtime,

This is so spurious. I am going to stop posting. We both regard one another as arguing against straw men.

You are not defining any of your terms, merely trotting out truisms, none of which bear up to analysis. And then, rather than addressing the arguments that I make, indulging in ad hominem attacks.

It is a 'dialogue aux sourds'.

'And all for minimum wage'

Typical spurious argument. Where did that come from? This only applies to those living in penury. And no, merely being in the same house as one's own sleeping child, is not being 'on call' and is not 'being a night nanny'.

Given the amount of time I see devoted to MN by some posters, there is clearly plenty of spare time available.

"I am going to stop posting." Please do. wishes I could believe you

Yes I have so much spare time. In between working full time and looking after 3 teens and a child with a Dh who shares hw equally. Yes sirree time to waste.

I can assure you Larry I am not neglecting my duties in my home lest my Dh should have to issue a disciplinary notice. But then my Dh would find the whole idea of him being the master and me being the slave laughable.

The consensus on this thread seems to be that the WOHP should have zero say in this environment.

I think the actual consensus is that he can clean to his own standards and do his bit to maintain the shared environment rather than issue orders.

^'And all for minimum wage'

Typical spurious argument. Where did that come from? This only applies to those living in penury^

Well, apparently the average wage is about twice minimum wage right now, so actually, when split between the WOHP and SAHP as you advocate, that's almost exactly correct, not spurious (assuming that the WOHP and SAHP share all tasks once the WOHP is back - otherwise perhaps the SAHP should 'earn' a higher percentage as they are spending more hours 'working') - that's ignoring the 27% of the population who apparently live in poverty and therefore presumably bring home rather less than average.

And no, merely being in the same house as one's own sleeping child, is not being 'on call' and is not 'being a night nanny'

No, it's not, because it's 7 days a week, unpaid, no time off for holidays, no real ability to quit, no ability to sleep in the day to make up for it (sleep when they sleep my arse), no pension, no sick pay, no time off for good behaviour. It's done because it has to be done, and out of love, this is the major reason it's not comparable to a job.

It's absolutely being on call though. - When I'm on call for my job I'm paid, and I get called perhaps once a month, and if need be I can swap with other people. When I'm on call as a mother, I'm not paid, and the cry goes up much more frequently, and I have to do it because they are dependent children, not just servers going down.

Now I do have a partner that shares that, thank goodness, and we don't need some kind of contract to rule who gets up today, and standards regarding how sick will be cleaned up.

That's why it's not comparable to a job. Not because of the responsibilities or hours

Larry you seem to think that most, if not all, men are very kind people who always think about their partners, are always able to evaluate how hard the job they are doing is and always, I mean really ALWAYS, will share all the work involved in running a house.

Unfortunately, this is NOT the case. This is not the case because some men are just twats (and yes perhaps we shouldn't have married them but they are also usually quite good at hidding their twatiness).
But most of the time, they are acting like twats because they have been taught as children and then teens and then young adults that 'this is what a woman does and this is what a man does'. And a man doesn't do HW, he helps (and then needs BIG round of applause for it). He doesn't look after the dcs either, he is babysitting because he is very kind to give his dw a break. Oh and he has the RIGHT to evaluate her job, criticise her ( have a disciplinary procedure against her) because her HW isn't up top standards (Well I hope that this is just you)....

It's not about me or any woman having all the power to 'make men do what they want them to do' it's about women regaining the power that have been taken from them. So no, things aren't always done as per the men's will. And yes when said man doen't want to listen, well... they are 'made' to listen. Or we could just leave you. Because these are no little problems. This is about respect for the other human being living in your house.

It's about 'educating' men because unfortunately, they have been taught that men and women aren't equal. Men do xxx whilst womern do yyyy and asking a men to do yyyy is just beneath them.
When we, as a society, will stop to teach children that boys and girls are different, that men and women are different and have different ablities, the women will not need to 'educate' their DH about equality and sharing domestic tasks anymore. Until then, slowly, we can only do the 'teaching' one person at a time. With our DH, with our ds, with our dd.

And what Apocalypse and CHunky said.

Last comment about comparing work and being a parent.

If you do that comparaison, you can't make it with a full time job, employed in a company.
But if you really want to, you might want to compare it with two selfemployed people having a join venture together. There are no boss and one person can NOT tell the other one off, slagg them for not doing the job right (Otherwise, it is clear that said joint venture isn't going to last. That's the MAIN issue with your 'but the WOHP should be able to comment about the state of the house'). What you would see is one person wondering why xxx hasn't been done, a discussion about why and then that person proposing to help the other, maybe to look at another way to distribute the jobs as clearly one has more to do than the other. They would look at the abilities of each person as well as their standards. ie both can do a presentation but one likes to have 'everything perfecft' therefore he is the one to do said presentation. On the other side, the other person is very keen on customer relationship and is doing well with it so he is the one focusing on that.
The same should be the case in a relationship. It's a joint venture. There are NO boss to tell the other one off. One might step up when the other one is struggling (That's called helping each other). They might share tasks according to their likes and also share the ones that no one likes so that they both contribute to that too. If one partner doesn't know how to do xxx, the the other can teach them. From giving a bath to the baby, getting up in the middle of the night and settling them down to doing some DIY or changing the oil in the car.

oh larry, please don't make promises you have no intention of keeping

Has he stopped posting yet?

That was tiresome.

I'm going back to my demanding job.

Typical spurious argument. Where did that come from?

From the typical wage bracket of the cleaner I was describing. Try reading what's posted before giving your opinion on it. It might stop you looking quute so reactionary. Might.

Ignoring Larry's bullshit, the demanding job thing us very true and very irritating.

DH and I have the same job title, same level of experience, same university etc. I work 4 days per week, he works 5. I have a 45 minute commute, he has an hour. He generally leaves work late.

He does his share of parenting but no organisation, laundry or cooking. It is annoying me a lot, particularly the organisation in that it takes up so much headspace and i just feel tired of it. With the summer holidays, I've booked activities, swapped childcare, arranged days off, even sorted out cover with his lovely parents. I've tried talking to him about it and he says he'll try and nothing ever happens.

It's too petty on its own to end my marriage over but I am losing respect for him.

Citrine I agree - the organisation itself is the thing. It's exhausting to hold so many threads in your head.

He know you think it's too petty to end the marriage over, so he can just ignore you Citrine.

Nothing changed with my DH until I threatened divorce.

But why are more men not bothered about the fact that they lose their DP's respect?

I'd hate to live with someone who I knew didn't respect me

Is it something to do with that emotional-half-life we bring boys up to expect?

They just find a sort of half-relationship acceptable?