Men who don't/won't do housework - is anyone to blame?

[Thurlow]

I'm hoping I can explain this clearly!

We all know there are threads beyond count about men who don't pull their weight on the housework front, or who expect their wife/partner to do it all for them, almost regardless of whether or not the woman is working or a SAHP.

Sometimes on these threads posters say "you shouldn't let him get away with it" and similar comments which often gets called out as victim blaming which, really, it is in that specific situation. But it did get me thinking.

Surely there has to be a reason why so many men don't feel as if housework and household admin and even childcare is their responsibility and that it is still absolutely fine, in 2015 Britain, to expect the woman in the house to do it all. Is someone at heart to blame for it? (Apologies for the use of the word 'blame' as I suspect this is a lot stronger than I mean, but I can't think of quite the right word).

Is it the parents who raised the boy in the 1970s, 1980s, even 1990s who is responsible because they somehow taught him, deliberately or subconsciously, that women do all the work?

Is it, very occasionally, a woman's fault for not putting their foot down early enough in a relationship? But then surely there has to be a reason why they feel they can't do that - is it their parents who are responsible for raising them to feel they can't put their foot down? Is it back to the parents who maybe taught (again, deliberately or subconsciously) a girl she had to do everything, or taught a boy that he could ride roughshod over a woman's complaints and continue to insist she did everything?

Or is it just such an ingrained societal response that teaches girls as they grow up to do housework and not be confrontational, and boys that they don't need to do as much?

I don't quite like the last thought - so many men now do do their equal share of housework, cooking and parenting that simply saying "because society" or "because patriarchy" seems far too simplistic.

I hope I've managed to phrase that well. I definitely don't want to suggest in anyway that it is simple the woman's fault and she ought to put her foot down. But it makes me curious (and frustrates me a lot) that there still seems to be this ingrained inequality that both many men continue with, and many women feel they have to come to somewhere like MN and ask if they are U to expect their OH to do more around the house.

*Taking care of cars and mowing lawns doesn't require mental engagement.

Meal planning does.*

I'm surprised at the first comment - if you're talking washing only, maybe.
The second - meal planning is as simple or complicated as you want to make it.
People really do skew their comparisons to fit their argument.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21443166

Ready meal consumption has rocketed in the UK. Little to no effort in that. Maybe the UK is an outlier, but this is increasingly how families are fed here at least. So this is reducing cooking workload within families. And I cook, and shop, and I know exactly how much effort and brain power is required. It is minimal.

It doesn't matter how much brainpower it takes. The point is that it has to be done. Every day. And it is usually women who do it.

Whereas the lawn could wait til tomorrow. So could painting the skirting boards.

I don't think I've been in a relationship where I haven't done most of the cooking, mainly because I like cooking. When my son was weaning I made all his meals too as I couldn't face giving him the store bought stuff.

I still need to acquire the ability to make things like Sunday roasts last several meals into the week like my mother used to do. clever and inventive stuff...

Good. Now check with all your friends.

I think social expectations haven't changed as fast as roles. It's interesting to see what happens when the woman doesn't do housework - when I grew up my mother was disabled and couldn't do much, with the result that my dad did a lot by the standards of the 70s, I was instructed how to do things and made to do them, and my mother overstretched herself trying do do what was left. We had an unreliable cleaner for a while who was known as the town drunk - not sure whether my parents couldn't afford anyone better or didn't feel right as working -class people hiring someone to clean.
DP's mother struggled for similar reasons, with a bunch of wayward children, and couldn't be bothered and read books instead. Locals did not approve.

DP ended up living alone for 10 years before I met him and at some point decided he wanted his place nice (mostly to increase his chances of a shag!), so I've held him to that. All very equal until my arms stopped working and we got a cleaner, who turned out to be more efficient at cleaning than either of us so we've kept her. DP has continued to do his share and works part-time to enable this (when he was asked what he thought of new fatherhood, he said "it involves a lot of laundry" - the NCT teacher pointed out that I'd be feeding the baby and ooften getting it to sleep, so it would be his role to provide backgrpund support and ensure laundry was done).
House is still grubby and untidy a lot of the time and I feel nervous about letting other mums from school in as I know I'm the one who gets judged, partly because I'm there.
DP's career has suffered, too. Sadly it's still the case that employment is focused round a wage-earner plus a homemaker, and two highly-skilled part-timers even 3 or 4 days a week struggle to match what one of them could if they gave up all housekeeping and childcare work. Can see why so many go for it.

I'm not denying there aren't dinosaurs out there who will not pull their weight in the domestic sphere, but trust me if they don't breed they will die out...

So it's only a few dinosaurs.......

I haven't the foggiest of precise dinosaur demographics, but I am from the school of thought no relationship is better than a bad one.

There seems to be an overwhelming pressure for women to be in relationships which I don't think helps.

the responsibility to do more housework lies with men.
there is an argument that they could be better educated to understand and accept this responsibility by those who already know what it entails and how to do it, i.e., women.

However, this won't happen, because the stakes are too high for any given woman with her man. She is fighting against a lot of ingrained beliefs that are inconsistent with his behaviour and he will resent her if she gets through - if she gets through.

male beliefs like:

I am a good guy. I take care of those I love and treat them considerately.
I am good at things. I am effortlessly better at most things than most women.
I deserve downtime. I work hard and I deserve leisure. This leisure that I deserve is absolute, not relative to anything else like whether my partner is sitting down too, or what may need to be done at home.
I am in a relationship with a woman, so the practicalities of my life should be smoothly dealt with for me by someone else, because that is what happens to adults males in relationships with women.
I definitely do half of the housework. (I even hoovered a couple of weeks ago!)

And so on. There are many such beliefs and some of them are wrong; some of them are problematic; several of them are violently contradictory of each other. Tackling this will cause pain and that will result in anger directed against the person who did the tackling (and caused the pain).

Men will use all kinds of punishments to avoid having to get all these different beliefs out, face them head on, compare them to reality and notice the problems. Including violence. Including ending relationships.

My DP does almost all the food shopping, cooking, and washing. It's one of the things I love about him. I simply would not fall in love with someone who was a selfish arse.

Why do women fall in love with men who are, in various ways, so useless? What's the evolutionary thing, that makes a man who can't cook, doesn't clean the bog, doesn't remember that kids need to see the dentist etc etc, attractive?

MrsJackAubrey This, a thousand times this.

It may astonish you to find that I'm not remotely interested in what you think, Grimarse.

HTH.

*I notice a lot of mums saying "I have taught my son's how to load the washing machine".

No mention of the actual father taking pains to pass that skill on. Could that be a subliminal factor in them not bothering very much as an adult even though they know how to do it?*

YY I totally agree with that. It's not enough for mothers to show their sons how to use the dishwasher/ washing machine. Fathers have to do it.

Why do women fall in love with men who are, in various ways, so useless?

They aren't so useless until kids come along. Remember how little housework there was when there were just 2 adults in the house and no children? We didn't realise there was hardly anything at the time, did we? In that scenario a) most men do a reasonable amount of housework, because women can leave the relationship if they don't and b) if they don't, you don't actually notice that much, because there isn't as much to do as when you have children.

What patriarchy has very successfully done, is ensured that the power and status that might otherwise attend the production of a human being, is taken from a woman and given to a man. A man is enhanced by becoming a father, a woman is diminished by becoming a mother. He gets paid more, seen as more of an adult, seen as a more committed person and worker; she gets seen as less marketable, less reliable, less committed. The power dynamic in their relationships changes dramatically as his socio-economic status has increased and her's has been smashed to pieces. The result at home? He gets to palm the shit-work off onto her, unless he is an unusually decent man.

*maudlinnamechange

I deserve downtime. I work hard and I deserve leisure. This leisure that I deserve is absolute, not relative to anything else like whether my partner is sitting down too, or what may need to be done at home.*

This is an interesting point. And one I would like to take up as my own, I just can't help thinking about other stuff though. I know if I sit down before "stuff" is done, then the "stuff" is still there waiting to be done.

My DH also has no concept of the fact that if he doesn't do something, then he is effectively giving it to me to do. I tried to explain this to him once, and he just didn't agree at all, or really understand my point. He doesn't associate his actions with me, he just wants to sit down for x amount of time, the thought goes no further.

HOW DO PEOPLE LIVE LIKE THIS? I suppose the answer is: pretty easily!

My MIL is to blame. She's a very traditional woman and would run around after her husband and sons. Even now she'll offer my dh a drink and not me and defers to him on matters about the child. In ten years he's cleaned a bathroom twice! Granted he has a busy job and I'm a sahm but two of our three kids have autism so it's not easy. We were away for two weeks and so over weekends he had five days off. In those days. He trimmed one lot of hedges, ran a Hoover around and did his ironing and apparently deserved a medal.

AskBasil yes the double whammy of kids and ML, the workload increases a lot at the same time as a woman is at home amongst it all whilst "being provided for".

I think there are a huge number of factors contributing to this. Dh and I are genuinely equal in childcare and housework. I laughed at an earlier post as I did actually ask dh if I had any clean pants this morning :o

There are a number of reasons for our equality, partly dh lived alone for a number of years so had to get on with it. Partly I was brought up in an equal household, so like others wouldn't be with a man who didnt pull his weight. However, I think one of the single most important decisions we made was for dh to take 3 months maternity leave while I went back to work when Dd was 5 months old.

Dh will openly admit that he had no idea how hard it could be looking after a child all day, day in day out until he had done it. It was a massive learning curve for him and by the time he went back to work he was genuinely engaged and committed to doing an equal share. Talking to friends I have been surprised at how differently we work together compared to them and their Dh's. I am genuinely surprised at what they will put up with sometimes.

See I'm on maternity leave and I don't think the amount of housework i do has massively increased.

I'm at home to look after the baby, not the house. I do stuff if I have time (a load of laundry, a bit of washing up etc.) but DH doesn't expect it of me.

We take it in turns to cook dinner as DS just wants boobs most evenings.

I'd say we both work equally hard, I get a good 2-3 hour rest at nap time and DH does after dinner.

msquuen why do you blame your MIL and not your FIL?

Something that drives me nuts is the endless 'funny' memes on Facebook about men being generally rubbish at home and not doing housework or competent childcare. They just make me want to scream 'why are you laughing about this???? Why aren't you angry as hell?!?!?'.

Even if the dinosaurs are dying out in the UK (debatable in itself), none of us live in a cultural bubble. The fact is that in most of the world, housework as women's work is not just implicit. It's an blatant daily reality for the majority of women in the planet.

Gender roles become more marked where there is poverty or in cultures with marked religious observance.

I've mentioned on similar threads that my DH does sod all housework, so I won't get into that again, except to say that the only reason he gets away with it is because he's not an actual slob (ie. no clothes on the floor, etc) and travels a lot / works very long hours.

He is fully British, but MIL is Iranian and let's just say there is no holding back from her about my role as her son's wife. Its like a brick wall. I've often found that women are more intransigent on this issue than the men.

I tend to do most of the housework and DP does most of the maintenance and garden work. He does most of the cooking.
We are both capable of doing either but we each find the ones we do easier.
I think couples have to cooperate and compromise.
If I was at home all day I would do all the housework and we would share anything that needs doing after he gets home.

My DP was expected to do his share of housework and chores when he was growing up and that included cooking. He had 2 sisters and a brother and there was no boys or girls roles.
To be honest, I don't think many parents make their children do anything in the house these days. However, they set examples by what they take on as their role in the house.
Even in these days of so called equality, I see mostly women doing housework even though they work full time, however, those I know, insist on doing everything and then moan about it.

That's great Strawberry but you must realise it doesn't work like that for everyone. For a start, not everyone gets a nice rest at nap time (DS1 only napped on me/in a moving car/pram for the first six months). And more importantly, a lot of men do seem to expect their wives/partners to do more once the baby comes along because 'they're at home all day'. As Jeepers says, many men simply do not appreciate how hard and time consuming looking after a small baby can be (and in consequence expect more housework to be done). My DH is fabulous now, but that's the result of doing two days a week solo childcare after I went back to work. When I was on maternity leave we did have arguments about why X, Y or Z hadn't been done. He was genuinely baffled as to my inability to sort out the junk in the cupboards in the spare room while taking care of a three month old. In a similar vein, he perceived meeting up with friends with small babies as pure leisure activity for me, rather than as the sanity saving exercise allowing me conversation with an adult human that it was!

I find those funny memes really sad, Terrified. Women laughing and joking about the men they live with being useless lazy freeloaders off their labour, is a coping strategy IMO. If women didn't joke about it, they'd fucking cry and rage at how much contempt the men they live with have for them, that they can sit there watching football while the woman they claim to love and cherish skivvies away with no free time.

Facing up to the fact that the man you love believes (without knowing he believes it) that he has the right to have more free time than you and has a god-given right to have leisure time irrespective of what needs to be done in his home, is a really tough thing for most women to do; at base, it shows a total lack of respect for another human being, that you would exploit them like that.

Of course women don't want to face it. Of course they choose denial rather than rage. I can't condemn them for their lack of anger, because the implications for their feelings about the men they live with, their relationships, their lives, if they don't choose laughter instead of tears and rage, are bleak.

I've often found that women are more intransigent on this issue than the men.

Because if they aren't, they'd have to question themselves on the way their domestic lives are / were structured.