The work women do

[MoonriseKingdom]

english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/

Apologies if this has been posted before. I saw this on Facebook this morning and it sums up everything I struggle to articulate to my DH. He really does want to be helpful/ do his fair share and I love him but it is the taking of overall responsibility for the thinking in our house that I find exhausting.

This is exactly why I will never live with another man again..

My exH did a lot of the things mentioned - apparently my standards were too high, I'd have to repeatedly ask him to do stuff, he only ever did half a job of anything.

Then the twat had an affair & blamed me for it! I was selfish, I was fiery etc......

I love living on my own with my kids. It's tough sometimes - but infinitely preferable to sharing a house with a man who thought it was acceptable to leave his dirty pants on the kitchen/living room floor....oh, & he was only thinking of me when he did that as he didn't want to disturb me in bed by putting them in the laundry basket in the bedroom (there was one in the bathroom too). Yep, he was so selfless & I was evidently a total harridan

I discussed this with DH last night - he is in a business partnership with two others who make him take up the 'mental load' of the business, and it's driving him crazy, he comes home daily ranting about it so it was a good opener and he wanted sex so was Mr agreeable

We split responsibilities at home as we have a large crumbling house and he does the outdoor stuff, and tbh I never ask him if the gutters need clearing and he has no idea what size shoes the dc wear...

However despite not being an arsehole he has frequently expressed that I have it easier as I only 'work' 18hrs a week and he just doesn't see the domestic mental load at all. When my work is in the evening, I have to prep the meal, leave a written list, set out the dcs pjs etc. He has never once had to give thought to being home on time to pick up the dcs.
I am finding ways to drop Mental Load into the conversation at every opportunity until he gets the bloody hint!

Marking my place. Totally agree.

Just read the whole cartoon with interest.. have never experienced this at all, having been a single mum, with no contact/input from DD's father, since I was pregnant. I read it thinking well, I do 100% of that stuff anyway.. but on the other hand, there isn't another child adult in the house creating mess where I've cleared up which I think would drink me insane.. and I don't have to devote any mental energy to the when at hoe either.

The first few years of balancing a full-time job, childcare and house/garden care alone were really f*cking hard.. and yet I'm quite confident by now that if I have another, I'd prefer to go to a clinic and do it alone (by choice this time) rather than put up with some of the stuff in that cartoon. Just doesn't appeal.

That's interesting champagne. I certainly won't claim to have it harder than a single parent. Particularly not those with difficult exes that let the children down. I would say I generally have a happy relationship and we are stronger as a team. I guess this cartoon resonated because it is the one issue that makes me occasionally daydream about how things would be if I was bringing the children up on my own. When friends complain about their partners it mostly seems to be on this theme. There are sometimes women who post on Mumsnet whose partners really do fuck all while creating lots of extra work and telling the poor woman she has it easy. I do think to myself they might have it easier alone. I imagine this is the type of man that is then baffled when his partner eventually leaves him.

of course if you have to do it alone, you do it alone. But if there is another, adult and fully capable person in the household, and you still have to do it all alone?

Like the putting clothes ready mentioned earlier. Because otherwise a dad, an adult who I assume can dress himself, would call and ask what he should put on children. For fuck's sake - clothes. Look outside - if it's winter, then it's winter clothes. If summer, then lighter clothes. if bedtime, then PJs. Really not rocket science.

I think I should add, as well as my dh taking on more of the household organising and the mental effort of being responsibile for that he is also emotionally supportive. I think that's the big difference, I feel we are in this together. I don't feel alone. I think it's men who are willing to do the emotional work of relationships are the ones who step up in the mental tasks of 'wife work'. I'm not saying this has allways been 100% but I allways read these type of articles and know that's not my experience with him. It's not arguing over whose job is what it's having him see and appreciate the unpaid labour I do with our children.

I have a husband who I would say does a good amount but yes he often has to be asked, somehow he manages to find half an hour to sit down with a book in the evening while I am mending or ironing and he NEVER wipes the work surfaces. I am also guilty of thanking him for washing up/running the hoover round!!! And he wonders why I haven't paid for the toddler's class when he takes DC to it and has the invoice sent to him!

So, how to share the project management aspect. Do you split tasks down the middle and not worry about those that aren't yours? Do you have charts and calendars and project plans?

Brilliant article. Thanks for linking.

Yes, this is bringing back memories. ExH was a feminist (apparently ), but in his lingo doing the washing up was 'cleaning the kitchen'.

No, cleaning the kitchen is doing the washing up, cleaning the sink, wiping down the cupboard fronts, disinfecting surfaces, sweeping and washing the floor, emptying and disinfecting the bin, clearing out and wiping down the fridge, and so on...

Makes my blood boil.

It was manageable until we had a child - then the inequality really hit home.
We earn the same, both work, hold equal financial and career status yet I'm the default housekeeper/nanny (because I want dd to have clean clothes for school etc).

We're starting to drift apart - I'm not interested in listening to the work woes of my 'employer'. I'll socialise with my friends rather than my 'employer'. I'll go out with friends when his family visit and leave him to work out logistics of meals etc. Eventually the penny will drop.

He needs to behave like a partner and stop treating me like a sub-ordinate if he wants a partner in return. It will all come to head eventually but bring it on I say.

A man on another message board thought it was appropriate to post this article as a response, to show us women how easy it is to solve this issue.
www.babycenter.com/0_ending-the-chore-wars-how-to-get-your-mate-to-help-on-the-ho_1425647.bc

Way to spectacularly miss the point..

Blimey, Katerina, just read the article you linked to. And I thought I was angry before!

'Nine ways to get your partner to do his fair share'

Here you go ladies:

Instead of quietly stewing with resentment or complaining to your girlfriends, tell your partner you need more help keeping your place (relatively) clean. Be firm, but resist nagging. "Nagging isn't very assertive – it's humiliating to the person doing the nagging and annoying to the person being nagged," says Coleman.

Coleman suggests a friendly approach: Tell your partner that you've been feeling overwhelmed and that you really need and appreciate his help. Start by creating a short to-do list for him, suggests Coleman, and pick the tasks that have been bugging you the most. You might specify jobs such as cleaning up after dinner, making the bed on the weekends, and being solely responsible for the baby at least one weekend morning so you can sleep in.

Well that's fine then.

If you can't stomach reading all the way to the end, point 9 is a thinly-veiled suggestion to trade sex for domestic labour.

It's the fucking asking that's the problem!

As well as all the planning and scheduling and remembering, there's the emotional labour involved in having to flatter and molly-coddle him into getting off his arse. Ego-stroking can be more exhausting and demoralising than just picking up the shit yourself.

Girly I first thought I was reading about how to get your toddlers to help out more. You know, make chores fun! Show them how to dust, and they can help you with preparing veggies. Don't forget to give them a star for their sticker chart if they behave.

Oh, 'choose chores he'll want to do' - um, and who excatly is supposed to do the rest? I don't particularly want to scrub the toilets either.

Christ alive, that article!

How could a man read that and not cringe himself inside out at the prospect being treated like a sulky toddler that has to be coaxed, coddled and chivvied into doing stuff? Aw, wook at the bwave widdle man wiv his hoover, being a good boy for mummy!

I think chores are relatively evenly split in our house because DP cooks and I do cleaning, laundry etc (no children yet to complicate matters). However recently I was very ill and ended up in hospital for a couple of days. At some point I came home, still not really able to move much from bed, and DP says "Oh I did the washing for you". It wasn't until I was running out of clean clothes a few days later that I realised that the washing he so kindly did "for me" was in fact only his pants, socks, gym and work clothes. We're now doing our own washing.

Practically, chores, childcare and paid work are split equally in my (feminist utopia!) household. Friends often tell me how lucky I am.

However, I still end up doing the thinking, planning, organising.

DH takes the kids to after school activities but I got their names on waiting lists, filled in forms, paid for it.
He does his share of childcare drop offs and pick ups but I read the ofsted reports, visited settings, pay fees. I recruit, manage and pay au pairs and babysitters.
I plan holidays, buy clothes, make dentist appointments, get feet measured.
DH cooks and cleans the kitchen (probably better than me) but I meal plan, do the online shop, check what we've run out of.
I "do" Christmas and birthdays.

It's not just the doing, its the being responsible for thinking about the doing.

Ssociety deems women "lucky" to have an equal partnership, rather than shaming the men who don't step up to the plate

I totally agree Moonface, I'll never live with another man again either they are all un housetrained big toddlers.
I have better things to do than be a man's unpaid skivvy.
The only man I know who is wonderful and does cooking, cleaning, ironing, working, caring for pets and is super easy to live with is my own adult son and his girlfriend totally agrees with me.
I brought him up alone and he was doing all this stuff at 13 as I worked full time.
He is a joy to be with. He says most men are like that becasue their own parents brought them up to be lazy mini gods.

Indeed.

I'm 'lucky' (apparently), because DP is 'good'. He is ruthlessly tidy and cleans the kitchen down every night, does most of the laundry, cooks a bit less than half the time and does all the nursery drops and pick ups and paperwork and nursery bags. I go away for work a lot and don't feel the need to leave a list of instructions or dinners. We used shared parental leave. I have the 'big' job.

But, BUT:

He has never organised a holiday in 13 years. Ditto Christmas, childrens' shoes and clothes, doctors appointments and vaccinations, catsitters, thinking about clubs and activities. He doesn't really clean- we usually have a cleaner for a couple of hours a week and he thinks that nothing else needs to be done (and who found and paid for the cleaner?).

Ours are small but DC1 was recently invited to a birthday party by another child at nursery. He brought the invite home and it has sat under the coffee table for WEEKS before I caved and RSVPed the parent. I hardly ever go to nursery and have no idea who she is. He knows her.

The thing my brain is busy with is what I think is the strategic work of the household- short, medium and long term- we've got people coming at the weekend, will we have enough clean towels, when do we wash them? Thinking about not just whether there is food in for dinner, but what will we eat over the week/month, how do we make sure it's balanced? DC1 is starting school next year, when are the open days, who will book and organise them, who will do the forms? When does the insurance need renewing, do we need to change utility company, what one-off cleaning (like the oven or inside kitchen drawers) should be done so we don't drown in a pool of our own filth?

And the thing that makes me so cross is, as someone up thread said, this is invisible work- and so he thinks I do a lot less than him (I am messy though...). I don't enjoy shopping for kids' clothes, it's not leisure time. But you do it on your phone or on the train or whatever, and the new trousers come, and go in the drawer, and nothing is said or noticed.

My mother warned me about this shit, and I swore blind I wouldn't do it. She laughed.

We will only have true equality when men will also be saying things like 'Well, she didn't do much with kids when they were babies, but now they are more fun, I can leave the DC with their mother for several hours! I'm so lucky'. Or how about 'Oh she's so good, sometimes helps me with the laundry'.

I've sent this to a friend whose husband is one of the worst offenders in this after she told me about a row they had where he claimed that she's never at home. Well that would be because she works 3 days a week, they have 3 children who do a variety of different activities after school and he has no responsibility for getting them to and from those activities, and one of their children has a serious medical condition which means weekly medical appointments and monthly hospital appointments in London. Which he has totally refused to engage with. He also believes in the pant fairy. I have rarely been so glad to be single.

Ex p once phoned me at work to rant at me that the bed needed changing and he needed clean shirts to go out in. He was AT HOME when he rang me, on two weeks' leave. He'd also leave me notes that the dog had done a poo in the yard & it needed cleaning up, that the house needed dusting etc.

I sent the cartoon to DH today. I didn't say a word about it as we've been having lots of discussions about this lately and I didn't feel he understood my point of view. He is a very nice man, who will do anything I ask, but would never, ever think of doing even half the jobs I have flying round my brain. I came home from a KiT day today and everything was tidy downstairs, he'd tried and failed because he couldn't work the washer to put a wash on but yes, had generally made an effort. And I'm still really fucked off that he didn't sit down with me and say yes, I get it, I'll take over x,y and z. I just feel like he'll do obvious jobs for a bit then revert to previous and I'll be even more fucked off! Baby steps I suppose but urgh.