Men whose lives are facilitated by women - how did this happen??!

[windygallows]

Now that I'm in my mid-40s I look around at my peers and am astounded that so many men my age have their lives facilitated by women: wives who don't work or who work part time who manage the household and make lunch for their DHs and do all the childcare and prop men up. It's just amazing how many men have a leg up by this support.

And they become blind to what it's like not having that support. My boss has a female PA, two female assistants, and a wife at home who looks after the household - leaving him totally supported and completely free to focus on his job. He thinks he's responsible for his success and doesn't understand why others can't mimic what he's achieved or even the time he dedicates to work.

How did we let this happen? How did we create a situation where so many middle aged men have such a leg up over women because they've been given so much support?

I've put this in Feminism because for me this is a feminist issue. If anything this situation it creates an absolute imbalance in life but also in the workplace, with men given much more freedom to dedicate to work and devoid of many domestic responsibilities that burden women.

I've also put this in Feminism because I'm trying to avoid the usual comments by women like 'We're a team' (referring to her and her DP) or comments like 'It works for us' or 'DH works hard and makes enough for both of us - should I go out to work just because you want me to.' blah blah blah I appreciate too that some women benefit from a set up where a DP/DH is 'looking after you' when you then facilitate/prop up his life in return, but I'm not quite sure it's really helping anyone in the grand scheme of things.

For context I'm in my mid40s, single with 2DCs and work FT and definitely frustrated when I see the advantages that 'facilitated men' have in the workplace and in life.

Also, I'm sure my grandmother is loving life at the moment. No kids at home, all the time she wants to meet up with friends, read her books, relax. Sure, she does some housework, but with her old age will probably get a cleaner in soon - neither her nor her husband can bend down to clean all the crevices now.

Meanwhile her husband is still working... up before 5am every morning, home by around 5pm, bath/dinner, bed by 7pm some nights! Will be working until retirement.

He still does a lot of housework too on his days off... Although they have dishwasher, washing machine, tumblr drier, so it's not that hard!

So, I wouldn't say she's lost out on much tbh.

It's certainly true that the way in which the corporate world is structured is totally archaic, and harks back to a time when all excecs were men and they all had a wife at home. There is still the assumption that the people moving to the top rungs will be facilitated to travel/play golf/ go.on trips, but now with the added expectation of working stupidly long hours and being constantly available.
For most jobs the hours worked are totally unnecessary-it's just about being seen to be there. A few posters have mentioned how their husbands will surreptitiously try to be flexible for the kids, as long as they fly under the radar and noone at work notices!
That's why ultimately this is not our fight. Men need to be vocal and honest about wanting more flexible working (if they want it and I'm not convinced).
When my high powered female friend had her children she compressed her hours and cut them down so she could leave a bit early a couple of days a week. There was massive resistance from work but she wouldn't budge, and she was clearly too valuable for them to lose. I just don't see men doing this.
I also think the biological thing is a red herring. At 30 with a baby, I was not in a hurry to get back to work, mainly because I didn't like the idea of nursery, and there was no one I felt I could trust for childcare. So, my "instinct" was to be with my baby/ toddler, but actually if I had had another parent that wanted to share care and facilitate my return to work, I would have skipped off quite happily.

Often, women with young children will feel they don't want to be away from their kids in part because there is noone they feel comfortable leaving them with.
Things change as you age as well. There may be a period, of 4/6/8 years (depending on how many children you have ) where you do want to step back and both and stay home, but our working lives are 45 odd years long! There's really no actual good reason that a woman who takes 2 years out should end up on the mummy track for the rest of her career!
There was another thread a while back about becoming more feminist as you get older and lots of people talked about the dead end you can hit in your 40s, when women start to be seen as mumsy and safe, just as men are starting to be taken more seriously.
We are not seen as dynamic, or ambitious once we are on the other side of our childbearing years, which doesnt help, especially if we are by then firmly in the set-up of "reduced hours, doing the majority of the housework, caring for MIL etc etc".
There is actually a very small window of time in which women's earning power equals mens.

I take issue with my posts about the wealth gap being mischaracterised as "faux" concern for SAHP, given that for 6 years, I was a SAHW! I worry about it, because it's very real for me. I'm not sitting here working myself into a froth for some unknown downtrodden women I've imagined. I'm cross about it because not only does it affect millions of women, I myself have skin in the game through the choices I've made.

And actually, I find it massively inspirational to be able to name a problem, then do something about it, take matters into my own hands and try and fix it, for me and for others.

sophocles I agree.

Many of us have daughters and will in time have grad daughters.

Do we want to pass on a world where we haven't even dared name a problem let alone tried to fix it?

In fifty years time do we want the world to still be run by rich white men? Is that just okay?

I think the wealth gap is massively important and I hadn’t considered it before. I’d advise all women to marry before having kids because it can fuck your future so much if you can’t split the assets equally if the relationship breaks down - most women I know who went part time/sahm after kids didn’t do it through pure choice because they fancied it, it was a shit choice forced upon them.

If dh left tomorrow I’d be able to keep a roof but we wouldn’t be able to eat unless I got a job quickly and I would be lucky to get average wage despite my numerous qualifications and many years experience. He could carry on living in our house and doing as he pleased as having children positively effected his career.

I love my dc and I love spending time with them and I’d also love earning ££££££ in a career where I was valued and respected. I’m sure if I had both I’d be finding it incredibly difficult but I would have loved the opportunity to have at least tried.

I’m really interested and in how Nordic countries and adjacent Northern Europe manage more balance. Is it all down to state facilitation through childcare?

This is the Swedish model:

480 days of parental leave of which 390 days are at 80% of wages. (Paid by state not employer.) Remaining 90 days at approx £18 per day.

Each parent automatically gets half of these days, and one parent can later on give the other parent some of their days. However, 90 days at the higher rate is reserved and cannot gets transferred to the other parent.
This means that the dad gets 90 days he cannot pass over to the mum, and if he choose not to take them they will go to waste.

These days can be taken up until the child is 12 yo, giving you the opportunity to either keep the chid at home for two years straight, or alternatively work part time for quite a few years, with all your days off being paid for.

Cheap and flexible childcare from age 1.

There is also a better attitude towards dads chasing to take parental leave, as it is so normalised.

Sorry about all the spelling errors

I do think that we do need to speak up about how the system is broken and how it could be better. DH is a good man but he's fallen into the trap since I've been a SAHM of being frankly pretty shit at doing anything around the house at all. He's improving but honestly I don't think it does men any favours that it's considered normal for them to act like toddlers and take no responsibility for themselves in the home sphere. I actually think DH is happier and has more self respect now he's stepping up. There is another issue around standards though. I certainly don't have high standards but DH went a year without washing bedsheets in university, and never washes out his coffee cup at work. What he does for himself is up to him but I do think we'd be rubbish parents if we didn't change the kids sheets ever!

And yes, DH never speaks up in the workplace to ask for more flexibility now he has a baby. There is a definite culture of competition and that this is not the "done thing".

In the workplace - if big companies had on site creches and working mums could just go and breastfeed their babies and see them throughout the day then far more women would go back to work. It's not like this is impossible, some companies find the money for games rooms and glossy brochures, expensive advertising but not for this (and of course the employees would pay for the care). I've just turned down a part time job because the money was rubbish (considering nursery fees) and I'd have been commuting an hour plus each way, me or DH would have had to spend at least 20 mins taking baby to nursery, and I honestly think our entire family would have been more miserable and less healthy as a result. Ideally I want to go back to work but only if it's not going to result in me having a breakdown!

This is an excellent post and puts it perfectly!! My husband and I share all the housework and both work full time but I still carry more of the mental load in terms of planning and organising, it's taken me actively pushing against it and pointing it out for him to even notice it. Now he is starting to take more of that on so we can truly make equal contributions. This is where the facilitation does come in, his parents have a very traditional household set up and he had to unlearn all of that (most of which he did without my help or insistence I might add). Without this generation of parents railing against the old way it's going to be another generation at least before this balance is addressed. And until it is we can forget the idea of closing the wage gap.

BTW we don't have kids. Partly because I know that it's much harder to maintain this way of doing things when you have them, and I don't want to be pushed into that role. Does anywhere get the childcare/parental leave thing right in a way that truly helps? I've heard good things about Scandinavia.

Indominus yes, we need to push back now so our daughters get a better deal. Luckily DH thinks his Dad is a total slob and man-child and has little respect for him as he does nothing around the house or in terms of mental load. He feels aggrieved on behalf of his Mum so at least in theory he "gets" it.

Older DD loves the baby but will not help with nappy changes. So I said, "do you think you'll have a baby one day?". She said "yes, but I'm going to make my husband change all the nappies and I'll go out to work" so I said "do you think that's fair?". She admitted that maybe it was not. DH does change nappies (before anyone asks!) but it's interesting this is her perception (that going ou to work is the better deal) given I've been a SAHM.

Need to talk about this some more and introduce her more to feminism! I don't exactly regret being a SAHM - we lived abroad for many years and me being a SAHM was part of making that happen - but I do think the current system meant that this was the best choice for our DDs and this is what I'd like to see change (I'd love my utopia of on site creches in the workplace).

Sorry indominus cross post. When I said "our daughters" I meant the next generation of women rather than actual daughters (though I have two of those!)

tsunami I’m in Sweden - the system is great in many ways.

It’s also not great in others. Our daycare was allocated to us with no choice and we spend two hours a day driving there and back. The queues to get into anything nearer us are at least 18m long. The daycare shuts at 5 and so one of us has to leave at 4:30 at the latest every day - our jobs often demand we are in meetings late (dh until 10pm last night) and this inflexibility puts huge strain on us. We have no family here to help out and right now it feels like all we do is work and drive to bloody daycare and back.

The Swedish system is fine if you work for a Swedish company. If you work for a multinational they dont give a fuck about culture or employment practices or laws here but you have no option of more flexible childcare like in the uk.
I was demoted coming back from mat leave and I’ve seen women fired for asking to go 80% which is their right by law

Sweden is better in many ways - it’s not utopia though

My guess would be that it's not a level playing field eh?

Hollow laugh.

I realised my disadvantage when doing my PhD and at a social event at my college, another candidate mentioned that his wife did his footnotes for him. Cheating, basically.

ANd the disadvantage continues in leaps and bounds as one goes up the career ladder. Sometimes I really wish I had a wife to mop up after me. But then I think I actually despise men who rely on some like that; they're not proper adults. I'd rather be independent.

Op, I'm a feminist, do not disagreeing with you for something to do. But my life feels quite facilitated by my make partner.
He earns a lot more than me, pays all the bills.
I get to have lots of space, which I thrive on, work a little, which I love. I'm not ambitious, some might say lazy. The kids are quite self sufficient.
I'm sure I'm not the only one in this set up.

Cupoftea I like the sound of your daughter! You're clearly doing a great job with them.

It's all about choices isn't it - or lack of? My feeling is that the way society is going both men and women are getting fewer and fewer good choices, particularly once they become parents.

There are too many people working themselves into the ground, hardly seeing their own kids, with their mental and physical health suffering for far too little pay. While the top 1% get richer.

I do hate how feminism is painted often as a war between men and women. I really think both partners working part-time with on-site childcare would benefit BOTH parents. More Dads would get to really bond with their kids, women wouldn't have to make a choice between seeing their children grow up and financial security. Plus, with on-site childcare and Dads doing more, fewer women would feel guilty about leaving their children while they work, freeing up mental headspace to be creative and HAPPY! I know lots of parents who - however they sort out childcare and work - really just aren't happy about the choices they've had to make and feel guilty as if their kids are somehow missing out.

If DH felt he could work part-time and me work part-time without losing out in his career and/or the kids suffering, he'd totally go for it I think. He loves spending time with his kids plus he hates feeling that if he lost his job we'd be stuffed financially - all the weight of financially providing is on his shoulders.

"I do hate how feminism is painted often as a war between men and women. I really think both partners working part-time with on-site childcare would benefit BOTH parents"

It's only anti feminists who paint it S a war. Feminists agree with the second part of your paragraph- that feminism benefits women and men.

Ohyesiam I agree- sounds like my life.

I feel my OH has the short straw.

Maybe some women put up with facilitating the lives of men because in the end they get more than if they didn't facilitate men's lives. I see this a lot. And while it's a trade off it does mean we continue to perpetuate a culture where men hold the power. And nothing changes for the next generation.

I am an excellent example of exactly not what to do. I'm 50 and working full time now (till I drop I fully expect) but didn't work for about 15 years when I had my 3 kids.

Guess what happened?

He fucked off with someone else who had 4 kids. Leaving me with very little earning capacity, practically no pension, no financial security whatsoever. Meanwhile he is earning a handsome salary, supporting another man's family and not his own young adult/teenage kids at all.

Isn't life grand? Someone should have kicked me up the arse years and years ago, team or no fucking team. I walked blindly into this and have no one but myself to blame.

This is a brilliant thread, thanks so much for starting it. I really see it where I work, and even more so in my previous job - older men who've always had the support at home and just don't see how much difference it makes.

I do think it's infantilising, though. DH works part-time around school-aged DD, and I work FT. DH does all the laundry, all the day-to-day cooking and shopping in the week and all the homework and ferrying to parties and clubs. When I'm there, though, I unquestionably do more at home than the average man with a part-time or SAHM wife. But part of that is that I'm an adult who lives in the house, and it's not DH's job to pick up after me, and another part is that I want to spend time with my daughter. I simply can't replicate the sense of entitlement that lets men swan off and do time-consuming hobbies as well as time-consuming jobs, and I don't think I'd like the person I would be if I could.

Mostinept, you have noobe to blame but your husband

Please deon't blame yourself.

Were you married? You should be entitled to some of his money (your "team money") and pension etc.

Thanks slim, I appreciate your support but I really was to blame for being so passive and naive. This happened a few years ago and yes we were married 20 years so I did get some money for a while. But the future is bleak financially. I won't get any of his pension. I'll get whatever I can cobble together from my remaining working years.