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.

I know a lot of expat mums - I’m an expat myself. The rates of depression are staggering. Cultural isolation, language problems and barriers, loneliness and the expectation that the trailing spouse will facilitate everything.
They’re often in a higher income bracket but still, I don’t know many expat mums who are really happy with their lot. I used to joke with dh when he got promoted ‘just let me know when I can be a lady of leisure’ but the longer I live here the more I realise that it can be a gilded cage and that I want to maintain my career. Of course it’s not always bad to be a sahm, of course it can work, but it can also crush you.

And I married my husband as an equal. I do t want that to change, I don’t want to be his servant and I don’t think he wants that either. It would change the dynamic althogether

No I haven't read WifeworkOlenna but I will at some point.
I can see how being a SAHM in certain circumstances could be the more relaxing option, but think that such a polarised male/female set up contributes to a sexist model for children. And it isn't easy to change at a later point.
The fact that so many women are working AND facilitating men is just inexcusable. I can see how it can just creep up on you and a lot of what women do is so invisible.
Whoever heard of a career man juggling work and home? Or "busy working dads" for that matter?

The underlying attitude to that of course IfNot, is that men don't have children, they allow women to have children and then they accommodate them, inconvenient as that is.

Hence the pats on the back for the 'hero' dads who take their children out for the day, who 'babysit.' Because really, children are women's work and anything men do to 'help' requires a medal and, ideally, a parade.

God, I'm glad I haven't seen that ASDA advert. Sounds horrendous, and people wonder why we still need feminism?

Don't watch it if you have blood pressure problems.

What a depressing ad
Bloody creative teams and client

She should have poured his wine over his indulgent face and taken his seat at the table

mrsmuddlepies - do you go onto the Litter Tray and share your thoughts that dogs are rather better animals? Or onto Style & Beauty and complain that everyone there seems a bit fixated on clothes and make up? Or onto Craicnet and wonder why no-one is discussing Cornish issues?

I've finally reached the end of the thread! I basically agree with everything everyone has said -even those defending the present set up as it can work well for families.

It is a problem me and DH have been trying to resolve since having our DC. We're pretty equal in terms of parenting (although I do have to make sure I'm not the defult parent sometimes ).
Basically, anyone needs to be facilitated in order to have a successful career and family. We both want to keep our careers going, my DH doesn't want to be the sole money earner. The problem is that even with a lot of family help and me on slightly reduced hours we are both exhausted.

My DH does his extra parenting 'below the radar'. For example last week he snuck out of a conference in order to be home for storytime. He doesn't feel he can ask for a reduction in hours or to simply say I have children I need to be there for them sometimes. Instead he'll work from home sometimes and make up the hours late at night.

My DH is shocked that the upper management at his company are all male, (one or 2 female), white and divorced. They don't see their families anymore so can devote even more time to work, thus perpetuating the problem.

I've seen what it takes for a woman to rise to the top, either childless - so too late for that- or children in full time childcare and hardly ever seeing them. I don't think I have what it takes.

I love my children and I love doing things with them. I need to keep working for my sanity. I'm too qualified and experienced for a 'mummy track' job. My DH is doing as much as he can - no long cycle rides at the weekend. He loves spending time with his children and he's involved in their lives.

We feel things aren't right but don't know what to do.

Anatidae - that's me. I'm in a gilded cage. I can't complain, I am very fortunate to live somewhere fabulous and be a SAHM to school aged kids. But....

IME men who've climbed to the top and are divorced/never see their families force other men to do the same thing out of spite or because they are lonely and expect everybody to stay with them at work so they can feel purposeful (instead of going home to an empty flat). Sad but true. A lot of men I've known who are in high up positions don't actually work for a lot of the day - they go to plenty of pointless meetings, they sit around talking to each other and they sit in front of the computer late into the evening pretending to work. They could go home but they don't want to have to do bedtime.

What I've also found is that men in these male-dominated environments really don't like a woman coming along, especially a woman who works part time because the fact that she can get twice as much work done in half the time shows up just how lazy and pointless they are. Funnily enough, the woman who does twice the work in half the time rarely gets promoted over Lazy Dave who went for dinner with the (very lonely) MD a few times.

I've posted before about a single Dad whose children are at my children's school, he's treated like some sort of hero whereas I'm a single Mum of 4 and treated like I've made some poor decisions. It's incredibly frustrating.

I work full time and I'm constantly told how lucky I am that my children's Dad takes them for usually a couple of nights every couple of weeks. I'm also very lucky he pays for his children and that he works so hard. Why am I lucky?!

Imagine if I said I wanted 50/50, I'd be cast as a wicked Mother. The single Dad's ex wife is talked about around the school like a pantomime villain, she's in the Forces.

In a classic example of how men can't actually bear to see women facilitated, an old boss of DH's got promoted to a very senior and prestigious position, first woman ever in that position, great hoo-haa and congratulations. Then they tell her that even though every single male before her had an assistant, whoops, there's suddenly no money for that and she can't have one. Of course women don't need assistants do they? They just book flights, manage diaries, return requests etc etc with their ovaries! Can you imagine how fucking galling that was to her?? Luckily she was senior enough that she could say 'fine I'll take my millions of pounds of funding and go elsewhere.' Oh my goodness, suddenly there's money! How silly of us! Fuckers.

Oh and she hired a male assistant.

DH employs a few hundred people and he prides himself on the fact he has good terms for maternity and women going part-time. But all 7 or 8 members of the board are men in their 40s. I know at least 4 of them have SAH wives. 2 are divorced, I think. There are no men in part-time positions, as far as I know. His PAs are both female. This is just one company, but you can imagine it replicated throughout the nation!

Olennas - why do you feel sad, if you don't mind me asking?

Incidentally that boss of DH's who was promoted has a husband who works part time. She got to the top, but only with someone facilitating her.

sittingaround great post, very clearly shows how the way things are disadvantages fathers too. Such a shame your DH feels he can't ask for a reduction in hours, my DH feels that way too (in fact the requests for him to simply somehow magically fit more and more into his working week continue unabated despite having a baby).

I was at my desk, under time pressure, sitting next to my (single male senior) boss trying to get documents out before close of business not thinking about the document but "unless I leave now I won't make after school club, I will need to text friend 1 to pick up DD2, I will need to text the lift share to brownies saying I will pick up rather than take, does DD1 have her key, I won't have time to get bread for breakfast tomorrow etc etc". He will sit there thinking of the work in hand.

This is so true. Another thing which always struck me is that in every school mine have been in and in every class, I have made friends with other women and part of that friendship has been sussing out who you can pair with for mutual support etc. These women would as often be SAHMs as WOHMs. We'd build up a bank of mutual favours and reliability and support. Then I'd have to go away for work or Julie who doesn't work outside the home would go visit her parents and we'd both tell our husbands that they didn't need to worry about the school lift because we had it organised with the other. Basically we'd pay into the bank of favours and our husbands would draw out of it.

I remember an old boss saying to me once that having children is like having a bomb go off in your marriage. It is so true, especially when, despite the individual experiences of a couple of posters here who are luckily oblivious to any societal pressures or expectations, there is huge structural expectation for women to take on way way more of all aspects of childrearing than men. You would REALLY want to like your husband to survive it. Who you have children with is the most important decision of your life imo

While I'm reluctant to get into the whole 'poor men' thing I do think the way things are set up are just as bad for men as women, in the long run. Children are only young once and if they miss out on being active in their lives from the beginning then it's extremely hard to forge that relationship later on. Too many men end up disconnected, lonely, with shallow relationships because they've devoted so much time to 'getting ahead.' It's just not good for anybody.

My DH has commented that since actually taking on his share of what needs to be done he feels less stressed, happier, more connected to the children, more like he's actually living his life. The kids are far far closer to him and they don't always look to me to sort them out - they look to both of us. It's really nice.

LeCroissant - I dislike most FB memes, but the one I saw a while back with a quote by Catherine Wallace has stuck with me (and should be stuck up in the men's loos at every work place):

“Listen earnestly to anything [your children] want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”

Vashna - without wanting to turn this thread into my personal therapy (though it has been so helpful at helping me articulate some of the thoughts I've been having for a while now), I agreed with DH to be a trailing spouse for a few years when an amazing opportunity came up to springboard DH's career. We agreed that now was the time, when the kids were still young enough to go around the world without it messing up their exams etc. I was going to pursue the creative stuff I had always wanted to do, but had never found time for between work, children, house, life etc etc. But it turns out that living abroad makes all domestic stuff twice as hard, the kids need a lot more of me than either of us had anticipated, and funnily enough it's hard to be creative on demand. Even though I have more free time than ever before, I am spectacularly failing at being either a brilliant SAHM or the creative genuis I had hoped.

LeCroissant so true about divorced older upper management men. They waste so much time at work. They spend a lot of time flirting/perving over younger female staff (happened to me a lot back in the day)

What gets me is that I'm supposed to be grateful to my boss for him letting me do my job on less hours -I'm doing the same job for less pay! I'm being more efficient. I'm saving them money. It gets on my nerves.
I wouldn't swap with my DH though.

Olennss - I can imagine how being a trailing spouse must feel very isolating. Your kids don't need a "brilliant" SAHM though - they just need you! Go easy on yourself. When the time comes you'll know what you want to do next. It can take time to rediscover yourself and re-prioritise.

I know a lot of expat mums - I’m an expat myself. The rates of depression are staggering. Cultural isolation, language problems and barriers, loneliness and the expectation that the trailing spouse will facilitate everything.

This is absolutely true - I am a serial ex-pat, but through hard work and keeping a tenacious grip on contacts I've managed to maintain a freelance career (CTO for a startup right now - team spread around the globe) - DP just got a big new job and we upped sticks again (no problem) - I did the packing, liased with landlords etc. He pitched in with things like finding storage when I put my foot down, but all the actual thinking ahead, and then day to day logistics was done by me (around my job) - he's also unable to commit to being home for bedtime (his one responsibility for the children), and flies off at the drop of a hat.

He wanted me to do some consultancy for him, said that we had a nanny now, I could come and work full time with him (I do like working with him). He actually thought it would be fine, for me to sort out the kids in the morning, pack them off to school, then leave the nanny to put them to bed in the evening. He's fine with virtually never seeing the children basically, and thinks that I should be too. I told him he was mad, and I wasn't prepared to do that.

But it's the little things - expecting me to pack for him (I didn't) being down at at hotel breakfast, and I'll be sorting out the kids food and he'll just wander off leaving them alone at the table and sort himself out. I'll sit down with mine probably just as his finishing his, and he'll still ignore the kids asking for water - it's this 'Somebody else's problem' thing that just runs in his head, as if we all just get in a cupboard when he leaves the house, and don't have full and meaningful lives of our own.

And he's not a bad man compared to my sisters perfectly normal partners, he's similar to one, and significantly less sexist and selfish than another. Compared to the variety of past boyfriends, and his brothers, he's entirely normal.

Men are just selfish, and now, like the other thread, I'm trying to figure out how to raise my sons not to be that way.

Fizzy - DH will sort out the kids at the hotel breakfast fine, but not run through a thought process that goes "What time is dinner served, and how does that work for the kids? Let's check the menu to see if there is something that FoodRefuserChild will at least order. Let's book a table so we don't have to hang around or find somewhere else to go. And let's pack a book or two for the kids to read / colour while we are waiting for food". He goes "Let's go for dinner!"

Vashna - thank you

What's the other thread Elderflower ?
I agree with you though, girls are raised to think of others before themselves. So they make sacrifices 'for the sake of the kids'. Boys are raised differently.

A very timely article in the Washington Post, with over a 1000 comments BTL, many of which are men justifying their lack of domestic effort by the fact that they mow the lawn once a week.....