Men whose lives are facilitated by women Part 2

[OlennasWimple]

Continuation of the other thread that got filled up

Yes on posts on the fib that is 'part time' paid work. It's a con.
I've admired Michelle Obama for many things, but one was sacrificing a pretty high powered legal career for Barack. Not fair though, or right.

Totally agree that part time work is nearly always a con, unless you're lucky. I started out in private practice and the place was full of women doing 100% of a workload on 80% of the pay and being expected to be grateful for it, while their careers went nowhere because a part-timer couldn't possibly be committed. It may have got better since I left but I doubt it.

That has never even remotely been my experience of part time work. It has however been DHs, Make of that what you will!

This is a fantastic and very educational thread. In the past I've been guilty of leaping from the personal (no direct experience of sexism in my career) to the general (everything is changing for the better) but having a baby has really opened my eyes wide. I was always aware of the difficulty of juggling home and work after having a baby - and delayed ttc till my late 30s so I could build my career etc, blithely imagining that I'd just go back full time. But of course, it's not that simple.

Now he's here, neither DH nor I want to put our beloved son in full time wrap around childcare But where we live now, part time work barely exists in his or my type of job and full time would entail a nanny-style set up where we are paying someone else to spend more of his waking hours with our son than we can! We are planning to move but even then I will still probably need to go back full time at least to begin with and use daycare. Or else SAH but I really don't want to. I'm at home with him at the moment as he's only 7 months and while I've enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, I would happily do 3 days a week at work now if I could. Even better if both of us could do 3 days a week part time, that would be ideal. Because my poor DH really misses the baby at the same time that I love being with him but also wish I got a break and adult conversation more often. But of course, the ideal doesn't exist and now I see how the structure of our society penalises parents in general and women in particular for having kids.

And even these two years of pregnancy/ maternity, I can see how my earning potential could fall behind DH (despite previously being very equal). He's now keen to go for a promotion whereas I will have to make a sideways move to get back in. If he gets it, his salary will be larger and so I can just see how the argument could go that he has to go to this meeting or that conference, and my share of childcare duties grows. I feel like a frog in the pan who hopes to leap out but may discover the sides are higher and steeper than she thought ...

And I should add that I have a great DH who acknowledges all my hours of looking after DS as work, and splits all chores etc equally when he is home. Cooks dinner, washes up, changes, plays with, puts baby to bed when it's his turn. Does night wakings one night at the weekend so I can rest, and in the week if I'm struggling. And we have a cleaner so no bathroom/ kitchen/ bins/ laundry for me to worry about. But still, I worry I will end up facilitating him to have his career move on relatively unimpeded by kids ... or else we hold him back for parity and other facilitated men get the jobs he could do if it weren't for me also working. And that's with us being comfortably off and very equitable in mindset: I now see how for a great many women it is much, much harder to avoid the facilitation trap (assuming they want to, of course).

It’s certainly been my experience of part time. I allegedly do 80%. Actually I am currently doing three peoples jobs because two people have got so pissed off with the company they have left. Well over 100%, although not the 60+ hour weeks I used to do so I should be grateful, right?

My experience of part-time was either to do full-time hours / workload and get paid part-time, or be very boundaried about hours / workload and pay the price in terms of poor assessments (not delivering enough, not flexible enough etc). I now jobshare, which is much better (though I still work well over my paid hours).

It's my experience of P/T too.

Are you all doing 80% by any chance? DH is. I am not and never have.

Yes I do 80%. To do 100% would have made it physically impossible for me to use the state daycare we were allocated as it shuts at 5 and it’s miles away (no choice here unfortunately, the People’s Republic Of Sweden allocates you daycare and that’s that. If it’s in the same county as you you have to take it. It’s a big county. We are in the queue to move to closer but that queue is two years plus.)

My life is basically driving to bloody daycare over ice and working. I’m so profoundly exhausted I could lay down and die

I was doing 0.5 at the time.

DP and I both do 80%. I was promoted not long after mat leave & the new job was designed to fit into my part-time hours. The main problem is that if I want to move, it'll be hard to find that again, so I'd probably end up full time again for a while and DP would have to do more for that time/use more after school club time. His workplace is almost all male, and pretty 1950s in attitudes, mine is more modern.

Basically, the only way that we seem to get to close to 50:50 is to aim for somewhere between 75:25 - 60:40 (i.e. aiming for DP to do the bulk of visible work) and then after Patriarchy puts its big fat hairy thumb on the scale it ends up somewhere near even, instead of the bulk of the weight being on my side.

So DP is default parent for sick days, school calls, homework, packed lunches, etc. That way avoids other people sneaking extra work onto the mummy side. And then we can sort stuff out relatively evenly between ourselves.

My life is basically driving to bloody daycare over ice and working. I’m so profoundly exhausted I could lay down and die

Anatidae that sounds really tough.

Thanks cuppa it’s been a very stressful day today. After ‘lunch’ (during which I ran round and did the housework) I sat down and had a bit of a cry. Very unlike me.

And that’s just with one. I wonder how I would manage with two. I suppose the same way as with one - failure is not an option and you just plough through.

Women plough through. Men say - I’m at my limits, someone else do it!

This essay is nearly 50 years’ old. What’s changed? Nothing much
www.the-pool.com/news-views/opinion/2017/47/Daisy-Buchanan-on-I-want-a-Wife-Judy-Brady

I had to come back and share, having read this tread at the weekend, on Sunday dh and I had a steaming row discussion about this week and I was perhaps more forceful and less accomadating than I might otherwise have been, tasks were distributed pretty much 50:50 abiet with my still taking the mental load. This evening I suddenly realised how much less stressed I felt than usual, how I was feeling like I was coping better. I tried to work out what it was ( more sleep ? Less booze?) then it hit me I haven't been pulling anyone on my sleigh this week. I honestly can't believe the difference it has made.

Anatidae, that sounds tough, lovely.

I am in absolute awe of how strong the women on this thread are. You have everything, EVERYTHING thrown at you, and you don't break. You should be so proud of yourselves. As proud as a mediocre man would be

I thought of this thread today. I was invited to lunch with a very big cheese at the large financial institution who currently own my soul as part of his diversity agenda, meeting-the-minions sort of outreach event. We were talking about work-life balance and he said how hard he found it to be present in his children's lives. Not to worry though, he swiftly followed, as his wife was able to cover for him, as she didn't work.

LIKE SHE HAD A FUCKING CHOICE, I thought. I hope my poker face was up to it. But yeah, another facilitated man, at the top of his game with a team behind him. I hope his wife is happy, and that she feels its worked for her. It's obviously worked well for him.

LIKE SHE HAD A FUCKING CHOICE, I thought. I hope my poker face was up to it. But yeah, another facilitated man, at the top of his game with a team behind him. I hope his wife is happy, and that she feels its worked for her. It's obviously worked well for him.

I know in some of these situations the woman is the victim but in some it really isn't. I know women that have never wanted to work, and married very early and immediately got pregnant. My cousins have never had/wanted careers and are really happy like that - all they want is to be at home. One sends her kids to nursery, has a cleaner and dogwalker and still doesn't work.

I've seen people say in threads that other women have said to them "you're so unfortunate you're forced to go to work" etc, while the husbands don't get any time with their kids.

In these cases it is quite clearly the men facilitating and paying for the woman's lifestyle.

Obviously it hasn't worked that well as he wishes he could see his kids more, but obviously feels he needs to support them and climb the career ladder to do that on 1 salary. Now is too high up in his job to be able to leave at 5.

We have a guy at work like that - wife is a SAHM, he's had about 10 projects piled on him and can't really say no. He works up to 70 hours a week and every project goes to shambles when he's not around, and his wife is always ringing him asking when he's home. Are any of them happy in that situation - I doubt it, because it's shit. Bit naive to say only women suffer in these scenarios.

And loads of people would choose not to work if they could! What an ideal society if everyone "desperately" wanted to go out to work and only their partner was holding them back and not giving them a choice.

That's why we have benefit cheats etc

And loads of people would choose not to work if they could!

Well yes. But. There’s a big difference between Betty, lotto winner, happily not working from a yacht in Tahiti, being fed cocktails by a delightful young gentlemen and dripping in diamonds and black pearls, and Betty, not working, depressed and frustrated in a semi in Barnsley, wondering why she bothered to get a PhD in astrophysics because she’s not worked since having the twins, while bob saunters in at seven and complains the kitchen is a mess.

You're missing my point, yolo. My point was my utter lack of surprise that a man in a very senior position, who was addressing a group who were brought together on a diversity agenda, was in fact completely facilitated. He benefits from a lack of diversity and female opportunity in both his work and his home life. That was my point. I've no insight at all into whether his wife is happy or not - she may be delirious with joy, who knows? But how freely was her choice made? And how often would I get to meet a woman who'd had the opportunities that this guy had?

Well then she needs to tell Bob that they need to start looking for nurseries or he can go part time or quit, because she wants to work.

People need to discuss these things with their partners (and workplaces) before they have kids so there are no nasty surprises. Moaning online about the "mental load" or a chauvinist DH won't change them, whereas a serious discussion with the partner (or a better partner) could solve these problems.

Or move to a country that subsidises childcare so you don't get the ridiculous situation in this country where childcare for 2 costs more than the average salary.

Obviously when you get the situation that childcare is astronomically expensive and women get paid lower than men, together with cultural norms, you will get a lot of SAHMs. Some forced out of work into domestic slavery but some who do take advantage of the situation because they don't want to work, didn't like their job etc.

Men hardly have a choice in these cases - if he earns well and his wife is on 20k then he can hardly be a SAHD while she works full time. And if he earns for the family, I guess he sees his role in the household "done".

This is why we need free childcare! And equal wages obvs. Maybe an ad campaign for SAHDs - loads of guys at my work say they would do it.

yolo that’s because they think it’s going to be a doss. Maybe it would be if they did it. Kids in front of CBeebies eating ready meals and house a tip.

I have never remotely wanted my husband to stay at home as I suspect the above would occur!

*Maybe it would be if they did it. Kids in front of CBeebies eating ready meals and house a tip.

I have never remotely wanted my husband to stay at home as I suspect the above would occur!*

Well that's also pretty stereotypical.....