Men whose lives are facilitated by women Part 2

[OlennasWimple]

Continuation of the other thread that got filled up

The effect on women's health of facilitation is totally minimised. Physical and mental. Anatidae's anecdote about lying in the playpen rang so true. When the DC were little, minor illnesses used to drag on for weeks as I never had the opportunity to recover properly. DH used to catch the same bug, have a few days off work to sleep and be right back to up speed.

The effect of facilitation on MH can be even more serious, I think.

I have not felt ‘well’ since I got pregnant almost three years ago. I had HG, my joints fell apart, and then the sleep deprivation, my god I see why they use it as torture... my hair fell out and I have been sick with a variety of small but annoying things constantly. I felt like I was dinsintegrating, mentally and physically.

I feel ten years older and I look it too.

Women hold the world together, at huge mental and physical cost. For doing that they get no recognition, but instead belittled and minimised and reduced. And I for one am quite cross about it.

Anatidae, I only felt my normal self after my youngest turned three. That is ten (TEN!!) years of feeling rubbish either because pregnant, breastfeeding (just under two years with each of my three children) or sleep deprived. Pregnancy does take it out of you and so does breastfeeding, I only appreciated what toll it was taking on me AFTER I stopped. And of courses ten years of no sleep/broken sleep. It fucks me right off that some bloke had an 8 or a 10 hour working day and is so tired he can’t brush his children’s teeth or read them a story when the wife is GOING THROUGH THIS. Honestly, women without children got not the slightest clue and neither have men!

Decent men who share parenting and domestic responsibilities do have a clue, although they are in the minority IMO! And obviously don’t go through the physical stuff.

Women hold the world together, at huge mental and physical cost. For doing that they get no recognition, but instead belittled and minimised and reduced. And I for one am quite cross about it. Me too.

Of course ill health related to childbirth / pregnancy can force some women into the role of the facilitator too. I was in chronic pain for at least a year after DD1. I wasn't keen on a long commute which would likely have made the pain worse. At least being at home meant I could be upright and not sitting most of the day too.

I know several consultants/surgeons and all of them got nannies in, even when the husband/dad was at home. They did the recruiting as well.

Oh how they laughed when telling about how hopeless their husbands were and oh how they mocked secretly jealous my then husband for 'shock, horror' changing a nappy and feeding the girls.

Women hold the world together, at huge mental and physical cost. For doing that they get no recognition, but instead belittled and minimised and reduced.
This is so true, antidae.

I am new to posting on Mumsnet - will this thread (and thread 1) be saved or disappear? Does it go into classics? so many good points on this I'd like to refer back to this in the future...

I have genuinely been surprised how hard it is to manage work/ children as the kids are older. I basically wrote off the first 2 years of each child's life, career wise, for reasons stated up thread eg sleep deprivation, feeling shite, tiny beings that need you etc. Sometimes you cannot mess with biology. And husband did get up in the night. It was very tough but those days are over..

But now? Kids are older and yet its still hard work to manage kids and career... The relentlessness is fine if you know its short term- ie working intensely towards something- finals/ promotion/ big project at work etc. But every day for the next 15 years just to keep the wheels turning and head above water? Jeez.

The scales fell from my eyes this time last year. I was running myself ragged trying to get ready for Christmas, anticipate everything that needed doing, whilst holding down a very demanding role at work etc (and yes I did try and outsource stuff to my husband).

Every woman I spoke to was in the same boat, to do lists, frantically busy etc.

Every man I spoke to (who were dads) would say: "why are you stressing ? You've got Christmas around the corner. Its holidays, time to relax."

That huge discrepancy crystallised it for me.

I am more relaxed this year. But only because I gave up my job.

If you think about the number of single mums, they are ALL facilitating the fathers. There's very little real 50/50 care between separated parents in the UK, and billions of pounds of child maintenance not being paid. Those women who are raising kids with little/no input from the dads are the ultimate in facilitation.

I really do believe that literally making men pay is the only way to shift the balance. As soon as an adult becomes a parent they should be legally forced to support their child. Either they put in the time, or they pay. If a couple splits, the combined income for the household should be divided by the number of people that it needs to support, not divided between the two adults. So many countries have effective ways of making absent parents at least cough up the cash, even if they never see their kids again, but the UK is useless at it. The amounts of money involved are staggering. It is actually enough to make a notable difference to the amount of benefits paid out each year. People bang on about benefit fraud, but absent fathers are actually the biggest culprits of all. Having a child and abandoning them should be a crime.

Kickass yes, how do we get this ( If a couple splits, the combined income for the household should be divided by the number of people that it needs to support, not divided between the two adults) up the political agenda? You'd think the Tories would want this, they're supposed to be pro family values and anti benefit fraud (and really these men are comitting this if they're not paying maintenence so the state has to step in). And socially, men who abandon their kids should be called out for the shit parents they are far more.

I'd like to think that if it became the social more that men were held accountable (either by parenting or paying) then it would shift thinking so that becoming a parent meant that everyone just accepted their role and adapted to it. If ALL parents were looking at their boss as if they're crazy for suggesting Friday night drinks with the clients, then even those without kids would benefit as well.

How to get it on the political agenda? I don't know. But if you look at drink-driving, wearing a seatbelt etc, it's possible to change public opinion and behavior. Saving millions/billions of pounds every year from the benefits payout must surely be enticing to political parties - except that they might lose some voters along the way, and they don't want to risk that.

The thing that strikes me about this thread is the level of surprise that many of us felt when we had kids.

Women's contributions as facilitators are systematically belittled and minimised in society. Which means that many of us don't really know what we're letting ourselves in for when we have kids. So we don't necessarily protest about this as young women.

When we have kids, we're usually too lacking in energy and time to protest effectively.

And society routinely ignores older women (more's the pity), which means that when we come out the other side of hands-on parenting and speak up, that voice isn't heard. Not even by the 'it won't happen to me' brigade (of which I was a fully paid up member).

Political change is difficult because men are still more powerful than women in politics. Facilitation is valuable and it's not in men's interests to challenge it. But I totally agree with KickAssAngel that it would be possible to make fundamental political changes that support women if there was the will to do so.

Yes, and cynically it probably benefits the tycoons who are Tory donors for their employees to be expected to work long hours / go for those Friday night drinks and for paid workers to be facilitated by unpaid labour. Though it's interesting that while hours are longer and pay lower in the uk than many other countries, productivity is less. It's almost as if long hours and low pay are the cause of the low productivity...... www.independent.co.uk/voices/productivity-uk-long-working-hours-employment-budget-economy-output-a8075586.html

thermostat yes Women's contributions as facilitators are systematically belittled and minimised in society. Which means that many of us don't really know what we're letting ourselves in for when we have kids. So we don't necessarily protest about this as young women nail on head.

Yes yes, I didn’t get it at all until having DC, despite my mother being very open about what happened to her and trying hard in many ways to help me to get it.

I totally agree about the minimising of 'wifework' and how unaware men usually are about the mental load. And about how women don't really realise the problem until it's too late.

But I find it very hard to square this with my own situation. My job (same as dh's) was very stressful. Going part time, and briefly sahm, was great. I love the lack of stress and find parenting pre-teens pretty easy. I'm quite lazy, do the minimum acceptable amount of housework, enjoy my low-stress very part-time work and have no desire to go back to work full time although I could probably walk into a full time job if I wanted.

I didn't get it either.

But my mother went back to full time work after each child. I'm just about old enough to remember how indignant both my parents were that my elderly grandmother refused to look after my youngest sibling for free, as she had the rest of us.

(They also tended to feel that children could and should look after themselves quite a lot of the time, and that's not always a bad thing, to be fair.)

I am one of the ultimate facilitators in that I look after DD as a lone parent and her father swans in and out very occasionally and even then the has further facilitation in the form of OW. To Yolo talking about being tired after work - another one laughing hollowly as the second shift simply has to be done and I am damned if DD will suffer. FWIW and this is directed specifically to Yolo I made it quite clear it was going to be 50/50, stayed full time in my job and absolutely didn't give an inch. He meanwhile slunk off to the 1950's and then off to OW and I was left somewhere I never ever imagined I'd be. With regard to the mental load my ex used to say "I'm not going to worry about it" and It'll be fine" and I used to wonder why I was worrying and planning so much if he wasn't and the I realised that the reason it was "fine" was because I was doing all the worrying and carrying the mental load. Now when DD is with him for a week I skip off to work without a care in the world - it's literally like being on the world's most relaxing holiday working full time with no kids and I think - yes, this is what it must be like to be a facilitated man. Easy fucking peasy.

I struggled because my mum made out that it was having a child made her life rubbish rather than the juggle and the facilitating. She had no life or hobbies outside work and looking after my dad for most of my life. Not something I wanted to emulate!

Me and dh often wonder wtf we did with our spare time before dc as we would have said we were very busy and tired then but it’s nothing compared to the sheer workload of keeping everyone cared for that we have today. I can imagine going to work, coming home and having nothing but yourself to think about as a massive holiday. Feet up at 8, no night waking and only yourself to dress and get out the house in the morning! Luxury

ohamI
I can fully relate to that.
During the hols, the dcs are iwth their grand parents so it’s only me and H. Life is oh so so easy then.
It makes me dream to see the dcs go away to Uni asap so I can finally relax and have time for ME, think about ME, my work, my business, my NEEDS (and not wants!).
I dont regret having children as such but in retrospect, if i was giving my younger self any advice, I might well tell her to not have children or even get into a traditional relationship.

Women's contributions as facilitators are systematically belittled and minimised in society. Which means that many of us don't really know what we're letting ourselves in for when we have kids. So we don't necessarily protest about this as young women.

When we have kids, we're usually too lacking in energy and time to protest effectively.

YY to that.
Before you can life your life quite happily wo actually really realising the stand if the issue.
But once you have children, the exhaustion and the relntoess of it all means there is no spare time or energy to even think and realise what is going on.
Threads on MN are just full of that.
And also full of the ‘well he is actually doing a little bit of something with the dcs so he is a great father and should be left off the hook for EVERYTHING ELSE. Just be happy with the crumbs. You already have more than most.’

Eolian - presumably, you having a low stress life makes it easier for your DH as you do contribute more than him to keeping the household running? that means that he can deal with the stressful life without having to think about things at home.

DD is now 14, and at high school. She now takes the bus and I drive to and from work by myself. If I have to get shopping etc it is so much easier than doing it with her, even when she was older. Just the constant drag of me getting out the car, waiting for her, then walking across the car park, making sure she's following & not distracted by something on her phone etc. I was desperate to have a child, but it is incredibly difficult to have a proper career and raise kids. You pretty much need to have 'made it' so that you can afford to have a housekeeper & nanny, or you need to have a wife.

I really wish I could have had a 'proper' wife. My career would have been so much better!

In my case. My health would have been much better, let alone my career....

Sorry I wasn't being obnoxious with my post, it's just genuinely the first time I've heard stories like this.

My experience growing up was totally different, hence my view of "is it really like this??". My dad got home first and cooked/food shopped/meal planned. My parents were very much "kids are a part of our life but they do not dictate our life", so while we always ate dinner together, they never drove me anywhere and no-one sat and did my homework with me after about the age of 8. I was very independent and all the extracurricular activities I did were ones I could cycle to. Everyone sort of sat and did their own thing in their own rooms in the evening - my dad cooked and read, my mum worked on her phD, and we had that hour at dinner as "family time". But no-one was rushing around after dinner to pack my bag, check my homework and drive me to Brownies.

My mum only ever got promoted after having my brother and her company seemed very fair to her.

Maybe she did struggle to "do it all" and didn't let on how hard it was - but she didn't "facilitate" my dad as she always worked the most.

So these experiences I am hearing about are very new to me.

Also my brother had an au-pair so obviously she was facilitating both my parents careers.

Yolo - after I had DD I went from getting every promotion I applied for to getting none. At all. Ever. Even though I worked ft and there was no drop in my hours or quality of work.

When I left my last school in the UK my job was given (without even announcing that there was a vacancy to apply for) to a man who was under qualified, under-experienced and with poor results. There were 4 other women with huge amounts more experience, better track record and who actually had the right qualifications for the job. He got called into an office and just told he was the right person for the job, here you are, enjoy the extra pay. Now he's on the sex offenders register. Great decision there, management (all men, btw). This was in a school. y'know, a female dominated industry with a reputation for being family/female friendly.

I currently have a male boss younger than me with significantly less experience and nowhere near my qualifications. I applied for the job, but my penis face didn't fit so he got it (there were 3 other female applicants, all better than him, btw).

There's SO much evidence that women are not treated equally, and are still propping up the achievements of lesser men. Your parents are major exceptions to the rule.

Surveys on the pay gap, surveys on hours of housework, surveys on domestic abuse. Women really do suffer, and not just in the relatively 'mild' way of terminal boredom from being stuck at home looking after the kids. 4 women a day DIE from male partner abuse. Women are paid between 9 & 51% less than men for the same jobs (in Westernized countries). They aren't in govt, on boards, or being CEOs. It's not because they don't want to or can't, but because they are deliberately stopped and/or held back by the domestic life.

I, btw, almost died and have a shorter life expectancy because of the child I have. Not much can be done about biology, but instead of women being supported & enabled as they deal with pregnancy, childbirth and early years, they are sidelined and impoverished when compared to their male counterparts. Sometimes it's directly by their partner, sometimes it's the nebulous 'they', but almost all women experience it.