Men whose lives are facilitated by women Part 2

[OlennasWimple]

Continuation of the other thread that got filled up

No I'm not misunderstanding. It's just a rehashing of the working mum vs SAHM debate where everyone piles in to say how dreadful each person is.

Except on this thread it's being dressed up as talking about "society" and how facilitating these husbands is a bad thing, and how we're all bringing up our daughters for a life of drudgery. Bang on all you like about society and opportunities, but really, most people on this board are very much against the idea of men working and women being at home and there's never going to be a recognition that it works well for a lot of people.

Yes maybe in your feminist utopia everyone would be equal, everyone with kids would be working part time, household tasks would all be split 50/50 and this discussion would be moot. But the UK in 2017 is not like that, and the way some of you are going on it's almost as if women show are at home should be rushing out to get a job - any job - to prove some kind of point to their husband or to society in general.

in your feminist utopia

Feminist as in equality legally, socially, financially? You don’t believe in that? You dont believe that women should be equal under the law to men? Why?

I want a job. I’m a professional, I’ve got four degrees, including a PhD and I want to use them. The work I do is socially valuable (I develop drugs.) I WANT TO WORK.

So... Why can’t I have equality with the men? WHY? Because I’m a woman? Well that’s bit shit, don’t you think?

This isn’t about bashing housewives. It’s asking for a society that’s structured just a tiny bit fairer so that women aren’t getting the shitty end of the stick constantly. Because right now we are.

The ‘bloody feminists’ argument is tiresome. I shall be annoyed about it thank you very much. You have a life that works for you. I want one that works for me and my DH.

You say that people on this board don’t want men working and women being at home. No, that’s just wrong. What they want is equality. A fair crack at it. They wantcthere to be choice. You’ve made your choice, and that’s great. Now what about my choice? Why is my desire to work as an equal to the men inferior?

This thread is really not about SAHM against working mums and what's better.

It's about the choices women find themselves with after having children. It's about how men and up in the top positions in society because they are helped along the way but quite often don't recognise it.

Poppy you said yourself you and DH were equal than you got made redundant , your career started lagging behind so it was then an obvious choice for you to stay at home. Was this just cooincidence, would this situation ever happen the other way round?

If you're happy then that's great, I said further up my parents did this and we were a happy family growing up.

It's interesting how it always 'makes sense' for women to give up their career but not men.

Also please look at some of the very thoughtful posts on here from sahms such as Vashna and Krabby, who are engaging with the debate and don’t seem to see it as wohm vs sahm.

It is so NOT a SAHM/WOHM debate ffs!
I don't care if you stay home and your husband pulls in the big bucks. Good for you.
I DO care that the world is run by men who society (not "society") just expects to be facilitated, often by an army of invisible women, whereas there is no such expectation that women who WANT TO get to the top will have the same.
It's not even about just high earning people. It's in all walks of life.
Are you one of those who thinks feminists want all women in shoulder pads striding about being career bitches with their husbands balls in their handbags?
Because in reality it's more about the fact that your average bog standard working woman still comes home to the second shift, but your average bog standard man doesn't, certainly not to the same degree.
Wanting someone else to also think about when the kids last went to the dentist, or if the towels need changing is hardly feminist utopia.

Yes maybe in your feminist utopia everyone would be equal, everyone with kids would be working part time, household tasks would all be split 50/50 and this discussion would be moot.

I don't want everyone to have to do paid work. I think there should be far more recognition of the unpaid work of running a household and raising children, and associated work such as caring for elderly parents or disabled adult sibings.

If someone chooses to be a SAHP, or to take part in part-time or full-time paid work, I want people to be taking those decisions in an informed way. There should be more awareness of the risks and consequences of taking those decisions, particularly for the boring but important stuff like pensions and so on. No one goes into a marriage planning on divorce, but you probably should have contingency plans for one of you not being there. People do die in accidents and from disease, and then the one left needs to deal with having only one income and no chance of maintenance. There have been so many examples in these threads about careers have been stuffed by having been the SAHP - and it's nearly always the mother, that's the point.

None of these choices are made in a vacuum. Most of my contemporaries who have children, it wasn't a free choice for the woman to take time out of her career. Of course women need time out for childbirth and recovery and breastfeeding. But in most of the couples I know, the decision was entirely economic. The woman's pay was often lower - she was often a little younger, so hadn't advanced in her career as much as the man. His pay was usually higher because of that, and certainly in some cases, gender-based pay differences are probably showing up even before children. So the choice is between dropping the higher salary or losing the lower salary, but getting maternity pay instead. It makes it difficult to choose to have the man as the SAHP. And then, the cost of childcare may mean that it's simply not economically feasible for both parents to be in work, regardless of which choices they might want to make. Making these decisions around short term economic necessity then has long term consequences.

Things like the cost of childcare and maternity/paternity leave are things that businesses and governments could choose to improve, but mostly it suits them just the way things are.

That wouldn't stop men who simply refuse to do a fair share of housework or childcare, but it could help make fewer women feel trapped in marriages where they may as well be a single parent as far as the workload goes, but don't feel they can leave because of all the economic factors that have left them so vulnerable financially. (My mother always advised me and my sister to have a running away fund - you don't have to use it if everything is fine, but you shouldn't be trapped because you haven't got one. She didn't explain what to do if you basically live hand to mouth because you're both on NMW jobs and don't have a penny to spare.)

Not having a 50/50 split is a perfectly valid choice, but so many women end up in that situation without ever really having chosen it, just ended up there through circumstances - and it is far more likely to be the woman, which is why it is a feminist issue.

I think that SAHM and WOHM have exactly the same issue actually.

The issue is that work traditionally carried out by women in the home is undervalued and underappreciated and men seem reluctant in most cases to carry out their fair share of it.

For SAHM this means that they are often considered to be lucky and not doing a lot even if they are constantly caring for their family 365 days a year. If their marriage breaks down then they can be left badly provided for financially. See the current plans to remove spousal maintenance.

For WOHM mum they frequently still end up with the majority of the family and household responsibilities. But as this isn’t considered a particularly important or onerous task they are just expected to fit it in around work frequently becoming overwhelmed and exhausted.

I actually think there is a deeper problem that whatever the activity or work carried out inside or outside the home it will be less valued and considered less important if carried out by women.

Because the truth is that at some level women are less valued or considered less important.

So for example professions dominated by women are always paid less than those done by men, like medicine was in the Soviet Union or computer programming in the 1970s.

This thread really is not about bashing SAHM's, I am also one. My DH is not a bad man or a bad husband, he works very hard, loves spending time with DC and wouldn't dream of us not having equal access to our finances.
But you are totally right he couldn't just announce that he was leaving at five, wouldnt travel for work etc, so I have fallen into that role. I have several degrees, a useful skill for society (post abuse therapy with children) and I would like to work. However my DH's job doesn't function without facilitation, he isn't able to commit to manage family life so I do that.

I think all of society loses out, people who don't have facilitators, facilitators, and the people who don't get a decent work life balance. It isn't about taking pot shots at people who stay at home and are choosing to do so.

Breastfeeding is a bit of a red herring in this discussion, because such a small minority of women in the UK do it for very long. The default is to initiate breastfeeding, do it for a bit and be fully or partially formula feeding way before going back to work (most women do not return before 6 months in the UK). I don't doubt that there are some women for whom work would interfere with the amount of breastfeeding they want or need to do, but not many.

I agree that in many ways WOHM/WAHM and SAHM face exactly the same issue. Whatever the activity is, it gets devalued when a woman is doing it.

Anatidae great posts in response to Poppy, totally agree.

“ my DH's job doesn't function without facilitation,”

I don’t mean to take a pop at your DH mum but this sentence caught my eye. Upthread, we were talking about how men do what they (feel they) can, but women do what they (feel they) must.

I’m sure there are jobs that you really can’t do without facilitation.. but I’m sure there are some women out there who try to do them anyway (and lose/lose on career vs facilitated men and their own family/well-being also suffer)

I have just read the Caitlin Moran article linked earlier and I really liked the metaphor of a man not pulling his weight in a marriage being like an extra weight on the woman's 'sledge' of children and career (sitting down on it instead of helping to pull it up the hill). She has a way with a metaphor.

Well of course you can do jobs without a 'facilitator' but you have to pay for it e.g. au pair or (in our case) private school with wrap around that you don't have to book. Although, it still shuts at 6pm so I would still have issues with short-notice evening meetings.

I was reminded of a conversation with a colleague last year (we were the only staff in the school with young kids and he was essentially a facilitator for a higher-earning wife). He was saying that he'd had to ask a relative to come to cover the parents' evening and our (childfree) colleague was surprised that you couldn't just book after school club for a one-off. She was astonished to hear that the places go ages in advance and then I added that we had to (essentially) pay school fees in order to have this service.

Depends where you are @Phineyj. I have wraparound childcare at the school until 6.15, no need to book. I live in a really deprived area where wages are at NMW on the whole and lots of workers are on 0 hours contracts.

So I suspect it’s all a bit squeezed middle.

In a deprived area, there are probably fewer parents competing for the 7.30am-6pm wraparound and more parents on shift work etc that doesn't match traditional childcare hours? Presumably colleague and I live in areas with a lot of commuter parents competing for the wraparound places. Plus, lots of people on NMW means it's easier to recruit childcare workers. So yes, that makes sense.

Anyway, the point was that early starts / late evenings suddenly turn into A Big Deal when you have young DC and non-parents (or as we've been discussing, the facilitated kind) don't necessarily get that at all - why would they?

Round here you also have to factor in the commuting part and leave a margin for error. I wouldn't dare leave at a time that got me to the school for 6pm exactly. I'd be too worried I'd overshoot by half an hour. When I commuted by car I could risk it a bit more as it was rare for e.g. the motorway to close.

The notion that work can finish at 5 cannot be normal for the majority, surely?

More people work in retail, healthcare, childcare, catering etc than work in 9-5 office jobs, yes?

What's your point though? We were talking about the fact that people who don't have to think about childcare don't know/care that most group childcare ends at 6pm.

My point is that childcare isn’t accommodating the needs of most mothers.

grumpy I think the whole problem with DH's job is that it wouldn't be possible to have a family life without a facilitator and also do the job. I know a few women with families at his level a couple have SAHD's with additional support, most outsource completely, there are single women and mostly there are men like DH. It wouldn't be possible to reach his level and have caring responsibilities so woman who don't outsource these responsibilities don't get to that level. Men of course rarely have to outsource these responsibilities because as the two threads have outlined everything is set up for the women in their lives to manage it.

The point is one should only have to be sure to finish at 5/get to the school by 6pm on 50% of the days that you work OTH surely that's more doable for most people

TheGrumpySquirrel
I’m sure there are jobs that you really can’t do without facilitation.. but I’m sure there are some women out there who try to do them anyway (and lose/lose on career vs facilitated men and their own family/well-being also suffer)

This is exactly the position I found myself in after having children: Lose/Lose on every front. My career was suffering because I had to leave on time every day for childcare and take 'excessive' time off for doctors appts etc., and my family life was falling apart as I simply did not have the energy to give them the loving/care they needed. I was emotionally spent and physically exhausted and my life was collapsing around me. My DH has never felt like that because he has never been in a position where he has to do EVERYTHING like us women are pushed to do: You can have it all. Yeah, see how long you last...

This thread is really interesting.

My mum "facilitated" my dad who went on business trips while she sat with me alone (up to 3y/o), then they divorced and she met my stepdad, who enabled her to get a phD while working full-time with 2 kids, going to conferences etc. I think it's shown me a great message - she's never felt held back, although she did run "domestic" stuff too which I am changing with my boyfriend because the household should be run by 2 people.

We both agree that when we have kids, we would both go part time before they are in primary. Or he could be a SAHD.

Shoot me but I don't think SAHM families (when kids are in school!) are setting a good example. Not only is it portraying old gender stereotypes, but what do the kids learn? It's OK for dad to work long hours and never see them, it's OK for mum to only be "mum" but nothing else? And how can you teach your daughters feminism in that position - "you can be whatever you want, a scientist, a politician, but I chose to stay at home and live off what your dad does".

I get when families have no choice because of childcare costs and you're sort of forced into it - the gov needs to subsidise childcare way more. But when your husband works in a hedge fund and you have a cleaner, dogwalker and go for coffee every day - you're basically teaching your kids it's OK to sponge, and if there's money coming in you don't need to achieve anything else. Or if he "makes" you move house constantly for his career, you're teaching your kids that women's careers aren't important and you're basically there to make his life easier. Fuck that. People are equals. I think a lot of women don't admit it but they just don't want to work if they can get away with it - my BF and manager both said "Of course I would become a SAHD and not work if I could!".

Loads of people would choose to not work, only women get more opportunity and it's more socially acceptable, so they choose not to - which perpetuates the current situation with pay gaps, job imbalances etc.

In a deprived area, there are probably fewer parents competing for the 7.30am-6pm wraparound and more parents on shift work etc that doesn't match traditional childcare hours? Presumably colleague and I live in areas with a lot of commuter parents competing for the wraparound places. Plus, lots of people on NMW means it's easier to recruit childcare workers.

Yes, I think so. Where I live is very deprived, and to that I'd add that people are much more likely to have family locally than people living in commuter belts seem to. Easier for families to do more of the childcare themselves around shifts and part timing. The land is also quite cheap, meaning it's more viable for providers to open with an eye primarily on filling the nurseries with free hours- they have to, because so few people could afford even the small contribution they'd have to pay on tax credits/UC. Whereas I understand that's just not possible in the south east. Also in more deprived areas, even working families quite often qualify for the free hours at 2.

The flipside to this of course is that to some extent, families and the free hours are effectively cushioning employers from the impact of non family friendly hours and practices. Arguably better than they do in more well off areas. You can take that 4am NMW shift in a shop at the airport, because you know your mum or your cousin will be available to take your kids to school, and in return you'll be collecting theirs later and always covering the inset days for your sister because you have Mondays off. I'm much better paid than average for the area but we still participate in these family based, favour swapping modes of informal childcare.

That said, I think the point about the senior managers having no idea that there was no childcare past 6pm in their area is a really telling one. Since the people they worked alongside were office based rather than retail, medicine etc. They didn't know something that was really important to their particular constituency of workers.