"but he's At Work All Day!"

[53rdWay]

Been thinking about this recently after a few threads (not any specific one, don't TAAT me). When it comes to housework, cooking, and care of babies/young DC, why are so many people happy to believe that men can't do it if they have a full-time job?

You see it all the time on MN:
"I'm a SAHM and DH does 9-5 Mon-Fri. I'm run off my feet with three under five, now the baby's teething and I'm up half the night and bloody knackered, AIBU to think DH could do some of the wake-ups?"
"YABU! He's got to go to work all day!"

"I'm on mat leave with my first and DP went back to work two weeks ago. We always split household chores 50/50 but now DP thinks I should be doing it all because I'm home anyway and he keeps complaining the house is a mess."
"well you SHOULD be doing it at all, you can't expect him to come home after working all day and start mopping floors."

And thinking about it this is what I grew up with, as well. My mum worked p/t and did 100% of the cooking and 95% of the housework. My dad worked f/t, got home at 5.30 and spent the rest of the evening with his feet up. We weren't even supposed to interrupt him reading the paper because "he's been working hard all day, he needs a rest."

My dad did work hard I'm sure. But looking back now I have young DC, and DH and I both work full time, I think: bloody hell I'd kill for that arrangement!

When mothers work outside the home, there is nowhere near this same expectation that work is incompatible with housework and getting up in the night with DC. Yes you're tired but this is what you signed up for, buy a cup of coffee on your way in and get a slow cooker and get with it. We all know the housework fairy isn't going to sail in and do the laundry while we're out so what's the alternative? But still, there are a significant proportion of people who think that men going out to work means they can't and shouldn't do any of this work because they're At Work All Day.

I wonder about the men who think like this, especially the ones whose partners are on mat leave and therefore presumably planning to go back to work in future. What were they doing before the baby came along? What do they expect will happen once its mother goes back to work? What do they think all their colleagues are doing? Why is it Important Man-Work that cannot possibly be compatible with doing some hoovering at home for them, but not for Emma at the next desk?

I've always known that our society values men's work over women's work, but it's still a surprise that this happens even when it's the exact same job.

Bit of a ramble there. I meant to add, though: this isn't about how couples should split the housework/childcare. If you're on mat leave with a laid-back baby and your bloke works in air traffic control and needs decent sleep so he doesn't cause a major accident, so you're the one to get up for night wakings, fine good for you both. It's more the sacred status that's attached to being At Work All Day when a dad's doing it.

Men are encouraged to put work before family and women are encouraged to put family before work.

I suppose this makes sense in a society where you need money and could live from one working parent. But the world has changed and now both parents need to work really. Financially and psychologically.

So its like societies attitudes having caught up with the need tk change (you will find its older generations who say what you state above). Give it 10 more years and it will be completely different.

No one expects me to come home and put my feet up, after I've been at work all day. I'm at work full time and my dh is a sahd. I get home and pitch in with whatever he's got to in the day. So whether it's cooking or baby care or whatever, whatever is left to do in the day, once I get home, gets split between us, and when we're done we sit down and relax together, that seems fairest. So yeah, I do think it's ridiculous, when dad's who go to work all day are expected to come home and put their feet up. I'd just feel horrible sitting there doing nothing while my dh ran around still working. Especially when his job is way harder than mine.

Oh I should add: men do not appreciate or realise the physical and emotional impact having a baby has on a woman. They simply can’t- because they’re not women so I don’t think they are aware they need to change their attitudes (they probably wish they could be home all day visitng baby classes) which we all know it isn’t.

The only real way tk change this is to enforce a parental split of maternity/paternity leave maybe

I absolutely agree.

The arrangement we always had was that both DH & I always had the same amount of "free time"

My DH has a responsible management job, so I was fairly confident he'd manage to co-ordinate mopping the floors & making tea while I was doing something else

I'm now, effectively, retired, so DH does a lot less work in our house, because we still stick to the same principle (and I would have fully expected the same were our roles reversed)

We did a 50/50 parental split and have a pretty even share of workload as a result. Walk a mile in each other's shoes - it really works.

That being said, when one of us was at home the other wasn't expected to do any heavy cleaning or night wake ups. It was fucking bliss tbh! But we both work jobs where we would struggle without a full night of sleep so again the trade off worked for us.

DH used to have similar expectations a few years ago because I was part-time and he worked full time. This changed one day when he spent 2 months out of work because he was waiting between jobs so he was at home all the time.

I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine as I had started doing full time hours as well. "Expected" dinner on the table and warm, house tidy etc.

He couldn't keep it up after two weeks and apologised for his behaviour for past few years. He realises being at home is much harder than being at work and is instantly helpful when he gets in now !

I've been on both sides of it and can understand both positions, my final thought is that whoever is working MUST also help at home afterwards or at least on week-ends.

With DC1 we'be both stayed home for one whole year, had a lot saved up and it was doable financially and wouldn't have wanted it anyhow else. It was difficult, but rewarding. (the house was still a mess half the time with both of us at home because of lack of sleep)

I worked for a while, and then we relized that if we wanted DC1 to not be a single child, we had to do it soon. This time I worked through, aside 3 weeks around the birth.

When I get home after a hard day at work, it is really tempting to feel like I've done enough for the day and should not be expected to move my butt anymore. But I've been on the other side of it and I know you get to do so little when you have a little child needing something every 5-10 minutes (even more so when you breastfeed).

Right now I don't wake up at night often (maybe once a week or so when DW is so done with it), but I try to force myself to do a little bit every evening, be it dishes, lanundry, trash etc and vacuuming or whipping the floors every one or two week-ends.

I agree, there does still seem to be an attitude that stay at home parents should never get a break because it’s ‘not the same’ as being at work.

I’ve been a working parent and a stay home one. Work is obviously more restrictive in that you can’t always choose what you do or when you can have your breaks, and some jobs will be physically or mentally challenging. But being at home with an older baby or toddler is pretty constant, very frustrating and at times quite boring. I don’t agree that it’s ‘not the same’ because jobs are so variable. Is an office job as ‘hard’ as being a fire fighter? What about when they’re training rather than going on shouts? Or if the entire day consists on visiting false alarms or picking up their oxygen?

Why does it have to a competition over who has it hardest? As far as possible each partner should cook and clean and care for the children. Equally, if possible, both partners should get a lie in and help in the night sometimes. Aren’t partners usually compassionate to each other?

No one expects me to come home and put my feet up, after I've been at work all day.

Thats just it. Noone seems to say it when its a woman who is at work all day.

Also personally I thin k looking after young children IS work. Just relentless work that you don't get a break from all day, and where you cannot even go to the loo in peace (with mine anyway..not now, but when they were a lot younger )

I don't think there are hard and fast rules here. Some jobs are harder and more demanding than others, same as some kids are. Personally I found being a SAHM and childcare pretty easy and would have felt a bit guilty if I hadn't done any housework and left it to my husband after he'd come in from a 12 hour manual shift and a 2 hour commute, when I'd sat and watched telly all afternoon.

Yeah I would have felt guilty if my kids were 'easy'. As it happened I felt like I had been hit by a bloody train after a day of them, they ran rings around me tbh. Meanwhile my husbands sat in an office. So I didn't feel guilty at all expecting him to pick up some of the slack at home. If I had easy kids and he had been a firefighter or something, then of course I should have done it all. IMO.

Personally I found working in one of the top ten stressful jobs less stressful than being at home all day with a baby/toddler and being trapped by the school run. The school run is the thing that’s killing me now and I’m trying to get a job to pay for wrap around care and a cleaner! There are lots of ways to minimise housework and lifework and childcare if there’s a bit of money to throw at them, doing them all yourself is, I find, mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting.