Expectations of mothers includes financial abuse?

[clairemcnam]

We all know that mothers do much more than their fair share of housework, childcare and cooking than fathers in the vast majority of relationships. But there also seems to be an increasing expectation that as well as this, mothers should be contributing 50% of the family costs. Given that mothers are on average paid less than fathers, this means that mothers are being expected to contribute financially a larger proportion of their earnings to the family pot than fathers.

So mothers are now being expected increasingly to contribute more than 50% to raising a child on all fronts.

Too many generalisations.

But there also seems to be an increasing expectation that as well as this, mothers should be contributing 50% of the family costs.

Is there? I don't think that's true at all.

I see that opinion on Reddit, a lot. Often from men who refuse to believe theres a pay gap.

I agree. Current Aibu about someone who wants to stay home with her baby for a year. She is being set upon.

And it is not a generalisation to say most mothers do more than their share of housework, childcare and cooking. Lots of research backs that up. Is it a fact. It is also a fact that on average mothers are paid less than fathers.
I am not willing to argue facts with anyone.

I agree with your last post. I disagree women are expected to contribute 50% financially at the same time.

I read it repeatedly in AIBU, women expected to put half their earnings in the pot whilst the man keeps his remaining disposable income all to themselves.

I think there are people who think a lot of things, but it's not necessarily the case that it is the same people with all of these expectations.

I do't know that I've ever seen any family where there was an expectation that each partner contribute to exactly half the household income. That's just so far from realistic that it would be a difficult idea to maintain.

I do think there is also a school of thought from some people that it is right that both partners contribute financially in a significant way. They view the idea of one person at home as being freeloading. For some men, they also strongly feel that if they are going to be expected to contribute to the household work they should share the burden of being the breadwinner. While this doesn't always work out in an even way that seems to be the concept. A lot of these people don't really seem to value unpaid work no matter who does it.

Of course there are also people who are just exploitative freeloaders.

I do get a little bit confused by this. One couple I know the woman has been consistently upset they both contribute to household costs so far so good, but she does pretty much all the cooking/cleaning/admin. It gets her down terribly sometimes. In the past when she’s raised issues she is having he will stop and emotionally withdraw and close down all affection until she falls back into line.

I think we should have relationships covered at school.

Dervel On average, mothers and fathers that both work full time, the mother does most of the housework, cooking and childcare. It is very common, but totally unfair.
I think men are using this narrative of fairness and equality to get mothers to do even more.

I definitely see this among other women (like I am) who earn more than their male partners. In every case the woman does far more of the home and child care of an equivalent male breadwinner.

I notice the unfairness. Outside of daytime childcare (which is a shared cost), I do all the jobs my mother did, plus earn more. It's not DH per se - though he definitely doesn't notice all the jobs I do - also our own internal expectations and those of society.

What would be an equal way to divide money though?
If they both work but he earns more, and he does some housework but not as much as her.
Is all the money 100% family money or how do you pick a percentage? I think it's quite a difficult point to decide. Oh you do 60% of the housework so I'll pay 60% of the bills.
What if you're sick then, or a bit relaxed a few days, should he pay less because he's picking up the slack?

I obviously don't agree with women doing more work and having less money, but I think part of the issue is we don't know how else to manage it.

This is what confuses me that isn’t equality/fairness when she’s doing everything else. They I suppose fortunately don’t have any kids as yet, but still it seems like a deeply dysfunctional dynamic.

Just from a guy’s perspective though I have had women pursuing me romantically and some of them will do so by trying to do things for me. Wether it’s cooking/cleaning or w/e. I think it can be tough to not fall into patterns if you are not wise to it.

I’ll fess up I am a naturally messy person which is one of the reasons I tend to get together with someone with comparable tolerance for mess, but I recall several years ago my old flat was something of a social hub for my group of friends and I HAD to up my game somewhat because I guarantee if it got too messy someone would take it upon themselves to clean it, and whilst there were one or two guys who would you can probably guess it was usually female friends. I mean it was fair enough if people washed up as I’m a dab hand in the kitchen and would often prepare food for the group.

I guess what I am saying is I do see women being taken advantage of often and whilst there are obvious cases where it’s just obvious there seems to be thus cultural default which can be difficult to get away from.

One of the examples of unreasonable behaviour listed on my divorce papers was my exDH's expectation that I should contribute 50% to all household costs (despite earning 50% less) while taking on pretty much 100% responsibility for our daughter and all household tasks. Ok this was part of an overall picture of emotional and financial abuse but he won't be the only person who thinks this kind of set up is 'fair' as 'women want equality'

I think the only fair way financially is that both people contribute enough to have the same amount of disposable income to spend on themselves. So if one has £50 a week, so does the other.
Either that or all money is family money.

Gotofriggingsleep That is exactly the situation I am seeing more and more being presented by some men as fair and equal.

I think the question of women doing more housework on average is a lt different than this idea that there are people who believe, theoretically, that women must contribute 50% of income.

In my experience there are lots of people who think both should contribute financially. But they also tend to think, theoretically, that if they are both working as much, they should both contribute to household work as much.

In practice it's a lot more complicated than that, there is often a lot of unbalance. But it's not usually because people actually think "Yeah, it's really most fair if the wife works as much as the man but she should also handle most of the household work."

@Sleepinginthebathroom ideally relationships should be 100/100 not 50/50. What I mean by that is both people should be the ride or die for the other person. You should be able to count on your partner 100% to have your back.

No relationship is going to look 50/50 at all times and it should be fluid as it’s about everyone having their needs met. Sometimes one persons needs are going to more significant than the other. One past gf I had developed a brain tumour so obviously it fell to me to do more to facilitate treatment and a space to heal.

What I notice in both relationships and friendships with women to an extent you really have to dig sometimes to get at what some women need, as I think a lot of you are socialised to dread being a burden in a way we men aren’t.

Like by way of example a Male friend may say “I’m moving, could you help me move stuff?”, a woman will just tell you she’s moving. What women will do is automatically offer to help. You have to take the extra step with a woman to enquire If they need any help? Does that make sense?

I agree very fervently with the OP.

As the saying goes, women are expected to work like they don't have children, and raise children like they don't work.

I'd also say that the whole question of household management is complicated for some people because we've been kind of trained to see it as something like roommates. You don't expect the roommate who makes less money to pay less for the flat. They pay half and then decide what to do with the leftovers.
In a marriage that should be obviously stupid. The whole idea of a family is that a group of people now operate as a kind of unit. But we've been moving away from that over the years. In some places even tax systems don't really look at it that way anymore. I think the increase of people living together as a couple without being married might have contributed to it as well, without people really intending it. And certain strands of feminist thought have encouraged it as well, because they feel women need to emphasise their individual financial power to be equal to men in society.

I don't really think in the real world people do expect both partners to contribute 50% of household finances. The government would love it to be that way clearly, and use the tax system to reward dual earners who use outside childcare rather than looking after children themselves. But most people recognise having kids requires either an awful lot of paid childcare or at least one parent to take time away from paid employment to some extent.

And salaries shouldn't come into it. If there were a same sex couple and one was say a nurse and the other a doctor, and they worked the same shifts at the same hospital, would we expect the nurse to do all the housework simply because the doctor earned more? No, that would be ridiculous. The same is true if it's a male and female couple - women don't bend time and magically have more time than men. Seems to me the division of household tasks should be more about amount of time at home and amount of time in paid employment out of the house. I know in reality women do more but it seems quite simple to at least in theory figure out what is fair.

Anyone who thinks women should do most of the housework AND childcare AND provide 50% of the household income is just a misogynist, surely?

Yes people in a relationship are not flat mates. If you love someone you should want the best for them. Both myself and my DP genuinely want each other to be happy. We love each other. So we do things to make each other happy. And that includes doing things round the house.
But I do think that is rare. I also agree with Dervel that if you are genuinely looking out for each other, you sometimes do more. So if one of us is ill, tired, etc, the other steps up.
We also don't care about what each other is earning as long as there is enough money to pay bills.

Anyone who thinks women should do most of the housework AND childcare AND provide 50% of the household income is just a misogynist, surely?

There are a lot of misogynists about.

Also seeing a lot of women saying they saved up for their maternity leave out of their earnings only. As if growing and giving birth to a baby is a bloody holiday that only the woman needs to fund.