The Dad Privilege Checklist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, all of this is made easier if mom stays home with the children and dad makes more money to compensate. I know it’s an unpopular sentiment, but most women would feel much less resentment if they dropped work to focus their efforts (when the children are young) on raising them and let their DH work harder to cover the bills.

The problem with this is once upon a time when women stayed home, they viewed their role as "homemaker" and that job description included everything: Care for children, keep the house clean and orderly, fix the meals.

Today's young women define this role as "SAHM" with the emphasis on the "M." They think their duty is only to look after the children during the hours that their husband is working or commuting but that he should immediately step in for 50% on all of the other tasks. They bristle at the "homemaker" label -- basically they are invested in intensive mothering; so, basically, they want to be a nanny or governess to their own children. The rest of the duties that used to be embedded in the role are beneath them and either need to be outsourced or shared equally.

women back then had no choice. Do you think only single women or women without children should work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The article would be better if there were a list of things that women don’t have to worry about.

Cleaning the gutters? I mean, as long as she can call someone else to do it.

Otherwise, go ahead and list them.

Never worry about the grass getting cut

Never has to discuss whether the tires need to be rotated

Never gives actors sound in the car a 2nd thought

Doesn’t know the vets name or even where they are

Never worry about lightbulbs

Never need to replace a light switch or ceiling fan

Don’t worry about the kids learning an instrument since he teaches them that

Don’t need to talk sorta (though I can but not to the level they care to)

Never edited a paper

Mousetraps

Never even need to understand how to trim a tree

Have no clue what indigenous plants are

Never split wood

Never started a fire

Don’t clean cars

Never grilled anything ever

No clue what days the trash goes to the curb

No idea how to get large trash pickups

Never made coffee


I could obviously learn or do all these but I don’t need to

In what universe do only men edit papers? How bizarre.

And I am a woman and I do most of these things. The point is that incompetence is never attractive. Imagine not knowing how to do a large trash pickup, when trash day is, etc.

DP. I've never met a man who cared if his wife could handle a large trash pickup or clean out a mousetrap. I've known plenty of women who could, probably most, but I've never sat around with my dad friends wondering why our wives aren't the ones cleaning up dead animals around the house.

How often does dead animals appear around your house? I am the wife and I take care of the trash and the dead animals ( we have cats!)

And men don't talk about wives! Most don't really care about how women are faring as long as the keep women don't "nag" or complain about anything!

I'm not sure how a wife would know this, but I can assure you it's not true. My dad friends and I talk about our wives all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Find it here: https://zawn.substack.com/p/the-dad-privilege-checklist

Please read the checklist and return for a conversation about it. I want to hear from others about their own experiences with coparenting their children with the children's dad.

Sounds like this woman picked a bad husband. Sad for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, all of this is made easier if mom stays home with the children and dad makes more money to compensate. I know it’s an unpopular sentiment, but most women would feel much less resentment if they dropped work to focus their efforts (when the children are young) on raising them and let their DH work harder to cover the bills.

The problem with this is once upon a time when women stayed home, they viewed their role as "homemaker" and that job description included everything: Care for children, keep the house clean and orderly, fix the meals.

Today's young women define this role as "SAHM" with the emphasis on the "M." They think their duty is only to look after the children during the hours that their husband is working or commuting but that he should immediately step in for 50% on all of the other tasks. They bristle at the "homemaker" label -- basically they are invested in intensive mothering; so, basically, they want to be a nanny or governess to their own children. The rest of the duties that used to be embedded in the role are beneath them and either need to be outsourced or shared equally.

I disagree, IME women who quit full-time work to focus on their children tend to be fine cleaning and grocery shopping as well. Women accustomed to work in a career generally have some drive towards productivity and do well at home. The mental labor resentment is largely driven by women who are required to provide financially for their families PLUS do the work of a SAHM. IME women who quit their careers to focus on parenting are not lazy, especially when their DHs step up and make more money.

[Anonymous]

Very relieved to find that my DH does not have a lot of dad privilege. I guess he’s one of the rare ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The article would be better if there were a list of things that women don’t have to worry about.

Cleaning the gutters? I mean, as long as she can call someone else to do it.

Otherwise, go ahead and list them.

Never worry about the grass getting cut

Never has to discuss whether the tires need to be rotated

Never gives actors sound in the car a 2nd thought

Doesn’t know the vets name or even where they are

Never worry about lightbulbs

Never need to replace a light switch or ceiling fan

Don’t worry about the kids learning an instrument since he teaches them that

Don’t need to talk sorta (though I can but not to the level they care to)

Never edited a paper

Mousetraps

Never even need to understand how to trim a tree

Have no clue what indigenous plants are

Never split wood

Never started a fire

Don’t clean cars

Never grilled anything ever

No clue what days the trash goes to the curb

No idea how to get large trash pickups

Never made coffee


I could obviously learn or do all these but I don’t need to

Aside from the grilling or trash pick up I don’t think my husband has done any of these either. Guess why? These are one off or occasional things that are very easy to outsource. So we do. Aside from “starting a fire and knowing about indigenous plants” which is about as far as important in modern life as I can think of. Good lord the next time a dad comes on and describes all these totally optional things his wife is always doing like making a nutritious dinner instead of getting McDonald’s I will ask him if he was too busy with his super essential indigenous plant research.

You’ll do anything to try to make your piddly chores seem more important in your head. If you had a real life, you wouldn’t have to worry about making your stupid little chores.

Ok buddy. I am seriously LMAO that there is a constant theme on DCUM that the reason women are busy/tired is that they have all these make work activities (when the actual examples are usually women upset their spouse doesn’t make the doctors appointments and dentist as they said they would or not performing basic hygiene for their kids) and some guy thought it was a good idea to come and complain his wife can’t start a fire. A FIRE. Thanks for the chuckle on a Friday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, all of this is made easier if mom stays home with the children and dad makes more money to compensate. I know it’s an unpopular sentiment, but most women would feel much less resentment if they dropped work to focus their efforts (when the children are young) on raising them and let their DH work harder to cover the bills.

The problem with this is once upon a time when women stayed home, they viewed their role as "homemaker" and that job description included everything: Care for children, keep the house clean and orderly, fix the meals.

Today's young women define this role as "SAHM" with the emphasis on the "M." They think their duty is only to look after the children during the hours that their husband is working or commuting but that he should immediately step in for 50% on all of the other tasks. They bristle at the "homemaker" label -- basically they are invested in intensive mothering; so, basically, they want to be a nanny or governess to their own children. The rest of the duties that used to be embedded in the role are beneath them and either need to be outsourced or shared equally.

Uh, women did all the childcare and housework 24/7 (including physically caring for their husbands like they were children -- cooking for them, cleaning them, washing their clothes, running their errands, even bathing and grooming them sometimes) because they were oppressed, had no economic power and no political rights, and were viewed as the property of their fathers and husbands. Not because the really "embraced the role" of homemaker. But because if they failed to perform the role, their husbands might abandon them and they were not allowed to do most jobs or own property or have bank accounts, plus rape wasn't even illegal except as a violation of another man's property rights so they'd be very vulnerable.

The good old days. When women would cook and clean and tend to children all day, and then the second their husbands came home, tend to him while continuing to cook and clean until bedtime, while their husbands with "real jobs" replaced after a hard day of work.

Yeah, it's so weird that women today are not eager to return to that set up, I wonder why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this the new replacement for the mommy wars? Now we can talk about how “household labor inequality is abuse”?

If you think the conversation about an unequal division of labor in households is "new" then welcome to society from the rock you've been living under.

No, it’s the new replacement for the divisive mommy wars. But just like the mommy wars between WOHM and SAHM, so many of these complaints come back to choices. Women can now make more choices about working/staying home, which is the point of feminism, and they can also make choices about what they do for their household and how things are shared with their partner. And of course, they can make choices about who they marry or partner with.

Make your own choices. Make better choices.

No, that wasn't the point of feminism. The point of feminism was to get equal financial footing, including equal pay. It had zero to do with making a "choice" between working and staying home. This is a popular misconception/appropriation of what the women's liberation movement was about.

[Anonymous]

This thread is overrun by MRAs. It's something. Predictable, but something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, all of this is made easier if mom stays home with the children and dad makes more money to compensate. I know it’s an unpopular sentiment, but most women would feel much less resentment if they dropped work to focus their efforts (when the children are young) on raising them and let their DH work harder to cover the bills.

The problem with this is once upon a time when women stayed home, they viewed their role as "homemaker" and that job description included everything: Care for children, keep the house clean and orderly, fix the meals.

Today's young women define this role as "SAHM" with the emphasis on the "M." They think their duty is only to look after the children during the hours that their husband is working or commuting but that he should immediately step in for 50% on all of the other tasks. They bristle at the "homemaker" label -- basically they are invested in intensive mothering; so, basically, they want to be a nanny or governess to their own children. The rest of the duties that used to be embedded in the role are beneath them and either need to be outsourced or shared equally.

Uh, women did all the childcare and housework 24/7 (including physically caring for their husbands like they were children -- cooking for them, cleaning them, washing their clothes, running their errands, even bathing and grooming them sometimes) because they were oppressed, had no economic power and no political rights, and were viewed as the property of their fathers and husbands. Not because the really "embraced the role" of homemaker. But because if they failed to perform the role, their husbands might abandon them and they were not allowed to do most jobs or own property or have bank accounts, plus rape wasn't even illegal except as a violation of another man's property rights so they'd be very vulnerable.

The good old days. When women would cook and clean and tend to children all day, and then the second their husbands came home, tend to him while continuing to cook and clean until bedtime, while their husbands with "real jobs" replaced after a hard day of work.

Yeah, it's so weird that women today are not eager to return to that set up, I wonder why.

But ... they want a "shell" of that that set-up. They only want the intensive mothering bit. Which is insanely easy. Easiest job ever. So, really, they're just lazy. The ones who continue to do this when their children are in elementary school are the laziest of them all. It would be different if they embraced the actual job description of a homemaker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is overrun by MRAs. It's something. Predictable, but something.

Someone challenging a lazily written article filled with absurd tropes isn't a "Men's Right Activist."

Except maybe in your feeble brain.

[Anonymous]

I was a long time SAHM who now works part time. I agree that this does a fair amount to decrease resentment. The problem for us started when the kids were no longer babies/toddlers and my work became less “visible” to him. That is when lists like this are useful because not only did he not do most of those things, it didn’t even occur to him they were being done. And he was very guilty of comparing rare tasks to common tasks like they are equal. Like when a woman complains she always makes dinner and a man responds “well I do the taxes.” Like those have equal annual time commitments.

[Anonymous]

My husband is a good dad and a good husband but reading that list he does have a lot of "privilege." He does a lot of playing w/ the kids, reading to the kids, giving kids baths, taking kids to bed, taking kids to the park to play. But he has never made a Dr. or dentist appt for the kids (or taken them solo to the Dr. or dentist), planned a bday party, RSVPd to a bday party invite, planned a play date or social engagement for the kids, registered the kids for school or activities (although he is often the one to take them to the activities), he doesn't buy the kids clothing or school supplies. I don't know. I'm OK w/ that. I don't mind handling all of the above and it works for our family.

It's meal planning and cooking and making school lunches that I hate. And he does all of those tasks. That more than makes up for all the other things, for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, all of this is made easier if mom stays home with the children and dad makes more money to compensate. I know it’s an unpopular sentiment, but most women would feel much less resentment if they dropped work to focus their efforts (when the children are young) on raising them and let their DH work harder to cover the bills.

So you think the only function women should have once they become mothers is to solely focus on being a mom? Why is that fair? Women have talents, skills and brains that society can benefit from! Why can Dads be dads and also productive members of society!

You do know the story of Japan? Women are choosing not to become mothers because of the unequal treatment of women! I am not encouraging my dds to become mothers! If the population dies out so be it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this the new replacement for the mommy wars? Now we can talk about how “household labor inequality is abuse”?

If you think the conversation about an unequal division of labor in households is "new" then welcome to society from the rock you've been living under.

No, it’s the new replacement for the divisive mommy wars. But just like the mommy wars between WOHM and SAHM, so many of these complaints come back to choices. Women can now make more choices about working/staying home, which is the point of feminism, and they can also make choices about what they do for their household and how things are shared with their partner. And of course, they can make choices about who they marry or partner with.

Make your own choices. Make better choices.

I hope my dds choose not to become mothers. It sucks!