The Dad Privilege Checklist

[Anonymous]

I feel bad for the moms who feel this way.

My DH and I both work, and both do the parenting. We are both lawyers with busy careers.

My DH enjoys doing grocery shopping and cooking. He also enjoys being a dad, and so does half of the parenting and household stuff, for sure.

So I think it's crucial to pick the right husband. If the moms have all of these complaints, maybe they settled for the wrong husband?

Also, my own dad (now in his 80's) was not like the dad described in the article. He was a super active dad and never assumed my mom would cover things. My dad cooked dinner on weeknights, and my mom cooked dinner on weekends. (My mom was a top realtor in our area when I was a kid/teen.)

[Anonymous]

To the PP with the messy DH who tracks mud through the house etc-- that does not mean that all men are messy. That just means that your DH is that way.

My DH (age 53) keeps things clean, and always picks up after himself. When he cooks, he washes the pots and pans along the way. His mom taught him all of these things when he was growing up.

If a man is really messy, it's possible that he might have a learning disability such as ADHD that impacts motivation (as I have a son like that . . even though he was raised in a clean house where everyone picks up after their own messes).

In the college dorms where my kids have lived, I've noticed that the students from foreign countries can be much neater than the average American student, many of whom seem content to live like slobs.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Women who approach coparenting like this list (keeping score) will 💯 be unhappy and resentful. Not because they do more than their husband but because they are keeping score of every darn thing. Essentially, looking to create drama.

Yes, women should just stfu and do all the work.

Instead of counting who does what, how would it look if you counted who has more downtime. Doing entertainment and self care stuff, like scrolling, gym, tv, bathroom alone, etc.

I'm suspecting many on this thread are just underestimating how long the things dh does should take. And not noticing important tasks. It's kind of human nature to remember our own work more and not notice others' work.

given that time-use studies consistently show women have less leisure time, I feel pretty confident that those of us saying we have less leisure time can be trusted.

Time use studies also show that men and women spend about the same amount of time in what I think most of us would consider "work" (paid work, childcare, and housework). The edge is actually slightly for men there. The extra leisure time men take isn't coming out of that combination, but no one seems to want to address that. My source here is this analysis of the American Time Use Study: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/03/14/chapter-6-time-in-work-and-leisure-patterns-by-gender-and-family-structure/ It shows that overall, men do .4 hours more of "work" per week, while in households with children, the gap is greater, with men doing about 2 hours more of "work" per week.

The most recent data I've seen (here: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/time-spent-in-leisure-and-sports-activities-2022.htm) shows men taking roughly an extra 40 minutes a day in leisure. The gap in leisure time is probably smaller in households with children, in the Pew analysis from 2013 it was, then it was 2 hours per week of extra leisure time for men in households with children so roughly 16 minutes per day. Some of that seemingly comes out of sleep; women sleep an average of 14 minutes longer a day then men. I haven't dug into the data to see where the other discrepancies are, but I think the time use data actually shows men and women "work" equal amounts, men just take more for leisure too.

here’s another one showing that single mothers do LESS domestic work than married women: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6560646/

the researchers observe that when mothers live with other adults (not a husband/boyfriend) their domestic labor goes down.

“ Thus, although partnered mothers theoretically can share some household labor with their partners, our findings showed that living with a heterosexual male partner was associated with mothers’ greater time spent on housework, consistent with the gender perspective”

conclusion: dads drag moms down.

Men create more housework. And because they are less accustomed to DOING housework, they don't know how to live in a way that minimizes it. My husband will clomp through the house with muddy boots on, wander down hallways and through rooms while eating crackers, toss mail onto tables such that it falls behind the table, bang a spoon on the side of a pot so flecks of sauce get on the wall and cabinets, and so forth. But he never vacuums or mops, never fishes the mail out from against the wall, never wipes down the cabinets or the backsplash. If I ask him to take more care with these behaviors so less mess is made, he accuses me of being controlling. If I say "okay, then I need you to vacuum and mop and wipe things down," he complains my cleaning standards are too high. If I want to live in a house where I can walk through a room barefoot without getting bits of dirt and food on my feet, or where we don't have food on the walls of our kitchen, I have to do it myself.

This was really brought home during Covid. Men are so hard on homes. Having my DH home all the time created cleaning issues that had never existed before. The floor under his workspace in the living room became worn and dirty very quickly and I started having to mop it and treat the wood, even though I work in the same room and have never had to do this before. More dishes, more spills, more random items left all over the house. The bathroom gets gross faster (and I don't mean it just gets dirtier -- I mean it get's gross).

I have been cleaning up after myself, with normal hygiene standards (as opposed to "single guy in his 20s" hygiene standards) my whole life, so I know how to live more lightly and make less work for myself. Men don't get this. Men are generally as messy if not more so than children and pets, and one reason married women spend more time cleaning is that they are cleaning up after their husbands, even before kids enter the picture.

It’s 2024. Go get yourself a roomba or two. Or is the “mental load” of programming it one time and taking 30 seconds a day to empty the filter too much for you?

It's 2024. A man should know how to use a vacuum cleaner by now.

But in this scenario the man doesn’t care about being able to walk through the house barefoot or eat off the floors. The woman does. So vacuum every day and constantly p!$$ and moan about it, or maybe get a roomba and have your dirt free floors with practically zero effort on your part.

How’s the saying go? Work smarter, not harder?

Yes, because the husband who refuses to vacuum and claims he does not "see" all the dirt and crumbs he tracks through the house is also definitely going to be cool with buying a super expensive robot vacuum to solve something he doesn't even view as a problem [because the solution to the problem for hims is for his wife to provide free labor to their family to fix it].

It's like when women complain about doing way more childcare than their husbands and people say "just get a nanny." The people who need a solution the most are not going to benefit from these suggestions to pay for expensive outsourcing of these tasks. Their husbands don't value this work when their wives do it, they aren't going to want to pay someone else to do it either. The issue is men who simply do not value childcare or housework, plus think to the degree these tasks have value, they should be performed by wives and mothers without complaint.

Aww, poor little victim pretending she can’t set aside $350 to make her own life better.

PP ask yourself why you have so much anger towards the pp? You know what they say about defensive people? We are hitting too close to the truth. Again why should it only be up to the wife to come up with $350 to "make HER life better?" A clean house helps everyone!

The bolded is the crux of the argument, actually. You are either incapable of understanding or too stubborn to accept that some people truly DO.NOT.CARE if there’s some dirt on the floor or if the robot vacuum missed a spot (after all, it’ll get that spot next time… or maybe it won’t… I don’t really care). Or any other matters relating to a clean house, healthy cooking, curated/limited screen time, social engagements, etc. It’s not that they EXPECT you to do these things for them, they just don’t care if these things get done or not. Many people truly do not even notice or think about half of the complaints in this thread.

Your standards are not the CORRECT standards… they are simply YOUR standards. And while I am sure that your standards are indeed higher and that everyone in your life would be better off if they lived up to them, the sad truth is that as long as they aren’t doing anything illegal, no adult is required to live by any standards but their own. In other words, you are not the boss. You don’t get to make the rules and then demand that your spouse follow them. The sooner you can accept that reality, the happier you will be.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Women who approach coparenting like this list (keeping score) will 💯 be unhappy and resentful. Not because they do more than their husband but because they are keeping score of every darn thing. Essentially, looking to create drama.

Yes, women should just stfu and do all the work.

Instead of counting who does what, how would it look if you counted who has more downtime. Doing entertainment and self care stuff, like scrolling, gym, tv, bathroom alone, etc.

I'm suspecting many on this thread are just underestimating how long the things dh does should take. And not noticing important tasks. It's kind of human nature to remember our own work more and not notice others' work.

given that time-use studies consistently show women have less leisure time, I feel pretty confident that those of us saying we have less leisure time can be trusted.

Time use studies also show that men and women spend about the same amount of time in what I think most of us would consider "work" (paid work, childcare, and housework). The edge is actually slightly for men there. The extra leisure time men take isn't coming out of that combination, but no one seems to want to address that. My source here is this analysis of the American Time Use Study: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/03/14/chapter-6-time-in-work-and-leisure-patterns-by-gender-and-family-structure/ It shows that overall, men do .4 hours more of "work" per week, while in households with children, the gap is greater, with men doing about 2 hours more of "work" per week.

The most recent data I've seen (here: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/time-spent-in-leisure-and-sports-activities-2022.htm) shows men taking roughly an extra 40 minutes a day in leisure. The gap in leisure time is probably smaller in households with children, in the Pew analysis from 2013 it was, then it was 2 hours per week of extra leisure time for men in households with children so roughly 16 minutes per day. Some of that seemingly comes out of sleep; women sleep an average of 14 minutes longer a day then men. I haven't dug into the data to see where the other discrepancies are, but I think the time use data actually shows men and women "work" equal amounts, men just take more for leisure too.

here’s another one showing that single mothers do LESS domestic work than married women: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6560646/

the researchers observe that when mothers live with other adults (not a husband/boyfriend) their domestic labor goes down.

“ Thus, although partnered mothers theoretically can share some household labor with their partners, our findings showed that living with a heterosexual male partner was associated with mothers’ greater time spent on housework, consistent with the gender perspective”

conclusion: dads drag moms down.

Men create more housework. And because they are less accustomed to DOING housework, they don't know how to live in a way that minimizes it. My husband will clomp through the house with muddy boots on, wander down hallways and through rooms while eating crackers, toss mail onto tables such that it falls behind the table, bang a spoon on the side of a pot so flecks of sauce get on the wall and cabinets, and so forth. But he never vacuums or mops, never fishes the mail out from against the wall, never wipes down the cabinets or the backsplash. If I ask him to take more care with these behaviors so less mess is made, he accuses me of being controlling. If I say "okay, then I need you to vacuum and mop and wipe things down," he complains my cleaning standards are too high. If I want to live in a house where I can walk through a room barefoot without getting bits of dirt and food on my feet, or where we don't have food on the walls of our kitchen, I have to do it myself.

This was really brought home during Covid. Men are so hard on homes. Having my DH home all the time created cleaning issues that had never existed before. The floor under his workspace in the living room became worn and dirty very quickly and I started having to mop it and treat the wood, even though I work in the same room and have never had to do this before. More dishes, more spills, more random items left all over the house. The bathroom gets gross faster (and I don't mean it just gets dirtier -- I mean it get's gross).

I have been cleaning up after myself, with normal hygiene standards (as opposed to "single guy in his 20s" hygiene standards) my whole life, so I know how to live more lightly and make less work for myself. Men don't get this. Men are generally as messy if not more so than children and pets, and one reason married women spend more time cleaning is that they are cleaning up after their husbands, even before kids enter the picture.

It’s 2024. Go get yourself a roomba or two. Or is the “mental load” of programming it one time and taking 30 seconds a day to empty the filter too much for you?

It's 2024. A man should know how to use a vacuum cleaner by now.

But in this scenario the man doesn’t care about being able to walk through the house barefoot or eat off the floors. The woman does. So vacuum every day and constantly p!$$ and moan about it, or maybe get a roomba and have your dirt free floors with practically zero effort on your part.

How’s the saying go? Work smarter, not harder?

Yes, because the husband who refuses to vacuum and claims he does not "see" all the dirt and crumbs he tracks through the house is also definitely going to be cool with buying a super expensive robot vacuum to solve something he doesn't even view as a problem [because the solution to the problem for hims is for his wife to provide free labor to their family to fix it].

It's like when women complain about doing way more childcare than their husbands and people say "just get a nanny." The people who need a solution the most are not going to benefit from these suggestions to pay for expensive outsourcing of these tasks. Their husbands don't value this work when their wives do it, they aren't going to want to pay someone else to do it either. The issue is men who simply do not value childcare or housework, plus think to the degree these tasks have value, they should be performed by wives and mothers without complaint.

Aww, poor little victim pretending she can’t set aside $350 to make her own life better.

PP ask yourself why you have so much anger towards the pp? You know what they say about defensive people? We are hitting too close to the truth. Again why should it only be up to the wife to come up with $350 to "make HER life better?" A clean house helps everyone!

The bolded is the crux of the argument, actually. You are either incapable of understanding or too stubborn to accept that some people truly DO.NOT.CARE if there’s some dirt on the floor or if the robot vacuum missed a spot (after all, it’ll get that spot next time… or maybe it won’t… I don’t really care). Or any other matters relating to a clean house, healthy cooking, curated/limited screen time, social engagements, etc. It’s not that they EXPECT you to do these things for them, they just don’t care if these things get done or not. Many people truly do not even notice or think about half of the complaints in this thread.

Your standards are not the CORRECT standards… they are simply YOUR standards. And while I am sure that your standards are indeed higher and that everyone in your life would be better off if they lived up to them, the sad truth is that as long as they aren’t doing anything illegal, no adult is required to live by any standards but their own. In other words, you are not the boss. You don’t get to make the rules and then demand that your spouse follow them. The sooner you can accept that reality, the happier you will be.

I disagree. I think a lot of guys do care that someone maintains normal cleanliness standards. That’s why they remarry quickly. Living in filth gets old.

[Anonymous]

I haven't read any replies but that article is pure rubbish. I guess some women are married to men like that, and that's sad, but it is far from a universal truth.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think women just have higher standards and tend to perfectionism. Most of us have a feeling of never being good enough and yes, wanting other women not to judge us. Men don't do that with regard to parenting.
When I took a new job I was crying about being overwhelmed and my husband's idea was to "let it go". "It doesn't matter if the house isn't totally clean, it looks just fine to me." "It doesn't matter if we eat frozen pizza 3 times a week, you don't need to cook gourmet meals all the time." I want my kids to eat healthy dinners and use a clean bathroom! I want him to help me reach my standards, not lower them.

Oh dear. Wanting to eat more than frozen pizza and not having a filthy bathroom is not “perfectionism.” It’s an extremely minimal basic level.

+1, when your excuse for why men don't pull their weight is that when men have "high standards" that equate to basic hygiene and nutrition, you've really lost the plot.

When I hear this, I always wish these men would be forced to actually live down to what they claim are their standards. I think it would last for a little bit and then they'd realize they were depressed and unhealthy, and so were their kids, because it actually sucks to live in a filthy house and eat garbage and not take responsibility for our life.

I know what it looks like based on my xDH’s long vacations with our kid. Fast food or diner food every day, clothes dirty, sunburns (no hats or sunblock), smelling very bad and visibly grimy (no showers for a week).

And I’ll bet the kids have way more fun on vacation with Dad than they do on their carefully curated and controlled educational trips with their uptight mom…

Of course Dad can have fun when he neglects basic everything. Then mom can put it all back together with nutritious meals, haircuts, treating rashes/burns/chapped skin, doing the laundry. THAT is “Dad Privilege,” precisely!

It’s not “Dad Privilege”… It’s a VACATION. It’s SUPPOSED to be a break from normal daily life.

Oh it is 100% Dad Privilege when I pack for them, do all the laundry when they return, deal with whatever weird skin thing resulted. Once he showed up at the airport with our kid’s entire upper lip area from the lip to nostrils caked in dry snot and flaking irritated skin. They have a great time, true, but being the Disney Dad is a trope for a reason, not a defense.

Sorry your picker was broken! No one’s fault but yours.

So it’s not his fault?

He is who he is. You picked him. No, that’s not his fault, that’s your fault.

DP but I hate this argument because it assumes that women know what kinds of husbands and fathers men are going to be. We don't. It's all guesswork. I believe some women have better "pickers" and are better at selecting partners who will show up. But I also don't think it's possible for a woman to fix her picker. I also think a lot of me do an okay job of convincing themselves and the women they marry that the really, actually want an egalitarian marriage, and then later (after kids come along) they are happy to lean into their male privilege to escape doing work. I see it in my husband, my brothers, some of my friends and some of my friends' husbands. It is easy to be like "of course I'll do my share!" when you are 28 and dating a woman you like and being a progressive feminist man makes you seem more attractive. It's very different when you are 48 and you are pretty sure that even if you shirk a lot of stuff, your wife won't leave you because you have two kids together and your finances are all bound up together and she's middle aged too.

Men will woo with "we're equals, baby." They don't always stick with it.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… why’d you have more than one kid with the guy? Twins?

Blame blame blame. Blame anyone but the actual adult not pulling their own weight.

Blame anyone but yourself for not exercising any agency in your own life. How’s that working out for you?

Sorry dude, you don’t get off the hook that easily. Time to man up.

Eh! Wrong answer, Hans! I’m a happily married woman.

Look I’m not sure what your agenda is here. This clearly isn’t the thread for you since you and your husband are both perfect. Maybe ask yourself what your reason is for hanging out here smugly and $hitting on people?

I don't think there is an agenda. She's clearly far from happy.

Says the woman complaining about her husband incessantly on an anonymous mommy message board.

I’m incredibly happy, but sometimes I DO get bored with all the free time I have not nagging my husband to do pointless busywork or complaining about how it’s SO EMOTIONALLY DIFFICULT to fill out summer camp registration forms once a year. I admit that arguing with dramatic complainers like you ladies is not the most productive hobby, however, I’m just human and I get that dopamine spike reading all your BS.

But I will leave y’all to your victim Olympics now. Good luck in your efforts to change other people!

I actually haven't posted on this thread. Both of my children have special needs, with one child needing a lot of support, and so my spouse and I are actually both very busy trying to keep our heads above water. I'm never sure how much of our experience is normal as a result, but do empathize with a lot of the responses on this thread. What you read as the victim Olympics comes across to me as a lot of people struggling.

I think tone is really hard to get across in an online forum, especially one where so many people are objectively combative. But I do, sincerely, hope that you are happy.

dp I agree pp. The tone right from the start has been very negative. But, I think it is because it hits too on the nose. For me, I lowered my standards and my dh has picked up the slack in a lot of areas.

Most people especially with small kids aren’t OK with big chunks of dirt constantly on the floor.

DP. Maybe most people are idiots who are making work for themselves they don't have to. Floor dirt is, at worst, harmless and probably beneficial for a small kid to be around. It's certainly not a "standard" to keep up if its making you and other people around you miserable.

If letting your kid crawl around on filthly floors is neccesary to your happiness b/c you are too lazy to vacuum you never should have had kids.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Honestly, this is trope stacked on top of trope and is really some lazy thinking by someone heavily invested in martyred mothering (just note the name of the substack -- "Liberating Motherhood" -- this thing comes at this with an axe to grind and part of the business model is to stoke outrage; it's not dissimilar from right-wing news media like Fox or Newsmax in that regard.) The article itself incredibly lazy thinking that borrows the language of liberation theology for cynical purposes, and I'm going to hazard a guess that the "checklist" is just a crowdsourced list of grievances from women with a similar mindset. In other words, I don't think the author has any original thoughts on the matter.

This is not to say some individual items on the list aren't valid phenomena -- I have definitely been approached by women at the playground when I was out with my toddlers and praised for being a great dad and giving mom a "break," for example, but I've also been approached by women keen on "helping" me because they assumed by these women to be incompetent because I have a penis). So, this isn't really dad "privilege" so much as it is a recounting of various stereotypes that are harmful to both women AND men. It's kind of like the dumb, clueless dad trope you used to see in advertising (and thankfully don't see so much anymore, that ridiculous car commercial where the dad gets the wrong binky notwithstanding).

So, I'm not going to say "not all men." I'm going to say "hardly any men" fit this list of "privilege." (Another co-opted term intended to provoke a response, natch).

Let's just look at the first two:

I know that someone else will register my children for school.

I know that someone else will know the signs of developmental disabilities and mental health issues in my children.

I guess we're assume that these things are exclusively the mom's domain? But I don't think that's true in any family I know of. I will say that same as women are known to approach dads at playgrounds and either praise or offer to help them, schools similarly default to contacting the mom, nevermind the fact that most dads are perfectly competent and capable caregivers.

I know of NO families where the presence of developmental disabilities or mental health issues are unilateral concerns for just mom.

The third one on the list about giving birth was first the clue to me that this was a crowdsourced list -- it's just dripping with contempt and doesn't make sense.

The next two:

My partner will be judged for my parenting shortcomings.

I don’t have to worry about school supplies because someone else will do it for me.

I guess it's true that men, in general, don't give a shit what other people think so wouldn't fret about being "judged." That's not "privilege," however. That's just a case of having self-confidence. To the degree women have more insecurities and worry about what other people think, that's a woman problem (and probably an individual one), not some broader indictment of men; everyone should carry on without caring what other people think, much less caring if someone else is "judging."

The school supplies thing is just stupid -- we always did back-to-school shopping as a family and there were plenty of dads doing the same when we were at Staples or whatever.

The men I know make doctors appointments and take their kids to doctors. They cook. They plan birthday parties (granted, these birthday parties might not be the elaborate affairs some martyr moms might feel like they need to have so they don't feel judged, but that, again, is a woman problem, it's not "dad privilege."). They plan trips and pack their children for them. They chaperone school field trips. In fact, they do most of these things on this list except things they're physically incapable of, such as giving birth or breastfeeding. But they do, in fact, pick up the slack when their partners DO those physical things, the contemptuous tone of the bulleted list items notwithstanding.

So, I guess what I'm saying is I dispute the very premise of the article. I understand it was written to try to rile up women feeling resentful about things. But objectively, the insinuation that men don't do the things on this (ridiculously long, crow-sourced list) is unsupported by facts, except for some things that might fall more into the bucket of "emotional labor," which takes us back to those conversations since, at the end of the day, there are some things some moms care a lot more about than most dads -- and most of those are grounded in <checks notes> fear of "being judged" or other anxieties that men, generally, don't have.

Is not having that anxiety "dad privilege?" I suppose you could make the case. But, honestly, moms didn't have that anxiety for most millennia. If the supposition here is that men should start caring about these things that give moms anxiety (fear of being judged...) that's arguably stupid. Misery loves company, sure... But maybe, just maybe, women should take a page from the attitude most dads have and stop obsessing so much about things that don't matter in the long run.

And there it is. Because 50% of the list (or more) are things that dont matter much but I would disagree.

We have ZERO dads chaperoning field trips for a school of 450 kids. We have 1 Dad on the PTA- hes a single father. They never volunteer without having their wife or spouse volunteer for them or with them. They may SHOW up to an event but they wouldnt know about it without their wife.

I call your bluff on a majority of Dads making annual physicals, eye exams, and dental appointments, etc. unless the discussion has already been had between the parents from something like Fair Play.

NP. We regularly have dads chaperoning at our private school. Also, my husband does the majority of doctor/dentist visits with our kids (all girls). And I've never heard of Fair Play? It's just something he does. You know, because they're his kids...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This again guys? Look, we know there are some men out there who do 50% or more. But they are rare. Actual, objective research time and time again shows women do more domestic labor even if they also work outside the home. The whole “default parent” thing is true for many of us.

What resonated most for me on the list is the freedom men have to just assume the mom will handle things. Even if the dad does some of the things on that list 9/10 the mom has set it up or monitors it in some way. I happen to have an extreme version of default parenting that has led to divorce. At the end of the day, it was his complete freedom vs my complete lack of freedom that really soured me, more than the actual work I had to do. Time and time again, being treated like the maid, chef and nanny as he just … walked out the door to do whatever tf he wanted to do … really got demoralizing

You married a dud. The majority of the dads in our social circle are very involved. The moms also work. But in our group, a dud like your husband would stand out. Our bus drop offs and pick ups are at least 50% dads, and many families alternate days like ours does. Dads take kids to events as much as moms do. In fact, the dads take the kids on an annual camping trip. The moms also go on a trip...without the kids. We have a lot of neighborhood parties/events and more often than not it's the dads setting them up and doing the work. I don't doubt that these 1950s-era households still exist in the US, but they are also a relic of the past for many people.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Women who approach coparenting like this list (keeping score) will 💯 be unhappy and resentful. Not because they do more than their husband but because they are keeping score of every darn thing. Essentially, looking to create drama.

Yes, women should just stfu and do all the work.

Instead of counting who does what, how would it look if you counted who has more downtime. Doing entertainment and self care stuff, like scrolling, gym, tv, bathroom alone, etc.

I'm suspecting many on this thread are just underestimating how long the things dh does should take. And not noticing important tasks. It's kind of human nature to remember our own work more and not notice others' work.

given that time-use studies consistently show women have less leisure time, I feel pretty confident that those of us saying we have less leisure time can be trusted.

Time use studies also show that men and women spend about the same amount of time in what I think most of us would consider "work" (paid work, childcare, and housework). The edge is actually slightly for men there. The extra leisure time men take isn't coming out of that combination, but no one seems to want to address that. My source here is this analysis of the American Time Use Study: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/03/14/chapter-6-time-in-work-and-leisure-patterns-by-gender-and-family-structure/ It shows that overall, men do .4 hours more of "work" per week, while in households with children, the gap is greater, with men doing about 2 hours more of "work" per week.

The most recent data I've seen (here: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/time-spent-in-leisure-and-sports-activities-2022.htm) shows men taking roughly an extra 40 minutes a day in leisure. The gap in leisure time is probably smaller in households with children, in the Pew analysis from 2013 it was, then it was 2 hours per week of extra leisure time for men in households with children so roughly 16 minutes per day. Some of that seemingly comes out of sleep; women sleep an average of 14 minutes longer a day then men. I haven't dug into the data to see where the other discrepancies are, but I think the time use data actually shows men and women "work" equal amounts, men just take more for leisure too.

here’s another one showing that single mothers do LESS domestic work than married women: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6560646/

the researchers observe that when mothers live with other adults (not a husband/boyfriend) their domestic labor goes down.

“ Thus, although partnered mothers theoretically can share some household labor with their partners, our findings showed that living with a heterosexual male partner was associated with mothers’ greater time spent on housework, consistent with the gender perspective”

conclusion: dads drag moms down.

Men create more housework. And because they are less accustomed to DOING housework, they don't know how to live in a way that minimizes it. My husband will clomp through the house with muddy boots on, wander down hallways and through rooms while eating crackers, toss mail onto tables such that it falls behind the table, bang a spoon on the side of a pot so flecks of sauce get on the wall and cabinets, and so forth. But he never vacuums or mops, never fishes the mail out from against the wall, never wipes down the cabinets or the backsplash. If I ask him to take more care with these behaviors so less mess is made, he accuses me of being controlling. If I say "okay, then I need you to vacuum and mop and wipe things down," he complains my cleaning standards are too high. If I want to live in a house where I can walk through a room barefoot without getting bits of dirt and food on my feet, or where we don't have food on the walls of our kitchen, I have to do it myself.

This was really brought home during Covid. Men are so hard on homes. Having my DH home all the time created cleaning issues that had never existed before. The floor under his workspace in the living room became worn and dirty very quickly and I started having to mop it and treat the wood, even though I work in the same room and have never had to do this before. More dishes, more spills, more random items left all over the house. The bathroom gets gross faster (and I don't mean it just gets dirtier -- I mean it get's gross).

I have been cleaning up after myself, with normal hygiene standards (as opposed to "single guy in his 20s" hygiene standards) my whole life, so I know how to live more lightly and make less work for myself. Men don't get this. Men are generally as messy if not more so than children and pets, and one reason married women spend more time cleaning is that they are cleaning up after their husbands, even before kids enter the picture.

It’s 2024. Go get yourself a roomba or two. Or is the “mental load” of programming it one time and taking 30 seconds a day to empty the filter too much for you?

It's 2024. A man should know how to use a vacuum cleaner by now.

But in this scenario the man doesn’t care about being able to walk through the house barefoot or eat off the floors. The woman does. So vacuum every day and constantly p!$$ and moan about it, or maybe get a roomba and have your dirt free floors with practically zero effort on your part.

How’s the saying go? Work smarter, not harder?

Yes, because the husband who refuses to vacuum and claims he does not "see" all the dirt and crumbs he tracks through the house is also definitely going to be cool with buying a super expensive robot vacuum to solve something he doesn't even view as a problem [because the solution to the problem for hims is for his wife to provide free labor to their family to fix it].

It's like when women complain about doing way more childcare than their husbands and people say "just get a nanny." The people who need a solution the most are not going to benefit from these suggestions to pay for expensive outsourcing of these tasks. Their husbands don't value this work when their wives do it, they aren't going to want to pay someone else to do it either. The issue is men who simply do not value childcare or housework, plus think to the degree these tasks have value, they should be performed by wives and mothers without complaint.

Aww, poor little victim pretending she can’t set aside $350 to make her own life better.

PP ask yourself why you have so much anger towards the pp? You know what they say about defensive people? We are hitting too close to the truth. Again why should it only be up to the wife to come up with $350 to "make HER life better?" A clean house helps everyone!

The bolded is the crux of the argument, actually. You are either incapable of understanding or too stubborn to accept that some people truly DO.NOT.CARE if there’s some dirt on the floor or if the robot vacuum missed a spot (after all, it’ll get that spot next time… or maybe it won’t… I don’t really care). Or any other matters relating to a clean house, healthy cooking, curated/limited screen time, social engagements, etc. It’s not that they EXPECT you to do these things for them, they just don’t care if these things get done or not. Many people truly do not even notice or think about half of the complaints in this thread.

Your standards are not the CORRECT standards… they are simply YOUR standards. And while I am sure that your standards are indeed higher and that everyone in your life would be better off if they lived up to them, the sad truth is that as long as they aren’t doing anything illegal, no adult is required to live by any standards but their own. In other words, you are not the boss. You don’t get to make the rules and then demand that your spouse follow them. The sooner you can accept that reality, the happier you will be.

This is Dad Privilege, right here. When children are involved you don’t get to be that lazy and negligent. You just don’t. You can live in filth and isolation if you’re the only one it impacts. Your children cannot. And you are lying too because you KNOW it’s not good for the kids - but you also know your wife will take care of it. Dad Privilege.

Now going on to claim your wife is a crazy harridan for having child rearing and domestic standards somewhere above “not illegal” - that’s something beyond Dad Privilege headed towards pathology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's basically nothing on this that's true for parenting in my house (my wife does do laundry), but this one:

"I will never have to make a parenting or household labor to-do list for my partner."

made me laugh because I just got back from a week away from the house and before I left i had to leave my wife a detailed schedule of everything I do in a week: when and where activities happen, what goes in lunches, what time school starts, everything. I don't care about the fact that normally, I do all of this, but it was interesting to see it all laid out like that.

And still it's different for Dads who say they fill the "mom" role. Ask ANY mom who does all that you do and has to make a list for their spouse the last time they left for a week. LOL LOL LOL

I'm a mom and I've never left a list for my husband before going anywhere. And I travel plenty, both for work and for pleasure. I just pack my bags and...leave. He's perfectly capable of taking care of our kids when I'm gone. And yes, I traveled when they were babies (and we have multiples).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's basically nothing on this that's true for parenting in my house (my wife does do laundry), but this one:

"I will never have to make a parenting or household labor to-do list for my partner."

made me laugh because I just got back from a week away from the house and before I left i had to leave my wife a detailed schedule of everything I do in a week: when and where activities happen, what goes in lunches, what time school starts, everything. I don't care about the fact that normally, I do all of this, but it was interesting to see it all laid out like that.

And still it's different for Dads who say they fill the "mom" role. Ask ANY mom who does all that you do and has to make a list for their spouse the last time they left for a week. LOL LOL LOL

What do you think they would say? I'm confused because instead of specifying how it's different you just wrote LOL LOL LOL?

I dont know a single mom that has ever left for a week. 3-4 days for a work trip sure. But the ones leaving for a week or more work trip have nannies so they dont need to tell their spouse all that. I surely dont know a mom- primary parent mind you- that has ever left for a week for any reason especially not a vacation or personal one.

I can't think of a single mom that hasn't ever left for a week... And no, most of us don't have nannies. And actually most of us also don't have family nearby either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This again guys? Look, we know there are some men out there who do 50% or more. But they are rare. Actual, objective research time and time again shows women do more domestic labor even if they also work outside the home. The whole “default parent” thing is true for many of us.

What resonated most for me on the list is the freedom men have to just assume the mom will handle things. Even if the dad does some of the things on that list 9/10 the mom has set it up or monitors it in some way. I happen to have an extreme version of default parenting that has led to divorce. At the end of the day, it was his complete freedom vs my complete lack of freedom that really soured me, more than the actual work I had to do. Time and time again, being treated like the maid, chef and nanny as he just … walked out the door to do whatever tf he wanted to do … really got demoralizing

You married a dud. The majority of the dads in our social circle are very involved. The moms also work. But in our group, a dud like your husband would stand out. Our bus drop offs and pick ups are at least 50% dads, and many families alternate days like ours does. Dads take kids to events as much as moms do. In fact, the dads take the kids on an annual camping trip. The moms also go on a trip...without the kids. We have a lot of neighborhood parties/events and more often than not it's the dads setting them up and doing the work. I don't doubt that these 1950s-era households still exist in the US, but they are also a relic of the past for many people.

Yes I married a dud, that’s clear. But don’t assume that because you see the dad’s at the bus stop that they are doing 50% of the work. School drop-offs and pickups are about the only thing my exDH would do reliably because they required no planning and the consequences of failure would be such that even he wouldn’t fail (often). That said he STILL tried to weasel out of it until I threw a fit. Splitting daycare and school pickup/dropoff was pretreatment much the only line I managed to hold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's basically nothing on this that's true for parenting in my house (my wife does do laundry), but this one:

"I will never have to make a parenting or household labor to-do list for my partner."

made me laugh because I just got back from a week away from the house and before I left i had to leave my wife a detailed schedule of everything I do in a week: when and where activities happen, what goes in lunches, what time school starts, everything. I don't care about the fact that normally, I do all of this, but it was interesting to see it all laid out like that.

And still it's different for Dads who say they fill the "mom" role. Ask ANY mom who does all that you do and has to make a list for their spouse the last time they left for a week. LOL LOL LOL

What do you think they would say? I'm confused because instead of specifying how it's different you just wrote LOL LOL LOL?

I dont know a single mom that has ever left for a week. 3-4 days for a work trip sure. But the ones leaving for a week or more work trip have nannies so they dont need to tell their spouse all that. I surely dont know a mom- primary parent mind you- that has ever left for a week for any reason especially not a vacation or personal one.

I can't think of a single mom that hasn't ever left for a week... And no, most of us don't have nannies. And actually most of us also don't have family nearby either.

I left for a week … to take care of my brother’s kids while he had a stem cell transplant. ExDH had his mom come to help. Meanwhile he left multiple times for week+ vacations without asking me anything about what I’d need to make it work. Dad privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Women who approach coparenting like this list (keeping score) will 💯 be unhappy and resentful. Not because they do more than their husband but because they are keeping score of every darn thing. Essentially, looking to create drama.

Yes, women should just stfu and do all the work.

Instead of counting who does what, how would it look if you counted who has more downtime. Doing entertainment and self care stuff, like scrolling, gym, tv, bathroom alone, etc.

I'm suspecting many on this thread are just underestimating how long the things dh does should take. And not noticing important tasks. It's kind of human nature to remember our own work more and not notice others' work.

given that time-use studies consistently show women have less leisure time, I feel pretty confident that those of us saying we have less leisure time can be trusted.

Time use studies also show that men and women spend about the same amount of time in what I think most of us would consider "work" (paid work, childcare, and housework). The edge is actually slightly for men there. The extra leisure time men take isn't coming out of that combination, but no one seems to want to address that. My source here is this analysis of the American Time Use Study: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/03/14/chapter-6-time-in-work-and-leisure-patterns-by-gender-and-family-structure/ It shows that overall, men do .4 hours more of "work" per week, while in households with children, the gap is greater, with men doing about 2 hours more of "work" per week.

The most recent data I've seen (here: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/time-spent-in-leisure-and-sports-activities-2022.htm) shows men taking roughly an extra 40 minutes a day in leisure. The gap in leisure time is probably smaller in households with children, in the Pew analysis from 2013 it was, then it was 2 hours per week of extra leisure time for men in households with children so roughly 16 minutes per day. Some of that seemingly comes out of sleep; women sleep an average of 14 minutes longer a day then men. I haven't dug into the data to see where the other discrepancies are, but I think the time use data actually shows men and women "work" equal amounts, men just take more for leisure too.

here’s another one showing that single mothers do LESS domestic work than married women: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6560646/

the researchers observe that when mothers live with other adults (not a husband/boyfriend) their domestic labor goes down.

“ Thus, although partnered mothers theoretically can share some household labor with their partners, our findings showed that living with a heterosexual male partner was associated with mothers’ greater time spent on housework, consistent with the gender perspective”

conclusion: dads drag moms down.

Men create more housework. And because they are less accustomed to DOING housework, they don't know how to live in a way that minimizes it. My husband will clomp through the house with muddy boots on, wander down hallways and through rooms while eating crackers, toss mail onto tables such that it falls behind the table, bang a spoon on the side of a pot so flecks of sauce get on the wall and cabinets, and so forth. But he never vacuums or mops, never fishes the mail out from against the wall, never wipes down the cabinets or the backsplash. If I ask him to take more care with these behaviors so less mess is made, he accuses me of being controlling. If I say "okay, then I need you to vacuum and mop and wipe things down," he complains my cleaning standards are too high. If I want to live in a house where I can walk through a room barefoot without getting bits of dirt and food on my feet, or where we don't have food on the walls of our kitchen, I have to do it myself.

This was really brought home during Covid. Men are so hard on homes. Having my DH home all the time created cleaning issues that had never existed before. The floor under his workspace in the living room became worn and dirty very quickly and I started having to mop it and treat the wood, even though I work in the same room and have never had to do this before. More dishes, more spills, more random items left all over the house. The bathroom gets gross faster (and I don't mean it just gets dirtier -- I mean it get's gross).

I have been cleaning up after myself, with normal hygiene standards (as opposed to "single guy in his 20s" hygiene standards) my whole life, so I know how to live more lightly and make less work for myself. Men don't get this. Men are generally as messy if not more so than children and pets, and one reason married women spend more time cleaning is that they are cleaning up after their husbands, even before kids enter the picture.

It’s 2024. Go get yourself a roomba or two. Or is the “mental load” of programming it one time and taking 30 seconds a day to empty the filter too much for you?

It's 2024. A man should know how to use a vacuum cleaner by now.

But in this scenario the man doesn’t care about being able to walk through the house barefoot or eat off the floors. The woman does. So vacuum every day and constantly p!$$ and moan about it, or maybe get a roomba and have your dirt free floors with practically zero effort on your part.

How’s the saying go? Work smarter, not harder?

Yes, because the husband who refuses to vacuum and claims he does not "see" all the dirt and crumbs he tracks through the house is also definitely going to be cool with buying a super expensive robot vacuum to solve something he doesn't even view as a problem [because the solution to the problem for hims is for his wife to provide free labor to their family to fix it].

It's like when women complain about doing way more childcare than their husbands and people say "just get a nanny." The people who need a solution the most are not going to benefit from these suggestions to pay for expensive outsourcing of these tasks. Their husbands don't value this work when their wives do it, they aren't going to want to pay someone else to do it either. The issue is men who simply do not value childcare or housework, plus think to the degree these tasks have value, they should be performed by wives and mothers without complaint.

Aww, poor little victim pretending she can’t set aside $350 to make her own life better.

PP ask yourself why you have so much anger towards the pp? You know what they say about defensive people? We are hitting too close to the truth. Again why should it only be up to the wife to come up with $350 to "make HER life better?" A clean house helps everyone!

The bolded is the crux of the argument, actually. You are either incapable of understanding or too stubborn to accept that some people truly DO.NOT.CARE if there’s some dirt on the floor or if the robot vacuum missed a spot (after all, it’ll get that spot next time… or maybe it won’t… I don’t really care). Or any other matters relating to a clean house, healthy cooking, curated/limited screen time, social engagements, etc. It’s not that they EXPECT you to do these things for them, they just don’t care if these things get done or not. Many people truly do not even notice or think about half of the complaints in this thread.

Your standards are not the CORRECT standards… they are simply YOUR standards. And while I am sure that your standards are indeed higher and that everyone in your life would be better off if they lived up to them, the sad truth is that as long as they aren’t doing anything illegal, no adult is required to live by any standards but their own. In other words, you are not the boss. You don’t get to make the rules and then demand that your spouse follow them. The sooner you can accept that reality, the happier you will be.

This is Dad Privilege, right here. When children are involved you don’t get to be that lazy and negligent. You just don’t. You can live in filth and isolation if you’re the only one it impacts. Your children cannot. And you are lying too because you KNOW it’s not good for the kids - but you also know your wife will take care of it. Dad Privilege.

Now going on to claim your wife is a crazy harridan for having child rearing and domestic standards somewhere above “not illegal” - that’s something beyond Dad Privilege headed towards pathology.

DP. I'm a dad. Our floors get swept probably less than twice a month, virtually always by me. The kids are fine. What do you think is going to happen if there's a little dust and cat hair on the floors? I clean the floors to my (male) standards and the world goes right on turning. If my wife wanted them cleaner, she's welcome to clean them herself but she doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree a lot of this list is super condescending but there’s some real truth to it. In my marriage, and the marriage of most of my friends the saying “he does his best and I do the rest” is 100 percent the case. It’s not that the dads don’t do anything, it’s that they view virtually everything as optional or extra credit. If my husband gets busy at work or wants to travel, he does that. If one of our kids has extra needs, that’s a problem mom will solve regardless of whether she also works or what else she has going on. My husband is not a bad guy and will laugh about both our moms raving how wonderful he is for taking a child to a physical (scheduled by mom, Who is at work and needs to be there because she handled the sick days last week because dad “can’t” reschedule any meetings) but he is still totally guilty of kicking anything hard or inconvenient to me. He knows that I will always always always find a way to do the things I think are important for the kids so he can just say “I can’t” guilt free.

Also this one reminded me of DCUM:
If I do a task incorrectly, people will tell my partner to praise me for trying.

Totally agree. "He does his best and I do the rest" is absolutely how my marriage and those of pretty much all my friends work. "His best" can vary a bit, but I only know one marriage where I genuinely think the dad is the primary parent and is doing "the rest" and he's a SAHD and his wife is an executive and they have one kid.

I think this is the dirty secret of most dual income couples. It looks pretty equal from the outside -- both partners work, they say the right things, dad is visibly doing stuff like taking kids to activities, cooking, seems engaged. But if you open things up and really look at what is happening, dad is taking kids to activities that mom (who also works) researched, arranged, and provided dad with the schedule for. Dad is cooking but so is mom, and mom is also thinking a week ahead to when her MIL is in town and suggesting they make and freeze an extra casserole so they have a quick dinner for the night she arrives. Mom doesn't always seem engaged, because she's exhausted and has a laundry list of things in her head to keep track of (including laundry).

But the veneer of "things are pretty equal!" is there because it's easier on everyone's ego and it keeps the ship afloat. You could nag and nitpick dad to death but he's never, ever going to do as much as mom. Ever. If you don't want to ruin your marriage and get a divorce, which most of us don't, you just accept the inequity and move on. But it's unequal. Very, very unequal.

I mean, if it makes you feel better to think that that's what's going on behind closed doors, then ok I guess. If my MIL comes into town, that's my husband's issue to handle. He can plan the meals, activities, etc. It's his family. I do laundry so yes, that is something that I think about, but there are other things that my husband does that I never consider. Other things we split 50/50 and take turns handling.

I wonder if you also have female friends that you feel like are takers. I just don't associate with people like that. Of course sometimes someone needs more from you than what they can give you, that's fine, but if someone is consistently leaving me holding the bag, I'm out of that relationship, whether it's romantic, platonic, or professional.