Millennial men pitched themselves as equal partners. What happened?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have personally known many women I know are so over the top controlling over the kids that the husband just stops even trying to do anything. I have also known several women who flat out refused to rejoin the workforce even when they’d previously agreed with their husband to do so.

Stuff changes when you have kids. You either grow together or you don’t and some of it is society and some of it is personal. You can’t make a broad declaration. That’s why there are so many different views even on this one thread.

I think you aren’t talking about millennials.

OP’s friend group is not representative of “millennials.” At all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think men DID want equal partners, to be involved with children and egalitarian marriages. But it's just really, really hard. There's so much working against dual working parents.
-school hours are atrocious
-school is basically closed one day a week at least and you need to figure out coverage
-kids are always sick, all winter long
-parenting is extremely hard
-it's very, very difficult to be successful at your job if you left work at 3pm when school ends every day. My boss would have a fit and I'd miss out on lots of meetings.

Dh and I have figured it out and have a nice 40/60 marriage (I'm the 60%), but it's a combo of zero-5 minute commutes, telework, lots of grandparent help, back up nanny and a lot of work.

I always wonder about the school thing. My DH has a flexible career with WFH whenever, but we have three kids and they have literally been sick or out for teacher training/holidays at least once a week averaged out. I have no idea how we would do it if both of us worked full-time, but I assume everyone uses nannies or works from home.

We had a nanny when we worked in offices. We have both always worked full-time. Now we both work from home and our kids are old enough to be self-sufficient if home sick so it's not a big deal. Other friends have had nannies, au pairs, grandparents/family close by, or flexible jobs. I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't made enough money to pay for a full-time nanny while we both worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I say this as a woman who breastfed (for a while): If you do exclusive breastfeeding you are setting yourself up for a "Mom does everything" dynamic from the get-go.

.I think this is a cop out. What should happen when mom EBFs is that Dad should do everything related to the house and caring for mom.
The whole point of this is that it isn't ever going to be 50/50 no relationship is exactly 50/50 but that men step up and do things without being tasked or asked. So for example if you're exclusively breastfeeding and you're nursing in that moment and you're in the first three to four weeks after birth and all those other things who else is going to vacuum and do the laundry and clean and go grocery shopping and prep the food? For most men this magically happens either by family coming out to help or Mom doing it in between nursing.
The fact that exclusive breastfeeding is used as a reasoning for why Dad's or this way or that it reinforces is because you're just adding one more thing to your plate that you already manage. I don't think exclusive breastfeeding changes the dynamic as much as it's being used as a scapegoat.
I find it interesting at the very people who are like well I wanted my DH to participate in feeds yeah he's sitting there watching TV or scrolling his phone while doing the formula feeds. well you do all the house stuff that you probably in the back of your mind always do but once you have kids you really don't have time to do all those things. And it becomes that much more evident that your housework load is not equitable.
Exclusive breastfeeding doesn't mean that mom takes care of baby exclusively. There is still tummy time and walks and naps and diaper changes. I'm not sure how being able to feed it from a bottle of her place is all of that and magically makes dad more invested in the other things with childcare in the house.

[Anonymous]

They started watching Andrew Tate. This is what happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think men DID want equal partners, to be involved with children and egalitarian marriages. But it's just really, really hard. There's so much working against dual working parents.
-school hours are atrocious
-school is basically closed one day a week at least and you need to figure out coverage
-kids are always sick, all winter long
-parenting is extremely hard
-it's very, very difficult to be successful at your job if you left work at 3pm when school ends every day. My boss would have a fit and I'd miss out on lots of meetings.

Dh and I have figured it out and have a nice 40/60 marriage (I'm the 60%), but it's a combo of zero-5 minute commutes, telework, lots of grandparent help, back up nanny and a lot of work.

+1 word for word

Yup. It is hard to have a marriage with two equal partners that also have full careers. Society isn't set up for it. Men want an equal partner, but they also want to have to make any career sacrifices to do that.

We are pretty equal in terms of actual childcare, although still have a pretty gendered split around certain household things, and I'm the one who is always thinking of my kid before myself. Not to a martyr extent - I do prioritize myself too. But if kid and I are both hunger, she gets the snack first (obviously!!!!) whereas my husband often thinks about his own needs before looking around. I find that pretty boggling.

What do you mean by full careers? Our HHI is about $500K from salaries (not investments, real estate, etc.) and we make about the same (it has fluctuated over time and then there are bonuses, benefits, etc., but it's approximately equal). I think we have by far the best set up, and I would choose those over one of us making $500K and the other making nothing every day of the week. We're equal partners on all fronts and we're very happily married with multiple kids. To me, this is the ideal situation, but maybe that's just me.

It's ideal for you, particularly because it is all you know, and you are happy, so its all good. But that alternative that you poo-poo is ideal for others, who are also happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe men do a ton, an equal share let’s say, but are simply less vocal about their contributions and, especially, their complaints. Women, biologically, are programmed to be more emotional. They’re more chatty. They initiate 70% of divorces and 90% if they’re college educated. They’re more flighty, and variant in temperament, and neurotic in general as has been reported by top scientists. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/

So a woman might complain a lot about feeling the emotional burden of parenthood, and a career, but perhaps that’s just her subjective, emotion-based, rather than a fact-based, objective assessment of her situation, we’re outside observers able to quantify her particular case.

your "study" was self-reported.

Sorry you’re not happy with the results. There are a lot of other studies that show women always score higher than men in levels of neuroticism. That definitely correlates to a perception of disparate levels of domestic contributions between married men and women.

its not the results I'm unhappy with, its the research. You talk about fact-based objective assessments but your study is self-reported the opposite of objective and emotion-based.

and lets also separate unprompted and prompted in the domestic contributions meaning what a man/woman does without having to be told to do it or reminded by the other person.

I think it’s more that women’s levels of neuroticism lead them to take on a lot of additional worrying, work, or generally kid related things, that are unnecessary. Men may not see the utility in that type of behavior, to undertake things that aren’t worth their or their kids time, and therefore are usually not prone to even initiating them. Basically women get all spun up, or hoisted by their own petard, in terms of planning, activities, etc. So of course they feel the emotional load. Because of a proclivity for neuroticism, they engage in neurotic busy work. Then they complain about it, as their personality, biologically, is also prone to conversation and emoting.

My husband said to me, word for word, "what's the point in cleaning because it's just going to get messy again." And we're not taking about dusting the baseboard here. There's such a thing as too much, sure, but I don't know any women with full time jobs and young kids who are doing "too much."

Ha! This is true.
There is some kind of electrical problem with the lights in our laundry room. I’m dealing with it by putting a lamp with an extension cord in there. We make $500k a year, but I just don’t have the capacity to deal with calling an electrician right now.

You are literally speaking my language. We have the exact same issue in our laundry room - and then the same thing happened in my toddler's closet where there are no plugs - so we have $11 battery powered motion light sticks from amazon that barely work right now in both places. I have no time to find an electrician, let alone a competent one, and we have a 7 figure HHI. It is not easy to outsource.

You’re an idiot. We have that HHI and you can easily afford to hire a house manager to handle those things instead of living like a slob.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see I am late to the convo, but how are they going to be equal partners when they watched their boomer dads do nothing?

Boomer Dads are the worst. Which is funny since they’re basically the same as the guys in the Greatest Generation who were, by definition, the best. I guess your relative worth to society depends a lot on whether you get the chance to kill Nazis.

My husband and I both had boomer dads. Mine was amazing - super involved, very loving, etc. My husband's is awful - verbally abusive, useless, and just rude. Luckily we both like my dad more and that's who my husband strives to be. I don't understand saying things like all boomer dads suck. Maybe it makes you feel better to think there's a reason all your husband suck? Because mine doesn't. And many of my friend's don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m disgusted by the privileged woman (allegedly an immigrant from a third world country) who posted this BS:

No couple with kids is thinking of doing it alone. Corporate policies and federal policies are very flexible for family requirements. There are generous leave policies and flex work arrangements. Family also pitches in, domestic help is plentiful and organized. No working woman is leaving her job because of lack of childcare - even during the pandemic.

Please, explain to me how you could type such utter rubbish? Am I missing the part where you made it clear this is your pipe dream? MILLIONS of women in the USA were forced to leave the workforce because of lack of childcare in the pandemic and beyond, because there is still a critical shortage of childcare and it is more unaffordable than ever.

I rarely get seriously angry, but reading that absurd declaration made me want to punch the poster, who is clearly so privileged now (immigrant success story, yay!) as to be totally ignorant of the lived experience of millions of American mothers right now.

It was written confusingly but I am pretty sure she is describing her home country there. Because she goes on to say the US doesn’t have that which is why parents are unhappy.

But it still paints a rosy picture even of her home country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have personally known many women I know are so over the top controlling over the kids that the husband just stops even trying to do anything. I have also known several women who flat out refused to rejoin the workforce even when they’d previously agreed with their husband to do so.

Stuff changes when you have kids. You either grow together or you don’t and some of it is society and some of it is personal. You can’t make a broad declaration. That’s why there are so many different views even on this one thread.

I think you aren’t talking about millennials.

OP’s friend group is not representative of “millennials.” At all.

Okay, but what does that have to do with gen x or older parents which is clearly what this PP was about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see I am late to the convo, but how are they going to be equal partners when they watched their boomer dads do nothing?

Boomer Dads are the worst. Which is funny since they’re basically the same as the guys in the Greatest Generation who were, by definition, the best. I guess your relative worth to society depends a lot on whether you get the chance to kill Nazis.

My husband and I both had boomer dads. Mine was amazing - super involved, very loving, etc. My husband's is awful - verbally abusive, useless, and just rude. Luckily we both like my dad more and that's who my husband strives to be. I don't understand saying things like all boomer dads suck. Maybe it makes you feel better to think there's a reason all your husband suck? Because mine doesn't. And many of my friend's don't.

Sigh. No one said “all boomer dads sucked.” PP said they sucked as a generation.

[Anonymous]

Back in the day even highly intelligent women became teachers, secretaries, nurses, or other flexible professions. Now we are all attorneys, bankers, doctors. But we still marry our highly intelligent male counterparts who are in the same fields. It is not tenable. The demands of those professions need to be relaxed for everyone, male and female. I don’t think it is going to happen for a couple of decades until us Millennials are firmly in charge. There are outliers for sure, but I do see many Millennial men who are very active in their homes and families. Both the drudge work and the fun stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think men DID want equal partners, to be involved with children and egalitarian marriages. But it's just really, really hard. There's so much working against dual working parents.
-school hours are atrocious
-school is basically closed one day a week at least and you need to figure out coverage
-kids are always sick, all winter long
-parenting is extremely hard
-it's very, very difficult to be successful at your job if you left work at 3pm when school ends every day. My boss would have a fit and I'd miss out on lots of meetings.

Dh and I have figured it out and have a nice 40/60 marriage (I'm the 60%), but it's a combo of zero-5 minute commutes, telework, lots of grandparent help, back up nanny and a lot of work.

+1 word for word

Yup. It is hard to have a marriage with two equal partners that also have full careers. Society isn't set up for it. Men want an equal partner, but they also want to have to make any career sacrifices to do that.

We are pretty equal in terms of actual childcare, although still have a pretty gendered split around certain household things, and I'm the one who is always thinking of my kid before myself. Not to a martyr extent - I do prioritize myself too. But if kid and I are both hunger, she gets the snack first (obviously!!!!) whereas my husband often thinks about his own needs before looking around. I find that pretty boggling.

What do you mean by full careers? Our HHI is about $500K from salaries (not investments, real estate, etc.) and we make about the same (it has fluctuated over time and then there are bonuses, benefits, etc., but it's approximately equal). I think we have by far the best set up, and I would choose those over one of us making $500K and the other making nothing every day of the week. We're equal partners on all fronts and we're very happily married with multiple kids. To me, this is the ideal situation, but maybe that's just me.

It's ideal for you, particularly because it is all you know, and you are happy, so its all good. But that alternative that you poo-poo is ideal for others, who are also happy.

Did you read the post to which I responded? I also acknowledged that the situation was ideal FOR ME. I'm not poo-pooing your way of life. You want to stay at home while your husband works long hours? Go ahead. I really couldn't care less. But they are a lot of you who complain all the time on this board, so glad at least you're happy. Also, I don't think there are barriers from society for the way we live. I think the barriers are when couples aren't equal earners. The PP seemed to indicate that having two equal partners is a problem. I actually think it's a solution. I think having two unequal partners is a problem, i.e. one person making $65K and the other making $435K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see I am late to the convo, but how are they going to be equal partners when they watched their boomer dads do nothing?

Boomer Dads are the worst. Which is funny since they’re basically the same as the guys in the Greatest Generation who were, by definition, the best. I guess your relative worth to society depends a lot on whether you get the chance to kill Nazis.

My husband and I both had boomer dads. Mine was amazing - super involved, very loving, etc. My husband's is awful - verbally abusive, useless, and just rude. Luckily we both like my dad more and that's who my husband strives to be. I don't understand saying things like all boomer dads suck. Maybe it makes you feel better to think there's a reason all your husband suck? Because mine doesn't. And many of my friend's don't.

Sigh. No one said “all boomer dads sucked.” PP said they sucked as a generation.

Sigh. She said boomer dads are the worst. Again, if it makes you feel better, just go with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I knew my husband would not be equal but I didn’t expect him to be as bad as he is. He really thinks he does a lot too. I love him and he’s important, but I would have less labor if he didn’t live here. I fantasize about a 50/50 custody schedule even though I don’t actually want that at all. I thought he would step up overtime but he’s just lazy and selfish. That’s the truth.

This is so real.

And yes to the part about having more work if I was a single parent. I'm not saying I want to be a single parent -- I love my DH and get emotional value out of our relationship, plus I do think it's better for kids to be in a home with both parents. But my DH is soooooooo lazy. And he would admit it. It's not just about parenting, though yes he's a lazy parent. He won't schedule a doctor's or dentist appointment FOR HIMSELF. He doesn't like ironing, so he just wear wrinkled clothes, and when something absolutely hast to be ironed, he will put it off until the absolute last minute (and sometimes I offer to do it just so it can be done and we can pack a bag or leave the house or whatever).

I don't just do more childcare and housework. I take care of the car, I do maintenance on the house and yard, I plan our vacations, I research and execute all major appliance, furniture, or car purchases, when we move I do all the real estate stuff plus 90% of the packing and executing the move. I make sure we get kid and family photos and make sure they get sent to grandparents. I select gifts for his parents and brother when he puts it off and puts it off. I wrap all gifts. He also offloads most of his wardrobe maintenance to me by simply never buying clothes to replace his clothes once they are falling apart, and then when it's his birthday or Father's Day or Christmas, he just says "I don't know, I need new pants but I'm not sure what." So I wind up buying most of his clothes, figuring out what is in fashion, what goes with what he has, shopping sales, etc. I do our taxes and manage our retirement accounts. AND I do most of the childcare and the housekeeping (I do basically all the cleaning except he occasionally cleans the kitchen, and I'm primary parent for everything from school to drop off/pick up to arranging childcare to bedtimes and meals and hygiene, etc. -- there is no child-related thing that he takes the lead on).

He does none of this for me. He's never booked a vacation for me, he can't even make a reservation for my birthday -- I do it myself because I've learned that otherwise it won't happen. He doesn't buy my clothes or get the oil changed in my car or make sure the yard is taken care of or replace lightbulbs. If I ask him to do these things (and I MUST ask, he will never do them voluntarily), he will put it off indefinitely or complain he doesn't know how or say "you've always done it before, it's easier if you do it this time."

Stuff he does do, he wants like a freaking Purple Heart for it. If I ever complain about any of the above, he'll point out that he goes to the grocery store more, does about half the cooking, and does the laundry about 30% of the time. He also checks our credit card statement each month to make sure there is nothing unauthorized and makes sure that we have the right amount of money in the checking account to pay off the balance. He also occasionally makes me a cup of tea in the morning without me asking for it. I am grateful for all of these things. But it's not half, it's not even close to half. He's just a very lazy person and I pick up all his slack because we're married and have a kid together and him putting crap off or avoiding it just winds ups screwing me over in some other way later.

And people will refer to my DH as "one of the good ones" because they see him hanging out with our kid and being a good dad, he'll mention cleaning or laundry, he seems engaged with our lives. Bu the doesn't actually do this stuff. He's just kind of vaguely taking credit for the enormous amount of stuff I do that makes our lives function, and peopel don't press him on it because why would they, so from the outside our marriage looks egalitarian, but I honestly think my DH does less than my dad did if you add it all up, because my dad was the clear breadwinner (my mom worked but as a nurse and made very little money back then) and he also did all the yard work and anything related to the car. Whereas DH and I both work and make similar amounts and I handle the stuff my dad used to handle plus everything my mom did, too.

You husband may be weaponing his incompetence but you are enabling a lot of this behavior.

He doesn't make a doctor or dentist appointment for himself? Then he doesn't go. Let him get cavities, etc. Seriously, you treat him like a child.

YOU want his clothes ironed. Nothing absolute HAS to be ironed, unless he is in the military (which it doesn't sound like he is). So let him wear wrinkled clothes. Or, if you're the one who cares, then do it but acknowledge that you're doing it for yourself.

Pictures are voluntary. Sure, they're important to you, and that's fine, but if you take that task on, again, you need to acknowledge that you're doing it for yourself.

Stop buying gifts for his family. If he doesn't buy them gifts then they don't get gifts. That's not on you. You don't get to take it on and then complain about it. Either do it graciously or not at all.

As for his clothes, he's an adult. If he needs clothes, he will buy them. You spend time figuring out what's "in fashion" and shopping sales for him BECAUSE YOU WANT TO. Stop trying to make these tasks you HAVE to do.

Honestly, you sound like the husband who added "get birth certificate" to his list of tasks.

I agree I do the pictures because I want to, though I do also think he appreciates once it’s done. He also rarely takes photos— most of our candid photos are from me.

The other things, are not for me. I used to not buy him clothes or his family gifts. But about 10 years into our marriage, I started taking pity on him and his family. Like he basically never bought his mother gifts. Ever. So I started to note how hurt I would be of my adult child never even acknowledged my birthday or Mother’s Day with a card or gift. He kept saying he meant to buy her things, he just forgot or didn’t know what to get her. But… it’s easy for me. I can think of something his mom would like in like 5 minutes. Find it online at a good price in 10. So I started doing it. And it is easy… but it’s one more thing I do. Same with his clothes. I didn’t used to buy them, I flat out told him he was an adult, but then himself. But he’s so lazy. He was wearing pants with holes in the crotch to work. It was just out of control. I gave in. It’s not for me. I know who he is. I don’t want him to lose friends or become a pariah at work because he can’t dress himself. Yes, I am treating him like a child. He is acting like one.

I iron his shirts for weddings and funerals, the rest of the time I don’t care. But it’s disrespectful in those settings not to do it. If I wait for him to do it, we are late.

Yes, all of this is learned helplessness on his part. But it’s not like I swooped in to fix everything for him. We got years into our marriage with me being hands off. But then I started giving in. I don’t want the father of my children to get cancer and die because he refused to get standard screenings at the doctor. I don’t want them harassed their dad dresses like he’s homeless. I don’t want my mother in law sitting at home wondering if anyone loves her. And so on.

He is an extra child to me. Everyone else thinks he’s great, that I’m lucky to have married him. If I mention this stuff, they say what you do — oh, that’s on you, you just care about it more, blah blah.

My life would be easier if I was divorced. But worse for our kids (and him). I do love him. But our marriage is deeply unequal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m disgusted by the privileged woman (allegedly an immigrant from a third world country) who posted this BS:

No couple with kids is thinking of doing it alone. Corporate policies and federal policies are very flexible for family requirements. There are generous leave policies and flex work arrangements. Family also pitches in, domestic help is plentiful and organized. No working woman is leaving her job because of lack of childcare - even during the pandemic.

Please, explain to me how you could type such utter rubbish? Am I missing the part where you made it clear this is your pipe dream? MILLIONS of women in the USA were forced to leave the workforce because of lack of childcare in the pandemic and beyond, because there is still a critical shortage of childcare and it is more unaffordable than ever.

I rarely get seriously angry, but reading that absurd declaration made me want to punch the poster, who is clearly so privileged now (immigrant success story, yay!) as to be totally ignorant of the lived experience of millions of American mothers right now.

Is there a different type of experience besides "lived"?