Just accepting unequal division of labor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

No, but a good idea would be to drop the rope on the compulsion to be breadwinner 4 times over just for “fulfillment” and “independence” that leaves a woman burnt out on both ends. It’s certainly a difficult conundrum, but we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

If we really believe that women need to run the domestic show because it is essential to society's infrastructure, then we also need to believe that their work in the domestic sphere should be compensated.

This is just stupid. Who is going to pay someone to be a SAHP? That's a financial decision a family makes. If you stay at home and your spouse doesn't value your contribution to the family, then you made a poor choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

No, but a good idea would be to drop the rope on the compulsion to be breadwinner 4 times over just for “fulfillment” and “independence” that leaves a woman burnt out on both ends. It’s certainly a difficult conundrum, but we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

Well right there you just mentioned a major inequality—you can give birth and he can’t. You fed them in their infant years, he fed them once they were older and less helpless. The crux of my argument is that it is almost always the case that women will end up with a so-called inequal load, in some way, in the home. It’s just a fact of reality. It’s up to each individual person how they will deal with that fact of reality—some women mommy track, and some women intuitively understand this and avoid marriage and children altogether in order to pursue those time-intensive goals. A valid choice, and IMO better for her than running herself ragged trying to “have it all”.

Life is about tradeoffs for everyone, male and female. I would advise a man who is killing himself working a high-flying job at the expense of the well-being of his wife and children to do the same—take a step back. But that’s a different conversation for another thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

No, but a good idea would be to drop the rope on the compulsion to be breadwinner 4 times over just for “fulfillment” and “independence” that leaves a woman burnt out on both ends. It’s certainly a difficult conundrum, but we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

Well right there you just mentioned a major inequality—you can give birth and he can’t. You fed them in their infant years, he fed them once they were older and less helpless. The crux of my argument is that it is almost always the case that women will end up with a so-called inequal load, in some way, in the home. It’s just a fact of reality. It’s up to each individual person how they will deal with that fact of reality—some women mommy track, and some women intuitively understand this and avoid marriage and children altogether in order to pursue those time-intensive goals. A valid choice, and IMO better for her than running herself ragged trying to “have it all”.

Life is about tradeoffs for everyone, male and female. I would advise a man who is killing himself working a high-flying job at the expense of the well-being of his wife and children to do the same—take a step back. But that’s a different conversation for another thread.

Sorry, disregard the fed them older thing, I skipped a part reading obviously

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

No, but a good idea would be to drop the rope on the compulsion to be breadwinner 4 times over just for “fulfillment” and “independence” that leaves a woman burnt out on both ends. It’s certainly a difficult conundrum, but we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

Well right there you just mentioned a major inequality—you can give birth and he can’t. You fed them in their infant years, he fed them once they were older and less helpless. The crux of my argument is that it is almost always the case that women will end up with a so-called inequal load, in some way, in the home. It’s just a fact of reality. It’s up to each individual person how they will deal with that fact of reality—some women mommy track, and some women intuitively understand this and avoid marriage and children altogether in order to pursue those time-intensive goals. A valid choice, and IMO better for her than running herself ragged trying to “have it all”.

Life is about tradeoffs for everyone, male and female. I would advise a man who is killing himself working a high-flying job at the expense of the well-being of his wife and children to do the same—take a step back. But that’s a different conversation for another thread.

If a man really wanted to find a way to make it equal even during this time, he could.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have a conversation about chore division, agree on the division, and then make checklists that you hang on the fridge or wherever it is he goes most and will see it. And completely feel free to remind him after the kids are in bed to go do whatever is on his list.

This is so annoying though. Having to remind someone to do their share of the work is just more exhausting than doing the chores yourself.

Get real! Reminding someone to go shovel the driveway or clean the bathrooms or go buy all the stuff on this list at the grocery store is not even close to being “more exhausting” than doing it yourself.

Some people need to be micromanaged. It’s not ideal but there is no need to be overly dramatic about what a hardship it is for their handler…

Adding “micromanager” on top of everything else is indeed exhausting. Especially when the man never does what he agrees to do then accuses the wife of “nagging” and not “asking”
nicely enough. Then as a last resort claims the wife is being “crazy” for thinking the thing needs to be done.
I would not mind asking at all if DH actually just did the thing. But he does not, and makes it very unpleasant. This is the actual dynamic that ends up with the mom as a default parent - she gives up asking and micromanaging because DH makes it very unpleasant and it becomes easier to just do everything.

This! My DH gets so mad if I tell him to do anything. I MUST ask. But he also views asks as things he can say no to for any reason. "Can you give DD a bath?" "No, I'm playing a video game right now." Dude, it's 6 pm on a weekday and I'm making dinner, this is not an optional request.

Sometimes even when I ask he gets mad. "I feel like you think I work for you." No, you definitely don't work for me, if you did I would fire you for being so freaking lazy. I'm trying to get you to help me out on the shared project we undertook together, but You've decided is my thing for some reason.

Wow. I honestly couldn't live like this. I don't know how you deal with it.

I think I'd (1) try to outsource as much as I could so that I could do all the other things, (2) not spend any time on my marriage since there isn't time left to do so after doing all the things my husband won't do, and (3) highly consider divorce. I would hate that for my kids, but I think showing them the dysfunction of their dad not doing anything for them would be worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

No, but a good idea would be to drop the rope on the compulsion to be breadwinner 4 times over just for “fulfillment” and “independence” that leaves a woman burnt out on both ends. It’s certainly a difficult conundrum, but we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

Well right there you just mentioned a major inequality—you can give birth and he can’t. You fed them in their infant years, he fed them once they were older and less helpless. The crux of my argument is that it is almost always the case that women will end up with a so-called inequal load, in some way, in the home. It’s just a fact of reality. It’s up to each individual person how they will deal with that fact of reality—some women mommy track, and some women intuitively understand this and avoid marriage and children altogether in order to pursue those time-intensive goals. A valid choice, and IMO better for her than running herself ragged trying to “have it all”.

Life is about tradeoffs for everyone, male and female. I would advise a man who is killing himself working a high-flying job at the expense of the well-being of his wife and children to do the same—take a step back. But that’s a different conversation for another thread.

Reading comprehension is your friend. My twins were formula-fed, so he fed them just as much as I did when they were infants. In fact, I had a c-section, so when we got home from the hospital he was the one getting them out of their cribs and changing their diapers while I recovered. We'd each feed one after he got them up and then he'd put them both back to bed.

Yes, I was pregnant for 36 weeks and he wasn't, but that didn't gravely impact my ability to do things, especially for the first 30+ weeks. I still worked up until the day I gave birth, so it's not like carrying them meant it created some sort of major inequality between the two of us during that time.

You're forcing the issue of an unequal load by coming up with all these reasons why it HAS to happen. But it doesn't. My husband and I have both always worked full-time. I currently out-earn him, although that has changed over time (first he out-earned me, then I out-earned him, then he out-earned me, and now I out-earn him). We both work about the amount of hours each week. We both travel for work.

After our twins were born we both took leave to stay home with them, then I would leave for work earlier in the morning and he had them by himself and was responsible for them until he left for work. Then I left work earlier because I went in first and I had them for the same amount of time until he came home from work. Then we both had them until they went to bed. Now that they're older, we switch off who does what. If they have doctor's appointments, it depends on whose schedule is more open that day and that person takes them. We each take them to their sports twice a week. We both cook dinner. I could go on and on.

It's pathetic to keep perpetuating this falsehood that women HAVE to step back and do stuff because once they get knocked up, welp, the inequity has started and there's nothing we can do about it from that point on.

[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:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

No, but a good idea would be to drop the rope on the compulsion to be breadwinner 4 times over just for “fulfillment” and “independence” that leaves a woman burnt out on both ends. It’s certainly a difficult conundrum, but we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

Well right there you just mentioned a major inequality—you can give birth and he can’t. You fed them in their infant years, he fed them once they were older and less helpless. The crux of my argument is that it is almost always the case that women will end up with a so-called inequal load, in some way, in the home. It’s just a fact of reality. It’s up to each individual person how they will deal with that fact of reality—some women mommy track, and some women intuitively understand this and avoid marriage and children altogether in order to pursue those time-intensive goals. A valid choice, and IMO better for her than running herself ragged trying to “have it all”.

Life is about tradeoffs for everyone, male and female. I would advise a man who is killing himself working a high-flying job at the expense of the well-being of his wife and children to do the same—take a step back. But that’s a different conversation for another thread.

Sorry, disregard the fed them older thing, I skipped a part reading obviously

DP. Actually it shows why you are making excuses for your preconceived order of things. Because you know quite well that the issues related to birth are so time limited.

I think it’s about power and perception. OP makes 4x her husband; she has much power in her relationship than she is willing to exert. I find that most women are not willing to exert power because they want their husbands to still think of them as nice and feminine. They will take fake harmony over making waves. I don’t worry about such things, so I may be more of a harpy but I don’t have the issues that flood this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

If we really believe that women need to run the domestic show because it is essential to society's infrastructure, then we also need to believe that their work in the domestic sphere should be compensated.

This is just stupid. Who is going to pay someone to be a SAHP? That's a financial decision a family makes. If you stay at home and your spouse doesn't value your contribution to the family, then you made a poor choice.

It's only stupid because you think it's stupid. The one PP was saying that women are more inclined and better at domestic things so they should accept that they have to do them more. Then the other PP said that in that case they should be compensated (because they presumably are giving up other paid work in order to do this).
I read that when the welfare programs were first started, it was after the war when there were many widows with children. The government thought that women should be able to stay home and care for their children, so that's why they needed the welfare money. Somehow now it's all been warped where we think that taking care of a home and children is not worth anything because it doesn't generate money.

[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:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

No, but a good idea would be to drop the rope on the compulsion to be breadwinner 4 times over just for “fulfillment” and “independence” that leaves a woman burnt out on both ends. It’s certainly a difficult conundrum, but we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

Well right there you just mentioned a major inequality—you can give birth and he can’t. You fed them in their infant years, he fed them once they were older and less helpless. The crux of my argument is that it is almost always the case that women will end up with a so-called inequal load, in some way, in the home. It’s just a fact of reality. It’s up to each individual person how they will deal with that fact of reality—some women mommy track, and some women intuitively understand this and avoid marriage and children altogether in order to pursue those time-intensive goals. A valid choice, and IMO better for her than running herself ragged trying to “have it all”.

Life is about tradeoffs for everyone, male and female. I would advise a man who is killing himself working a high-flying job at the expense of the well-being of his wife and children to do the same—take a step back. But that’s a different conversation for another thread.

Sorry, disregard the fed them older thing, I skipped a part reading obviously

DP. Actually it shows why you are making excuses for your preconceived order of things. Because you know quite well that the issues related to birth are so time limited.

I think it’s about power and perception. OP makes 4x her husband; she has much power in her relationship than she is willing to exert. I find that most women are not willing to exert power because they want their husbands to still think of them as nice and feminine. They will take fake harmony over making waves. I don’t worry about such things, so I may be more of a harpy but I don’t have the issues that flood this thread.

No one in a marriage should think they have more power, let alone feel entitled to “exert” that power, simply because they make more money. That is a completely unhealthy and borderline abusive dynamic. And if that’s how you feel relationships should function then you should simply not get married.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have a conversation about chore division, agree on the division, and then make checklists that you hang on the fridge or wherever it is he goes most and will see it. And completely feel free to remind him after the kids are in bed to go do whatever is on his list.

This is so annoying though. Having to remind someone to do their share of the work is just more exhausting than doing the chores yourself.

Get real! Reminding someone to go shovel the driveway or clean the bathrooms or go buy all the stuff on this list at the grocery store is not even close to being “more exhausting” than doing it yourself.

Some people need to be micromanaged. It’s not ideal but there is no need to be overly dramatic about what a hardship it is for their handler…

Disagree. It is exhausting to remind another adult to do their share. And ask in a way that doesn’t offend them somehow. Totally annoying. I’d rather skip all that and do it myself.

If saying “hey dear can you go shovel the driveway?” is JUST as exhausting as shoveling the driveway yourself then I am guessing that in your world shoveling the driveway means picking up the phone and hiring someone to do it for you. Otherwise you are just a drama queen trying to find things to complain about.

(And to be clear, annoying and exhausting are not synonyms. And you can choose NOT to be annoyed, just as you are currently choosing to BE annoyed.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you two sat down together each day and divided what needed to be done, would he be able to do it?

I'm the ADHD spouse and I make myself daily lists of what I need to do. DH and I also sit down weekly to discuss the upcoming week and who is doing what when (dinner, taking DS to practice, etc).

My lists are pretty much the only way I'm able to function. I put EVERYTHING on there, even just emptying the dishwasher.

+1

I know it’s not fair to my spouse, but I make it clear that I absolutely need them to TELL me what to do, and then I will do it. It’s not fun for me either and I am trying my best. I hope my spouse doesn’t resent me!

You…hope your spouse doesn’t resent you for knowingly treating them unfairly? That’s not ADHD that’s delusional.

There are about 100 ways you can manage executive function without expecting your spouse to do it for you.

Yes I hope my spouse doesn’t resent me for not being as capable in as many ways as they are. They certainly don’t seem to. I put forth a good faith effort every day and do what I can, but I still struggle. And I am trying all sorts of strategies to manage my mental health issues, but in the meantime my spouse actually tries to HELP ME. But, my spouse is not a petty scorekeeper like so many of the folks posting their complaints here.

I wonder if some of you would treat your kids this way. Do you think there is some magic age where all mental health issues disappear, or are suddenly no longer issues that people struggle with or suffer from, but are instead now conscious choices to be lazy and worthless? And do you know what’s ALSO exhausting? Having a mental health issue! Maybe try a little compassion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

If we really believe that women need to run the domestic show because it is essential to society's infrastructure, then we also need to believe that their work in the domestic sphere should be compensated.

This is just stupid. Who is going to pay someone to be a SAHP? That's a financial decision a family makes. If you stay at home and your spouse doesn't value your contribution to the family, then you made a poor choice.

It's only stupid because you think it's stupid. The one PP was saying that women are more inclined and better at domestic things so they should accept that they have to do them more. Then the other PP said that in that case they should be compensated (because they presumably are giving up other paid work in order to do this).
I read that when the welfare programs were first started, it was after the war when there were many widows with children. The government thought that women should be able to stay home and care for their children, so that's why they needed the welfare money. Somehow now it's all been warped where we think that taking care of a home and children is not worth anything because it doesn't generate money.

Well, the PP who thinks being a woman means you should stay at home is also stupid, but I digress.

Who, in your magical little world, is paying these women to stay home?

Why isn't the better world order that people stop expecting women to do everything around the house and we set up society that so both men and women do their fair share?

[Anonymous]

Thanks to OP and others who have shared for giving me some solace in a week when I was feeling a little bit sorry for my spinster childless self.

I got very close to marriage a few times, and in the comfort of cohabitation I saw the red flags of how many men behave once a woman moves in and is 'secured' as partner. Sadly even in 2020s we have many men - including many young men, because this pattern gets perpetuated from one generation to another by sons watching their mothers do the bulk of housekeeping and childcare and growing up to expect the same from a partner - who simply don't pull their weight. These men act like entitled teenagers in their marriages and then wonder why the spark dies and the wife wants nothing to do with them sexually. Resentment breeds on both sides and thus we have high rates of divorce and high rates of dissatisfaction in marriages that do stay intact including high rates of infidelity.

I just saw an article about the anniversary of the women's strike in Iceland, and how women there are still complaining about inequality and misogyny. Someday we women have to figure out how to change this, because quite obviously men on the whole will never be motivated to change a status quo which so richly feeds their egos and enriches their lives. Some men are feminists, some men get it and some even step up and try to live in their marriages or other relationships as equitable investors in the work of keeping a home and family. But the large majority are not stepping up and are happy to have all the free time they gain from the labor of their wives and girlfriends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason 70% of divorces are initiated by women.

80% plus if college grads