Two spouses: a play

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

All of these things being … picking out some clothing, getting some cookies and a birthday present? That … sounds … exhausting? Is that what my takeaway is here?

At any point was there some discussion in the family? “Larla, find a green shirt. Marla, get your read dress. Darla, pick out a present on Amazon. Honey, can you pick up some snickerdoodles on the way home?”

Right. I definitely feel like a child writing and receiving an award for a speech is capable of getting a birthday present and saying dad my show is on x day and time be there.
Alot of this mental load stuff is being a parent and the struggle is created by the need for rigid control, and refusal to delegate

What kid is getting a birthday present? Do you allow your kids to surf your Amazon account and make their own purchases? Because most people don't want their kids to do that.

Lol, right? That person’s kids also buy their own clothes.
They can’t bake cookies though…

By the time they are 13 they are buying their own clothes. They have a budget and if they want to do in store shopping they tell us if they want a ride


Younger kids are capable of being told go to your room and get a red sweater or a green shirt

You just think you have all the answers! But oops! No red dress. Or that green shirt from last year is now 2 sizes too small. What now super mom?

Then either their dad or I buy one or take them to buy it. You do have to do somethings for kids because they are kids. Were you under the impression that you birth them and then magically stuff just happens for 18 years?

Maybe you just have undiagnosed ADHD so basic things are very challenging for you

Nobody says it's hard. But you seem stuck on these very simple tasks. But in a day there are so many very simple tasks. Someone has to do them. And husbands would say they are focused on many other tasks just not the buying shirt tasks. For my house our division of labor is pretty even but no, my husband doesn't have to do the shirt but he is leaving work early today to take the car for an oil change.

I just had AI tally our last five years of Amazon packages and costs. For Share of Mind sake.

Things I ordered, by quantity:
65% for the kids (bday presents, clothes costume, sports stuff, school materials)
30% for the house (snacks, kitchen items, decor, lawn/pest stuff)
5% for me (cosmetics on sale, snakca)

Things my husband ordered, by quantity):
5% for kids (usually returned, wasn’t listening)
90% for himself (clothes/shoes, electronics, 5+ shavers a year & forgets to pack them)
5% for the house (weird electronics or lights sitting in a pile now)

Dollar value and quantity value vastly ordered by me. Tho his random electronics add up big time (roomba, etc).

Ok? Amazon won't quantify for me the mental labor of dealing with the income taxes, car maintenance, investment management, and all the other things in our household division of labor. While shopping for the shirts and bday presents is annoying I don't want to take on the other tasks so it works for us and more or less evens out.

Super, then switch.

Give her the annual and quarterly computer stuff, and you do the day to day household and kid stuff.

Great idea PP!

I'm not the one complaining. But people should be honest about what their household division of labor actually looks like. Complaining about your half without telling us what the husband actually does is meaningless. How do we know how lopsided it is when we only have a few stupid examples of what actually doesn't sound very important?

Complaining and deflecting is exactly what you're doing above.

Face it, pretending to compare the man hours of some annual adult tasks to the day to day family household tasks is vain and naive, to say the least.

Oh please. The house of cards doesn’t fall down if the shirt is blue not green. Find some real problems.

+1

Yes someone mentioned a sick child needing medicine, and emotional support. Those are examples of real problems.

If you are complaining about dresses and cookies, you don't have real problems.

Lol

The delinquent dad who can’t be bothered to read the emails from school, his wife, coaches or doctors is going to ID a sick child, take them to the right doctor and provide emotional support all on his own accord!!?

Let me tell you how many times I returned from a biz trip and found an ill, neglected child. Many.

He won’t even take the time to put them to bed, he’d rather watch TV at 8pm and pass out. They can go upstairs themselves and go to bed. Age 6+.

Is your child neglected… over cookies not provided to elderly people during a Christmas singing session???

This is not remotely the same thing.

From what you describe, WTF, your child is being neglected. You have a child with a neglectful person. Protect the child. OP is talking about…. cookies.

What in the actual F.

The “cookies” you like to fixate on in your many lame posts are a red herring and you know it.

The main point is the uninvolved self-centered dad does nothing for any of the three kids or the wife’s obligations, then shows up at the final stage to watch the results and protect his image.

It's a mixture of that, and the wife treating non-obligations as obligations. And you know it.

The dad doesn’t read emails from the school.

He doesn’t care.

He won’t know if the kid needs a book ordered for literature class, or a bagged lunch if there’s a field trip, or if there’s a tshirt to wear that day or for a concert, or if there’s a half day, or whatever.

He doesn’t care and he also doesn’t care that he dumps everything on his spouse and kids- who hopefully don’t have phone and laptops every day 3-9pm.

Teachers have stories galore or Doofus Dads not following directions and their kids get left out. Or Doofus Dads emailing them them what to do instead of reading the various emails saying what to do. They treat their kids teachers like a personal secretary. Only dads. Too lazy to read messages or search them.

"He"?

OPs husband? Are you OP?

Or are you making this about yourself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

And the reality is those PP's are imposing their judgment of what is "good for the family". Suppose the husbands said, I wish my wife would cut out all of the unnecessary crap and pick up some extra hours at work for the family. The kids don't need all of these extras; they'll be fine. They would be apoplectic. Yet somehow their judgments of how their husbands should "better" use their time "for the family" supersedes his. And, of course, you know that they would complain nonstop if husband was underemployed and funds to underwrite their dream lifestyle were lacking. These are just the sort of people who would complain no matter what.

My husband makes plenty of money and has decided his time is better spent at work rather than trying to DIY a leaky toilet or repairing dry wall. He's more than happy to pay someone who can do it right and not waste his time on it. That's the tradeoff we make. I handle the bulk of the kid stuff although he reads the school emails and will ask if I'm aware of this or that. He also does a lot of chauffeuring kids around. But he will never shop for the red dress or drop everything to get cookies. It works for us.

Can he tell when a toilet needs fixing?
Does he tell someone or call the repairman?
Does he arrange the repair time and let them in?
Does he pay the repair and look over the work?

Or does he see a leaky toilet or clogged drain in his very own home, and say nothing and do nothing?
Thats what I’m dealing with- and he “works” 5am-6pm at home and then drinks and watches TV from 6-9pm before crashing on the sofa. He has a 10pm alarm set on his phone to wake up and go upstairs to bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

My dad worked fulltime and could tell when someone needed to go to the doctor and made the appt or took us to urgent care asap.

It’s about paying attention and caring for a person. All action words.

So, an emergency. Totally different than routine well visits and twice a year dentist appointments which make up the bulk of fate appointments which many claim is part of their "mental load".

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

All of these things being … picking out some clothing, getting some cookies and a birthday present? That … sounds … exhausting? Is that what my takeaway is here?

At any point was there some discussion in the family? “Larla, find a green shirt. Marla, get your read dress. Darla, pick out a present on Amazon. Honey, can you pick up some snickerdoodles on the way home?”

Right. I definitely feel like a child writing and receiving an award for a speech is capable of getting a birthday present and saying dad my show is on x day and time be there.
Alot of this mental load stuff is being a parent and the struggle is created by the need for rigid control, and refusal to delegate

What kid is getting a birthday present? Do you allow your kids to surf your Amazon account and make their own purchases? Because most people don't want their kids to do that.

Lol, right? That person’s kids also buy their own clothes.
They can’t bake cookies though…

By the time they are 13 they are buying their own clothes. They have a budget and if they want to do in store shopping they tell us if they want a ride


Younger kids are capable of being told go to your room and get a red sweater or a green shirt

You just think you have all the answers! But oops! No red dress. Or that green shirt from last year is now 2 sizes too small. What now super mom?

Then either their dad or I buy one or take them to buy it. You do have to do somethings for kids because they are kids. Were you under the impression that you birth them and then magically stuff just happens for 18 years?

Maybe you just have undiagnosed ADHD so basic things are very challenging for you

Nobody says it's hard. But you seem stuck on these very simple tasks. But in a day there are so many very simple tasks. Someone has to do them. And husbands would say they are focused on many other tasks just not the buying shirt tasks. For my house our division of labor is pretty even but no, my husband doesn't have to do the shirt but he is leaving work early today to take the car for an oil change.

I just had AI tally our last five years of Amazon packages and costs. For Share of Mind sake.

Things I ordered, by quantity:
65% for the kids (bday presents, clothes costume, sports stuff, school materials)
30% for the house (snacks, kitchen items, decor, lawn/pest stuff)
5% for me (cosmetics on sale, snakca)

Things my husband ordered, by quantity):
5% for kids (usually returned, wasn’t listening)
90% for himself (clothes/shoes, electronics, 5+ shavers a year & forgets to pack them)
5% for the house (weird electronics or lights sitting in a pile now)

Dollar value and quantity value vastly ordered by me. Tho his random electronics add up big time (roomba, etc).

Ok? Amazon won't quantify for me the mental labor of dealing with the income taxes, car maintenance, investment management, and all the other things in our household division of labor. While shopping for the shirts and bday presents is annoying I don't want to take on the other tasks so it works for us and more or less evens out.

The crux of the problem is ONE parent will not or cannot see the family’s needs and proactively fulfill them — whether it’s the school’s stated concert attire for a kid, or no more cereal left, or a sick child needing medicine, emotional support of a teen.

Then everything falls onto the OTHER more functional parent, who also still works fulltime, can get an oil change every 5k miles or two years, rebalance a PA, fix a leaky toilet, and meal plan, etc.

I mean what good is knowing how to fix a leaky toilet if you’re too lazy to walk by said leaky toilet and do something about it asap or later that day. You need a royal invitation from your wife?

I’m sorry your husband is like that but don’t presume everyone is reading and nodding along.

DP. A lot of women have this issue with their husbands. It's understandable that we would seek to commiserate somewhere. That's what is happening here.

What I don't understand is why there are apparently so many women with husbands who are not like this who need to devote time to this thread and expressing disbelief that any men are like this, or claiming it's just one or something. It's obviously not. It's a trope for a reason.

Trying to convince everyone that buying the dress and cookies is the biggest problem in a marriage is why you’re getting such push back. Men have figured out that this is nonsense, women either want to do this or don’t like the way their husbands compete these non essential tasks and then want to martyr themselves over it. It’s hard to muster up a lot of sympathy over this. Just drop the rope. Send the kid with whatever she has in her closet that’s close enough. Let the cookies go. It doesn’t really matter.

Some of us prefer to do more than the bare minimum for our kids. Also, they do care and they will notice when they have a blue shirt and everyone else is wearing green.

Can you do this without wanting to be a hero? Why be like OP and start a post like this complaining about the things you chose to do?

What does that even mean? I feel like the argumentative “it doesn’t even matter” posters believe that simply keeping your child alive and dressed in clothing is enough. Which is pathetic. Yikes.

Now if we were talking about a custom designed shirt and specialty decorated cookies, I would agree a person is taking on too much and is part of the problem. Simply participating by choosing an appropriately colored shirt as per directions and buying some cookies is a normal thing.

Btw, some pp mentioned real health needs which is laughable. You think a parent that doesn’t care if a child has the right color outfit is going to take the time and energy to research and meet with specialist doctors or therapists? GMAFB.

Never. That idea will be DOA with that parent. Nothing will get addressed, and certainly nothing will get addressed correctly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

And the reality is those PP's are imposing their judgment of what is "good for the family". Suppose the husbands said, I wish my wife would cut out all of the unnecessary crap and pick up some extra hours at work for the family. The kids don't need all of these extras; they'll be fine. They would be apoplectic. Yet somehow their judgments of how their husbands should "better" use their time "for the family" supersedes his. And, of course, you know that they would complain nonstop if husband was underemployed and funds to underwrite their dream lifestyle were lacking. These are just the sort of people who would complain no matter what.

My husband makes plenty of money and has decided his time is better spent at work rather than trying to DIY a leaky toilet or repairing dry wall. He's more than happy to pay someone who can do it right and not waste his time on it. That's the tradeoff we make. I handle the bulk of the kid stuff although he reads the school emails and will ask if I'm aware of this or that. He also does a lot of chauffeuring kids around. But he will never shop for the red dress or drop everything to get cookies. It works for us.

Can he tell when a toilet needs fixing?
Does he tell someone or call the repairman?
Does he arrange the repair time and let them in?
Does he pay the repair and look over the work?

Or does he see a leaky toilet or clogged drain in his very own home, and say nothing and do nothing?
Thats what I’m dealing with- and he “works” 5am-6pm at home and then drinks and watches TV from 6-9pm before crashing on the sofa. He has a 10pm alarm set on his phone to wake up and go upstairs to bed.

Is he underemployed or not? The tradeoff has to be a lot of money to make up the difference. Yours doesn't sound like he's bringing home the bacon at a high powered well paying job. Big difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

All of these things being … picking out some clothing, getting some cookies and a birthday present? That … sounds … exhausting? Is that what my takeaway is here?

At any point was there some discussion in the family? “Larla, find a green shirt. Marla, get your read dress. Darla, pick out a present on Amazon. Honey, can you pick up some snickerdoodles on the way home?”

Right. I definitely feel like a child writing and receiving an award for a speech is capable of getting a birthday present and saying dad my show is on x day and time be there.
Alot of this mental load stuff is being a parent and the struggle is created by the need for rigid control, and refusal to delegate

What kid is getting a birthday present? Do you allow your kids to surf your Amazon account and make their own purchases? Because most people don't want their kids to do that.

Lol, right? That person’s kids also buy their own clothes.
They can’t bake cookies though…

By the time they are 13 they are buying their own clothes. They have a budget and if they want to do in store shopping they tell us if they want a ride


Younger kids are capable of being told go to your room and get a red sweater or a green shirt

You just think you have all the answers! But oops! No red dress. Or that green shirt from last year is now 2 sizes too small. What now super mom?

Then either their dad or I buy one or take them to buy it. You do have to do somethings for kids because they are kids. Were you under the impression that you birth them and then magically stuff just happens for 18 years?

Maybe you just have undiagnosed ADHD so basic things are very challenging for you

Nobody says it's hard. But you seem stuck on these very simple tasks. But in a day there are so many very simple tasks. Someone has to do them. And husbands would say they are focused on many other tasks just not the buying shirt tasks. For my house our division of labor is pretty even but no, my husband doesn't have to do the shirt but he is leaving work early today to take the car for an oil change.

I just had AI tally our last five years of Amazon packages and costs. For Share of Mind sake.

Things I ordered, by quantity:
65% for the kids (bday presents, clothes costume, sports stuff, school materials)
30% for the house (snacks, kitchen items, decor, lawn/pest stuff)
5% for me (cosmetics on sale, snakca)

Things my husband ordered, by quantity):
5% for kids (usually returned, wasn’t listening)
90% for himself (clothes/shoes, electronics, 5+ shavers a year & forgets to pack them)
5% for the house (weird electronics or lights sitting in a pile now)

Dollar value and quantity value vastly ordered by me. Tho his random electronics add up big time (roomba, etc).

Ok? Amazon won't quantify for me the mental labor of dealing with the income taxes, car maintenance, investment management, and all the other things in our household division of labor. While shopping for the shirts and bday presents is annoying I don't want to take on the other tasks so it works for us and more or less evens out.

Super, then switch.

Give her the annual and quarterly computer stuff, and you do the day to day household and kid stuff.

Great idea PP!

I'm not the one complaining. But people should be honest about what their household division of labor actually looks like. Complaining about your half without telling us what the husband actually does is meaningless. How do we know how lopsided it is when we only have a few stupid examples of what actually doesn't sound very important?

Complaining and deflecting is exactly what you're doing above.

Face it, pretending to compare the man hours of some annual adult tasks to the day to day family household tasks is vain and naive, to say the least.

Oh please. The house of cards doesn’t fall down if the shirt is blue not green. Find some real problems.

+1

Yes someone mentioned a sick child needing medicine, and emotional support. Those are examples of real problems.

If you are complaining about dresses and cookies, you don't have real problems.

Lol

The delinquent dad who can’t be bothered to read the emails from school, his wife, coaches or doctors is going to ID a sick child, take them to the right doctor and provide emotional support all on his own accord!!?

Let me tell you how many times I returned from a biz trip and found an ill, neglected child. Many.

He won’t even take the time to put them to bed, he’d rather watch TV at 8pm and pass out. They can go upstairs themselves and go to bed. Age 6+.

So you married a dud without a pulse. That still doesn’t mean freaking out over a dress and unnecessary cookies is a good use of time. If OP had bigger issues she probably would have mentioned them.

Sure did; he sits on the sidelines and watches Tv. The entire household is set up to avoid needing him for anything, which in turn minimizes chaos and setbacks for me and the kids. No one props him up any longer beyond that.

So be it.

Why are you trying to make this about you?

Those are OP’s two options when dealing with a husband who’s a krap parent and adult and refuses to do the work to improve:

Divorce and wish the kids the best during his custody time. Still do everything behind the scenes. He undermines all actual parenting or house rules through age 18.

Or

Stay together and take all responsibilities away from him. Household runs more smoothly. More work for functional parent. Kids need to grow up and get independent sooner.

Only two options: Divorce, or take all responsibilities?

Why isn't communicate an option? Because it didn't work in your situation?

As many people have pointed out in this thread, communicating about the need to buy a green sweater isn’t that much more difficult than buying the sweater.
The task is knowing what’s going on in your kids lives, reading all of the stupid communications and group texts, etc.

I’m terrible at this stuff, as is my husband, but I have a nanny for my little ones who keeps on top of this stuff for my older ones, and I appreciate the hell out of her. I don’t know why the men on this board are so loathe to do that for their wives.

How would this even work? Both people read the email then they have to communicate are you getting the sweate or am I? It's so much easier to have one point person to handle school communication. The other parent becomes the point person for something else so you don't have to go back and forth all the time. OP is the point person for school and resents it. But what tasks does she have no problem ignoring and leaving to her spouse?

Yes. This is how this works. My nanny and I both read the email (although she reads them more often), and then she tells me to buy the green sweater or lets me know that she bought the green sweater.
At that point, I say “thank you! I really appreciate it!” or something similar.
I don’t say, “you are creating make-work that doesn’t need to be done” or “why are you stressing about this when there are more important problems in the world?” I don’t ask her if she is accusing me of neglecting my children. I don’t tell her that I am the point person on something else, that I am working just as hard as she is or any of the other BS in this thread.
I acknowledge that it’s a real task, that it takes time and a certain skill that I do not have, and that I appreciate her doing it.

It’s honestly not that hard.

So cool how your spouse and you split managing the nanny like that. Such good communications between the three of you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

And the reality is those PP's are imposing their judgment of what is "good for the family". Suppose the husbands said, I wish my wife would cut out all of the unnecessary crap and pick up some extra hours at work for the family. The kids don't need all of these extras; they'll be fine. They would be apoplectic. Yet somehow their judgments of how their husbands should "better" use their time "for the family" supersedes his. And, of course, you know that they would complain nonstop if husband was underemployed and funds to underwrite their dream lifestyle were lacking. These are just the sort of people who would complain no matter what.

My husband makes plenty of money and has decided his time is better spent at work rather than trying to DIY a leaky toilet or repairing dry wall. He's more than happy to pay someone who can do it right and not waste his time on it. That's the tradeoff we make. I handle the bulk of the kid stuff although he reads the school emails and will ask if I'm aware of this or that. He also does a lot of chauffeuring kids around. But he will never shop for the red dress or drop everything to get cookies. It works for us.

Can he tell when a toilet needs fixing?
Does he tell someone or call the repairman?
Does he arrange the repair time and let them in?
Does he pay the repair and look over the work?

Or does he see a leaky toilet or clogged drain in his very own home, and say nothing and do nothing?
Thats what I’m dealing with- and he “works” 5am-6pm at home and then drinks and watches TV from 6-9pm before crashing on the sofa. He has a 10pm alarm set on his phone to wake up and go upstairs to bed.

So the guy works 13-hour days, and here you are browbeating him to death with your horrible attitude. You can't make this up!

I'm sure you would enjoy him minimizing your "work" the same way you have done to his. You are something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

If you read the linked article, you will see that these men are not a dime a dozen, and in fact they don’t exist at all. Underemployed men don’t tend to spend their time doing things for their families.

Since you seem to be part of the problem here, saying that you would never date a man who is “underemployed” and seem to think that men have no value to their families outside of paid work, I would just like to hear your reasoning.

If the guy won't help around the house then he better be making a lot of of money to pick up the slack and afford outsourcing. IF your husband doesn't make much money and also doesn't help, then you have a bad picker and should have aimed higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

All of these things being … picking out some clothing, getting some cookies and a birthday present? That … sounds … exhausting? Is that what my takeaway is here?

At any point was there some discussion in the family? “Larla, find a green shirt. Marla, get your read dress. Darla, pick out a present on Amazon. Honey, can you pick up some snickerdoodles on the way home?”

Right. I definitely feel like a child writing and receiving an award for a speech is capable of getting a birthday present and saying dad my show is on x day and time be there.
Alot of this mental load stuff is being a parent and the struggle is created by the need for rigid control, and refusal to delegate

What kid is getting a birthday present? Do you allow your kids to surf your Amazon account and make their own purchases? Because most people don't want their kids to do that.

Lol, right? That person’s kids also buy their own clothes.
They can’t bake cookies though…

By the time they are 13 they are buying their own clothes. They have a budget and if they want to do in store shopping they tell us if they want a ride


Younger kids are capable of being told go to your room and get a red sweater or a green shirt

You just think you have all the answers! But oops! No red dress. Or that green shirt from last year is now 2 sizes too small. What now super mom?

Then either their dad or I buy one or take them to buy it. You do have to do somethings for kids because they are kids. Were you under the impression that you birth them and then magically stuff just happens for 18 years?

Maybe you just have undiagnosed ADHD so basic things are very challenging for you

Nobody says it's hard. But you seem stuck on these very simple tasks. But in a day there are so many very simple tasks. Someone has to do them. And husbands would say they are focused on many other tasks just not the buying shirt tasks. For my house our division of labor is pretty even but no, my husband doesn't have to do the shirt but he is leaving work early today to take the car for an oil change.

I just had AI tally our last five years of Amazon packages and costs. For Share of Mind sake.

Things I ordered, by quantity:
65% for the kids (bday presents, clothes costume, sports stuff, school materials)
30% for the house (snacks, kitchen items, decor, lawn/pest stuff)
5% for me (cosmetics on sale, snakca)

Things my husband ordered, by quantity):
5% for kids (usually returned, wasn’t listening)
90% for himself (clothes/shoes, electronics, 5+ shavers a year & forgets to pack them)
5% for the house (weird electronics or lights sitting in a pile now)

Dollar value and quantity value vastly ordered by me. Tho his random electronics add up big time (roomba, etc).

Ok? Amazon won't quantify for me the mental labor of dealing with the income taxes, car maintenance, investment management, and all the other things in our household division of labor. While shopping for the shirts and bday presents is annoying I don't want to take on the other tasks so it works for us and more or less evens out.

Super, then switch.

Give her the annual and quarterly computer stuff, and you do the day to day household and kid stuff.

Great idea PP!

I'm not the one complaining. But people should be honest about what their household division of labor actually looks like. Complaining about your half without telling us what the husband actually does is meaningless. How do we know how lopsided it is when we only have a few stupid examples of what actually doesn't sound very important?

Complaining and deflecting is exactly what you're doing above.

Face it, pretending to compare the man hours of some annual adult tasks to the day to day family household tasks is vain and naive, to say the least.

Oh please. The house of cards doesn’t fall down if the shirt is blue not green. Find some real problems.

+1

Yes someone mentioned a sick child needing medicine, and emotional support. Those are examples of real problems.

If you are complaining about dresses and cookies, you don't have real problems.

Lol

The delinquent dad who can’t be bothered to read the emails from school, his wife, coaches or doctors is going to ID a sick child, take them to the right doctor and provide emotional support all on his own accord!!?

Let me tell you how many times I returned from a biz trip and found an ill, neglected child. Many.

He won’t even take the time to put them to bed, he’d rather watch TV at 8pm and pass out. They can go upstairs themselves and go to bed. Age 6+.

So you married a dud without a pulse. That still doesn’t mean freaking out over a dress and unnecessary cookies is a good use of time. If OP had bigger issues she probably would have mentioned them.

Sure did; he sits on the sidelines and watches Tv. The entire household is set up to avoid needing him for anything, which in turn minimizes chaos and setbacks for me and the kids. No one props him up any longer beyond that.

So be it.

Why are you trying to make this about you?

Those are OP’s two options when dealing with a husband who’s a krap parent and adult and refuses to do the work to improve:

Divorce and wish the kids the best during his custody time. Still do everything behind the scenes. He undermines all actual parenting or house rules through age 18.

Or

Stay together and take all responsibilities away from him. Household runs more smoothly. More work for functional parent. Kids need to grow up and get independent sooner.

Only two options: Divorce, or take all responsibilities?

Why isn't communicate an option? Because it didn't work in your situation?

As many people have pointed out in this thread, communicating about the need to buy a green sweater isn’t that much more difficult than buying the sweater.
The task is knowing what’s going on in your kids lives, reading all of the stupid communications and group texts, etc.

I’m terrible at this stuff, as is my husband, but I have a nanny for my little ones who keeps on top of this stuff for my older ones, and I appreciate the hell out of her. I don’t know why the men on this board are so loathe to do that for their wives.

How would this even work? Both people read the email then they have to communicate are you getting the sweate or am I? It's so much easier to have one point person to handle school communication. The other parent becomes the point person for something else so you don't have to go back and forth all the time. OP is the point person for school and resents it. But what tasks does she have no problem ignoring and leaving to her spouse?

Yes. This is how this works. My nanny and I both read the email (although she reads them more often), and then she tells me to buy the green sweater or lets me know that she bought the green sweater.
At that point, I say “thank you! I really appreciate it!” or something similar.
I don’t say, “you are creating make-work that doesn’t need to be done” or “why are you stressing about this when there are more important problems in the world?” I don’t ask her if she is accusing me of neglecting my children. I don’t tell her that I am the point person on something else, that I am working just as hard as she is or any of the other BS in this thread.
I acknowledge that it’s a real task, that it takes time and a certain skill that I do not have, and that I appreciate her doing it.

It’s honestly not that hard.

Why not your husband? Probably because he would not entertain this waste of time back and forth so you foist it on the nanny who you pay to listen to you do things inefficiently because you don't delegate well.

Men in their 40s and 50s who pretend to work a lot 24/7 are the control freaks who don’t know how to delegate, coach, or be a senior executive. That or they have severe executive functioning issues and take forever to do things ot have to keep re-fixing what they did do. Keep an eye on the work culture they are perpetuating and staff turnover.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

All of these things being … picking out some clothing, getting some cookies and a birthday present? That … sounds … exhausting? Is that what my takeaway is here?

At any point was there some discussion in the family? “Larla, find a green shirt. Marla, get your read dress. Darla, pick out a present on Amazon. Honey, can you pick up some snickerdoodles on the way home?”

Right. I definitely feel like a child writing and receiving an award for a speech is capable of getting a birthday present and saying dad my show is on x day and time be there.
Alot of this mental load stuff is being a parent and the struggle is created by the need for rigid control, and refusal to delegate

What kid is getting a birthday present? Do you allow your kids to surf your Amazon account and make their own purchases? Because most people don't want their kids to do that.

Lol, right? That person’s kids also buy their own clothes.
They can’t bake cookies though…

By the time they are 13 they are buying their own clothes. They have a budget and if they want to do in store shopping they tell us if they want a ride


Younger kids are capable of being told go to your room and get a red sweater or a green shirt

You just think you have all the answers! But oops! No red dress. Or that green shirt from last year is now 2 sizes too small. What now super mom?

Then either their dad or I buy one or take them to buy it. You do have to do somethings for kids because they are kids. Were you under the impression that you birth them and then magically stuff just happens for 18 years?

Maybe you just have undiagnosed ADHD so basic things are very challenging for you

Nobody says it's hard. But you seem stuck on these very simple tasks. But in a day there are so many very simple tasks. Someone has to do them. And husbands would say they are focused on many other tasks just not the buying shirt tasks. For my house our division of labor is pretty even but no, my husband doesn't have to do the shirt but he is leaving work early today to take the car for an oil change.

I just had AI tally our last five years of Amazon packages and costs. For Share of Mind sake.

Things I ordered, by quantity:
65% for the kids (bday presents, clothes costume, sports stuff, school materials)
30% for the house (snacks, kitchen items, decor, lawn/pest stuff)
5% for me (cosmetics on sale, snakca)

Things my husband ordered, by quantity):
5% for kids (usually returned, wasn’t listening)
90% for himself (clothes/shoes, electronics, 5+ shavers a year & forgets to pack them)
5% for the house (weird electronics or lights sitting in a pile now)

Dollar value and quantity value vastly ordered by me. Tho his random electronics add up big time (roomba, etc).

Ok? Amazon won't quantify for me the mental labor of dealing with the income taxes, car maintenance, investment management, and all the other things in our household division of labor. While shopping for the shirts and bday presents is annoying I don't want to take on the other tasks so it works for us and more or less evens out.

Super, then switch.

Give her the annual and quarterly computer stuff, and you do the day to day household and kid stuff.

Great idea PP!

I'm not the one complaining. But people should be honest about what their household division of labor actually looks like. Complaining about your half without telling us what the husband actually does is meaningless. How do we know how lopsided it is when we only have a few stupid examples of what actually doesn't sound very important?

Complaining and deflecting is exactly what you're doing above.

Face it, pretending to compare the man hours of some annual adult tasks to the day to day family household tasks is vain and naive, to say the least.

Oh please. The house of cards doesn’t fall down if the shirt is blue not green. Find some real problems.

+1

Yes someone mentioned a sick child needing medicine, and emotional support. Those are examples of real problems.

If you are complaining about dresses and cookies, you don't have real problems.

Lol

The delinquent dad who can’t be bothered to read the emails from school, his wife, coaches or doctors is going to ID a sick child, take them to the right doctor and provide emotional support all on his own accord!!?

Let me tell you how many times I returned from a biz trip and found an ill, neglected child. Many.

He won’t even take the time to put them to bed, he’d rather watch TV at 8pm and pass out. They can go upstairs themselves and go to bed. Age 6+.

So you married a dud without a pulse. That still doesn’t mean freaking out over a dress and unnecessary cookies is a good use of time. If OP had bigger issues she probably would have mentioned them.

Sure did; he sits on the sidelines and watches Tv. The entire household is set up to avoid needing him for anything, which in turn minimizes chaos and setbacks for me and the kids. No one props him up any longer beyond that.

So be it.

Why are you trying to make this about you?

Those are OP’s two options when dealing with a husband who’s a krap parent and adult and refuses to do the work to improve:

Divorce and wish the kids the best during his custody time. Still do everything behind the scenes. He undermines all actual parenting or house rules through age 18.

Or

Stay together and take all responsibilities away from him. Household runs more smoothly. More work for functional parent. Kids need to grow up and get independent sooner.

Only two options: Divorce, or take all responsibilities?

Why isn't communicate an option? Because it didn't work in your situation?

As many people have pointed out in this thread, communicating about the need to buy a green sweater isn’t that much more difficult than buying the sweater.
The task is knowing what’s going on in your kids lives, reading all of the stupid communications and group texts, etc.

I’m terrible at this stuff, as is my husband, but I have a nanny for my little ones who keeps on top of this stuff for my older ones, and I appreciate the hell out of her. I don’t know why the men on this board are so loathe to do that for their wives.

I think what I gather from some here is their spouses cannot help but micromanage every family detail. And things they want to do, in part for themselves , become obligations like medical attention. You are pro-nanny so this does not sound like you, nor is it me.

That - like OPs side - is one side of it.

I don’t know. What I gather is that some people are so afraid to admit that they are wrong and so desperate to perpetuate this fiction that the “mental load” is made-up garbage that they are really twisting reality.

OP troll? Is that you again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Btw, a nanny, cook and cleaner simply cannot sub in for a real parent who parents, or a house manager, health IDer, tutor, therapist for the kids. They don’t have the owner operator mentality or the skills and have their own problems to deal with.

Paid help can take a significant load off of a parent and family.

Not really, but maybe you’re talking about kids age 0-8 task rabbit stuff. They still need some training, direction and management from someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

My dad worked fulltime and could tell when someone needed to go to the doctor and made the appt or took us to urgent care asap.

It’s about paying attention and caring for a person. All action words.

So, an emergency. Totally different than routine well visits and twice a year dentist appointments which make up the bulk of fate appointments which many claim is part of their "mental load".

No not an emergency. A sick child.

Sadly, many passive uninvolved dads let the kid stay sick, hope it got better on its own, and wait for Mom to return and handle it.

In fact once an adolescent, the kids stop even telling their uninvolved dads if they’re felling bad or had a bad day or need something because they’ve had a lifetime of neglect and non-care and invalidation. So the neglect continues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

All of these things being … picking out some clothing, getting some cookies and a birthday present? That … sounds … exhausting? Is that what my takeaway is here?

At any point was there some discussion in the family? “Larla, find a green shirt. Marla, get your read dress. Darla, pick out a present on Amazon. Honey, can you pick up some snickerdoodles on the way home?”

Right. I definitely feel like a child writing and receiving an award for a speech is capable of getting a birthday present and saying dad my show is on x day and time be there.
Alot of this mental load stuff is being a parent and the struggle is created by the need for rigid control, and refusal to delegate

What kid is getting a birthday present? Do you allow your kids to surf your Amazon account and make their own purchases? Because most people don't want their kids to do that.

Lol, right? That person’s kids also buy their own clothes.
They can’t bake cookies though…

By the time they are 13 they are buying their own clothes. They have a budget and if they want to do in store shopping they tell us if they want a ride


Younger kids are capable of being told go to your room and get a red sweater or a green shirt

You just think you have all the answers! But oops! No red dress. Or that green shirt from last year is now 2 sizes too small. What now super mom?

Then either their dad or I buy one or take them to buy it. You do have to do somethings for kids because they are kids. Were you under the impression that you birth them and then magically stuff just happens for 18 years?

Maybe you just have undiagnosed ADHD so basic things are very challenging for you

Nobody says it's hard. But you seem stuck on these very simple tasks. But in a day there are so many very simple tasks. Someone has to do them. And husbands would say they are focused on many other tasks just not the buying shirt tasks. For my house our division of labor is pretty even but no, my husband doesn't have to do the shirt but he is leaving work early today to take the car for an oil change.

I just had AI tally our last five years of Amazon packages and costs. For Share of Mind sake.

Things I ordered, by quantity:
65% for the kids (bday presents, clothes costume, sports stuff, school materials)
30% for the house (snacks, kitchen items, decor, lawn/pest stuff)
5% for me (cosmetics on sale, snakca)

Things my husband ordered, by quantity):
5% for kids (usually returned, wasn’t listening)
90% for himself (clothes/shoes, electronics, 5+ shavers a year & forgets to pack them)
5% for the house (weird electronics or lights sitting in a pile now)

Dollar value and quantity value vastly ordered by me. Tho his random electronics add up big time (roomba, etc).

Ok? Amazon won't quantify for me the mental labor of dealing with the income taxes, car maintenance, investment management, and all the other things in our household division of labor. While shopping for the shirts and bday presents is annoying I don't want to take on the other tasks so it works for us and more or less evens out.

Super, then switch.

Give her the annual and quarterly computer stuff, and you do the day to day household and kid stuff.

Great idea PP!

I'm not the one complaining. But people should be honest about what their household division of labor actually looks like. Complaining about your half without telling us what the husband actually does is meaningless. How do we know how lopsided it is when we only have a few stupid examples of what actually doesn't sound very important?

Complaining and deflecting is exactly what you're doing above.

Face it, pretending to compare the man hours of some annual adult tasks to the day to day family household tasks is vain and naive, to say the least.

Oh please. The house of cards doesn’t fall down if the shirt is blue not green. Find some real problems.

+1

Yes someone mentioned a sick child needing medicine, and emotional support. Those are examples of real problems.

If you are complaining about dresses and cookies, you don't have real problems.

Lol

The delinquent dad who can’t be bothered to read the emails from school, his wife, coaches or doctors is going to ID a sick child, take them to the right doctor and provide emotional support all on his own accord!!?

Let me tell you how many times I returned from a biz trip and found an ill, neglected child. Many.

He won’t even take the time to put them to bed, he’d rather watch TV at 8pm and pass out. They can go upstairs themselves and go to bed. Age 6+.

So you married a dud without a pulse. That still doesn’t mean freaking out over a dress and unnecessary cookies is a good use of time. If OP had bigger issues she probably would have mentioned them.

Sure did; he sits on the sidelines and watches Tv. The entire household is set up to avoid needing him for anything, which in turn minimizes chaos and setbacks for me and the kids. No one props him up any longer beyond that.

So be it.

Why are you trying to make this about you?

Those are OP’s two options when dealing with a husband who’s a krap parent and adult and refuses to do the work to improve:

Divorce and wish the kids the best during his custody time. Still do everything behind the scenes. He undermines all actual parenting or house rules through age 18.

Or

Stay together and take all responsibilities away from him. Household runs more smoothly. More work for functional parent. Kids need to grow up and get independent sooner.

Only two options: Divorce, or take all responsibilities?

Why isn't communicate an option? Because it didn't work in your situation?

As many people have pointed out in this thread, communicating about the need to buy a green sweater isn’t that much more difficult than buying the sweater.
The task is knowing what’s going on in your kids lives, reading all of the stupid communications and group texts, etc.

I’m terrible at this stuff, as is my husband, but I have a nanny for my little ones who keeps on top of this stuff for my older ones, and I appreciate the hell out of her. I don’t know why the men on this board are so loathe to do that for their wives.

How would this even work? Both people read the email then they have to communicate are you getting the sweate or am I? It's so much easier to have one point person to handle school communication. The other parent becomes the point person for something else so you don't have to go back and forth all the time. OP is the point person for school and resents it. But what tasks does she have no problem ignoring and leaving to her spouse?

Yes. This is how this works. My nanny and I both read the email (although she reads them more often), and then she tells me to buy the green sweater or lets me know that she bought the green sweater.
At that point, I say “thank you! I really appreciate it!” or something similar.
I don’t say, “you are creating make-work that doesn’t need to be done” or “why are you stressing about this when there are more important problems in the world?” I don’t ask her if she is accusing me of neglecting my children. I don’t tell her that I am the point person on something else, that I am working just as hard as she is or any of the other BS in this thread.
I acknowledge that it’s a real task, that it takes time and a certain skill that I do not have, and that I appreciate her doing it.

It’s honestly not that hard.

Why not your husband? Probably because he would not entertain this waste of time back and forth so you foist it on the nanny who you pay to listen to you do things inefficiently because you don't delegate well.

Men in their 40s and 50s who pretend to work a lot 24/7 are the control freaks who don’t know how to delegate, coach, or be a senior executive. That or they have severe executive functioning issues and take forever to do things ot have to keep re-fixing what they did do. Keep an eye on the work culture they are perpetuating and staff turnover.

It's so funny how you can so blithely label such men's work "pretend" work, but would lose your head if anyone dare suggested that a lot of the "work" you counted as part of your "mental load" was needless. You're just a hypocrite. Especially ironic because the original concept of "emotional labor" had more to do with regulating your emotions in the workplace. You know, stupid things like face time and watercooler chat with annoying co-workers and "keeping a good attitude" at the office that keep you employed and in the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

And the reality is those PP's are imposing their judgment of what is "good for the family". Suppose the husbands said, I wish my wife would cut out all of the unnecessary crap and pick up some extra hours at work for the family. The kids don't need all of these extras; they'll be fine. They would be apoplectic. Yet somehow their judgments of how their husbands should "better" use their time "for the family" supersedes his. And, of course, you know that they would complain nonstop if husband was underemployed and funds to underwrite their dream lifestyle were lacking. These are just the sort of people who would complain no matter what.

My husband makes plenty of money and has decided his time is better spent at work rather than trying to DIY a leaky toilet or repairing dry wall. He's more than happy to pay someone who can do it right and not waste his time on it. That's the tradeoff we make. I handle the bulk of the kid stuff although he reads the school emails and will ask if I'm aware of this or that. He also does a lot of chauffeuring kids around. But he will never shop for the red dress or drop everything to get cookies. It works for us.

Can he tell when a toilet needs fixing?
Does he tell someone or call the repairman?
Does he arrange the repair time and let them in?
Does he pay the repair and look over the work?

Or does he see a leaky toilet or clogged drain in his very own home, and say nothing and do nothing?
Thats what I’m dealing with- and he “works” 5am-6pm at home and then drinks and watches TV from 6-9pm before crashing on the sofa. He has a 10pm alarm set on his phone to wake up and go upstairs to bed.

Is he underemployed or not? The tradeoff has to be a lot of money to make up the difference. Yours doesn't sound like he's bringing home the bacon at a high powered well paying job. Big difference.

You are missing the point.

If a high income but uninvolved dad can’t tell something or someone is broken or in need, and thus does nothing, then problem(s) will snowball.

Nothing to do with underemployed or not.
Has to do with paying attention, giving a damn and effort when at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

If you read the linked article, you will see that these men are not a dime a dozen, and in fact they don’t exist at all. Underemployed men don’t tend to spend their time doing things for their families.

Since you seem to be part of the problem here, saying that you would never date a man who is “underemployed” and seem to think that men have no value to their families outside of paid work, I would just like to hear your reasoning.

If the guy won't help around the house then he better be making a lot of of money to pick up the slack and afford outsourcing. IF your husband doesn't make much money and also doesn't help, then you have a bad picker and should have aimed higher.

Exactly.

Let him be a deadweight tag along.