The Dad Privilege Checklist
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Anonymous
How are they meant to be read? What if we all agree that not ALL men have dad privilege. Okay. But some do, yes? So what is the point of repeatedly coming back and saying "but my spouse is a 50/50 partner, I now men who are 50/50 partners." Okay, I believe you. But not all men are. Are we not allowed to ever talk about the men who do in fact exercise "dad privilege" because, after all, #notallmen. It just seems like a lot of people read that list and were like "I'm offended because it doesn't apply to me." But why would you be offended by that. I read the list and when there were things on it that did not apply to my family, though "oh, I'm glad we don't deal with that." Not "well this list must be a lie and doesn't describe anyone's life because these items don't resonate with me." Why is a thread ostensibly about the privileges that *some* men enjoy when it comes to childcare and housework overrun by people demanding that we acknowledge that not every man enjoys these privileges. What does that solve? What is the point? |
Anonymous
+1, the issue here is that some people are arguing that it is somehow unfair to discuss the privileges some men take and enjoy if there are ANY men who don't take and enjoy them. That makes no sense. Can I just send a basket of cookies to all the men showing up as equal partners and then we can get back to discussing the ways that many men are NOT equal partners and how to solve that issue? |
Anonymous
Maybe it's your binary thinking that's the problem. If my husband said his mom was coming to visit I'd probably ask what I could to do help him get things ready for her. If it was a mutual friend, I would probably approach it differently and say what can we each do to get ready for this visit, assuming we are both equally responsible for the visit. We throw a big party every year in December. My husband would probably be fine if we didn't throw the party from his own perspective, but he appreciates that our kids enjoy it. So we sit down and discuss all the things that need to happen for the party and then decide who is doing what. If one person's tasks end up being easier, than that person will help the other with their list. But if my MIL comes to visit, I am absolutely not taking on being the default planner for that. I can offer to help or my husband can ask me to help, but I'm not going to begrudgingly do it all because "society" thinks it's my fault if we don't have a nice dinner when she arrives. Who is this "society" anyway? Are they sending you postcards chastising you for the house being messy when your MIL showed up? |
Anonymous
I'm not the PP to whom you are responding, but you are the one who seems out of the realm of normal. Feeding grandma is a basic standard, we can all agree on that. But if my husband wants grandma to eat her favorite dumplings for dinner, then he can make them (or order them, I don't care). If the wife is the one who wants to make grandma her favorite dumplings, then fine. But don't say you're doing it because that's what has to happen. That's what you want to do. |
Anonymous
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Women will always do more because women have higher standards; men will always do less not so much because they have lower standards (even though they do), but because they know that when push comes to shove, their wives will pick up the slack. They might complain about it on DCUM, but they'll do it.
The casserole/MIL thing is a good example. The DH doesn't actually want his mom to arrive at dinnertime to a dirty house and no dinner. He knows that's not acceptable hosting. But he also knows that he can not clean and not cook because his wife will do it. I know people on DCUM talk a good game like "whelp, if MIL is mad the sheets are dirty and DH is scrambling to put in a pizza order, she can take it up with the son she raised" but 98% of women are not going to actually do that IRL. It's a game of chicken the DH knows he'll win. |
Anonymous
Look, I am very happy that you and your DH have figured out this balance. I don't really think this thread is about you. My husband used to expect me to greet and entertain his family when they came to visit while he finished up his work day in the office. I worked from home (full time) but his family would get in at 2 or 3 in the afternoon and he'd just stay at work until 5 or 6 and expect me to deal with it. We had a tiny house at the time with no dedicated office, so it's not like I could just let them in and go lock myself in the office. I explained to him that this was incredibly inconsiderate, and he needed to either take time off work to greet his family or tell them explicitly "DW is working that afternoon at home so she won't be able to do anything for you until she wraps up work around 6." He got annoyed and kept saying "I just don't think it's a big deal to ask you to let them in. I'm not asking you to do anything." Meanwhile I'd have 2-3 people who had been in a care for 6+ hours wandering around my house, looking for food and water, asking me which bathroom they should use, needing help unloading the car, etc. No it was not "society" demanding something of me. But the situation was placing an imposition on me. I absolutely would say "I'm still working and have to go take calls, you can make yourself at home but I have to go lock myself in the bedroom for the next 2 hours to finish things up." Of course. But I was still being imposed upon, expected to do things I should not be expected to do. And the very fact that my DH thought this was EVER okay is an example of privilege. That when I pointed it out, he didn't immediately say "oh, I can see how that is imposing on you, I will take the afternoon off so that I can take care of my family and you can finish your work day." Or even ask me if I minded taking time off for his family since they were getting in early, instead of just assuming that this would all work itself out while he was in the office. You don't need to be getting postcards from "society" for this kind of privilege to work its way into your marriage. I have no idea why my DH had such weird ideas about how hosting his own family would work in our marriage, and I didn't anticipate this problem because I would never expect my DH to drop everything to host my family while I just stayed at work. If I had some important reason I couldn't leave work early, I would at a minimum ask him very nicely it he'd help out with my family. I would not just assume that he'd have the time and desire to host my family in the middle of a weekday because he happened to work from home that day. That's privilege. Assuming someone else will take care of something that is really your responsibility because [you are a man and they are a woman and some part of you thinks it's their job and not yours]. If that's not your DH, good. It is mine. |
Anonymous
So before deciding to have a child together you didn't discuss who was going to do what? I remember sitting down and walking through my leave and his leave and who would be staying home when. Then we discussed what childcare would look like. How we would handle travel. What if the kid was sick? How would we handle holidays with our families once we had a child and were no longer the carefree childless people whose siblings always got their way because they had kids? Then life threw us a curveball and we ended up with spontaneous twins so we had to re-work some of what we had discussed. And life has continued to throw us curveballs, but at least I know that my husband doesn't view any of them as "my" problem versus his. |
Anonymous
You have really high standards for your life. That's fine, I do as well. But what I don't do is look down on people who have different standards. I can think of about a million things I'd pity children for before I got to "ate Thanksgiving dinner off paper plates." I mean, honestly. |
Anonymous
This is ridiculous. Of all the things I can think of that provide joy around holidays, none of them include the quality of the plates I'm eating from. You have created this standard and decided that it is universal. It is not. |
Anonymous
I agree with this and think of it in terms of negotiation and BATNAs (best alternatives to a negotiated agreement). Men are more likely to view "no one does anything" as an acceptable solution (and are more willing to be rude, live in messy homes, have kids be late to things, not have dinner prepared, etc.) and thus always have an acceptable BATNA to revert to in negotiations over childcare/housework with their wives. Women are far less likely likely to view this as an acceptable alternative, and it puts them at a severe disability when it comes to negotiation. Some people will say that women don't embrace this BATNA because their standards for themselves are too high. Others (me included) will argue that the reason "do nothing" isn't a BATNA for women is that they face social ramification that men do not face for things like being rude, being horrible hosts, being dirty, not ensuring kids are on time and clean, etc. Teachers, neighbors, other kids' families, relatives, etc., are all more likely to criticize/blame a mother for those things than a man. So for a woman "do nothing" has real costs. For a man, it may not. The point of something like the dad privilege checklist is to try and create repercussions for men to the "do nothing" BATNA. Because if men are held to the same standards as women, they are less likely to be able to exercise this BATNA, and therefore both people are on equal footing in negotiations and can come to a more fair distribution of time and effort. I also think that in some communities, men already see repercussions for "do nothing" and have already eliminated this BATNA. I think many of the people reporting int his thread that they and everyone they know have more equal marriages and men who pull their weight, live in communities where "do nothing" is absolutely not acceptable, even for men. And where husbands and fathers ARE judged for messy homes, late/dysfunctional kids, being bad hosts, etc. I think you see this in a lot of UMC professional communities where there is pressure to achieve and keep up appearances, and being the messy, disorganized family reflects as poorly on the man as the woman. But not all communities are this way, and also not all families are in communities where people know enough to make those judgments. Thus plenty of men can still get away with "do nothing" as a BATNA, and in so doing, consistently handicap their wives when conflict to over childcare/housework arises. |
Anonymous
Your husband sounds like an AH. |
Anonymous
If you have the time, energy, and mental bandwidth to investigate and analyze the intimate details of the marriages of the “tons” of professionally ambitious women that you know, then your job is clearly not demanding and you are not working nearly as hard as you pretend to be, either at work or at home. Being the neighborhood and office busybody is not actually work. |
Anonymous
Who said anything about the quality of the plates? The issue was not the paper plates, it was the lack of effort to make the holiday feel special and meaningful. You can have a special and meaningful Thanksgiving on paper plates, but not by putting in zero effort and no planning. |
Anonymous
In normal families where the Dad at least makes an attempt, they jointly acknowledge that hosting grandma is good for the entire family and work to do it together to some degree. You’re not disproving “dad privilege” at all to say “well, just let her sleep on dirty sheets and eat off paper towels.” |
Anonymous
What's your point? I was responding to a post that said that just because someone else's husband was messy doesn't mean all men are messy. Where did I say that because my husband did X then all husbands must have done X? Or even that most husbands must have done X? |