Reply to Just accepting unequal division of labor

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

[b]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[/b]. 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.[/quote]

+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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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?[/quote]
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. [/quote]

[b]Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? [/b] 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.[/quote]
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 [b]we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them[/b]. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.[/quote]

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.[/quote]
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.[/quote]
Sorry, disregard the fed them older thing, I skipped a part reading obviously :lol:[/quote]

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. [/quote]

Sorry.

Power is doing exactly what you want, when you want.

And if you wants are always 100% about you- not your kids, spouse or house - you are pretty f’d up and self-centered.

For example, Op does whatever he wants. Everyone and everything else be damned; he doesn’t care and can’t handle it. Everyone else can pick up the prices. Every day.

That’s power. Focusing only on yourself. Not caring about anything else. Not doing anything else for others. Dumping responsibilities on your spouse and kids all the time.

It’s power, and abusive.[/quote]

Strawman. Who ever said anything about focusing only on yourself and not caring about anything else. Who is dumping responsibility on spouse and kids all time?  Nice deflection though![/quote]

OPs spouse does exactly that.

He has the power.

He doesnt want to be involved with his wife, kid or house, so he isn’t.

Is there a way to *make him* be an active, involved, functional member of the household? No.

That’s power. His selfish decisions make it up to his spouse, Op, to make up for the lack of a father and parent. She has a huge burden and no good options.  That’s power.  [/quote]

You are forgetting the power of exiting. Why live with such a disrespectful person who apparently isn’t a good father?[/quote]

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