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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]I think women just have higher standards and tend to perfectionism. Most of us have a feeling of never being good enough and yes, wanting other women not to judge us. Men don't do that with regard to parenting.
When I took a new job I was crying about being overwhelmed and my husband's idea was to "let it go". "It doesn't matter if the house isn't totally clean, it looks just fine to me." "It doesn't matter if we eat frozen pizza 3 times a week, you don't need to cook gourmet meals all the time." I want my kids to eat healthy dinners and use a clean bathroom! I want him to help me reach my standards, not lower them. [/quote]

Oh dear. Wanting to eat more than frozen pizza and not having a filthy bathroom is not “perfectionism.” It’s an extremely minimal basic level. [/quote]

+1, when your excuse for why men don't pull their weight is that when men have "high standards" that equate to basic hygiene and nutrition, you've really lost the plot.

When I hear this, I always wish these men would be forced to actually live down to what they claim are their standards. I think it would last for a little bit and then they'd realize they were depressed and unhealthy, and so were their kids, because it actually  sucks to live in a filthy house and eat garbage and not take responsibility for our life.[/quote]

I know what it looks like based on my xDH’s long vacations with our kid. Fast food or diner food every day, clothes dirty, sunburns (no hats or sunblock), smelling very bad and visibly grimy (no showers for a week). [/quote]

And I’ll bet the kids have way more fun on vacation with Dad than they do on their carefully curated and controlled educational trips with their uptight mom…[/quote]

Of course Dad can have fun when he neglects basic everything. Then mom can  put it all back together with nutritious meals, haircuts, treating rashes/burns/chapped skin, doing the laundry. THAT is “Dad Privilege,” precisely![/quote]

It’s not “Dad Privilege”… It’s a VACATION.  It’s SUPPOSED to be a break from normal daily life.[/quote]

Oh it is 100% Dad Privilege when I pack for them, do all the laundry when they return, deal with whatever weird skin thing resulted. Once he showed up at the airport with our kid’s entire upper lip area from the lip to nostrils caked in dry snot and flaking irritated skin. They have a great time, true, but being the Disney Dad is a trope for a reason, not a defense. [/quote]

Sorry your picker was broken!  No one’s fault but yours.[/quote]

So it’s not his fault?[/quote]

He is who he is.  You picked him.  No, that’s not his fault, that’s your fault.[/quote]

DP but I hate this argument because it assumes that women know what kinds of husbands and fathers men are going to be. We don't. It's all guesswork. I believe some women have better "pickers" and are better at selecting partners who will show up. But I also don't think it's possible for a woman to fix her picker. I also think [b]a lot of me do an okay job of convincing themselves and the women they marry that the really, actually want an egalitarian marriage, and then later (after kids come along) they are happy to lean into their male privilege to escape doing work.[/b] I see it in my husband, my brothers, some of my friends and some of my friends' husbands. It is easy to be like "of course I'll do my share!" when you are 28 and dating a woman you like and being a progressive feminist man makes you seem more attractive. It's very different when you are 48 and you are pretty sure that even if you shirk a lot of stuff, your wife won't leave you because you have two kids together and your finances are all bound up together and she's middle aged too.

Men will woo with "we're equals, baby." They don't always stick with it.[/quote]

This is my husband perfectly stated. Especially the last part. I truly believe he has made a calculated choice that he doesn’t have to uphold his end of things because I don’t want to put my kids through a divorce. He is probably right. [/quote]
I must have a super-sensitive "picker" and I knew from very early on that I could not have kids unless the man would be a totally equal partner. And in my GenX cohort, the above bolded describes the guys to a T--they talk a good game but don't follow through.  It was pretty easy to spot IF you were looking for it. So...I didn't get married or have kids.[/quote]

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