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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree a lot of this list is super condescending but there’s some real truth to it. In my marriage, and the marriage of most of my friends the saying “he does his best and I do the rest” is 100 percent the case. It’s not that the dads don’t do anything, it’s that they view virtually everything as optional or extra credit. If my husband gets busy at work or wants to travel, he does that. If one of our kids has extra needs, that’s a problem mom will solve regardless of whether she also works or what else she has going on. My husband is not a bad guy and will laugh about both our moms raving how wonderful he is for taking a child to a physical (scheduled by mom, Who is at work and needs to be there because she handled the sick days last week because dad “can’t” reschedule any meetings) but he is still totally guilty of kicking anything hard or inconvenient to me. He knows that I will always always always find a way to do the things I think are important for the kids so he can just say “I can’t” guilt free.

Also this one reminded me of DCUM:
If I do a task incorrectly, people will tell my partner to praise me for trying.
[/quote]

Totally agree. "He does his best and I do the rest" is absolutely how my marriage and those of pretty much all my friends work. "His best" can vary a bit, but I only know one marriage where I genuinely think the dad is the primary parent and is doing "the rest" and he's a SAHD and his wife is an executive and they have one kid.

I think this is the dirty secret of most dual income couples. It looks pretty equal from the outside -- both partners work, they say the right things, dad is visibly doing stuff like taking kids to activities, cooking, seems engaged. But if you open things up and really look at what is happening, dad is taking kids to activities that mom (who also works) researched, arranged, and provided dad with the schedule for. Dad is cooking but so is mom, and mom is also thinking a week ahead to when her MIL is in town and suggesting they make and freeze an extra casserole so they have a quick dinner for the night she arrives. Mom doesn't always seem engaged, because she's exhausted and has a laundry list of things in her head to keep track of (including laundry).

But the veneer of "things are pretty equal!" is there because it's easier on everyone's ego and it keeps the ship afloat. You could nag and nitpick dad to death but he's never, ever going to do as much as mom. Ever. If you don't want to ruin your marriage and get a divorce, which most of us don't, you just accept the inequity and move on. But it's unequal. Very, very unequal. [/quote]

“I’m oppressed because DH doesn’t think a week ahead to freeze a casserole for MIL” isn’t quite the own you think it is.  That is you concerned about appearances and looking on top of things lest MIL judge you.  [/quote]

Yes, that was about not wanting to be judged by an MIL, and had nothing to do with just making an effort to make sure a family has food to eat on a day when you know no one will have time to cook. Correct, you nailed it. And for sure the only thing women do that men don't do is make casseroles ahead of time. It's the only one.[/quote]

I was just reacting to the main example you provided. You chose it.  But let’s get real:  yes there are many lazy and delinquent husbands, no dispute there.  But there are also many wives who get angry when their husbands balk at doing things that are principally focused on the endless intramural status contest among women, competitive mothering and the superficial appearance of homes and children, etc.  [/quote]

It wasn't the main example, it was the one you cherry picked and reframed to mean something different because that was the easiest way to attack.

[b]Women compete over mothering[/b] because culturally we have decided mothering is the most important thing a woman can do but also that she should receive absolutely zero support in doing it. If men were active and equal partners in parenting, a lot of competitive mothering would go away because parenting would no longer be seen as both the exclusive purview of women, simultaneously unimportant and the only way for a woman to truly prove her worth.

I do my very best to avoid competitive mothering and as a result, I sometimes deal with being accused of being lazy and irresponsible because I don't volunteer with the PTA, my kid doesn't always look perfect, I don't sign my kid up for every last activity, I don't do holiday cards, I don't make a huge deal out of Halloween or Easter, and on and on. And yet my DH doesn't do any of those things either and he is never judged as lazy or irresponsible. It's almost like there are totally different standards for men and women when it comes to parenting, and those standards reinforce this idea that women must work 10x harder at parenting in order to be considered "good moms" but also the minute they hit that goal we pat them on the heads and say "oh, you know most of this doesn't even matter, right?"[/quote]

What? Who?

Is there a mothering Olympics that I didn't get invited to?[/quote]

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