Reply to Two spouses: a play

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Reply to "Two spouses: a play"

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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][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

Some data for you OP

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

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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?   [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

This

It’s about giving a damn.  And showing that you do. [/quote]

And who is the arbiter of how to appropriately show you "give a damn"? Lemme guess: you?[/quote]

Easy. List examples here of your husband demonstrating “giving a damn” about his wife and kids.

Here I’ll start:
- Showed up at the concert!?! 
- Got on the plane to gramdma’s!?!
- ate Thanksgiving dinner with everyone!?!
- picked out a movie to watch every night of the week!?! [/quote]

[b]Why did you marry and have kids with this person?[/b] You're having your own little meltdown in here talking about something only tangentially related to the OP.[/quote]

So you are blaming the wife for not having clairvoyance to know what her husband would be like when they have children? That's like blaming a rape victim on what they were wearing[/quote]

It's not clairvoyance. It's being a good judge of character. And yes, if you are a bad judge of character, or you get married for whatever reason despite the signs of real character flaws, then you get what you get. I'm not sure why we have to coddle and feel sorry for people like that.[/quote]

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