Reply to Extreme resentment over mental load

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] Your kids who take the SAT should be signing themselves up. You guys make your own problems.[/quote]

DP. No, parents have responsibility here. A husband should be capable of knowing this and assigning himself the task. If the husband is too incompetent or cannot be asked, its on the other parent and there is a case for resentment here.

The Venmo for the teacher gifts is optional. Tell the teacher your husband is too incompetent to parent and for the sake of your mental load, you needed to take responsibility for the SAT. They'll understand. [/quote]

At least in my kids' classrooms, classroom arrangements, signup genius links, venmo requests, etc. are all done through a group chat via the school's app. All classroom parents are added. Emails are also sent to all classroom parents. Not ONE husband responds to chats, emails, signup genius. It's 100% moms. On the class party day there's decent dad turnout, so I know they're aware. And I know the majority of moms are working moms. It's been like this since daycare!

I also handle most kid admin in my house. My husband is no slouch otherwise, but there are times when I'm underwater and need help and he is completely blind to this kind of work no matter how many app notifications/emails/paperwork are sent. I have to directly ask. Yes, some of it's fluff, no one will die if we forget cookies for the teacher cookie exchange, but we DO need to get the required class shirt, recorder, contribute to group activities, pay for field trips, sign online permission slips, check grades and homework, update parental settings on devices, and on and on. I truly believe the idea that planning around children's lives is "women's work" is so pervasive, the vast majority of men will not change, even if it's subconscious and they present a flexible, equitable mindset.

Do not get me started on Christmas.[/quote]

Same for us regarding all dads being on these chats and it being totally moms dealing with it. There are two dads (out of 40-some families across two classes) who participate.

And ALL the moms work, and many have jobs every bit as challenging as their husband's. Some are fily breadwinners.

Also, the two dads that participate -- their wives also participate. But for a lot of other families, the dad has zero involvement.

This is a UMC public school in DC. Also, some of the class and PTA stuff is dumb make work (I don't do that) but a lot of this is just necessary stuff -- making sure kids have supplies, knowing deadlines, ensuring there are sufficient chaperones for school trips, disseminating info about aftercare, administrative deadlines, etc.

That's how I know that the women in this thread saying "it's unequal" are not BSing. It's not! And it's not because all the women are bad communicators or just live feeling resentful or whatever.[b] It's because it's just not equal. Most moms work, but few dads do as much parenting/household admin as moms. [/b]And that's just the truth. It's no wonder women sometimes complain. It is a testament to our fortitude that we don't complain more.[/quote]

This. [/quote]

I definitely do more admin work than my husband BUT he does more of other things. For example, my car registration is something he does, as he does everything related to all our cars. I'm not equating the two, I'm just saying that we have divided some things 50/50 (i.e. we are both responsible for certain items related to our children and house) and for other things we have divided them 100/0 where one of us is wholly responsible for that area. For example, he does all the electronics for everyone in the family, which includes all issues with phones, iPads, computers, laptops, TVs, WiFi, etc. If a child asks me for assistance because something isn't working on their phone, I send them to their dad. I do all the logistics related to our kids' shared sport because it's also my sport. My husband attends practices and competitions, but I buy all the items the kids need and stay on top of that. I could go on and on, but the two of us both work full time and have divided things up in a way that works for us. I do more admin but not all of it and he does more of other things. All that to say, I don't think saying you do more admin work is necessarily a problem. Now, if you do all of it despite asking your husband for help with it, or you do it in addition to everything else, then of course that's a problem.[/quote]

Same.  I actually call this 50/50 because I’m a bulker not a splitter - on a whole it’s 50/50.  Reality is he does all the home and garden maintenance and organization. I do all the kid shopping. We both do cooking, laundry. I organize the household help; he organizes the kids extracurriculars and school payments.  We both work and are equals with our own specialties.[/quote]

That does sound pretty even to me.

I think where couples run into problem is when they split things up kind of like this before kids, and it feels pretty even (he cooks, she cleans, he deals with the car, she manages bills, etc.) but then kids come along and the "bulk" of kid activities fall to the mom. And sure, people can quibble around the edges over whether every kid-related activity is necessary and if some of it is a priority only for the mom, but I think when dad's are not really taking any initiative on ANY kid-related duties, it's obviously going to be unequal unless she's a SAHM. But this thread is about women who work and still feel like their are doing way more at home.

The fact that your DH is willing to completely handle kids ECs and school payments, without being asked and without you needing to delegate or show him how to do it, means he's not dumping it all on you. I think it's that feeling of being abandoned to handle the kids that a lot of women are responding to, the sense that it's been assigned to them without even being discussed, and that when they try to even it up, their husband's fight them on it and will only "help" with the kids but not really take on responsibility. It's a lack of ownership around parenthood that I absolutely see in many families, including plenty of families where the spouses earn the same amount or even where the woman outearns her husband. There are an unacceptable number of men who expect their wives to work and contribute financially to the household but do not feel there is an expectation that they do the same thing on the parenting front. Even if that number were only 20-30% of family households, it's too many. That's a lot of men shirking parenting duties even though their wives are working and earning money for the family.[/quote]

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