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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]

If you don't want to make food for your MIL's visit, just..don't make food for your MIL's visit. What is she going to do, have you arrested?[/quote]

You are confused. The PP wants to make sure that there is food to eat on a day when they will have house guests arriving and may not have time to cook. It's not about not wanting to cook for her MIL, it's about not having to be in charge of making sure that the family has food when it needs food, a planning responsibility that many men might not bother with.

Just like dad might drop the kids off at camp every day, but mom might be the one to start thinking about camp in December, knowing many camps fill in January, and start doing research and pricing things out, then start looking at the school calendar and also planning any travel so they know what weeks they need camp for (all while her DH is like "why are you asking about this now? that's months away? can't we plan this later?") and then making sure she signs up when camps go up so they don't get locked out, and filling out all the paperwork for the camps and getting any needed supplies as they approach. But all you might see is the dad dropping the kids off and think "wow, what an involved dad, he's definitely doing 50%. Maybe more -- I don't see their mom dropping these kids off. Boy is she lucky to have a partner who just totally handles camp for her." This is what people are talking about when they talk about the invisible labor of parenting that disproportionately falls on women.

I would LOVE to be the partner who simply gets to weight in on whether my mother would prefer lasagna or ordering pizza when she arrives next week (while my partner figures out the logistics of either and bothers to think about it at all) or the partner who drops off my kids at camp every day wearing appropriate clothes and sunscreen and with the requisite materials (while my partner figures out literally ever aspect of camp logistics months in advance and spends weeks making sure we have everything we need and the bill is paid and all the paperwork is filled out so that I can just hug my kids and look like a hero while doing almost nothing). That gig sounds great.[/quote]

You can dismiss the actual labor of dropping kids off at camp if you want, but I prefer to take that into consideration. How much time does it take to research and sign up for camps? Let's say 10 hours. How much time does it take to drive the kids roundtrip to and from camp? Let's say both parents work from home and camp is 15 minutes away. That's an hour of driving each day. So after two weeks of camp, you have both spent 10 hours on "camp." If you also spent another 10 hours doing the camp paperwork and researching and buying supplies, ok. So if your husband continues dropping the kids off and picking them up for another two weeks, then you've both spent 20 hours on camp. I'm not dismissing the labor related to signing kids up for camps or preparing them for it. But you seem to be dismissing the labor of dropping them off and picking them up. Is it mentally less work? Probably yes, although sitting in carpool pickup lines is hardly anyone's idea of fun. But if you want to dicker about whose 20 hours of work were "harder" then you're never going to be satisfied. [/quote]

Here's a hypothetical for you. Say there's a sandwich business. There are two workers in the business. Both workers make the same amount of sandwiches and that work is divided equally.

But Worker 1 does all the logistical planning for the business. They figure out how to sell the sandwiches, do the budgeting to make sure they are turning a profit, solve problems related to the business's website or figure out what to do when their distributor is out of certain ingredients.

Worker 2 delivers the sandwiches.

They spend the same amount of time on these different jobs. Is one harder than the other? Could the two workers switch jobs easily, and if they did, would they both know how to do the other's job?

Now imagine that that an outside observer to this business sees Worker 2 delivering these sandwiches every day and was like "Wow, you are amazing at running a sandwich business! You work so hard! You deserve a reward." But the same observer sees Worker 1 sitting at a computer doing their job and is like "what do you even do? ordering supplies? processing orders? that's not even hard."

This is basically what you are arguing. The person using critical thinking, problem solving, and logistical skills to get kids signed up for summer camp and ensure they have camp for the weeks they need it and that the kids are enrolled in the right programs (and that they are signed ups early enough that they aren't sold out, which means they though all this through months ago before summer travel plans were firmed up or their spouse had even spent a moment's time thinking about the summer) and also making sure all the forms are filled out and that the kids have all the right clothes and supplies for those camps, is the SAME as the person who delivers the kids from home to camp.

But are they? Are those equal?[/quote]

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