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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][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]

Are Worker 1 and Worker 2 identical twins with the exact same personalities, education, and experience? If not, then it may make sense to have them perform different tasks related to their skill sets. My best friend and I have been friends for almost 40 years. We are similar in a lot of ways but we could 100% not do each other's jobs. And that's not due to lack of intelligence or even education, and we actually held the exact same job at one point! But our current jobs play to our real strengths and there is no way we could switch jobs and be successful. So one flaw in your hypothetical is that Worker 1 may have a skillset that equates to being good at handling order, etc., and Worker 2 has a skillset that means they are good at the physical labor part. If they're both working 40 hours a week, and they're both ok with what they're doing, then who cares?

In your hypothetical, Worker 2 gets all the praise because they're the ones who are out and about. Does that matter to you? My husband dropped off and picked our kids up at sleepaway camp about four hours away last year. I couldn't care less if all the parent thought that meant he had also done all the planning or that he was a great dad. I didn't need anyone to send me a medal acknowledging the work I had done in researching and enrolling them in the camp. Maybe you do need the external validation, and I guess that's ok, but I don't think it's universal.

You're saying that using brain power to accomplish a task is more valuable than actual time spent doing something. I happen to disagree. If my husband spends three hours researching a new appliance for us and finding the best price and ordering it and that takes him 2 hours, but then I am the one home when the delivery guys come and then I stock the new fridge with groceries that we ordered jointly and were delivered when I was home and that takes me 2 hours, does he get more credit for the fridge than I do? Why?

I get that some things can take equal amounts of time but have different effects. For example, spending two hours sitting in my car doing crossword puzzles and listening to an audiobook is not the same (nor as draining) as spending two hours making small talk with people I barely know on the sidelines of a kid's soccer game. But for my husband the reverse could be true - what if he were an extrovert and the idea of chit chatting with other parents sounded exciting but the idea of sitting in the car waiting sounded miserable? You can't use two different metrics to compare things and then complain that nothing is ever equal. Or rather, you can, but it sounds like you'll just make yourself miserable. [/quote]

One task is brain power, stress/accountability, PLUS time.

The other is mostly just time.

If the person doing all the planning and logistics screws up, they might wind up without childcare for the summer, spending twice as much money as they want to, or dealing with a super long commute to camp. If they miss deadlines, fail to follow up with paperwork, don't price compare, etc., there are major consequences for the family. Even one seemingly small mistake could be costly.

The person driving kids to camp would either have to make a catastrophic mistake (car accident) or make the same mistake over and over and over to have the same negative impact. Even if they were late every single day to camp... Oh well.

And your example with your friend doesn't make sense in this context. Sure, two experienced professionals could not easily trade places in different jobs. They both do specialized work that requires special skills and experience. But driving kids to camp is not that. Likely either parent is capable of doing that. But the person doing planning/logistics/budgeting is less easily replaced.

The planning job is more important than the driving job. Yet it is often ignored or discounted as imaginary so that if you ONLY focus on the more straightforward, visible aspects of parenting, it appears both partners are doing roughly equal work. But they are not. One is doing this vital, challenging, stressful piece without acknowledgement. Thus: inequality.[/quote]

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