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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]And then there are your kids, who hear your spiteful arguments about who "has" to deal with them today.

Start a therapy coin jar now.[/quote]

Who is arguing about this in front of their kids?

Also, a lot of this is not about spending time with kids. It's about doing the work that goes into keeping the house running.[b] If a child overhears his mom telling his dad "I need you to step up and help with getting the kids ready for school this year, including registering and going to the teacher meet and greet and getting supplies and updating uniforms," that's a GOOD thing for a child to hear. They are learning that there is more to having kids than just chatting with them at dinner, and also that their mother expects their father to be an equal partner in that work.[/b]

Now, if the dad's response is "uuuuuugh, I hate that stuff. You're so much better at it. Can you do it?" Well, that's going to communicate something pretty depressing to the kids. But the problem there is not that mom asked her husband to do more. It's that he does not value his kids enough to do it.[/quote]

Actually, what they’re learning from the bolded is that this stuff really *is* Mom’s domain, which is why SHE is the one in charge and delegating tasks to her underling, their Dad. This dynamic is what eventually leads to all the complaints about language involving Dad “helping out” with raising his own kids.  [/quote]

Then what do you suggest a woman whose partner DOES NOT do this stuff without being asked/forced to, do?

The only way this changes is if men actually start doing more of this. But look at this thread. It's a bunch of men claiming they already do and the list is misogynist (despite study after study showing that women do far more childcare and housework than men and have less leisure time), women claiming their husbands already do all this (again, despite ample evidence that this is not the norm). and then both groups claiming that IF there are marriages where the woman is doing a lot more than the man, it's probably her fault anyway for either picking the wrong man or failing to properly delegate/invite him to help/ask in the right way/bing to controlling/etc. No matter what, it is never, ever the man's fault that his wife is doing 70-100% of the chilcare/housework related tasks. So what motive do men have to actually change their ways? People will bend over backwards to blame their wives anyway.

And now a woman who speaks up and says "you need to do this" is damaging her kids, either by making it sound like she doesn't love every minute of unpaid labor she does on behalf of her family, or reinforcing the idea that this is her job and her husband is just a "helper."

So, what is the solution?[/quote]

[b]The solution is not to reproduce. [/b]Women in South Korea and Japan already have taken a stand on this issue. We're wrecking the planet anyway. But if people insist, I like a PP's idea of putting together a spreadsheet of all responsibilities and dividing them up between partners (and while the spreadsheet is no guarantee of follow-through, I think that people who are reluctant to work together with their SOs in this way are showing red flags about themselves and are not partner material. So ideally the spreadsheet should be done at the beginning of co-habitation, way before making it official). [b]Next, I think there is something to having one healthy, capable kid[/b] (yes, there is always the possibility that the child won't be healthy and/or will be disabled, but a lot of the more common disabilities and conditions are screenable or foreseeable--so many parents on this site talk about the difficulties of having kids with autism and/or ADHD, for example, as if this outcome weren't a predictable result of marrying and procreating with a spouse who has one or both). One child is simply less work and requires fewer resources in the form of time and money than two or more, resulting in a better balance for the entire family. [/quote]

NP. This is actually great advice. All of the women that feel so oppressed by "dad privilege" should decline to reproduce or have one kid tops and leave the bulk of creating and raising the next generation to the rest of us.[/quote]

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