Reply to I have an egalitarian marriage, and I HATE it

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

And that's why middle and working class families often choose a division of labor that seems non-egalitarian compared to UMC professionals. I think the assumption is that it's a political choice, that they are just old fashioned about gender roles. But I think more often it's just much, much more efficient, if you have to take care of all this stuff yourself, to have one person doing paid labor and one person doing most of the unpaid labor. Yes, there are consequences to this that are bad for women. But there are tons of benefits to the family. So when rich people tell middle class people "you just need to get your husband to do more" without acknowledging that they use this handy third option (hire someone to do it) that might not be available to everyone, I get annoyed. The equality of UMC professional marriages is not always possible at a lower HHI.[/quote]

Great points! Sometimes I love DCUM bc people have thoughtful insightful perspectives. [/quote]

Disagree. There is NO reason why women are “better” or “more efficient” at this stuff. Anyone who’s done it for a week knows it’s a huge grind. Guys can grind it out too. FWIW in my house we do not outsource a lot and dad is doing everything as efficiently as mom, whether it’s mornings with the kids, packing lunches, dishes, laundry, restocking cleaning supplies, or what have you. Absolutely no estrogen required. What do you think gay couples do?[/quote]

Ehhh, I think there’s some truth to some of these things, at least for, say, GenX and older couples.  Most of us GenXers were still socialized with women cooking and men doing yard/handy work.  So that’s how DH and I divide things up.  Can he cook?  Sure.  Can I fix stuff?  Sure.  But we’re both specialized enough in those tasks now that yes, it’s far more efficient for me to do most of the cooking and food and him to fix everything that breaks.  We’re UMC but this is the division of labor that works well for our family.  He does his own laundry and more cleaning than I do (our regular cleaning person isn’t vaxxed, so DH is scrubbing bathrooms and such).  It works.

Homosexual couples are likely often far more intentional about division of labor than most heterosexual couples, which is probably a good thing.  [/quote]

It’s socialization and, importantly, it’s really not about doing. It’s the managing, organizing, anticipating. The problem is that, in general (obviously there are exceptions), women are raised to think about what other people need far more than men are. And that’s where men struggle. It’s not that they can’t do the actual component tasks. It’s that they often lack the empathy and thoughtfulness to anticipate what needs to be done and do it. No one has ever really expected them to do this. So women do it.

It has nothing to do with natural ability or genetic predisposition. But by the time people marry and have kids, men are far behind the curve.[/quote]

OP here. I don’t know. My DH is honestly a lot more empathetic than I am. He is really good with anticipating the needs of our kids day to day. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean he thinks ahead about things like being out of formula, for example. In contrast, I am better at planning just because I am better at planning and enjoy doing it, not because I am using some great empathy reserve to muster the motivation.

[/quote]

We might just be defining "empathetic" differently, but I think it's the same thing. To me, thinking ahead about making sure you don't run out of formula is a form of empathy, because you are in tune to the fact that the baby needs to eat and relies on you for food and you have to remember that.

My DH really loves and is super kind to our kids. They are great together. But he regularly forgets stuff like that they need to eat at specific times, that if they don't get to bed by a certain hour it really messes them up the next day, that if you want to leave the house by a certain time that means starting to get ready 30 minutes prior, etc. And I do think the reason I'm better at those things is not because I'm naturally a better planner. I think it's because it's been drilled into me since I was very young that if someone might be hungry, tired, bored, need help with something, etc., that I should make an effort to address it. Especially if it's my own child. And I think my DH just... never got that message. I think he was used to having his needs met and that his parents and his community didn't really impress upon him the idea that it was his responsibility to meet other people's needs. He's a reasonably empathetic person, but very few men develop that skill. And women are often trained for it. I don't think we're born that way, but by the time we get married, many of us have refined this skill to the point that our husbands will probably never catch up unless they are an outlier.[/quote]

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