Reply to Why do we judge men who don’t work more harshly than women?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Man here - some of this is because, in general, women who stay home do a lot of the little unpaid tasks that add up to a lot. My SAHM DW to an 11 and 14 year old does almost all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, appointments, homeroom mom, etc. etc. that adds up to probably something like a 6 hour shift. She has it easier than I do now at my biglaw job but when the kids were little, her days were more of a slog than mine.

But if she weren't doing all of those things, I would judge her as lazy.

Also, a lot of it is biology. I have never seen this situation work in reverse (biglaw woman partner with SAH DH). I think men take pride in providing for their families, and women get resentful if their DH isn't working. I think female attraction over the long term is hard enough and they lose attraction if their man isn't working outside the home. "lack of ambition" or how ever you want to phrase it. I am not saying this is fair but it seems very consistent[/quote]
+1 I think this is spot on, and I'm a woman.

I was also a sahm for a bit.  I did give the option for DH to be the sahp, but he declined. LOL.  And I know exactly why he did.   Personally, being a sahp to very young kids was not my cup of tea, nor is it his.  I don't enjoy that aspect of being a parent. But it was necessary for our family at the time.  Being a sahp was easier mentally, but tedious, and you almost never get to just take a break whenever you feel like it. When you feel sick, you can't just tell your kids, "Hey, I'm having a sick day. Be back tomorrow."

Quite honestly, I wouldn't lack respect for my DH if he had chosen to be a sahd for that time period, but I have a feeling that he would not have been as thorough in his cleaning and cooking. He has different priorities than I do, and I'm more type A than he is.  So, I would've been more critical of him as a sahp because the house wasn't as clean as it should be. I notice a lot more dust and crumbs than he does.  LOL.    It worked for the best.

Having stated that, I don't think women should be a sahp forever.  When the kids are much older and don't need you as much, I think moms should get a job.

Being a sahp forever is not great for many reasons:  1.  kills your brain cells  and you start to get lazy 2. you never know what might happen either to your marriage or to your spouse.[/quote]

Np and agree. I find myself judging my friends who still don’t work even though their kids are at school now. And I know their husbands feel resentful bc they talk about it in hushed tones, but increasingly more vocally. I feel like many women have hid behind gender roles and made up numbers of hours of ‘home stuff’ for a long time and the husbands/ society buy it. [b]If you’re doing 6 hours of stuff a day you are doing something wrong[/b] - and plus esp if you have a degree idk why these women prefer to clean than get a full or part time job they might actually enjoy and earn double snag it would cost to pay a cleaner, for example [/quote]

DH and I both work from home with flexible jobs. During the day we’re constantly interspersing loads of laundry, emptying the dishwasher, light meal prep, etc. Then there is taking time off for 3 kids’ medical appointments (1 has some special needs). Plus we both try to volunteer a couple times per month at our kids’ schools. We still have to outsource stuff like cleaning and yard work. Grocery shopping gets squeezed into the early evenings/weekends or occasionally drive up. Plus being home for home repairs, taking care of basic home maintenance, pet care/vet appointments, researching and signing kids up for summer camps which require being at a computer at a precise time, unexpected sick days, early release days, elder care for an aging parent who needs rides to appointments, dropping the car off for maintenance, and so on with all the tedious life stuff.

If we didn’t have 2 flexible jobs where we could handle some of this mid-day and the ability to outsource some things, I can totally see how 1 person could fill their day with this stuff. Obviously there are some things that could be slashed like classroom volunteering, but most of this stuff has to be done and I think the person away at the office doesn’t always see these little things and takes them for granted. [/quote]

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