Reply to Extreme resentment over mental load

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The posters suggesting to not not barely celebrate Christmas or birthdays aren’t very helpful.

You’re also not taking the rest of life into consideration. I can live in a $2 million dollar house, employ a cleaning lady, work a demanding job, exercise etc - but I’m going to drop the ball on Christmas and/or a birthday for my mental health?

Someone who is not celebrating Christmas for their child (assuming you’re Christian) is practically homeless or suffering from severe mental illness. [/quote]

This post sounds like mental illness. What on earth? [/quote]

+1! Figure out what "celebrating Christmas" means to you. If it means spending 10,000 hours decorating and buying gifts, and you don't have 10,000 hours to spend, you'll either need to take time from other things, outsource, or not spend 10,000 hours on Christmas. This isn't rocket science. My parents had demanding jobs and we had no other family, so they spend 2 hours decorating and gave my sibling and I one gift each, but that still counted as Christmas because we were celebrating together. [/quote]

My parents were immigrants who worked themselves to the bone. We'd haul down the plastic Christmas tree from the attic, my brother and I would wrap the lights and tinsel, hang the few ornaments while my dad ran to the toy store to get a He-Man action figure for my brother and a My Little Pony for me. My mom would wrap them and stick them under the tree, and call it a day. Good times, and great memories.[/quote]

Sounds to me like both of your parents participated.  
I think OP is resentful because she has to do everything alone.  [/quote]

Would OP be satisfied if all her DH did was a last minute Target run for action figures? [/quote]

I think she would be satisfied if he volunteered to go and he knew what he wanted to get.

She said that she is upset that he didn’t volunteer to do anything.  [/quote]

We have no idea what happened behind the scenes with PP’s parents. We have no idea if her mother told him to go to Target and what to buy. [/quote]

Action figure PP here. My dad definitely knew what to buy, because he would take the few minutes to notice us and the toys with which we played. That's why I have good memories. Christmas was that time they could take a break and show us that they did know who we were, even though they were normally away so much working. It didn't take a huge amount of time or money.[/quote]

No offense, PP, but you probably have no idea about the Christmas conversations and delegating that may or may not have occurred between your parents.  The point IMO is that they made it work in order to give you a good childhood and happy memories.  Who CARES if Mom was the “project manager” or Dad was, or if they both magically manage to do exactly the right 50% with no reminders or delegating whatsoever?[/quote]

What a strange response. You don’t think that as a kid I’d know if my dad knows what toys I play with? Kids aren’t dumb. Of course I wouldn’t  have known all the conversations and delegations, but I would certainly notice if all the work is primarily done by one parent and the second has no clue what is going on. And I would definitely notice if the parent doing all the work resented the situation. That sort of thing is extremely obvious to kids because parents usually do a poor job of hiding it.[/quote]

DP. The standards on fathers today are higher than our own fathers (as it should be). I doubt mothers who were raising kids in the He-man/Little Pony would be as resentful for the mental load. [b]What would your mother say? [/b]I had to say - you go to Kmart and buy actions figures, I’ll finish dinner and wrap when you get home.  He didn’t just volunteer? Or know which task to take? Would she resent that? Seems unlikely for that generation.

But that’s what we’re talking about today. Also - children are very naive about the behind the scenes discussions between parents. [/quote]

My mother was an 80s housewife without a job. She DGAF if she had to buy Christmas presents and plan the vacation. That was her job. Now I have a FT job AND still have to manage the vacation and buy presents. [/quote]

[b]You don't need a full time job. You want it. [/b]You don't need Christmas presents and vacation. You want them. You saw what it took for your parents to make marriage work but you decided you were smarter and better and could work miracles. Who did you model your marriage after? Some TV show couple? You are not superwoman, and your DH is not superman. Welcome to reality!

[/quote]

I'm with you on the agency argument, for the most part, but honestly? If you want to have kids and own a home in DC, either your spouse has to be crazy wealthy, or you both have to work. The diminished mental load from working part-time vs. full is negligible, as you still have to coordinate schedules, budget for work-related expenses, etc. The alternative is not working outside the home at all and staying home as an "80s housewife" or the like. It's not "without a job" but it's without paid employment and the financial options and self-esteem that go with having a salary of your own.

In short, there still isn't a great option for women. We need financial incentives and benefits for staying at home to raise our children ourselves. Never gonna happen. [/quote]

Glad you acknowledged that these are all wants. You do not have to stay in DC. You do not need to have children. We can negotiate better financial incentives and benefits with our spouses in prenups, but we chose not to because we are desperate to get married and repeat cycles that we know were disadvantageous to our mothers.

For example, women can negotiate prenups stipulating that men give them 100k in a separate non- premarital account before each child is born so they have some independence while staying home at the early stages of child development. Options like this are rarely considered because women have chosen to be delusional about the reality of raising children in a capitalist society. It is easier to pretend that love will conquer all instead of negotiating marriage like the contract that it is.

Additionally, the price of housing in DC and other big cities is high because there is a demand at that price. If many families had only one working spouse, few will be able to pay those prices, and the prices will go down.  [/quote]

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