Reply to Why do men assume their wife will become a SAHM?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Mine expected me to stay home and handle all of the kid and house stuff.....while still making 6 figures. Not sure how that works. But when I was SAHM, he resented that I didn’t make money. When I worked, he resented that it infringed on his career.

I think males in our society are raised to be entitled, while females are raised to sacrifice for others. They’re deep seated cultural beliefs that most people don’t even realize they have.

[b]I see it even among SAH parents - SAHMs do way more for their kids, while the SAHDs I see are focused on themselves and ignore their kids, play on their phone, etc.[/b] [/quote]

I was SAH for about six months after my daughter was born and have been WFH with some part-time childcare since then. I view my time with my child as an opportunity to spend time with my child, not a vacation. I have always invested a lot of energy into making sure we are doing things that are stimulating for her, reading to her, paying attention to what she eats, to her schedule, to making sure she is getting enough sleep, to teaching her about the world and also just having lots of quality time with her playing and cuddling and connecting.

My husband can do this for one hour, max. Even that is pushing it -- he's usually on his phone in 15 minutes. When I am working on weekends and he is with our child, she will always wind up coming to find me at reliable times because she is getting hungry or bored and he isn't paying close enough attention to her or to the time. I frequently have to stop my work to pop my head in and say "Has she eaten lunch?" He would also let her watch hours of television uninterrupted if he didn't know I'd be pissed about this. I am certain that when I have to be out of the house for work events and he is home with her, that he plops her in front of the television for hours. Nevermind that if one of our sitters had ever done this with her, he'd be livid ("what are we paying her for?").

Also when he stays home with her so I can do a work thing, I always come home to a messy house and not only is there no dinner in the works, he has barely thought about it. When I am home with our daughter, I'm always keeping track of how messy the house is, cleaning as I'm going, doing a deep clean once a week (all while also getting work done and supervising our sitter). I plan meals several days in advance so we are never at a total loss for what to do for dinner (even if it's just "okay, casserole monday, leftovers tuesday, then take-out wednesday so we can have a break").

The pandemic has made him a little better, but the pull of his phone, zoning out, and not caring is still very strong. He still approaches our lives much as he did when we were in our late 20s with no kid and two jobs out of the house. It doesn't occur to him that we can't just postpone Saturday breakfast until he feels like it -- our kid will lose her mind if she doesn't get breakfast until 11:30. We can't just ignore her schedule -- if she doesn't take naps eat timely meals and go to bed at a reasonable time, she becomes grumpy and challenging. But then when he does this stuff he blames her (she doesn't listen to me like she listens to you) instead of looking for ways to parent better so that she stays regulated. I don't even consider myself a strict or rule-following mom in this respect -- I just pay attention to my kid and try to anticipate her basic needs and then respond to her behavior with solutions instead of just assuming she's an asshole.

I hope that as our daughter gets older and can talk to him more (and regulate some of her needs on her own) that he will grow into his role more. I have to be careful not to criticize or suggest too much because he gets defensive. But there's no question to me that I am an active, attentive parent and he is not. He could not cut it as a SAHD, and if he did it, I think we'd be dealing with a ton of behavioral issues right now. I think his parents set terrible examples for him and that he honestly has no idea how to parent young children and most of what he is able to do well now is because I have set a good example. It's alarming. No one taught me how to do this either, but I a have been motivated to learn. I don't get why he is not.[/quote]

So many men sound so selfish. It makes them hardly appealing, and I am not gay!

I remember once going on a field trip with my child (I took a vacation day from work). A dad was there, who I know is a cardiac surgeon). I watched him on the trip, and I don't think he spent more than 3 minutes with his son. he made no attempt to interact with him. On the bus ride home, I heard him call his wife and say[b] how great it was for him to have quality time with the boy[/b].

[/quote]

Men and women are different. It was touched upon a couple of posts back. Men simply aren't as emotionally and mentally connected to their kids as most women are. The dad may very well have had a great time "connecting" with his kid. If the kid is male, he likely felt the same. [b]This is likely the reason most caregivers are female: males simply aren't equipped to do it to women's standards. Not saying dad won't keep the kid alive, just that that is the most you can expect.[/b][/quote]

I disagree. I was raised by a single father who was more heavily involved with us than any mom I've ever known. So they *can* do it, most just choose not to. [/quote]

I agree with above PP.  This is not biology, it's socialization.  We are socialized this way from birth.  Women are taught to be caregivers and shamed when they are not.  There are women who don't want to be moms and get relentless pressure from others to have kids and take care of those kids.

There are probably more men than you know of who would love to stop having the burden of being the sole bread winner and stay home with their kids, but they'd take so much sh*t if they did .  Not to mention that it is the sexism in our  current society that leads to most women having the lower paying jobs.[/quote]

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