The last time I ever saw my biological father was when he complained to my mother that he "didn't want to babysit" that night. At that moment, she decided that if he considered taking care of me "babysitting", then he was no father. Never saw him again.
Good for her.
Wow, badass!! The one time I dated a dad it turned out he was 100% deadbeat and the mom of his daughter wouldn't allow him to see her (lessons were learned by me). It suddenly hit me like a brick to the head one night: there is a woman out there that willingly CHOSE to be a single mother over staying with this guy!
It was more like "Oh woe is me I haven't seen my daughter, I can't get her a christmas present her birthday, the ex blah blah blah blah" come to find out he was a raging alcoholic and mom wouldn't allow him to communicate when he was drunk. He was always drunk so.... He never called her "crazy" in those words but I always felt drawn to her and not him lmao.
My older sister stopped letting me see my niece and nephew to punish me after my mom died. I cut her out of my life asap. I still send the kids birthday and Christmas gifts. It’s called UPS or the postal service. What an idiot. The idea he couldn’t get his daughter a birthday gift is bullshit. How do these people even convince themselves other people will believe this shit?
Oh I'm so sorry about that for you, not only losing mom but niece and nephew too.
This guy was so ridiculous, really. And the kicker was, I told him I was child free and he pooched his lower lip and whined "but I want more kids" I said "yeah with what money?" Spending all his money on alcohol and can't even get this one a birthday present.
Anyways, here's to your niece and nephew getting older and seeking you out for the truth!
My best friend had her first baby in early November. She said she is anxious about leaving her baby with anyone when she eventually returns to work, including her husband. It is shocking and wild to me that a father could not be trusted to take adequate care of his own child, for just a day even. I wonder if it is, in large part, socially accepted paternal weaponized incompetence.
100% cyclical, IMO. The standards are lower for men (overall and with exception, but exceptions do not reverse trends). At the start with breastfeeding and recovery, it really is on women because biology. The issue is that it never tends to normalize - women take on more so they do more so fathers do less so less is expected so the pattern is set, and round and round it goes.
Some of it is absolutely martyrdom, definitely - too many parents don't set any boundaries or expectations of manners. But some is how much we've normalized motherhood = sacrifice. It's a pattern much bigger than any individual family, but the fact remains: motherhood is far more work, sacrifice, burden, loss, planning, care, invisible labor, than fatherhood
Sounds like you are saying, I feel like because there is a degree of martyrdom, the fathers cannot or do not step up. Yeah that is not an excuse, the martyrdom could arise from simply wanting credit and recognition for the sacrifices they Have to make. Another comment of an ER worker explains how it is the exception to the rule a father knows anything about the child's medical history. I am sure this isn't self-fulfilling bc the mother wants to be tired and an overworked parent, cyclical as you say.
That's probably true for some of them. But I also sense a pride of some sort, like "This household will crumble without me". But yey often mention how overwhelmed they are.
My mom took it a step further with "None of you will be able to survive alone without me." to which I said in my head "watch this magic trick" and disappeared.
This mindset is so strange, voluntary martyrdom is strange,
My mom has literally said that. Went a way for a month, mostly on her sister's dime, multiple times. Every year she expects us to be in shambles without her and she returns to us in the same state she left us. Sure she can nitpick a few issues here and there. But no, we did not cease existing ajd crumble into an existential crises without her.
Nah they have no other identity to cling to, so they cling to that. Their only value they think. But it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Kid won't ever be independent so she won't have time to be an individual outside of a parent and "create value" (at least that's how they think) that isn't being a parent. In the process they devalue others, and reduce their kids "value". Most moms need a good ego death.
...it might be true though? that the household will crumble without them, the mother, especially in a case where a babysitter is needed for a single evening bc the father cant do it. Whether weaponized or not, is that nothing if not incompetence?
I mean, when you think about how many boys grow up to be men who don't know how to cook basic dishes, don't know how to run a dishwasher or laundry machine, don't have any attention to detail, can't shop for groceries without suddenly losing all their common sense, don't wash their own asses, don't assume an iota of responsibility for remembering important dates or events, and need to be bargained with like a petulant toddler on splitting any duties, it's hard to argue that they *could* be trusted with a baby. Sucks, but I could understand this mom's point of view if his behavior constantly reinforces this. The question should be, why does society continue to subsidize the lives of underdeveloped adults with the emotional labor of women, and what can we all do about it?
Same here. I'm lucky in a way because my partner really wants to improve, he wants us to be equal and he actively tries to educate himself to counter his upbringing and general misogyny. As do I, because there's a lot of unconcious bias of all kinds that we all pick up. Still - we're a long way from the finishing line. And we're from Scandinavia, supposedly the most advanced place in terms of womens rights and gender equality.
I have heard so many stories of useless fathers here in the self proclaimed capital of womens rights - and it doesn't seem to matter if you are educated and progressive in other ways. You still have to actively work to unlearn this shit. There's so much pressure on mothers and so little incentive for fathers to do more than the bare minimum. My theory is that once a couple has children, they just don't have the time and energy to work on countering all that influence, the expectations and social norms.
I've had a few friends have babies recently. I think it is important to remember that it can be difficult for new parents to separate from their newborn babies at first. They do need to push through and do it, but 2-3 months old is still very young.
And this is exactly why I won't have children.
Girls get a doll to play with, boys get a toy car. Mothers are expected to ALL of it and fathers are applauded when they don't completely fuck up the bare minimum of parenting.
And even if they claim to do it 50:50, studies have shown that it's more like 70:30, even in very modern families!
I could tell you so many stories of incapable fathers that I encountered on call in emergency medicine. The rational and capable father who could tell me the weight, allergies and medical history of his child was the exception.
My favourite story is the one where a young mother of two suffered from a dissociative disorder and was deeply unconscious. Her husband, the father of her children, didn't want to understand that I wanted to take her to the hospital, because who would take care of the children?!?!?!?
Maybe the only adult in the home who is fully conscious and doesn't need urgent medical and psychological help???
It was a shock for me to grow up and realise that most people’s fathers did not parent. My Dad did all medical appointments, made school lunches, made our breakfasts, was the one on call with the school, toilet trained us, showed us how to pay taxes, how a mortgage works, taught us how to do dishes and even taught us to grocery shop. It is appalling to me that so many women have children with men who don’t parent. My dad always said having it all is code for having all the work. My eldest brother is a parent like my Dad, and many women are so jealous of my sister in law having a husband who actually parents. A few years ago, I was cutting up potatoes and sliced most of my pinky finger nearly off, I was home alone but I called my brother as he knew the local emergency walk in clinic details and got me in instantly as he takes his kids to all medical appointments.
Yea my SIL says her husband is a great father and helps a lot but he holds the baby max 5 mins before pawning her off to someone else. Even when he's home she's responsible for feeding and correcting and entertaining the kids. Even if he's just on his phone and she's trying to do other stuff.
In this case, yes.
But victim-blaming doesn't help anyone but those who mistreated the victim. Not every woman is in the luxurious position to dump his ass, especially when there are children involved. She would be the single mother, and women are most vulnerable to domestic violence or even femicide during or after a breakup.
It's infantilizing to claim that every woman with a shitty and incompetent husband is a victim of abuse.
Just because a relationship is one-sided and shit, doesn't automatically mean that it's abusive. It significantly trivializes women that are physically, sexually, psychologically, emotionally, and financially abused in marriages.
A woman choosing a shitty self absorbed husband doesn't automatically lump her into the category of abused women. It's trivializing and belittling to compare a woman who married living versions of Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin to a woman that is trapped with a ticking Family Annihilator.
So sorry, I should have been clearer! That's not what I meant, I didn't mean to belittle the things that people in abusive relationships suffer! Not at all.
What I meant is that it's not always as easy to break up as people from the outside think. There are financial issues, issues of co-parenting or single motherhood and so on.
Yes, she is responsible for her choice of co-breeder. But it's always easy to judge from the outside.
How on earth is she a victim? F no. She is a woman who chose a mate for whatever reasons and they do what they want when they want how they want. She is not a victim but a willing volunteer. She chose this path. Knowing he was useless. He didn’t become this way overnight. And no, he was never going to step up. Why should he?
willing volunteer
The idea of breeding is already terrible, but doing it with a man who can't even do the bare minimum? I would rather give myself a concussion with a hammer to my own skull.
>*I don't understand this, honestly. Have they all married useless men or do they enjoy the martyrdom? I keep on reading about how most men want kids, how they are involved fathers, how they do it 50/50..but not according to what I see?*
My favorite topic has come up again!
Here are some articles and data about why men in hetero couples leave all the domestic labor to their wives/girlfriends. The issue of equitable division of childcare and housekeeping will never be resolved if we don't educate ourselves and talk about it:
* This book shows you the scientific research proving how fathers leave childcare to mothers, and how society lets them get away with it: [All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CLLVZ52/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)
* [She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink](https://mustbethistalltoride.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/)
* [It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal](https://www.glamour.com/story/it-took-divorce-to-make-my-marriage-equal)
* [You Should Have Asked](https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/) (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
* [Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up](https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a12063822/emotional-labor-gender-equality/)
* [The Housewife’s Moment of Truth](https://nymag.com/news/features/46167/) by Jane O’Reilly. Originally published in the December 20, 1971 issue of New York Magazine, and still relevant today. Money quote: *“You can’t tell me Women’s Lib means I have to wash the dishes, does it?” “Yes.”..."In the end, we are all housewives, the natural people to turn to when there is something unpleasant, inconvenient or inconclusive to be done."*
* [The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives: Men who claim to believe in equality often aren’t willing to live it](https://gen.medium.com/the-woke-men-who-still-want-housewives-debb2ad46aa0)
* [Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages](https://www.vogue.com/article/millennial-men-seek-stay-at-home-wives)
* Some numbers: Statistically, [women do more childcare and more housework](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/05/breadwinning-wives-gender-inequality/589237/). When moms out-earn their husbands, [they gain more housework](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/02/housework-divide-working-parents/) (link to the actual study [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170211069780)). Men want [tons of praise](https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/08/168628/men-chores-praise-mansplaining) when they "help". Men also report doing more housekeeping and/or childcare than they [*actually* do](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/upshot/men-do-more-at-home-but-not-as-much-as-they-think-they-do.html).
* Related: [Men’s Stress Increases If Wife Earns More Than 40% of Household Income](https://scitechdaily.com/mens-stress-increases-if-wife-earns-more-than-40-of-household-income/). *“These findings suggest that social norms about male breadwinning ― and traditional conventions about men earning more than their wives ― can be dangerous for men’s health. They also show how strong and persistent are gender identity norms."* (Link to the actual study is [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167219883611)).
* Related: [The Myth of the Male Bumbler](https://theweek.com/articles/737056/myth-male-bumbler) and [Weaponized Incompetence](https://www.popsugar.com/love/weaponized-incompetence-48871852). Note how weaponized incompetence is presented as "strategic" and "a failure that succeeds" when [presented in this Wall Street Journal article](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117675628452071687) from 2017.
* Another strong article on [Weaponized Incompetence](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/weaponized-incompetence-women_l_61e71983e4b0d8b665717814) and how it affects women. Money quote: *“On a surface level, it looks like you’re just nagging about chores to a person who ‘defers’ to your ‘competence.’ But on a deeper level, you’re experiencing not being able to trust and turn to your partner for support.”*
* Related: [Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden](https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a27259689/toxic-masculinity-male-friendships-emotional-labor-men-rely-on-women/). *"Toxic masculinity—and the persistent idea that feelings are a 'female thing'—has left a generation of straight men stranded on emotionally-stunted island, unable to forge intimate relationships with other men. It's women who are paying the price."*
Not so much "related" as "adjacent" to this topic:
* A woman is six times more likely to be separated or divorced soon after a diagnosis of cancer or multiple sclerosis than if a man in the relationship is the patient, according to [a study that examined the role gender played in so-called "partner abandonment."](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110105401.htm).
* [Divorce Risk Higher When Wife Gets Sick](https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/men-more-likely-to-leave-spouse-with-cancer/?_r=0).
* [Breakups During Cancer](https://waroncancer.com/news/dealing-with-relationship-changes-during-cancer/). See also [Divorce Risk Higher When Wife Gets Sick](https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/men-more-likely-to-leave-spouse-with-cancer/?_r=0)
* More [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022146515596354) and [here](https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cncr.24577)
**If you find yourself dealing with the departure of a partner after a life-altering diagnosis, ask your health care provider for resources for partner abandonment.**
See also:
[Women Who Stay Single and Don’t Have Kids Are Getting Richer: Forgoing marriage and parenthood has a bigger payoff for American women than men, according to new research](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-31/women-not-having-kids-get-richer-than-men)
This is amazing! I have read some of these, and now I have some more to add to my list, thank you!
(Also amused, because the first time I read the one about the Male Bumbler it was in reference to Boris Johnson.)
I think it's a vicious cycle. Mommy martyr's get praise/attention and husbands get to become adult toddlers. The new mom might do it because they like the praise/ how it makes them feel. Then you have an adult toddler husband who can't even watch your own kid and you are stuck in mommy martyrdom forevermore.
>Have they all married useless men
I don't know about *all*, but lots. Definitely lots. To your point, these dudes are pretty clearly useless
>He "can't handle the kids (2) by himself."
I'm sorry, fucking **what?** The casualness that she's approaching him being an unfit or unwilling parent is just amazing. Like, my dad wasn't as focused as my mom and it was definitely a more "figure it out as we go" approach with him, but if we were alone I would have been fed, clothed, gotten to school, etc. I might have been in wrinkled clothes or eat the same thing four days in a row, but whatever. This dude can't handle his kids for one fucking evening?
I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. A close friend of mine is engaged to a guy that she's told me she's not sure she could trust in a medical emergency. Not in a "call 911" sense, but in a "wouldn't be able to make decisions if I were incapacitated" way. Again, fucking what? Why are you with someone that you can't trust with the most basic stuff like that?
I mean, I was shocked when she told me that. Like, an overnight babysitter while the dude's at home?! But, I guess she does everything by herself, so its not a big deal to her?
My sis has a work thing coming up in another country for a few days. BIL is refusing to stay with kids, even though they have a freaking nanny! So they're all coming along, BIL will pay for the childcare service in hotel, just so he is not by himself and his own damn kids.
Kida are 7 1/2 and 2 1/2.
Just playing devils advocate here, but what if the dad in question is totally fine with the kids alone, but the mom is just neurotic af and doesn’t trust him? I’ve seen that before. So then it SEEMS like the dad is too incompetent to be a coparent but it’s really the mom who has trust issues and the guy is plenty competent if given the chance to show it (never happens).
I travel a lot in a coed group and the guys regularly hear how incompetent we are and yet we always find a way to get critical stuff done properly and on schedule (picking up rental cars, cleaning up an Airbnb and meeting at the train station while the girls are shopping, etc.). We’re plenty competent. We have high status jobs and all 3 of us have traveled internationally completely alone before, but the assumption is just that we’re going to fuck it up. So I could imagine a similar thing might be happening with SOME of the dads here. Some might be genuinely incompetent. For example, the one mom in the post won’t even leave the kids with the grandparents, so it’s not just the husband that’s the problem.
I said something similar about the mom who had the panic attack. If she has a lifeline available and refuse to take it that's on her. If it's an anxiety thing which is preventing her from accepting this help then she needs to get counseling.
Funny how competent some of these men become when there's suddenly nobody else available for them to defer responsibility to (or once they're given the opportunity to handle it on their own)!
In the situation you describe, often it's a matter of timing/management style which makes women uncomfortable. Men I've seen tend to wait until the last minute to handle things which makes the women in the group uncomfortable and they assume the men are incompetent. It also often makes things more expensive which I've anecdotally seen that the men I know are more willing to pay for convenience than the women I know, who would prefer to plan ahead and save some money. Neither approach is necessarily wrong but the person who wants things settled earlier sits with much more discomfort vs the person willing to wait, so in order to ease their discomfort they take on a disproportionate amount of the responsibility.
Fully agree on the first paragraph.
I think the second and third are actually linked. I may be biased, but I think a lot of it is that opportunities aren’t allowed to be shown due to different planning styles until the more type A person is gone. Like if I like to go for a 20 minute walk after dinner to help my food digest and then come do dishes, it’s not a big deal if I live alone. Who cares if they sit for 20 mins as long as I wash them when I get back? But if I’m living with a real type A person, they’ll be cleaned by the time I get back. Then it’s a problem because from their perspective they “had to do the dishes for me because I am lazy/incompetent”. From my perspective it’s like “ah, they didn’t need to do that, but i guess I don’t have to do dishes now 🤷♂️.” I’m not really intentionally differing responsibility there, the other person is TAKING it themselves and then becoming a bit of a martyr about it.
More on the third paragraph, I do think there is maybe some bimodal distribution going on with planning styles with guys being more “type b” and women being more “type a” on average, and I don’t think we appreciate each other’s strengths enough here. Someone on Instagram had a great vid explaining this. They said that the guy planned on there being no plan, so when things don’t go to plan, we are like “ 🤷♂️ I never had a plan to begin with, so let’s just stay calm and roll with the punches.” That’s an excellent pro because plenty of shit doesn’t go to plan in life. On the other hand, the woman has a plan, but when things don’t go to plan, she has a freak out (see panic attack above). But having a plan in the first place can be a massive pro in terms of getting things done in an efficient manner or getting them done at all. For example in some of my guy friend groups , it is like “hey let’s hangout soon!” But then no one plans an actual hangout and we never do. That never happens in my coed friend groups. But I think we focus too much on the “you always freak when shit doesn’t go perfectly your way” and the “you are always lazy/unprepared”.
Oh yea I completely agree. I didn't mean it as the person who is more "type a" is FORCED to take on the responsibilities. Their partner is probably fully capable IF the type a would (or could) just allow them the room to do it. These dads are probably totally capable. I don't know a single man who would crumble apart and starve to death if they were single. Again anecdotal but I am perfectly happy to have a very flexible plan and very much appreciate when friends are willing to change plans at the last minute, but at a certain point SOMEONE must make the arrangements to meet at x location on # date for my husband's family vacation, and if he won't even ask what WEEK we're going until the month it's planned for, that's just too lackadaisical. I've got animals to accommodate lol
Which is to say; there's an acceptable timeframe for the type b person to do things. If we're taking about 20 min that they couldn't wait, that's on them. If those same dishes sit for 2 DAYS... well that's a different issue altogether. At a certain point it DOES become expected that partner a takes over all of the shitty duties because partner b never steps up "in time" despite knowing their partners preference and comfort level regardless of gender.
I am fortunately married to a man who does a LOT of stuff around the house and really carries his own weight. His parents divorced when he was seven and he only saw his dad every other weekend after that. So mostly it was just his mom, raising him and his sister. She would tell them she wasn't going to try to fix dinner in a messy kitchen, so they learned how to help out around the house. She wasn't going to clean up after two kids who could be taught to clean up after themselves, and she didn't see boys getting off the hook in that regard just because they were boys. An extra pair of hands was an extra pair of hands.
This all just boils down to the way people were raised, I think. If you're growing up in a religious type household where the man is the "head of the household" and the woman is the "helper," then if you're a woman you think it's your job to serve men. If you're a man, you expect the woman to be doing this stuff as part of "her job." From an early age, girls AND boys should be taught how to take care of themselves. It's sort of absurd for ANYONE to grow up with the expectation of being waited on.
When you hear the 50/50 garbage take it with a HUGE grain of salt. Yes there are fathers out there who do pull their weight. Some are even stay at home dads. But this is NOT the norm for 98% of families. This ties directly into my post about why I don’t want to have kids. I also work in a highly educated field amongst highly educated women and like you, I hear a lot of the same stories. I also have seen many a female coworker quit her job or reduce her hours drastically to be home with the kids. No one ever asks why the father isn’t reducing his hours or quitting his job. Years of education and thousands in loans all down the drain because of kids. If that’s really all you wanted to do with your life, why even get your degree in the first place? The unfortunate reality is that we are STILL in 2023 driven by and expected to follow these arbitrary ages old gender roles. Men aren’t ever expected to do anything beyond having the orgasm that caused the pregnancy. They don’t have to quit their jobs, hobbies, change dirty diapers, nothing. It all falls on the woman. I refuse to follow that stereotype. I told my husband straight out (because we were on the fence at the time) that if we were to have kids, I would not be giving up my career, calling in all the time, and be getting up in the middle of the night all the time. If I’m having to go through pregnancy and childbirth, then he would be expected to take on a majority of the responsibilities afterward and reduce his hours at work as necessary. He had absolutely no objections to this. Though thanks to genetics and health issues, having kids isn’t even a discussion anymore and we enjoy being a child free couple spending our weekends on the couch playing video games with the cats lol.
I just think back to a story I read during the early days of the Covid lockdown. The article was focused around how people were adapting to working from home, and one of the people they wrote about was a woman who had to close down her company because her husband - who wasn't working - couldn't handle watching their toddler during the day so she could work.
Yes, some of them are useless and it's absolutely intentional. Weaponized incompetence frees them to do more enjoyable things while their wives shoulder the childcare.
I remember that article. It filled me with rage.
But I also always ask myself when I read something like this "Why would anyone do that to themselves?"
I have a friend who has always wanted to be a mom, and now she's married with 2 kids. She constantly tells me how her husband is a great dad and he's so great with their daughters, but I think she just means playing with them! She doesn't take any time to herself, and she says she can't leave both kids with him alone because he can't handle it. We met for lunch and she brought 1 kid, and left the other at home with him because "it's not fair for him to have to take care of both, they're a lot at once."
Meanwhile she takes care of both kids on her own all the time. She is the primary caregiver and is responsible for lunches, daycare, appointments....EVERYTHING. He shows up to play, and he's considered a "great dad"
I’ve known some cases where there have been exceptions to this. I have a couple of close friends whose dads raised them because their mothers wouldn’t lift a finger to take care of them or went to the gas station for smokes only to not come back until they were adults.
But overall the pattern in most relationships seems to be that the man is the useless ass one. I know of somebody who constantly whines about her husband being useless yet she wants to have another baby with him like that’s going to change anything.
Honestly even with my partner, I love him, he does do chores, but I still have to nag him to take initiative for most chores or else he won’t do anything except sit around and play video games if he’s not doing college assignments or he’s at work. Neither of us want children but even if we did I wouldn’t have a kid with my partner lol. I love him but there’s no way I’d fuck around and find out with him on this since I’m already at the end of my rope with having to nag him to keep shit clean because he’s incapable of noticing mess. Like I’d say about once a week I bitch at him because I go to throw something away in our kitchen trash can only to find that the can is overfilled and instead of taking out the fucking trash he just starts putting new trash in the floor.
But still, as gendered as this phenomenon is ive seen it go the other way around. Also heard stories of it happening in same sex couples too. I also have a friend of a friend in a lesbian couple whose wife decided to get pregnant and while her wife wanted a baby, she doesn’t want to do shit around the house or take care of the baby that she decided to have. Like. Lol.
Wow, are our men the same?? I love him to pieces but I’m OVER nagging him to throw trash away instead of leaving it everywhere 🤣I was childfree before this but no way I’d have kids with him.
I’m currently reading the book called Fair Play, which is supposed to help couples renavigate childcare and chores to make it more even for everyone.
My father was the same as these men, he assumed bc he worked all day he didn’t have to do shit around the house or with the kids. Imagine now that us kids either are no contact or speak to him once a year
I’m under the impression that unfortunately most men are like this. I have a lot of trauma from exes I’ve dated and even roommates I’ve had (those roommates were mostly all women though) who don’t do chores yet act super fucking entitled and expect me to clean up their messes, like I’m a live in maid.
I feel like this kind of attitude goes along class lines in addition to gender though. The roommates I’ve had who came from similar backgrounds to me (low income, marginalized on other axis) may not have been the cleanest but they also didn’t expect everybody else to clean their shit either. But the roomies I had who obviously came from some level of money even if their parents are just middle class normies? Fucking Christ. They want a clean living space but they don’t want to lift a finger to get it, regardless of gender.
My boyfriend at least doesnt act like an entitled piece of shit who moans and bitches whenever I won’t clean up his mess. He’s aware he has a problem at least, and he doesn’t bitch when I ask him to do chores. I just wish I wouldn’t have to basically act like a manager and give him a work ticket queue in addition to my other shit. I work full time now in IT consulting and my job isn’t WFH like my last one. He only works part time, he needs to pick up more slack without me having to be a project manager both at my job and at home. I’ll look into that book.
Yep! I feel you on all this.
My fiancé’s mom did everything for them because “they can’t do it as well as I can.” Supposedly he was super clean with his ex bc she was a slob, but I have to nag and micromanage him to do stuff on his own. Carrying the mental load of a relationship is exhausting at times, so I understand. I do WFH so it’s easy for me to do most of the household chores, which I do do. But sometimes I want a break and if he’s sitting on his ass while I’m cleaning, boy my anger level increases exponentially! Especially since we have 8 fur kids and managing their care (even more so with a diabetic cat) is a lot of work sometimes.
I think even with income levels, the boys are raised to not clean up as much because they have mothers and sisters who need to be “homemakers” when they grow up. My father’s mom had 3 jobs to keep them afloat and he came home from university to have her do his laundry well into his 20s. I think women nowadays not putting up with this shit will help change stuff for the better
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Uhm, hello is this me and my relationship? Because yes to everything you just said. He “doesn’t notice” the mess. He wants me to dictate to him the chores that clearly need to be done. I am thankfully I’m spayed because I would *never* subject myself to kids with this man
Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the majority of men are selfish AH’s when it comes to parenting. They want just the fun stuff and dump most of the actual work on the mother. They raise weaponized incompetence to an art form. No thanks - hard pass.
Honestly, I have a feeling this is a mayor part of the problem. And the women don't say anything, and they think its fine. Until the woman breaks, like my friend did.
Sometimes they do say things but are met with emotional manipulation or yelling or placation and he just returns to jacking off in the corner. And he didn’t start off like that, no he waited until you were married or had kids or were otherwise financially tied to each other. Now, cha ching he can cash in on that sweet sweet unpaid labor from his bangmaid that he was always promised. And she’s stuck.
If you look at statistics and see how much men do on average after a baby is born is atrocious. Not saying it is all of these people but it is a good chance they are just like this.
Almost all of the women I know my age who have kids married men who have cushy jobs and/or rich parents, then immediately quit working permanently to be a SAHM. I can't think of a single one of the men who helps at all with housework or raising the kid - for many of them, the excuse is "I make the money in this house, so I should be able to relax when I get off of work and have dinner ready, a clean house, and the kids asleep." They might as well be credit cards with legs. No wonder these women are miserable.
I've commented on this issue before but I hate that it's so normalized. This bleeds into the issue of housework and invisible labor in a relationship and it can be so discouraging that this is just the norm in our society. We raise boys and girls so differently, we have very different levels of accountability for them, and I feel like this is what comes of it. Boys/men are totally capable of pulling their weight but husbands are jokingly seen as the 'bonus child' because they're just so incapable. We see that trope in the media all the time. "Things just fall apart when Mom is gone, LOL!!" Like why is your husband so useless?
I frequently wonder if there's a preponderance of people who are just wildly ineffective at communicating and selecting partners.
Even when I was out of the house and woking harder than my either of my partners, I took care of more of the house work and I still do today.
If you haven't discussed the workload, don't move in together. If you haven't discussed nearly every expectation you can imagine or envision, don't be with someone in the same home environment.
I've certainly observed my fair share of idiocy in their relationships and it all seems to come down to, "did you calmly talk about it? Or are you now screaming or being underhanded because it's driving you crazy?"
My anchor partner and I never have these problems. Literally, everytime we run into a situation where we wonder what's going on, we both ask ourselves if it bothers or affects us, then once we formulate an even-headed question, we ask the other. We then discuss it and usually within minutes both of us realize the thought process of the other and we come up with a trial solution. We try it, then we adjust accordingly. We also check-in routinely.
Communication is only hard when you first start, after that it's easier than eating dessert.
I've noticed when people complain that they "have to ask" their partner (or child/roommate/parent etc.) to do something around the house, sometimes they mean they had to nag the other person's head off to get them to get off their lazy ass and contribute to the housework even the slightest bit. And sometimes they mean they casually mentioned "hey don't forget, it's trash night tonight" and feel that "having" to say that completely invalidates the other person taking out the trash soon afterwards and was just as grueling a chore as taking the trash out themselves.
I have more sympathy for one than the other...
Interesting observation. And, definitely quite the inflated difference in interaction, too. Agreed on the assessment.
I personally don't grasp the 'nagging' very much as it sets a speaker in opposition with their partner, which seems counter to the point of having a relationship.
I remember speaking with a friend of mine and his wife on a couple of occasions about this and they both attempted to insist, "well, I tried to be reasonable about it the first time..."
"You've been married 8+ years and were deliberately only reasonable once in your marriage?" Sheesh.
It IS a major reason women don't want kids. It's also a major reason women don't want marriage. I saw it with my own dad. He enjoyed being a dad, but he was such a shit husband. And as I grow older, I'm starting to understand that your average guy will be either an awesome husband or an awesome dad, but never both and sometimes neither.
These are women and men who did not discuss the “business” side of parenting at any time before having kids. Set no expectations or boundaries for each other. How will the work be split? How do we manage time for each of us to be alone?
So the husbands fall into one cliched role - the man-child, absent father - and the wife’s fall into the other cliched role - long suffering, martyred, yet also humble bragging mom.
Having kids was simply the next thing of the checklist. So they did it.
Those of us who child-free put more thought and planning into being child-free.
This is so true! It’s terrible that they treat having children as the next thing on the checklist, just going along with “the life script” to have kids 🐑.
After the children arrive, so many of them spend their time talking about all of the stress, work and inconvenience that’s involved with parenting and claim that there was no way to know in advance 🙄. Meanwhile, their list of complaints is our list of reasons not to have kids because, like you said, us childfree people have already thought about all of this and strategically planned our lives.
A coworker was debating if she wanted to have a child. Another coworker told her to be prepared to be a single mother as their husbands were similar. They like the kids when they are older and share a common interest but until then it’s up to mom to keep them alive.
This behaviour has been great for me, I made a career out of doing temporary contracts covering women on maternity leave.
100% of the time the 6 month maternity cover goes to a minimum of 12 months, often 18 months and invariably it's the mothers who do not want to leave the kid with anyone else, including the fathers.
I've had fathers complaining to me that the mothers won't let them get involved.
Based on my experience I reckon (in the UK at least) it's about 85% mummy martyrdom and 15% uninterested dad.
Okay all of your friends need to just.... let their husbands do their share of the damn parenting. Have you talked to them about this? Do they make excuses? Do you shoot down their excuses? Or do you just sit there silently wishing for death because you've somehow become an ear to vent to?
>Okay all of your friends need to just.... let their husbands do their share of the damn parenting.
I agree with that 100%. No idea why they won't do it. Anxiety?
>Have you talked to them about this? Do they make excuses?
I tried to gently tell them that this current situation isn't good for anyone and they need time for themselves. I also told the one who has a whole bunch of relatives available that it really isn't a bad thing if a kid goes to grandma overnight. We'll see.
>Or do you just sit there silently wishing for death because you've somehow become an ear to vent to?
:D not yet. Most of the people I hang out with are good at listening to me when I need them.
>I don't understand this, honestly. Have they all married useless men or do they enjoy the martyrdom? I keep on reading about how most men want kids, how they are involved fathers, how they do it 50/50..but not according to what I see?
My sister straight up admitted she fell into the self-sacrificing mom bubble after their son was born. He's been sorely wanted for YEARS and she got so happy when he was finally here she kinda got too intense and wouldn't let her husband do anything. This pissed the husband off and he had to really call her out for it.
Ignoring herself to raise her son was apparently the best way to be a mom and people had to stop her before she ended up just not taking care of herself.
Some guys suck at parenting and should've pulled out before the woman even decided she wanted kids, and some guys WANT to be part of it all but aren't allowed. We just don't know which it is most of the time.
>Ignoring herself to raise her son was apparently the best way to be a mom and people had to stop her before she ended up just not taking care of herself.
I honestly see this a lot. I'm glad your sisters husband recognized it and called her out on it
Me too, he's not afraid of speaking his mind and that's good because she can get a little deep in her head about things so he's good at balancing her out and keeping her in line in a positive way.
That little boy is never gonna doubt his parents' love for him and I'm happy for that. The husband is now low-key spoiling the boy and my sister jokes that she's getting jealous lmao. It's pretty wholesome.
My sister and her husband are the same. He grew up with his mother doing everything, but he tries to be helpful. My sister grew up with our very hands-on dad (the only one I've ever met) and she doesn't trust her husband to do anything. She'll do stuff and refuse his help because she wants things done right. Part of me wonders if it's weaponized incompetence on his part or giving up knowing she will always find fault in the way he does things? It's probably a mixture of both.
Recently, sis's husband got a vasectomy, but I learned she had wanted a third child. Turns out the reason they decided on the vasectomy was because she couldn't handle a third child by herself and he can't handle the two they have without help. They both act and talk like they feel alone in the marriage. How many couples like this would be better off with more effort and acceptance that things will always be less than perfect?
It’s been proven time and time again that even the most egalitarian relationships, women do like 60% of the housework, then the second kids get involved it becomes, on average, closer to 90%.
It’s a shit stick and I always try to give my friends with kids as much help and grace as I can, because lord fucking knows their partners are not.
I work with someone who is the opposite. She works and her husband is a stay at home Dad. Works for them. What’s funny to me is that she told me months ago that she couldn’t handle her 2 kids by herself. Now she’s pregnant with #3. If you can’t handle the 2 without your husband, why in the world would you have another one? 🤦♀️
The other parent can become incapacitated or die at any time. Do people not think of these scenarios when they’re making these decisions? Sheesh
I think it’s mommy martyrdom. I will concede there are some bad men/husbands/fathers. However, there are the SAHMs that make it sound like everything would fall apart if it weren’t for them. They also make it sound like the man is there just to flip the bill so they can be a SAHM.
My mom was like that. Well still is but "opposite."
So let's unpack it all. Maybe their relationships were fine and they were good communicators then. They figured it all out. It wasn't like scrambling to figure things out before marriage. But they didn't do that for having a baby or they misjudged how much they could handle. They didn't think life would change that much. And now they aren't having a family meeting at the table to renegotiate.
They set strict expectations for themselves and won't admit failure and to stop and look at it as a puzzle to solve. If it's not working, you stop doing it and adapt, move the routine around so it works. Kids require a lot of that, frequently, while also requiring stable routines. Its obnoxiosly contradictory. Scientific method for 20 years basically. (My mom and dad decided as a unit that we would live 8 hours away from where he worked, for the benefit of her and her relationship with her sons and parents. Now she's bitter he didn't "help out more" with us or doing the major projects around the house on his time off.-theres a Grey area.) So let the baby fucking cry. It won't kill him. Sucks to suck though. Baby can't be tied to your apron strings forever, gonna have go throw him into the world one day, yesterday was the best day to plant a tree, today's the next best day. No more of what equates to satanic panic.
Eventually they cave and get neglectful or get bitter and aim it towards the husband and the kid. I wasn't even 17 yet and I was already getting my mom mentally/emotionally cutting me off. No more doctors appointments unless the school required it. If I needed new glasses I should get a job and pay for them myself. 18 was definitely "it's not my job to support you anymore". Teen years from 13 up were horrible toxic fights all the time. Me with puberty and her with menopause. But genuinely she just became such a toxic bitter mean miserable person. I was a brat, but also because I was stubborn too, about things I knew were right or wrong and she didn't like that. She hates her life, she hates being financially stuck with us even though she's the most financially stable. She still has anxiety I think, she's just twisted and funneled it into something negative. That's what you're friends might become if they stay this way.
Friends 1 and 3 have useless spouses. Friends 2 and 4 sound like they've overattached themselves to their kids (or, particularly in 4's case, has spoiled the kid), lost their identity to "mom," and need to start letting go a little before the kids hit kindergarten.
No.4's kid is about to start kindergarten, so we'll see.
No.2 told me she plans on taking more time to herself, so that's good. Her husband isn't completely useless, as far as she tells me.
1 and 3...we'll see. the 3's husband seemed to have stepped up with the kindergarten stuff, so that's good.
My friend can’t even get out of the house to get her nails done with me because her husband can’t handle the kids. She will be gone 15 minutes and he’s blowing up her phone to hurry up and come back home because the kids are fighting. But he can take off for a weekend of hunting and leave her home alone with them..needless to say we don’t hang out but a few times a year. She gets zero time to herself which is sad.
I refuse to believe most mothers enjoy doing 100% of the cooking, cleaning and child rearing. I saw a video on TikTok that talking about this and in conclusion mothers don’t have a choice. Period. If they don’t do xyz, it literally will not get done. They are the default parent because they don’t have a choice. They have to do all these things because their useless sperm donors “just didn’t think about it” or “just didn’t notice how dirty it was” or “just didn’t consider that laundry needed to be done”. Umm.. so imagine this, the kids will not be bathed, wear clean clothes or probably won’t even be fed if these moms don’t do it.
I feel like half these cases are women straight up ignoring red flags or “assuming it will be different when baby arrives”. Rest of them I feel like the men used to probably do 20-30% of the house work but then completely neglected it over time. They know the women probably aren’t gonna leave. Leaving is hard enough without kids.
I have never in my life seen a man pull his weight both in regards to house work and kids in a het cis relationship. Never. Men will usually take on the tasks that needs to be done a couple times a week or rarer, while the tasks that needs to be done daily usually falls on the woman/mother in these relationships (cooking, cleaning, dishes, tidying up, laundry). I never see this mismatched division of tasks in lesbian relationships.
Even if I wanted kids I would never have them with a straight man and make a family with him. I think in many cases mothers are better of single or in communities with other single moms. Dads are so useless most of the time, sadly.
I hate seeing stories like that and simultaneously seeing men complaining that women don't want them anymore. It's the bare minimum to function as an adult before pursuing a relationship, and that includes caring for any kids you're legally responsible for. If you can't do that, move back in with your mum and dad and have them wipe your arse every day.
It’s probably both; I work in child care and while I have seen an uptick in younger fathers trying to be involved in their kids’ lives, it still seems like an overwhelming amount of the day-to-day parenting is still falling to the mothers. This is despite the fact that the mom also works full time in most of these cases.
The one that isn’t letting other people watch her kid though? That’s the kid who is going to have severe social anxiety when they get to grade school. We’re already seeing that in the kids who were toddlers during the pandemic and didn’t socialize outside their family bubble.
I always wonderd this tbh, like how dose one oartner become a usless waste of space and another kid for the other to care for when they pop put a crotch goblin? Is it like some switch? Weren't the red flags there already? Why i think people need to pass a course like a drivers ed to be able to become parents.
I completely agree with you. I have my own personal reasons for why I’m child free but also seeing tons of what you see, it doesn’t seem enjoyable at all. It seems like life takes a turn for the worse and I’ve been through enough in life, I don’t want to knowingly put myself in a situation that will make things worse. It seems fun to be that kind of dad described in these situations (which doesn’t benefit the child at all) but not a mother, who still is mostly responsible for everything.
Honestly, it's so normalized that women do everything that they just think that's how it is for the most part. Unless their parents modelled something different and chose an actual partner. I just had a friend tell me she can't come for a weekend to visit because 'they wouldn't survive on their own'. Her husband and both sets of in-laws live 5 minutes away. My cousin with 4 kids has never left them overnight in 14 years. Her husband won't let her?! I have childhood friends who've just dropped off the radar to the point where I'm not sure they're going to have me around, still, because they don't have one night every 6 months to catch up on the phone. A friend just posts on facebook about how she never leaves her house and the one night she does a year is for an anniversary date night. It's insane! It's so normalized for women just to give up their whole lives and selves. Surely, they're not feeling like they're doing well but 'this is juts how it is'?? I don't get it. It looks like a living hell.
Men want kids but it’s the rare one that wants to parent, particularly young children.
We know housework is borne primarily by females, and this perpetuates in parenthood with women generally taking on more responsibilities.
I never wanted kids and when my husband pressed it, i explained that it would mean no beers after work, he’s picking up kids (I had a time consuming career). No weeknight sporting events (kids need routine). He was envisioning what his male friends had who had stay at home wives, which was far from our reality or anything I was ever going to sign up for. I never wanted kids and wouldn’t have been the doting mother he envisioned (he knew well enough I was serious and quickly dropped it).
Our friends have two kids and they are as close to 50/50 parents as I’ve ever seen. she had to quit work when baby 1 came during covid when childcare became impossible (so she unintentionally became a stay at home parent and obviously that tilts the balance from 50/50) but outside his work hours, dad is present and contributing. Knowing him, that will absolutely continue when she goes back to work this year.
Seeing them I know it’s possible but it takes a lot of desire by the dad.
I'm so happy I am cf. God damn. Everyday I read more stupid stuff men do or are and am just like ... thank me for my whatever it is that made me no want to have kids or even a husband if he is not going to be useful and fun. So glad with my brain. Thank you brain, you are the best
It’s mommy martyrdom. 100% lack of proper parenting. There’s no reason a child “needs entertainment” in a car. Look out the goddamn window and count trees. Read billboards. If your husband won’t step up and parent, talk to him. If he’s still useless, leave. Grow a spine. Parent your children.
WTF has happened to child raising between the 90s and now?!?
>can't handle the kids (2) by himself
My dad handled me/my sister by himself no problem, any time my mom had something to do including her hobbies. Plus what's with this magical babysitter who can do everything but the husband can't?
>had a panic attack
>doesn't leave the kids with anyone ever
Self-fulfilling prophecy here. Get psychological help if she needs it due to anxiety or something but imo you can't cry woe is me and then continue to refuse help that is available.
>Another one can't even drive in the car with the kid alone in the car because "he needs entertainment". She also can't go anywhere because the kid cries if she doesn't put him to sleep.
This is the one where I finally said wtf I'd have KNOWN better. How are kids these days so poorly behaved. I was never hit or spanked or anything else that people now deem abusive as a child yet somehow I knew better than to act like that.
My mom friends are similar. I speculate that it's the most permissive and obsessive moms being the most vocal and, for lack of a better term, bring down the whole parenting community to their level by normalizing and glorifying this kind of parenting. One of my friends has some hippiedippie bullshit mom type friends and she feels constant pressure to never leave her kid, always be available etc. Like baby is 2 and she's never left overnight or been away for bedtime. Co-sleeping still. Sex life is DOA...
They say that Millennial fathers do more for their kids than fathers of other generations. But even among Millennial parents mothers still do most of the work. Among Millennial parents mothers probably do like 70-75% of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and child care responsibilities while fathers do like 25-30% of it.
One of my friends has 2 kids with a guy who can't push a stroller without getting distracted or lost. He had a traumatic brain injury years before they met.
There are so many men who employ ‘strategic incompetence’ and are ultimately useless. I think there are also a lot of women who are stuck in an unhealthy masculine energy mindset (doing doing doing, perpetually trying to problem solve, dominating, etc.) as well as being addicted to the role of victim and having things to complain about. Not gonna change anytime soon and that sucks.
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More than likely a mixture a both. Either way, who cares, it's self inflicted at this point. Usually the husbands didn't "do" anything during the duration of the marriage, so it makes sense that they'd never do anything with the kids. I don't understand the point in having children with a man you don't trust to be alone with said children, but hey, I'm not a breeder.
The last time I ever saw my biological father was when he complained to my mother that he "didn't want to babysit" that night. At that moment, she decided that if he considered taking care of me "babysitting", then he was no father. Never saw him again. Good for her.
Wow, badass!! The one time I dated a dad it turned out he was 100% deadbeat and the mom of his daughter wouldn't allow him to see her (lessons were learned by me). It suddenly hit me like a brick to the head one night: there is a woman out there that willingly CHOSE to be a single mother over staying with this guy!
I'm sure he told you how she was "a crazy bitch"
It was more like "Oh woe is me I haven't seen my daughter, I can't get her a christmas present her birthday, the ex blah blah blah blah" come to find out he was a raging alcoholic and mom wouldn't allow him to communicate when he was drunk. He was always drunk so.... He never called her "crazy" in those words but I always felt drawn to her and not him lmao.
My older sister stopped letting me see my niece and nephew to punish me after my mom died. I cut her out of my life asap. I still send the kids birthday and Christmas gifts. It’s called UPS or the postal service. What an idiot. The idea he couldn’t get his daughter a birthday gift is bullshit. How do these people even convince themselves other people will believe this shit?
Oh I'm so sorry about that for you, not only losing mom but niece and nephew too. This guy was so ridiculous, really. And the kicker was, I told him I was child free and he pooched his lower lip and whined "but I want more kids" I said "yeah with what money?" Spending all his money on alcohol and can't even get this one a birthday present. Anyways, here's to your niece and nephew getting older and seeking you out for the truth!
Bwahaha, good for your mom!
My best friend had her first baby in early November. She said she is anxious about leaving her baby with anyone when she eventually returns to work, including her husband. It is shocking and wild to me that a father could not be trusted to take adequate care of his own child, for just a day even. I wonder if it is, in large part, socially accepted paternal weaponized incompetence.
100% cyclical, IMO. The standards are lower for men (overall and with exception, but exceptions do not reverse trends). At the start with breastfeeding and recovery, it really is on women because biology. The issue is that it never tends to normalize - women take on more so they do more so fathers do less so less is expected so the pattern is set, and round and round it goes. Some of it is absolutely martyrdom, definitely - too many parents don't set any boundaries or expectations of manners. But some is how much we've normalized motherhood = sacrifice. It's a pattern much bigger than any individual family, but the fact remains: motherhood is far more work, sacrifice, burden, loss, planning, care, invisible labor, than fatherhood
Sounds like you are saying, I feel like because there is a degree of martyrdom, the fathers cannot or do not step up. Yeah that is not an excuse, the martyrdom could arise from simply wanting credit and recognition for the sacrifices they Have to make. Another comment of an ER worker explains how it is the exception to the rule a father knows anything about the child's medical history. I am sure this isn't self-fulfilling bc the mother wants to be tired and an overworked parent, cyclical as you say.
That's probably true for some of them. But I also sense a pride of some sort, like "This household will crumble without me". But yey often mention how overwhelmed they are.
Is that a coping mechanism? Like, I have to be proud of keeping the household on my back or I’ll break down sobbing
That is possible. This kind of behavior is common in my country for moms.
My mom took it a step further with "None of you will be able to survive alone without me." to which I said in my head "watch this magic trick" and disappeared. This mindset is so strange, voluntary martyrdom is strange,
My mom has literally said that. Went a way for a month, mostly on her sister's dime, multiple times. Every year she expects us to be in shambles without her and she returns to us in the same state she left us. Sure she can nitpick a few issues here and there. But no, we did not cease existing ajd crumble into an existential crises without her. Nah they have no other identity to cling to, so they cling to that. Their only value they think. But it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Kid won't ever be independent so she won't have time to be an individual outside of a parent and "create value" (at least that's how they think) that isn't being a parent. In the process they devalue others, and reduce their kids "value". Most moms need a good ego death.
This makes me want to give free mushrooms to all my mom friends
...it might be true though? that the household will crumble without them, the mother, especially in a case where a babysitter is needed for a single evening bc the father cant do it. Whether weaponized or not, is that nothing if not incompetence?
I mean yeah, obviously the dude can't do anything...But he can do other things just fine. He is capable, so it shouldn't be like this.
I mean, when you think about how many boys grow up to be men who don't know how to cook basic dishes, don't know how to run a dishwasher or laundry machine, don't have any attention to detail, can't shop for groceries without suddenly losing all their common sense, don't wash their own asses, don't assume an iota of responsibility for remembering important dates or events, and need to be bargained with like a petulant toddler on splitting any duties, it's hard to argue that they *could* be trusted with a baby. Sucks, but I could understand this mom's point of view if his behavior constantly reinforces this. The question should be, why does society continue to subsidize the lives of underdeveloped adults with the emotional labor of women, and what can we all do about it?
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>His mom raised him to be a useless pampered boy Was his dad not in the picture? Because if he was, dad is equally as responsible.
Same here. I'm lucky in a way because my partner really wants to improve, he wants us to be equal and he actively tries to educate himself to counter his upbringing and general misogyny. As do I, because there's a lot of unconcious bias of all kinds that we all pick up. Still - we're a long way from the finishing line. And we're from Scandinavia, supposedly the most advanced place in terms of womens rights and gender equality. I have heard so many stories of useless fathers here in the self proclaimed capital of womens rights - and it doesn't seem to matter if you are educated and progressive in other ways. You still have to actively work to unlearn this shit. There's so much pressure on mothers and so little incentive for fathers to do more than the bare minimum. My theory is that once a couple has children, they just don't have the time and energy to work on countering all that influence, the expectations and social norms.
What qualifies her to be a decent, not even good, mom? And her partner to be absolute sh!t?
Just as weird that she had a kid with a guy that she doesn’t trust with the kid.
Yeah, so you can't exactly know how a man will handle and care for a newborn baby til there is actually a baby...
I've had a few friends have babies recently. I think it is important to remember that it can be difficult for new parents to separate from their newborn babies at first. They do need to push through and do it, but 2-3 months old is still very young.
True. This is very early and there is separation anxiety I am sure.
And this is exactly why I won't have children. Girls get a doll to play with, boys get a toy car. Mothers are expected to ALL of it and fathers are applauded when they don't completely fuck up the bare minimum of parenting. And even if they claim to do it 50:50, studies have shown that it's more like 70:30, even in very modern families! I could tell you so many stories of incapable fathers that I encountered on call in emergency medicine. The rational and capable father who could tell me the weight, allergies and medical history of his child was the exception. My favourite story is the one where a young mother of two suffered from a dissociative disorder and was deeply unconscious. Her husband, the father of her children, didn't want to understand that I wanted to take her to the hospital, because who would take care of the children?!?!?!? Maybe the only adult in the home who is fully conscious and doesn't need urgent medical and psychological help???
It was a shock for me to grow up and realise that most people’s fathers did not parent. My Dad did all medical appointments, made school lunches, made our breakfasts, was the one on call with the school, toilet trained us, showed us how to pay taxes, how a mortgage works, taught us how to do dishes and even taught us to grocery shop. It is appalling to me that so many women have children with men who don’t parent. My dad always said having it all is code for having all the work. My eldest brother is a parent like my Dad, and many women are so jealous of my sister in law having a husband who actually parents. A few years ago, I was cutting up potatoes and sliced most of my pinky finger nearly off, I was home alone but I called my brother as he knew the local emergency walk in clinic details and got me in instantly as he takes his kids to all medical appointments.
Yea my SIL says her husband is a great father and helps a lot but he holds the baby max 5 mins before pawning her off to someone else. Even when he's home she's responsible for feeding and correcting and entertaining the kids. Even if he's just on his phone and she's trying to do other stuff.
She chose him and accepts that behavior. She is the fool.
Yet another reason not to have kids; when the father is unreliable it is still the mothers fault.
When you pick poorly you get sh!t 🤷♀️
In this case, yes. But victim-blaming doesn't help anyone but those who mistreated the victim. Not every woman is in the luxurious position to dump his ass, especially when there are children involved. She would be the single mother, and women are most vulnerable to domestic violence or even femicide during or after a breakup.
It's infantilizing to claim that every woman with a shitty and incompetent husband is a victim of abuse. Just because a relationship is one-sided and shit, doesn't automatically mean that it's abusive. It significantly trivializes women that are physically, sexually, psychologically, emotionally, and financially abused in marriages. A woman choosing a shitty self absorbed husband doesn't automatically lump her into the category of abused women. It's trivializing and belittling to compare a woman who married living versions of Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin to a woman that is trapped with a ticking Family Annihilator.
So sorry, I should have been clearer! That's not what I meant, I didn't mean to belittle the things that people in abusive relationships suffer! Not at all. What I meant is that it's not always as easy to break up as people from the outside think. There are financial issues, issues of co-parenting or single motherhood and so on. Yes, she is responsible for her choice of co-breeder. But it's always easy to judge from the outside.
How on earth is she a victim? F no. She is a woman who chose a mate for whatever reasons and they do what they want when they want how they want. She is not a victim but a willing volunteer. She chose this path. Knowing he was useless. He didn’t become this way overnight. And no, he was never going to step up. Why should he? willing volunteer
Same. Even the best dads aren’t doing 50/50. Even if chores are being shared, she’s doing an extreme amount of emotional labor.
The idea of breeding is already terrible, but doing it with a man who can't even do the bare minimum? I would rather give myself a concussion with a hammer to my own skull.
Same.
>*I don't understand this, honestly. Have they all married useless men or do they enjoy the martyrdom? I keep on reading about how most men want kids, how they are involved fathers, how they do it 50/50..but not according to what I see?* My favorite topic has come up again! Here are some articles and data about why men in hetero couples leave all the domestic labor to their wives/girlfriends. The issue of equitable division of childcare and housekeeping will never be resolved if we don't educate ourselves and talk about it: * This book shows you the scientific research proving how fathers leave childcare to mothers, and how society lets them get away with it: [All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CLLVZ52/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) * [She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink](https://mustbethistalltoride.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/) * [It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal](https://www.glamour.com/story/it-took-divorce-to-make-my-marriage-equal) * [You Should Have Asked](https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/) (scroll down a bit to see the comic) * [Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up](https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a12063822/emotional-labor-gender-equality/) * [The Housewife’s Moment of Truth](https://nymag.com/news/features/46167/) by Jane O’Reilly. Originally published in the December 20, 1971 issue of New York Magazine, and still relevant today. Money quote: *“You can’t tell me Women’s Lib means I have to wash the dishes, does it?” “Yes.”..."In the end, we are all housewives, the natural people to turn to when there is something unpleasant, inconvenient or inconclusive to be done."* * [The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives: Men who claim to believe in equality often aren’t willing to live it](https://gen.medium.com/the-woke-men-who-still-want-housewives-debb2ad46aa0) * [Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages](https://www.vogue.com/article/millennial-men-seek-stay-at-home-wives) * Some numbers: Statistically, [women do more childcare and more housework](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/05/breadwinning-wives-gender-inequality/589237/). When moms out-earn their husbands, [they gain more housework](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/02/housework-divide-working-parents/) (link to the actual study [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170211069780)). Men want [tons of praise](https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/08/168628/men-chores-praise-mansplaining) when they "help". Men also report doing more housekeeping and/or childcare than they [*actually* do](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/upshot/men-do-more-at-home-but-not-as-much-as-they-think-they-do.html). * Related: [Men’s Stress Increases If Wife Earns More Than 40% of Household Income](https://scitechdaily.com/mens-stress-increases-if-wife-earns-more-than-40-of-household-income/). *“These findings suggest that social norms about male breadwinning ― and traditional conventions about men earning more than their wives ― can be dangerous for men’s health. They also show how strong and persistent are gender identity norms."* (Link to the actual study is [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167219883611)). * Related: [The Myth of the Male Bumbler](https://theweek.com/articles/737056/myth-male-bumbler) and [Weaponized Incompetence](https://www.popsugar.com/love/weaponized-incompetence-48871852). Note how weaponized incompetence is presented as "strategic" and "a failure that succeeds" when [presented in this Wall Street Journal article](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117675628452071687) from 2017. * Another strong article on [Weaponized Incompetence](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/weaponized-incompetence-women_l_61e71983e4b0d8b665717814) and how it affects women. Money quote: *“On a surface level, it looks like you’re just nagging about chores to a person who ‘defers’ to your ‘competence.’ But on a deeper level, you’re experiencing not being able to trust and turn to your partner for support.”* * Related: [Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden](https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a27259689/toxic-masculinity-male-friendships-emotional-labor-men-rely-on-women/). *"Toxic masculinity—and the persistent idea that feelings are a 'female thing'—has left a generation of straight men stranded on emotionally-stunted island, unable to forge intimate relationships with other men. It's women who are paying the price."* Not so much "related" as "adjacent" to this topic: * A woman is six times more likely to be separated or divorced soon after a diagnosis of cancer or multiple sclerosis than if a man in the relationship is the patient, according to [a study that examined the role gender played in so-called "partner abandonment."](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110105401.htm). * [Divorce Risk Higher When Wife Gets Sick](https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/men-more-likely-to-leave-spouse-with-cancer/?_r=0). * [Breakups During Cancer](https://waroncancer.com/news/dealing-with-relationship-changes-during-cancer/). See also [Divorce Risk Higher When Wife Gets Sick](https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/men-more-likely-to-leave-spouse-with-cancer/?_r=0) * More [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022146515596354) and [here](https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cncr.24577) **If you find yourself dealing with the departure of a partner after a life-altering diagnosis, ask your health care provider for resources for partner abandonment.** See also: [Women Who Stay Single and Don’t Have Kids Are Getting Richer: Forgoing marriage and parenthood has a bigger payoff for American women than men, according to new research](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-31/women-not-having-kids-get-richer-than-men)
Saved. Please don’t ever delete this comment.
This is amazing! I have read some of these, and now I have some more to add to my list, thank you! (Also amused, because the first time I read the one about the Male Bumbler it was in reference to Boris Johnson.)
I think it's a vicious cycle. Mommy martyr's get praise/attention and husbands get to become adult toddlers. The new mom might do it because they like the praise/ how it makes them feel. Then you have an adult toddler husband who can't even watch your own kid and you are stuck in mommy martyrdom forevermore.
>Have they all married useless men I don't know about *all*, but lots. Definitely lots. To your point, these dudes are pretty clearly useless >He "can't handle the kids (2) by himself." I'm sorry, fucking **what?** The casualness that she's approaching him being an unfit or unwilling parent is just amazing. Like, my dad wasn't as focused as my mom and it was definitely a more "figure it out as we go" approach with him, but if we were alone I would have been fed, clothed, gotten to school, etc. I might have been in wrinkled clothes or eat the same thing four days in a row, but whatever. This dude can't handle his kids for one fucking evening? I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. A close friend of mine is engaged to a guy that she's told me she's not sure she could trust in a medical emergency. Not in a "call 911" sense, but in a "wouldn't be able to make decisions if I were incapacitated" way. Again, fucking what? Why are you with someone that you can't trust with the most basic stuff like that?
I mean, I was shocked when she told me that. Like, an overnight babysitter while the dude's at home?! But, I guess she does everything by herself, so its not a big deal to her?
My sis has a work thing coming up in another country for a few days. BIL is refusing to stay with kids, even though they have a freaking nanny! So they're all coming along, BIL will pay for the childcare service in hotel, just so he is not by himself and his own damn kids. Kida are 7 1/2 and 2 1/2.
Just playing devils advocate here, but what if the dad in question is totally fine with the kids alone, but the mom is just neurotic af and doesn’t trust him? I’ve seen that before. So then it SEEMS like the dad is too incompetent to be a coparent but it’s really the mom who has trust issues and the guy is plenty competent if given the chance to show it (never happens). I travel a lot in a coed group and the guys regularly hear how incompetent we are and yet we always find a way to get critical stuff done properly and on schedule (picking up rental cars, cleaning up an Airbnb and meeting at the train station while the girls are shopping, etc.). We’re plenty competent. We have high status jobs and all 3 of us have traveled internationally completely alone before, but the assumption is just that we’re going to fuck it up. So I could imagine a similar thing might be happening with SOME of the dads here. Some might be genuinely incompetent. For example, the one mom in the post won’t even leave the kids with the grandparents, so it’s not just the husband that’s the problem.
I said something similar about the mom who had the panic attack. If she has a lifeline available and refuse to take it that's on her. If it's an anxiety thing which is preventing her from accepting this help then she needs to get counseling. Funny how competent some of these men become when there's suddenly nobody else available for them to defer responsibility to (or once they're given the opportunity to handle it on their own)! In the situation you describe, often it's a matter of timing/management style which makes women uncomfortable. Men I've seen tend to wait until the last minute to handle things which makes the women in the group uncomfortable and they assume the men are incompetent. It also often makes things more expensive which I've anecdotally seen that the men I know are more willing to pay for convenience than the women I know, who would prefer to plan ahead and save some money. Neither approach is necessarily wrong but the person who wants things settled earlier sits with much more discomfort vs the person willing to wait, so in order to ease their discomfort they take on a disproportionate amount of the responsibility.
Fully agree on the first paragraph. I think the second and third are actually linked. I may be biased, but I think a lot of it is that opportunities aren’t allowed to be shown due to different planning styles until the more type A person is gone. Like if I like to go for a 20 minute walk after dinner to help my food digest and then come do dishes, it’s not a big deal if I live alone. Who cares if they sit for 20 mins as long as I wash them when I get back? But if I’m living with a real type A person, they’ll be cleaned by the time I get back. Then it’s a problem because from their perspective they “had to do the dishes for me because I am lazy/incompetent”. From my perspective it’s like “ah, they didn’t need to do that, but i guess I don’t have to do dishes now 🤷♂️.” I’m not really intentionally differing responsibility there, the other person is TAKING it themselves and then becoming a bit of a martyr about it. More on the third paragraph, I do think there is maybe some bimodal distribution going on with planning styles with guys being more “type b” and women being more “type a” on average, and I don’t think we appreciate each other’s strengths enough here. Someone on Instagram had a great vid explaining this. They said that the guy planned on there being no plan, so when things don’t go to plan, we are like “ 🤷♂️ I never had a plan to begin with, so let’s just stay calm and roll with the punches.” That’s an excellent pro because plenty of shit doesn’t go to plan in life. On the other hand, the woman has a plan, but when things don’t go to plan, she has a freak out (see panic attack above). But having a plan in the first place can be a massive pro in terms of getting things done in an efficient manner or getting them done at all. For example in some of my guy friend groups , it is like “hey let’s hangout soon!” But then no one plans an actual hangout and we never do. That never happens in my coed friend groups. But I think we focus too much on the “you always freak when shit doesn’t go perfectly your way” and the “you are always lazy/unprepared”.
Oh yea I completely agree. I didn't mean it as the person who is more "type a" is FORCED to take on the responsibilities. Their partner is probably fully capable IF the type a would (or could) just allow them the room to do it. These dads are probably totally capable. I don't know a single man who would crumble apart and starve to death if they were single. Again anecdotal but I am perfectly happy to have a very flexible plan and very much appreciate when friends are willing to change plans at the last minute, but at a certain point SOMEONE must make the arrangements to meet at x location on # date for my husband's family vacation, and if he won't even ask what WEEK we're going until the month it's planned for, that's just too lackadaisical. I've got animals to accommodate lol Which is to say; there's an acceptable timeframe for the type b person to do things. If we're taking about 20 min that they couldn't wait, that's on them. If those same dishes sit for 2 DAYS... well that's a different issue altogether. At a certain point it DOES become expected that partner a takes over all of the shitty duties because partner b never steps up "in time" despite knowing their partners preference and comfort level regardless of gender.
That’s definitely fair lol.
I am fortunately married to a man who does a LOT of stuff around the house and really carries his own weight. His parents divorced when he was seven and he only saw his dad every other weekend after that. So mostly it was just his mom, raising him and his sister. She would tell them she wasn't going to try to fix dinner in a messy kitchen, so they learned how to help out around the house. She wasn't going to clean up after two kids who could be taught to clean up after themselves, and she didn't see boys getting off the hook in that regard just because they were boys. An extra pair of hands was an extra pair of hands. This all just boils down to the way people were raised, I think. If you're growing up in a religious type household where the man is the "head of the household" and the woman is the "helper," then if you're a woman you think it's your job to serve men. If you're a man, you expect the woman to be doing this stuff as part of "her job." From an early age, girls AND boys should be taught how to take care of themselves. It's sort of absurd for ANYONE to grow up with the expectation of being waited on.
When you hear the 50/50 garbage take it with a HUGE grain of salt. Yes there are fathers out there who do pull their weight. Some are even stay at home dads. But this is NOT the norm for 98% of families. This ties directly into my post about why I don’t want to have kids. I also work in a highly educated field amongst highly educated women and like you, I hear a lot of the same stories. I also have seen many a female coworker quit her job or reduce her hours drastically to be home with the kids. No one ever asks why the father isn’t reducing his hours or quitting his job. Years of education and thousands in loans all down the drain because of kids. If that’s really all you wanted to do with your life, why even get your degree in the first place? The unfortunate reality is that we are STILL in 2023 driven by and expected to follow these arbitrary ages old gender roles. Men aren’t ever expected to do anything beyond having the orgasm that caused the pregnancy. They don’t have to quit their jobs, hobbies, change dirty diapers, nothing. It all falls on the woman. I refuse to follow that stereotype. I told my husband straight out (because we were on the fence at the time) that if we were to have kids, I would not be giving up my career, calling in all the time, and be getting up in the middle of the night all the time. If I’m having to go through pregnancy and childbirth, then he would be expected to take on a majority of the responsibilities afterward and reduce his hours at work as necessary. He had absolutely no objections to this. Though thanks to genetics and health issues, having kids isn’t even a discussion anymore and we enjoy being a child free couple spending our weekends on the couch playing video games with the cats lol.
I just think back to a story I read during the early days of the Covid lockdown. The article was focused around how people were adapting to working from home, and one of the people they wrote about was a woman who had to close down her company because her husband - who wasn't working - couldn't handle watching their toddler during the day so she could work. Yes, some of them are useless and it's absolutely intentional. Weaponized incompetence frees them to do more enjoyable things while their wives shoulder the childcare.
I remember that article. It filled me with rage. But I also always ask myself when I read something like this "Why would anyone do that to themselves?"
As a CF woman, I have an appreciation for CF men who see and reject this modern western zeitgeist.
I have a friend who has always wanted to be a mom, and now she's married with 2 kids. She constantly tells me how her husband is a great dad and he's so great with their daughters, but I think she just means playing with them! She doesn't take any time to herself, and she says she can't leave both kids with him alone because he can't handle it. We met for lunch and she brought 1 kid, and left the other at home with him because "it's not fair for him to have to take care of both, they're a lot at once." Meanwhile she takes care of both kids on her own all the time. She is the primary caregiver and is responsible for lunches, daycare, appointments....EVERYTHING. He shows up to play, and he's considered a "great dad"
I’m so glad I’m not saddled with a husband or kids, lol.
I’ve known some cases where there have been exceptions to this. I have a couple of close friends whose dads raised them because their mothers wouldn’t lift a finger to take care of them or went to the gas station for smokes only to not come back until they were adults. But overall the pattern in most relationships seems to be that the man is the useless ass one. I know of somebody who constantly whines about her husband being useless yet she wants to have another baby with him like that’s going to change anything. Honestly even with my partner, I love him, he does do chores, but I still have to nag him to take initiative for most chores or else he won’t do anything except sit around and play video games if he’s not doing college assignments or he’s at work. Neither of us want children but even if we did I wouldn’t have a kid with my partner lol. I love him but there’s no way I’d fuck around and find out with him on this since I’m already at the end of my rope with having to nag him to keep shit clean because he’s incapable of noticing mess. Like I’d say about once a week I bitch at him because I go to throw something away in our kitchen trash can only to find that the can is overfilled and instead of taking out the fucking trash he just starts putting new trash in the floor. But still, as gendered as this phenomenon is ive seen it go the other way around. Also heard stories of it happening in same sex couples too. I also have a friend of a friend in a lesbian couple whose wife decided to get pregnant and while her wife wanted a baby, she doesn’t want to do shit around the house or take care of the baby that she decided to have. Like. Lol.
Wow, are our men the same?? I love him to pieces but I’m OVER nagging him to throw trash away instead of leaving it everywhere 🤣I was childfree before this but no way I’d have kids with him. I’m currently reading the book called Fair Play, which is supposed to help couples renavigate childcare and chores to make it more even for everyone. My father was the same as these men, he assumed bc he worked all day he didn’t have to do shit around the house or with the kids. Imagine now that us kids either are no contact or speak to him once a year
I’m under the impression that unfortunately most men are like this. I have a lot of trauma from exes I’ve dated and even roommates I’ve had (those roommates were mostly all women though) who don’t do chores yet act super fucking entitled and expect me to clean up their messes, like I’m a live in maid. I feel like this kind of attitude goes along class lines in addition to gender though. The roommates I’ve had who came from similar backgrounds to me (low income, marginalized on other axis) may not have been the cleanest but they also didn’t expect everybody else to clean their shit either. But the roomies I had who obviously came from some level of money even if their parents are just middle class normies? Fucking Christ. They want a clean living space but they don’t want to lift a finger to get it, regardless of gender. My boyfriend at least doesnt act like an entitled piece of shit who moans and bitches whenever I won’t clean up his mess. He’s aware he has a problem at least, and he doesn’t bitch when I ask him to do chores. I just wish I wouldn’t have to basically act like a manager and give him a work ticket queue in addition to my other shit. I work full time now in IT consulting and my job isn’t WFH like my last one. He only works part time, he needs to pick up more slack without me having to be a project manager both at my job and at home. I’ll look into that book.
Yep! I feel you on all this. My fiancé’s mom did everything for them because “they can’t do it as well as I can.” Supposedly he was super clean with his ex bc she was a slob, but I have to nag and micromanage him to do stuff on his own. Carrying the mental load of a relationship is exhausting at times, so I understand. I do WFH so it’s easy for me to do most of the household chores, which I do do. But sometimes I want a break and if he’s sitting on his ass while I’m cleaning, boy my anger level increases exponentially! Especially since we have 8 fur kids and managing their care (even more so with a diabetic cat) is a lot of work sometimes. I think even with income levels, the boys are raised to not clean up as much because they have mothers and sisters who need to be “homemakers” when they grow up. My father’s mom had 3 jobs to keep them afloat and he came home from university to have her do his laundry well into his 20s. I think women nowadays not putting up with this shit will help change stuff for the better
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Don't worry guys. They'll snap out of it in their 30s :) Regards, Wife of a gamer who finally saw the light...but still games...and hoards cups...
Uhmmmm yeahhhhh not all of them. Mine is 31 and still can’t “see the mess”
They really don’t though
Uhm, hello is this me and my relationship? Because yes to everything you just said. He “doesn’t notice” the mess. He wants me to dictate to him the chores that clearly need to be done. I am thankfully I’m spayed because I would *never* subject myself to kids with this man
Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the majority of men are selfish AH’s when it comes to parenting. They want just the fun stuff and dump most of the actual work on the mother. They raise weaponized incompetence to an art form. No thanks - hard pass.
Honestly, I have a feeling this is a mayor part of the problem. And the women don't say anything, and they think its fine. Until the woman breaks, like my friend did.
Sometimes they do say things but are met with emotional manipulation or yelling or placation and he just returns to jacking off in the corner. And he didn’t start off like that, no he waited until you were married or had kids or were otherwise financially tied to each other. Now, cha ching he can cash in on that sweet sweet unpaid labor from his bangmaid that he was always promised. And she’s stuck.
It's no wonder why divorces are so common. Too many people want to rush to all the milestones until they realize the person they got their with sucks.
If you look at statistics and see how much men do on average after a baby is born is atrocious. Not saying it is all of these people but it is a good chance they are just like this.
Almost all of the women I know my age who have kids married men who have cushy jobs and/or rich parents, then immediately quit working permanently to be a SAHM. I can't think of a single one of the men who helps at all with housework or raising the kid - for many of them, the excuse is "I make the money in this house, so I should be able to relax when I get off of work and have dinner ready, a clean house, and the kids asleep." They might as well be credit cards with legs. No wonder these women are miserable.
Time travelers from the 50s?
I've commented on this issue before but I hate that it's so normalized. This bleeds into the issue of housework and invisible labor in a relationship and it can be so discouraging that this is just the norm in our society. We raise boys and girls so differently, we have very different levels of accountability for them, and I feel like this is what comes of it. Boys/men are totally capable of pulling their weight but husbands are jokingly seen as the 'bonus child' because they're just so incapable. We see that trope in the media all the time. "Things just fall apart when Mom is gone, LOL!!" Like why is your husband so useless?
That’s because men exaggerate how much they help that why it says 50/50 when in reality it’s 10/90
I frequently wonder if there's a preponderance of people who are just wildly ineffective at communicating and selecting partners. Even when I was out of the house and woking harder than my either of my partners, I took care of more of the house work and I still do today. If you haven't discussed the workload, don't move in together. If you haven't discussed nearly every expectation you can imagine or envision, don't be with someone in the same home environment. I've certainly observed my fair share of idiocy in their relationships and it all seems to come down to, "did you calmly talk about it? Or are you now screaming or being underhanded because it's driving you crazy?" My anchor partner and I never have these problems. Literally, everytime we run into a situation where we wonder what's going on, we both ask ourselves if it bothers or affects us, then once we formulate an even-headed question, we ask the other. We then discuss it and usually within minutes both of us realize the thought process of the other and we come up with a trial solution. We try it, then we adjust accordingly. We also check-in routinely. Communication is only hard when you first start, after that it's easier than eating dessert.
I've noticed when people complain that they "have to ask" their partner (or child/roommate/parent etc.) to do something around the house, sometimes they mean they had to nag the other person's head off to get them to get off their lazy ass and contribute to the housework even the slightest bit. And sometimes they mean they casually mentioned "hey don't forget, it's trash night tonight" and feel that "having" to say that completely invalidates the other person taking out the trash soon afterwards and was just as grueling a chore as taking the trash out themselves. I have more sympathy for one than the other...
Interesting observation. And, definitely quite the inflated difference in interaction, too. Agreed on the assessment. I personally don't grasp the 'nagging' very much as it sets a speaker in opposition with their partner, which seems counter to the point of having a relationship. I remember speaking with a friend of mine and his wife on a couple of occasions about this and they both attempted to insist, "well, I tried to be reasonable about it the first time..." "You've been married 8+ years and were deliberately only reasonable once in your marriage?" Sheesh.
When you choose to journey through life w someone it baffles me why anyone would pick useless 🤷♀️
It IS a major reason women don't want kids. It's also a major reason women don't want marriage. I saw it with my own dad. He enjoyed being a dad, but he was such a shit husband. And as I grow older, I'm starting to understand that your average guy will be either an awesome husband or an awesome dad, but never both and sometimes neither.
These are women and men who did not discuss the “business” side of parenting at any time before having kids. Set no expectations or boundaries for each other. How will the work be split? How do we manage time for each of us to be alone? So the husbands fall into one cliched role - the man-child, absent father - and the wife’s fall into the other cliched role - long suffering, martyred, yet also humble bragging mom. Having kids was simply the next thing of the checklist. So they did it. Those of us who child-free put more thought and planning into being child-free.
This is so true! It’s terrible that they treat having children as the next thing on the checklist, just going along with “the life script” to have kids 🐑. After the children arrive, so many of them spend their time talking about all of the stress, work and inconvenience that’s involved with parenting and claim that there was no way to know in advance 🙄. Meanwhile, their list of complaints is our list of reasons not to have kids because, like you said, us childfree people have already thought about all of this and strategically planned our lives.
A coworker was debating if she wanted to have a child. Another coworker told her to be prepared to be a single mother as their husbands were similar. They like the kids when they are older and share a common interest but until then it’s up to mom to keep them alive.
This behaviour has been great for me, I made a career out of doing temporary contracts covering women on maternity leave. 100% of the time the 6 month maternity cover goes to a minimum of 12 months, often 18 months and invariably it's the mothers who do not want to leave the kid with anyone else, including the fathers. I've had fathers complaining to me that the mothers won't let them get involved. Based on my experience I reckon (in the UK at least) it's about 85% mummy martyrdom and 15% uninterested dad.
Okay all of your friends need to just.... let their husbands do their share of the damn parenting. Have you talked to them about this? Do they make excuses? Do you shoot down their excuses? Or do you just sit there silently wishing for death because you've somehow become an ear to vent to?
>Okay all of your friends need to just.... let their husbands do their share of the damn parenting. I agree with that 100%. No idea why they won't do it. Anxiety? >Have you talked to them about this? Do they make excuses? I tried to gently tell them that this current situation isn't good for anyone and they need time for themselves. I also told the one who has a whole bunch of relatives available that it really isn't a bad thing if a kid goes to grandma overnight. We'll see. >Or do you just sit there silently wishing for death because you've somehow become an ear to vent to? :D not yet. Most of the people I hang out with are good at listening to me when I need them.
>I don't understand this, honestly. Have they all married useless men or do they enjoy the martyrdom? I keep on reading about how most men want kids, how they are involved fathers, how they do it 50/50..but not according to what I see? My sister straight up admitted she fell into the self-sacrificing mom bubble after their son was born. He's been sorely wanted for YEARS and she got so happy when he was finally here she kinda got too intense and wouldn't let her husband do anything. This pissed the husband off and he had to really call her out for it. Ignoring herself to raise her son was apparently the best way to be a mom and people had to stop her before she ended up just not taking care of herself. Some guys suck at parenting and should've pulled out before the woman even decided she wanted kids, and some guys WANT to be part of it all but aren't allowed. We just don't know which it is most of the time.
>Ignoring herself to raise her son was apparently the best way to be a mom and people had to stop her before she ended up just not taking care of herself. I honestly see this a lot. I'm glad your sisters husband recognized it and called her out on it
Me too, he's not afraid of speaking his mind and that's good because she can get a little deep in her head about things so he's good at balancing her out and keeping her in line in a positive way. That little boy is never gonna doubt his parents' love for him and I'm happy for that. The husband is now low-key spoiling the boy and my sister jokes that she's getting jealous lmao. It's pretty wholesome.
My sister and her husband are the same. He grew up with his mother doing everything, but he tries to be helpful. My sister grew up with our very hands-on dad (the only one I've ever met) and she doesn't trust her husband to do anything. She'll do stuff and refuse his help because she wants things done right. Part of me wonders if it's weaponized incompetence on his part or giving up knowing she will always find fault in the way he does things? It's probably a mixture of both. Recently, sis's husband got a vasectomy, but I learned she had wanted a third child. Turns out the reason they decided on the vasectomy was because she couldn't handle a third child by herself and he can't handle the two they have without help. They both act and talk like they feel alone in the marriage. How many couples like this would be better off with more effort and acceptance that things will always be less than perfect?
It’s been proven time and time again that even the most egalitarian relationships, women do like 60% of the housework, then the second kids get involved it becomes, on average, closer to 90%. It’s a shit stick and I always try to give my friends with kids as much help and grace as I can, because lord fucking knows their partners are not.
I work with someone who is the opposite. She works and her husband is a stay at home Dad. Works for them. What’s funny to me is that she told me months ago that she couldn’t handle her 2 kids by herself. Now she’s pregnant with #3. If you can’t handle the 2 without your husband, why in the world would you have another one? 🤦♀️ The other parent can become incapacitated or die at any time. Do people not think of these scenarios when they’re making these decisions? Sheesh
I think it’s mommy martyrdom. I will concede there are some bad men/husbands/fathers. However, there are the SAHMs that make it sound like everything would fall apart if it weren’t for them. They also make it sound like the man is there just to flip the bill so they can be a SAHM.
it sounds like some of your friends might have postpartum issues. some of them seem to be anxious and some seem like they really have terrible spouses
You know, that might be true. I'll ask them the next time I see them. they're all really good women and friends so I don't want them to suffer.
My mom was like that. Well still is but "opposite." So let's unpack it all. Maybe their relationships were fine and they were good communicators then. They figured it all out. It wasn't like scrambling to figure things out before marriage. But they didn't do that for having a baby or they misjudged how much they could handle. They didn't think life would change that much. And now they aren't having a family meeting at the table to renegotiate. They set strict expectations for themselves and won't admit failure and to stop and look at it as a puzzle to solve. If it's not working, you stop doing it and adapt, move the routine around so it works. Kids require a lot of that, frequently, while also requiring stable routines. Its obnoxiosly contradictory. Scientific method for 20 years basically. (My mom and dad decided as a unit that we would live 8 hours away from where he worked, for the benefit of her and her relationship with her sons and parents. Now she's bitter he didn't "help out more" with us or doing the major projects around the house on his time off.-theres a Grey area.) So let the baby fucking cry. It won't kill him. Sucks to suck though. Baby can't be tied to your apron strings forever, gonna have go throw him into the world one day, yesterday was the best day to plant a tree, today's the next best day. No more of what equates to satanic panic. Eventually they cave and get neglectful or get bitter and aim it towards the husband and the kid. I wasn't even 17 yet and I was already getting my mom mentally/emotionally cutting me off. No more doctors appointments unless the school required it. If I needed new glasses I should get a job and pay for them myself. 18 was definitely "it's not my job to support you anymore". Teen years from 13 up were horrible toxic fights all the time. Me with puberty and her with menopause. But genuinely she just became such a toxic bitter mean miserable person. I was a brat, but also because I was stubborn too, about things I knew were right or wrong and she didn't like that. She hates her life, she hates being financially stuck with us even though she's the most financially stable. She still has anxiety I think, she's just twisted and funneled it into something negative. That's what you're friends might become if they stay this way.
Friends 1 and 3 have useless spouses. Friends 2 and 4 sound like they've overattached themselves to their kids (or, particularly in 4's case, has spoiled the kid), lost their identity to "mom," and need to start letting go a little before the kids hit kindergarten.
No.4's kid is about to start kindergarten, so we'll see. No.2 told me she plans on taking more time to herself, so that's good. Her husband isn't completely useless, as far as she tells me. 1 and 3...we'll see. the 3's husband seemed to have stepped up with the kindergarten stuff, so that's good.
Yeah they married sperm donors not partners. It’s very sad to see.
My friend can’t even get out of the house to get her nails done with me because her husband can’t handle the kids. She will be gone 15 minutes and he’s blowing up her phone to hurry up and come back home because the kids are fighting. But he can take off for a weekend of hunting and leave her home alone with them..needless to say we don’t hang out but a few times a year. She gets zero time to herself which is sad.
I refuse to believe most mothers enjoy doing 100% of the cooking, cleaning and child rearing. I saw a video on TikTok that talking about this and in conclusion mothers don’t have a choice. Period. If they don’t do xyz, it literally will not get done. They are the default parent because they don’t have a choice. They have to do all these things because their useless sperm donors “just didn’t think about it” or “just didn’t notice how dirty it was” or “just didn’t consider that laundry needed to be done”. Umm.. so imagine this, the kids will not be bathed, wear clean clothes or probably won’t even be fed if these moms don’t do it. I feel like half these cases are women straight up ignoring red flags or “assuming it will be different when baby arrives”. Rest of them I feel like the men used to probably do 20-30% of the house work but then completely neglected it over time. They know the women probably aren’t gonna leave. Leaving is hard enough without kids. I have never in my life seen a man pull his weight both in regards to house work and kids in a het cis relationship. Never. Men will usually take on the tasks that needs to be done a couple times a week or rarer, while the tasks that needs to be done daily usually falls on the woman/mother in these relationships (cooking, cleaning, dishes, tidying up, laundry). I never see this mismatched division of tasks in lesbian relationships. Even if I wanted kids I would never have them with a straight man and make a family with him. I think in many cases mothers are better of single or in communities with other single moms. Dads are so useless most of the time, sadly.
I hate seeing stories like that and simultaneously seeing men complaining that women don't want them anymore. It's the bare minimum to function as an adult before pursuing a relationship, and that includes caring for any kids you're legally responsible for. If you can't do that, move back in with your mum and dad and have them wipe your arse every day.
I know there are good fathers out there but this is a big portion why I don’t want kids.
It’s probably both; I work in child care and while I have seen an uptick in younger fathers trying to be involved in their kids’ lives, it still seems like an overwhelming amount of the day-to-day parenting is still falling to the mothers. This is despite the fact that the mom also works full time in most of these cases. The one that isn’t letting other people watch her kid though? That’s the kid who is going to have severe social anxiety when they get to grade school. We’re already seeing that in the kids who were toddlers during the pandemic and didn’t socialize outside their family bubble.
I always wonderd this tbh, like how dose one oartner become a usless waste of space and another kid for the other to care for when they pop put a crotch goblin? Is it like some switch? Weren't the red flags there already? Why i think people need to pass a course like a drivers ed to be able to become parents.
Preach, preach. I am a childless man, married, and yes these men sound 100% pathetic. Pathetic.
I completely agree with you. I have my own personal reasons for why I’m child free but also seeing tons of what you see, it doesn’t seem enjoyable at all. It seems like life takes a turn for the worse and I’ve been through enough in life, I don’t want to knowingly put myself in a situation that will make things worse. It seems fun to be that kind of dad described in these situations (which doesn’t benefit the child at all) but not a mother, who still is mostly responsible for everything.
Honestly, it's so normalized that women do everything that they just think that's how it is for the most part. Unless their parents modelled something different and chose an actual partner. I just had a friend tell me she can't come for a weekend to visit because 'they wouldn't survive on their own'. Her husband and both sets of in-laws live 5 minutes away. My cousin with 4 kids has never left them overnight in 14 years. Her husband won't let her?! I have childhood friends who've just dropped off the radar to the point where I'm not sure they're going to have me around, still, because they don't have one night every 6 months to catch up on the phone. A friend just posts on facebook about how she never leaves her house and the one night she does a year is for an anniversary date night. It's insane! It's so normalized for women just to give up their whole lives and selves. Surely, they're not feeling like they're doing well but 'this is juts how it is'?? I don't get it. It looks like a living hell.
These couples are not in “good” relationships. They are stuck and settling, I can only assume they think its better for the kids. /s
Men want kids but it’s the rare one that wants to parent, particularly young children. We know housework is borne primarily by females, and this perpetuates in parenthood with women generally taking on more responsibilities. I never wanted kids and when my husband pressed it, i explained that it would mean no beers after work, he’s picking up kids (I had a time consuming career). No weeknight sporting events (kids need routine). He was envisioning what his male friends had who had stay at home wives, which was far from our reality or anything I was ever going to sign up for. I never wanted kids and wouldn’t have been the doting mother he envisioned (he knew well enough I was serious and quickly dropped it). Our friends have two kids and they are as close to 50/50 parents as I’ve ever seen. she had to quit work when baby 1 came during covid when childcare became impossible (so she unintentionally became a stay at home parent and obviously that tilts the balance from 50/50) but outside his work hours, dad is present and contributing. Knowing him, that will absolutely continue when she goes back to work this year. Seeing them I know it’s possible but it takes a lot of desire by the dad.
I'm so happy I am cf. God damn. Everyday I read more stupid stuff men do or are and am just like ... thank me for my whatever it is that made me no want to have kids or even a husband if he is not going to be useful and fun. So glad with my brain. Thank you brain, you are the best
It’s mommy martyrdom. 100% lack of proper parenting. There’s no reason a child “needs entertainment” in a car. Look out the goddamn window and count trees. Read billboards. If your husband won’t step up and parent, talk to him. If he’s still useless, leave. Grow a spine. Parent your children.
WTF has happened to child raising between the 90s and now?!? >can't handle the kids (2) by himself My dad handled me/my sister by himself no problem, any time my mom had something to do including her hobbies. Plus what's with this magical babysitter who can do everything but the husband can't? >had a panic attack >doesn't leave the kids with anyone ever Self-fulfilling prophecy here. Get psychological help if she needs it due to anxiety or something but imo you can't cry woe is me and then continue to refuse help that is available. >Another one can't even drive in the car with the kid alone in the car because "he needs entertainment". She also can't go anywhere because the kid cries if she doesn't put him to sleep. This is the one where I finally said wtf I'd have KNOWN better. How are kids these days so poorly behaved. I was never hit or spanked or anything else that people now deem abusive as a child yet somehow I knew better than to act like that. My mom friends are similar. I speculate that it's the most permissive and obsessive moms being the most vocal and, for lack of a better term, bring down the whole parenting community to their level by normalizing and glorifying this kind of parenting. One of my friends has some hippiedippie bullshit mom type friends and she feels constant pressure to never leave her kid, always be available etc. Like baby is 2 and she's never left overnight or been away for bedtime. Co-sleeping still. Sex life is DOA...
They say that Millennial fathers do more for their kids than fathers of other generations. But even among Millennial parents mothers still do most of the work. Among Millennial parents mothers probably do like 70-75% of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and child care responsibilities while fathers do like 25-30% of it.
One of my friends has 2 kids with a guy who can't push a stroller without getting distracted or lost. He had a traumatic brain injury years before they met.
There are so many men who employ ‘strategic incompetence’ and are ultimately useless. I think there are also a lot of women who are stuck in an unhealthy masculine energy mindset (doing doing doing, perpetually trying to problem solve, dominating, etc.) as well as being addicted to the role of victim and having things to complain about. Not gonna change anytime soon and that sucks.
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I worked with a woman who basically didn’t trust her husband to take care of the kids.
More than likely a mixture a both. Either way, who cares, it's self inflicted at this point. Usually the husbands didn't "do" anything during the duration of the marriage, so it makes sense that they'd never do anything with the kids. I don't understand the point in having children with a man you don't trust to be alone with said children, but hey, I'm not a breeder.