Via WisDoc @ Flickr.
- 46% of moms who took the survey “get irate with their husbands” at least once a week.
- 31% say they get little or no “help” from their husbands with chores.
- 44% said their partners “often don’t notice what needs to be done around the house or with the kids.”
- 50% say their husbands get more time for themselves.
The anger doesn’t end there. The mothers reported that they’ve had to alter their lifestyles far more than their husbands altered theirs once children entered the picture. They spend more mental and physical energy on parenting than their husbands, and they bear the burden of taking care of their children’s basic needs. They have every reason to be irate, if you ask me.
Mary Elizabeth at Broadsheet wags her finger at moms-on-the-edge, calling them “sexist” for being pissed at goodfernothin husbands. “Not all dads are bad!” Well, no, but the dads in question might be; why should women take other women’s husbands into consideration when their rage starts building?
In a separate feature, the New York Times Magazine reported on mothers who bypassed the weddings and inevitable divorces all together and raise their children with groups of other mothers. The women seem pretty blissful about their situations – liberated, even. These “single mothers” (“single” is Latin for “without a man,” apparently) are certainly no worse off than many of their married counterparts. From the looks of things, plenty of married moms are practically raising children by themselves, anyway. If your “partner” is only going to make parenting more difficult and exhausting for you, you might as well cut out the middle-man (see what I did there?).
The Broadsheet piece accuses the aforementioned articles of alleging that men are unnecessary. What does that even mean? Scores of women have been raising children and managing households by themselves, with only financial support from men, for hundreds of years. But possession of a penis is not required to bring home the bacon. Men are not “necessary” by virtue of some quality unique to men, unless we’re counting sperm production. But that doesn’t lead to the conclusion that all men are bad or unimportant, or that women don’t want men in their lives.
Most women want their male partners to be just that: partners. Men must take the initiative to be active husbands and fathers because it’s fair and loving, and not just because they fear irrelevance. Women have made great strides in the public sphere, but equality is unreachable if men refuse to make strides and take responsibility in the private sphere, within their relationships and families.
Thank you for this. As a single mom-to-be (initially not by choice, thankyouverymuch) who is confident in my decision to be the sole head of the family, I feel that I am automatically branded as either anti-male or a pathetic spinster. Headline: I am neither.
Noooo, sarah! Why won’t you just step into one of these nice prefabricated boxes I’ve got here? The Man-hater Deluxe or the Sour Spinster? They’re COSY, and it would make life easier for everyone if you would just fit into one of them! Look, you can redecorate the inside with some nice flowers.
Let’s not forget the thousands of women who have raised families even without the financial support of a man.
And lord, Mary Elizabeth, whoever you are! If it’s not about you (or your man), then it’s not about you (or your man), ya know?
Some of the issues coming from heteronormal relationships might stem one what people expect the relationship to bring. (massive generalization coming) Apparently a majority of men expect their wife to want to make them happy, and when this doesn’t simply magically happen, they become depressed and cynically look towards other options. It’s a rather ridiculous viewpoint, yet my otherwise intelligent father confessed that that’s what he expected when my parents’ marriage had a rocky period.
The other side of the coin is… is it possible that just as many women expect the husband to be the dream of everything a loving father and husband should be? And when in fact their partners turn out to be human beings, everyone is left with feeling a little bitter about life not being like the movies.
Could it not be that those statistics tell a story of overreaching expectations just as much as they tell of stereotypical lazy and unobservant men?
In addition to general agreement that relationships need to be more equal and that men (generally) need to be more involved in raising children in order for hetero married w/children women to achieve equality – I think there is an interesting structural sexism point that is implied by the article.
These women are angry because they have to ask.* And asking feels like nagging. And nagging is bad/evil/wrong. Not to mention that we’re socialized not to ask or make trouble, etc. So the rock-hard place these women are in is nag or do it yourself.
On the flip side men (generally) are not socialized from the cradle (yet) in the care and feeding of children. So in addition to the unconscious or conscious assumption that their “wives” will take care of the children, many of them (IME) just don’t know how. They (generally) aren’t trained to consider the weeks meal plans when grocery shopping or to think of valentines for classmates because its early February. It wasn’t part of their early social training.
So…here’s where it all goes wrong. These women expect their husbands to have had the same training they have, to know what to do and what not to do. These husbands (in addition to be at least somewhat sexist idiots) have absolutely no idea what to do and assume that if a child hasn’t been maimed their wives are just being “picky”.
So what if instead of thinking about it as “asking” or “nagging” we thought about it as training. Their upbringing did not provide them with the appropriate skills and if you married one and had a child you get the unfortunate task of training him to care for the children. Or perhaps we can outsource it…. I see a multi-billion dollar industry.
*Understandably because “asking” for help implies that the activity is the askers ultimate responsibility.
Also, parenting is work. And I think it catches some people by surprise that it’s actually *hard work. (But, it was supposed to be cute babehs bringing teh awesome every morning, right?)
So, for a good few years, everyone’s generally fucking TIRED, in my experience. And honestly, I resented the hell out of my husband for just about everything or anything, depending on the day.
Expectations are a bitch, as aspiring expatriate points out, and if I’m going continue to be perfectly honest, I generally blame my husband for everything because he’s a pretty solid target. And I’m kind of a bitch. But I’m betting many of the mothers quoted in that study/article didn’t get that question.
“Mary Elizabeth at Broadsheet wags her finger at moms-on-the-edge, calling them “sexist” for being pissed at goodfernothin husbands. “Not all dads are bad!” Well, no, but the dads in question might be; why should women take other women’s husbands into consideration when their rage starts building?”
Exactly. I am so sick of every critique of SOME MEMBERS of a group of people being treated as an attack on ALL MEMBERS. I was lucky to have a father who shared housework equally with my mother, and he would be all for criticizing those fathers who don’t.
Kristen, your comment is very good. We can’t expect people to do what they don’t know how to do, and men aren’t socialized to know how to care for children the way women are.
However, the man must be receptive to the training and see it as a valuable skill he wants to learn. Because a lot of these tasks aren’t very much fun, I think a lot of men pay only lip service to being willing to learn them.
The problem with “training” men is that ultimately, it still puts the responsibility for “training” in women’s already-overcrowded laps. I know we’ve got to start somewhere, and I’m pleased that my parents did a fair job and preparing both my brother and I in a rather wide array of domestic-familiar skills, but it’s an uphill battle.
And why would men want to become competent in and responsible for duties that are regularly denigrated and almost never paid? There’s more to it than simply educating men. We need top-down as well as bottom-up solutions.
Exelizabeth,
Absolutely men have to be receptive to training and maybe I’m counting too much on my own relationship to provide examples, but my husband in particular doesn’t seem to mind me asking him to do something particularly if I frame it in the context of “you’re not doing it wrong, I just think this way might be a little better for x reasons. What do you think?”
But I think for the most part women are socialized to keep their mouths shut, which results in a ton of frustration. Frustration that we not sharing the work AND frustration that we can’t ask for help.
PhDork,
I agree. That’s the cost of being in a hetero relationship with men who weren’t raised by feminists. They (generally) don’t know…the women (generally) do…other than hiring a consultant, I’m not sure there’s a reasonable solution.
As to why men would want to…again, I may be relying too much on my own experiences, but most of the men I know actually want to be involved in their children’s lives…they regret that the relationships that they had with their fathers and would like to have something different with their children. Ironically, some of them feel intimidated by their wife’s competence and are too (sexist and) arrogant to actually ask for help or advice.
Ridiculous little world we have going on here huh?
PhDork, I completely agree that in an ideal world we would not have to train men and it’s absolutely not fair that we have to. But feminists are made not necessarily born, so while we have to do hard social work for change, we also have to do work within the context of our own families that’s also hard.
I definitely don’t keep my mouth shut about my frustrations, but because actually understanding them requires a man to first acknowledge and then give up his privilege… well, it’s a big task.
I am itching to be contrarian today, I own that.
46% of moms who took the survey “get irate with their husbands” at least once a week.
OK – which means that roughly half do not. Shit, I’ve been married pretty damned happily for almost 18 years and I get irate at least *twice* a week. As mentioned above, I can be a bitch.
31% say they get little or no “help” from their husbands with chores.
I actually think this is pretty impressive. Why not frame it as 70 percent of women have a favorable view of their husband’s contributions in re: “chores”?
44% said their partners “often don’t notice what needs to be done around the house or with the kids.”
WTF? Neither do I, 44% of the time.
50% say their husbands get more time for themselves.
And 50% don’t.
What exactly is the problem here?
And finally, the irony is over-fucking-whelming to this mother that we expect “men” to treat these responsibilities as anything but a drain & drudgery to be avoided at all costs when the worst critics I’ve seen of “mothering” are other women.
I have given my work creds in other comments here and there. But currently, know what I do? I’m a mom. And trust me when I tell you that I have been shamed for that as being less-than. Less-than feminist. Less-than important. Less-than living up to someone else’s ideal of potential.
I mean, if even feminists don’t respect me and what I choose to do for my family, why should anyone else?
I could not agree more with this commentary. We are constantly told that children do better in a two parent household and fail to realize that the only real change is financial status. Two parents equals two incomes but not necessarily a change of circumstances for the women involved.
@ Labeled says good show!: fantastic point. When you look at the stats that way they are completely different. I think that often statistics can be manipulated and warped- especially by the media. Who did Parenting survey? how many people responded? what SES are these people? It matters. Even if 200 women responded- that is a SMALL number compared to the entire population of the USA.
Another point that I see is missing in the article and commentary is: Maternity/Paternity leave. Not all jobs have them. This is a huge barrier that continues to propagate that infamous “glass” ceiling. This also leads to a discussion about traditional “female” jobs being devalued and paid less than “male” professions. So- you have a partner, you have a baby together, his job pays more so who’s going to take the leave, risking a pay cut or loss of job upon your return?
As a result of insufficient childcare support and maternity/paternity leave payments partners are deciding who stays home based on financial reasons, regardless if the father would LOVE to be more involved.
Subsequently these fathers are less involved within the first year of their child’s life- a crucial time for bonding and emotional attachment.
Fathers and mothers will continue to come up against this roadblock as long as society devalues parenthood and types professions by gender.
These issues are typically changed through political action, but many young feminists are completely unaware of the challenges of working professionally and have a family. For example; in my province in Canada, if you are a new teacher in the school system and you happen to decide to get pregnant within that first year- you do NOT receive paid mat leave, you lose all your seniority status that you worked hard for that year and you are NOT guaranteed a job after you have your baby. wow- now that sends a message.
Labeled, I am confused by your comment. Why do you feel that I am attacking you and women like you (if that’s what you’re saying)?
Even if you reverse the percentages from the survey, the only conclusion you can make is that in the other situations, X percent of women are not angry, don’t feel they’re putting in more time/energy than their husbands, etc. In other words, perhaps the women who aren’t angry have equal partnerships with their spouses.
That doesn’t mean there’s a substantial percentage of households in which the husband/father takes on the majority of childcare, housework, mental organization, etc.
Sarah, sorry – didn’t mean to imply I felt attacked by you or your post. This is a sore subject with me overall, because mothering is denigrated loudly, roundly and soundly in some circles if it is done “full time.” (If I’m not mistaken, I entered the fray at Jezebel by defending women “choosing their choice” to stay at home and manage a home and family.) Mothers are given absolutely zero respect if they are “SAHM’s” but we tut-tut and empathize with them if they are working mothers who aren’t getting their fair share of help from Dad.
So, that tangential rant out of the way – it’s impossible to say what, if anything, a sample of 1000 self-reporting readers of Parenting magazine has to tell us, really. But when you get right down to it – considering the source might be a good thing.
And, sorry for coming across like such a crab @ your post.
No, it’s okay. I don’t think SAHMs or mothers who work full-time get respect. It’s supposedly the most rewarding and fulfilling job in the world, but then why don’t we see men falling all over themselves for the role? I am not suggesting that it’s NOT rewarding and fulfilling; I’m just questioning the way it’s framed and the way women are encouraged to take on the responsibilities men don’t want to touch.
I guess I’d add that if we, as feminist women, treated it as a thing to be respected, we might be able to better enable a cultural paradigm shift. After all, no one else is going to do it for us.
(Also, this is why I’ll never blog – I can occasionally string together coherent thoughts into words and paragraphs that make sense. Really. But today is NOT one of those days.)
I wonder how it would affect matters if we had a parenting grant from the government. The grant could be used to help pay for childcare, whether that’s daycare or a nanny or a parent or grandparent to be compensated. Of course the money would help but I wonder if the tangible sign that the work of child rearing is WORTH something might help matters.
@ JD, I love that idea, even more than my tax credit & deductions.
*fun fact about the child credit: it ends the year your child turns 17. wth is that about?
So the child credit is a credit whether or not you owe money? Not a deduction? I guess that is kind of like a childcare grant then, except I imagine it’s to help cover the increased costs of a child apart from care. What do you think would be most helpful to you from a state perspective as a mom?
@ Renee: We are constantly told that children do better in a two parent household and fail to realize that the only real change is financial status. Two parents equals two incomes but not necessarily a change of circumstances for the women involved.
I agree and I would add to that and say that we as a society place the emphasis on the wrong thing when we talk about the importance of a two parent household. Not that I’m saying that shouldn’t be your ideal if that’s what you want– I know that’s what I would prefer. But… okay to use personal examples, my biological mother and my closest aunt were both single mothers. They didn’t have an easy time, by any stretch, but they didn’t struggle as hard as a lot of other single mothers, or even their married sister-in-law, because they helped each other. It goes back to what SarahMC said in the post about how we define “alone.” They didn’t parent alone just because their childrens’ dads weren’t around. They teamed up together and with my grandmother to raise the children, pay for expenses, use my mother’s address to get my cousins into better schools since my aunt didn’t like the ones in the district they were supposed to go to, etc.
But after my mother died, my aunt and uncle insisted on taking care of me and my sister because they thought their household was more ideal because they fit the accepted model of how a household was supposed to run, but things weren’t any easier for my aunt and uncle because having a two-parent household is no good if they aren’t each carrying their weight and being involved in a POSITIVE way. Like everything else in life, what matters isn’t the arrangement, but the people involved in it and how committed they are to making sure everyone gets the right amount of support.
As for this idea that raising your child without a dad in the home sends a message that men aren’t important, that’s a crock of shit. My aunt and my mother remained unmarried after they had all of us for their own personal reasons, but we all remain close to my mother’s ex-husband although he and my mother divorced about 40 years ago. I had a model of what a good man should be like. And I have other aunts and uncles whose relationships are incredible models. Meanwhile, one of many great ironies of life is the relationship between the two people who everyone thought would provide a more stable home for me and my sister was anything but.
The message that was sent to me was that everyone’s life doesn’t look the same. Our families will not all look the same. And they don’t have to for them to be healthy. I learned that it doesn’t matter whether the male influence or model actually lives with you, whether you were raised in a two-parent household, or whether you were raised communally. It matters that you have help from SOMEONE. It doesn’t matter who. And it matters that the people involved are considerate and generous. That is all.
Sorry that was so long, you guys.
Yep – so it comes right off the top, so to speak. $1K per child. Or, $2.74 a day. Not exactly princely, but appreciated, I suppose. I think the earned income credit also plays in for families with lower incomes, but as we aren’t eligible, I’m not sure.
Actually, I think a flat-rate childcare grant is a lovely idea. Ideally (because while I am a flaming liberal, I’m frequently fiscally conservative) I think you’d have to cap it so that you know, the Duggar’s don’t end up bazillionaires.
But of course, the devil’s in the details, and even here in fantasyland I’ve already started courting him. And so, it isn’t something I expect we will ever see in America.
I see what you mean but I think other countries have similar programs that haven’t proved impossible to administer. I was thinking of something more than 1k. Maybe 3 times that. Now that is fantasyland, no???
Even as just a nudge in the right direction, it would be lovely.
I’ve considered more than once just getting pregnant (because I want to have children) and running away with my best friend (who has a one-year-old daughter) and just living together and raising our children without men in our lives.
I can already see how my boyfriend and I are going to be parents, when I moved in, I inherited the responsibility of taking care of his three dogs. He plays with them, I feed, water, walk, and pick up after them. I think many men are that way with children. I might be better off without them.