We don’t have any help or grandparents nearby, but I have a flexible schedule. Since my wife works a regular office job, I end up doing most of the child care. I know a few other men with a similar situation, but it’s uncommon.
Having a family and sharing the responsibilities that come with it is all about give and take. In today’s world it is so important to listen and pay attention to each other and step up in all areas. The days of the bulk of responsibilities in the home falling on women doesn’t fly anymore. We (women) have evolved! Thank God!
Part of the conversation that we do not seem to want to have is that women’s expectations for what gets done and how it gets done are too high, or unreasonable. If we take on the mental load of Christmas shopping, and our husbands don’t care about Christmas shopping, we don’t have the right to complain about caring more about something than them. Similarly, some women care A LOT about how the dishwasher gets loaded, how the baby gets changed, what brand of milk is in the fridge, the seasonal decor, etc. etc. Many men simply don’t care, and we shouldn’t nag them into caring. Unless and until women are willing to come to this conversation with an honest reflection of their own culpability in the state of affairs, all we are doing is b!.ch!N& and moaning to our girlfriends and the Internet without expectation of actually making changes.
This is not about « my house is not on fire », it is about « here are the fire detectors that we use and how often we change the batteries ». Your house is not on fire. You are not in an emergency. You need to make changes in order to have an optimal relationship and nonstop complaints about how it is not fair are generally useless.
I just don’t agree. There are things I don’t care about that my husband does and vice versa. We compromise on those because we are adults in a partnership. We don’t automatically default to the opinion of whoever cares the least!
Also, to say most men “don’t care” about things most associated with the mental load of parenting and domesticity isn’t accurate - they just haven’t been socialized to think it’s their job.
I do agree that women aren’t responsible for nagging our husbands into respecting the time and energy we put into these things, though. I wrote a whole article about it. ^^
This is not a commentary about you and your husband’s relationship, as it seems that you have clearly figured out and negotiated the roles and responsibilities that each of you will fulfill. This is about the greater conversation that women do not seem to want to have about their own responsibilities for the state of affairs, whether it is mothers who won’t teach their sons how to participate I a household and instead want to keep them permanently attached to their apron strings, or wives who enjoy their self-imposed martyrdom because they can maintain control over the household decisions and they have something to complain about. These articles portray women as victims with no self-agency, too weak and scared to act like grown ups and actually talk to their husbands and have expectations of them. Unless a woman is dealing with an abusive, narcissistic bastard (at which point she should leave him, as much for her safety as for his own good… he needs to be socialized into learning that his behavior has consequences, and she needs to protect herself, as well as teach her children that you teach people how to treat you), she needs to have these conversations with him, negotiate the tasks that need to be done, and be OK with the fact that there are something that neither of them wants to do, and it’s OK to outsource it, or not do it at all. Either way, grow up.
Fran, is there literally any scenario in which you will acknowledge that men are fully functional, cognizant, sentient human beings responsible for their own place and well-being in this world? Or do you simply believe that women MUST be responsible for every issue that could possibly arise in a marriage? Ironically you talk about women having no agency and being unable to talk about these topics but... these topics are being talked about, right here, on the screen in front of your nose, by women. This entire Substack is brought to you by women. You are arguing with women!
Social media has become rife with paragraph warriors who think that they can string a bunch of buzzwords together and present a cogent argument. But maybe "growing up," as you say, involves taking a step back, rereading the post you purport to be debating, and ask yourself if what you are saying has any actual bearing on the issue at hand or if you are just creating straw men to make yourself feel productive and accomplished.
I am writing this presuming you are a fellow woman, but if you are in fact a man then feel free to disregard everything I have suggested, apropos of your arguments above against your own intellectual capability.
Of course men have agency and are fully functional, cognizant, and sentient. And if they came into this space arguing that women do not bear any mental load or had minor responsibilities compared to them, I would absolutely disagree with them as vehemently as I do with you. The problem that I am having with these conversations is that we are having them with the wrong people, the people in the echo chamber who nod along with you. We are not having these conversations with our partners, and we are not acknowledging our own culpability in creating the situations that we complain about.
So, yeah. We are acting like teenage girls, going to the girlfriends for support instead of adult women capable of making changes for the better. My comment stands. If you act like a fully functioning adult and you marry a fully functioning adult, you don't really need to complain about your "mental load" because you recognize that all adults have mental loads, men and women, and playing the "who is the bigger victim game" only creates a bunch of losers.
Don't "trads" in the title of your post, almost by definition, go for a division of labor where the man is the breadwinner and the wife stays at home? Under that scheme, it seems rather unfair for the man to share primary responsibility for home life, in addition to being the breadwinner. The point of a woman staying at home is to take primary responsibility for home life.
In any case... for the rest of this comment I'll assume a two-income setup where both parents both work and do childcare.
Imagine going to a small store early in the morning when there still aren't very many customers. Suppose there are just 2 employees in the store. Even with just 2 employees, most likely one of them will be considered a "manager", and one an "employee".
I think this fact about workplaces also suggests something about home life. Even with just two people, perhaps it is just more efficient for one person to keep track of what needs doing at a high level, and the other person to focus on implementation.
This perspective implies that maybe you actually shouldn't attempt to share mental load with your husband, since that would be inefficient. You could decrease your mental load by using product management software, todo lists, checklists, calendars, or other external memory aids. But attempting to share mental load risks creating a communication burden which exceeds whatever energy savings you get from sharing the load. Instead you could try delegating specific areas to him, areas where he can own the implementation of those specific things, and then you can keep worrying about "everything else" / the big picture at a high level.
I guess I should mention that regardless of how the family makes money the kids live there all the time, including nights and weekends.
It is possible to take ownership of a task without being asked, also. People who live alone manage to take care of themselves without anyone telling them to, say, buy toilet paper or wash the dishes. You can continue to do this when living with another person.
'My husband brings my toddler to watch me finish half-marathons'. Good for you! Is the message that if women stayed in shape they would have a better chance of keeping their man in line?
How is it possible that you could read that section and think that's the message -- that it has anything to do with staying in shape for your man?
The point, which the writer EXPLICITLY makes in that same paragraph, is that he does this particular thing (and it could be something else! Watching her dance! Hearing her sing!) because he wants and chooses to, not because she tells him what to do or expects this of him. "He is this person because he chooses to be, because he understands how important this is to me without being told, and because he grew into parenting so beautifully and compassionately I’m in awe. I didn’t fashion him into who he is, and while I love to celebrate him, I do so in the knowledge that he did the work here." It has nothing to do with her staying in shape to keep him! My goodness.
We're not talking about what everyone says or about my relationship. We're talking about the words the author wrote in her essay, which you seem to neither understand nor believe.
The purpose of the paragraph, which she actually makes crystal clear, is that she's not saying you can't brag about your spouse, and she goes on to praise him for doing something self-sacrificial to support her -- but she says explicitly that this has nothing to do with her expectations or with her making him that way or insisting he be that way or being a better wife because he is this way. She's praising how great HE is -- not that how great he is is her own personal achievement.
Maybe you should have read the NEXT paragraph.... You know, the one where she goes on to say she's not getting to shame other women? Continue reading past the house on fire example. That should clear things up for you. Unless you're trying to be a troll?
Great post.
We don’t have any help or grandparents nearby, but I have a flexible schedule. Since my wife works a regular office job, I end up doing most of the child care. I know a few other men with a similar situation, but it’s uncommon.
Having a family and sharing the responsibilities that come with it is all about give and take. In today’s world it is so important to listen and pay attention to each other and step up in all areas. The days of the bulk of responsibilities in the home falling on women doesn’t fly anymore. We (women) have evolved! Thank God!
Part of the conversation that we do not seem to want to have is that women’s expectations for what gets done and how it gets done are too high, or unreasonable. If we take on the mental load of Christmas shopping, and our husbands don’t care about Christmas shopping, we don’t have the right to complain about caring more about something than them. Similarly, some women care A LOT about how the dishwasher gets loaded, how the baby gets changed, what brand of milk is in the fridge, the seasonal decor, etc. etc. Many men simply don’t care, and we shouldn’t nag them into caring. Unless and until women are willing to come to this conversation with an honest reflection of their own culpability in the state of affairs, all we are doing is b!.ch!N& and moaning to our girlfriends and the Internet without expectation of actually making changes.
This is not about « my house is not on fire », it is about « here are the fire detectors that we use and how often we change the batteries ». Your house is not on fire. You are not in an emergency. You need to make changes in order to have an optimal relationship and nonstop complaints about how it is not fair are generally useless.
I just don’t agree. There are things I don’t care about that my husband does and vice versa. We compromise on those because we are adults in a partnership. We don’t automatically default to the opinion of whoever cares the least!
Also, to say most men “don’t care” about things most associated with the mental load of parenting and domesticity isn’t accurate - they just haven’t been socialized to think it’s their job.
I do agree that women aren’t responsible for nagging our husbands into respecting the time and energy we put into these things, though. I wrote a whole article about it. ^^
This is not a commentary about you and your husband’s relationship, as it seems that you have clearly figured out and negotiated the roles and responsibilities that each of you will fulfill. This is about the greater conversation that women do not seem to want to have about their own responsibilities for the state of affairs, whether it is mothers who won’t teach their sons how to participate I a household and instead want to keep them permanently attached to their apron strings, or wives who enjoy their self-imposed martyrdom because they can maintain control over the household decisions and they have something to complain about. These articles portray women as victims with no self-agency, too weak and scared to act like grown ups and actually talk to their husbands and have expectations of them. Unless a woman is dealing with an abusive, narcissistic bastard (at which point she should leave him, as much for her safety as for his own good… he needs to be socialized into learning that his behavior has consequences, and she needs to protect herself, as well as teach her children that you teach people how to treat you), she needs to have these conversations with him, negotiate the tasks that need to be done, and be OK with the fact that there are something that neither of them wants to do, and it’s OK to outsource it, or not do it at all. Either way, grow up.
Fran, is there literally any scenario in which you will acknowledge that men are fully functional, cognizant, sentient human beings responsible for their own place and well-being in this world? Or do you simply believe that women MUST be responsible for every issue that could possibly arise in a marriage? Ironically you talk about women having no agency and being unable to talk about these topics but... these topics are being talked about, right here, on the screen in front of your nose, by women. This entire Substack is brought to you by women. You are arguing with women!
Social media has become rife with paragraph warriors who think that they can string a bunch of buzzwords together and present a cogent argument. But maybe "growing up," as you say, involves taking a step back, rereading the post you purport to be debating, and ask yourself if what you are saying has any actual bearing on the issue at hand or if you are just creating straw men to make yourself feel productive and accomplished.
I am writing this presuming you are a fellow woman, but if you are in fact a man then feel free to disregard everything I have suggested, apropos of your arguments above against your own intellectual capability.
Of course men have agency and are fully functional, cognizant, and sentient. And if they came into this space arguing that women do not bear any mental load or had minor responsibilities compared to them, I would absolutely disagree with them as vehemently as I do with you. The problem that I am having with these conversations is that we are having them with the wrong people, the people in the echo chamber who nod along with you. We are not having these conversations with our partners, and we are not acknowledging our own culpability in creating the situations that we complain about.
So, yeah. We are acting like teenage girls, going to the girlfriends for support instead of adult women capable of making changes for the better. My comment stands. If you act like a fully functioning adult and you marry a fully functioning adult, you don't really need to complain about your "mental load" because you recognize that all adults have mental loads, men and women, and playing the "who is the bigger victim game" only creates a bunch of losers.
Sorry, but this seems to be a cop out. Comparing caring with getting things done just doesn’t fly in my world. I respectfully disagree.
You are absolutely entitled to disagree. It’s a free country.
Don't "trads" in the title of your post, almost by definition, go for a division of labor where the man is the breadwinner and the wife stays at home? Under that scheme, it seems rather unfair for the man to share primary responsibility for home life, in addition to being the breadwinner. The point of a woman staying at home is to take primary responsibility for home life.
In any case... for the rest of this comment I'll assume a two-income setup where both parents both work and do childcare.
Imagine going to a small store early in the morning when there still aren't very many customers. Suppose there are just 2 employees in the store. Even with just 2 employees, most likely one of them will be considered a "manager", and one an "employee".
I think this fact about workplaces also suggests something about home life. Even with just two people, perhaps it is just more efficient for one person to keep track of what needs doing at a high level, and the other person to focus on implementation.
This perspective implies that maybe you actually shouldn't attempt to share mental load with your husband, since that would be inefficient. You could decrease your mental load by using product management software, todo lists, checklists, calendars, or other external memory aids. But attempting to share mental load risks creating a communication burden which exceeds whatever energy savings you get from sharing the load. Instead you could try delegating specific areas to him, areas where he can own the implementation of those specific things, and then you can keep worrying about "everything else" / the big picture at a high level.
I guess I should mention that regardless of how the family makes money the kids live there all the time, including nights and weekends.
It is possible to take ownership of a task without being asked, also. People who live alone manage to take care of themselves without anyone telling them to, say, buy toilet paper or wash the dishes. You can continue to do this when living with another person.
'My husband brings my toddler to watch me finish half-marathons'. Good for you! Is the message that if women stayed in shape they would have a better chance of keeping their man in line?
How is it possible that you could read that section and think that's the message -- that it has anything to do with staying in shape for your man?
The point, which the writer EXPLICITLY makes in that same paragraph, is that he does this particular thing (and it could be something else! Watching her dance! Hearing her sing!) because he wants and chooses to, not because she tells him what to do or expects this of him. "He is this person because he chooses to be, because he understands how important this is to me without being told, and because he grew into parenting so beautifully and compassionately I’m in awe. I didn’t fashion him into who he is, and while I love to celebrate him, I do so in the knowledge that he did the work here." It has nothing to do with her staying in shape to keep him! My goodness.
Sure that's what everyone says. Would you say differently about your relationship?
We're not talking about what everyone says or about my relationship. We're talking about the words the author wrote in her essay, which you seem to neither understand nor believe.
Apologies, I did not mean to upset anyone. I accept that her husband is indeed a prince among men.
That is not the point. The point, in my opinion, is that a partnership is about give and take.
The purpose of the paragraph, which she actually makes crystal clear, is that she's not saying you can't brag about your spouse, and she goes on to praise him for doing something self-sacrificial to support her -- but she says explicitly that this has nothing to do with her expectations or with her making him that way or insisting he be that way or being a better wife because he is this way. She's praising how great HE is -- not that how great he is is her own personal achievement.
Maybe you should have read the NEXT paragraph.... You know, the one where she goes on to say she's not getting to shame other women? Continue reading past the house on fire example. That should clear things up for you. Unless you're trying to be a troll?