<p>^it’s almost as bad as being the sole breadwinner and mom. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Unrelenting stress. Had I known what it would be like, I wouldn’t have chosen this route. I would have worked, sure, but not necessarily had kids (or wouldn’t have had 2) if I’d know what it was like to hear your name at 2 am (do sick kids ever call out for Dad first?) and tend to them, knowing I had to get up in 3 hours and go to work.</p>
<p>“It seems to me a lot of todays young men expect women to fulfil quite a lot of their traditional gender roles while still being career driven and bringing home a reasonable paycheck, and that is a LOT of pressure!”</p>
<p>This is the situation with my middle aged man. I and most of my friends work full time (many earning more than H) and yet do practically all the housework/parenting stuff. </p>
<p>My H watched golf and rugby all day yesterday while I did housework (and I worked 6 days this week). Not good. I know we are blessed to have 2 jobs and I do get the occassional assist from H with driving a kid somewhere, but it’s annoying!</p>
<p>^^^momof2^^^ you need to put a stop to that,lol^^^ i do 98% of household stuff, …recently i had a party to reintroduce DW to some old friends…the Vacuum,mop and washer and dryer were able to attend. ;)</p>
<p>My wife has always been a SAHM and I do about 50% of the household stuff and did a fair amount of the parenting stuff when they got to mid-teens. I also do all of the driving around. I have to have the talk with my daughter about dating guys as her choices to date haven’t impressed me - is the selection of guys out there really that bad?</p>
<p>I am very fortunate that my husband’s job is much more flexible than mine and his theory on housework is that “whoever sees it does it.” Which means that since he’s home about 15 hours a week more than I am (he doesn’t have a commute), he does the vast majority of the day-to-day house maintenance and almost all of the errand running. I do most of the cooking (he means well but is the worst cook in the world), but if I prep something, he will put it in the oven or heat it up. He will also happily make things like omelets or baked potatoes with rotisserie chicken if I haven’t cooked. I am very, very fortunate because he comes from a very traditional Italian American family in which his father wouldn’t so much as get himself a glass of water if his wife was in the house.</p>
<p>I tell both of my girls that before they have children, they should get their ducks in a row to be able to stay home for a year if they choose to/have to. My reasoning behind this is that no one can promise a healthy baby or an uneventful pregnancy, so it is prudent to prepare for the possibility that they won’t be able to return to work immediately and then if they can do so and want to, then they will be in a better financial place.</p>
<p>Just spitballing here, but I wonder if this has anything to do with college-educated males not wanting to settle down as quickly as their female counterparts? I noticed that to some degree when I was dating in my 20’s. I can definitely see my D being ready for marraige before my sons. And really, I can see YS, with a 2-year AOS and in a decent-paying trade, being ready to settle (ie. financially stable, no college loans…but only if he finds his “dream girl”) before the other boys who are going to be more focused on moving up the ladder and possibly going to grad school. When I was dating, I liked seeing guys that didn’t have to work all hours to impress the boss, travel constantly, and bring work home. Not to mention talking about work incessantly on dates…I actually fell asleep on a date with an engineer once, no offense to engineers!. It seemed so much easier for the “work-to-live guys” to focus on the important stuff…like me, haha!</p>
<p>I think that it’s more a matter of demographics but males mature later than females (generally) and I’d say that they’re more ready for marriage between 25 and 30 so that may be a contributing factor.</p>
<p>BC, I agree that there’s that but it seems like a lot of my male friends really didn’t want to get married before 30 (truthfully, I didn’t either though and left a few relationships over this point). The ones that did usually were given an ultimatum by their true love! I had a conversation about this with two of my (male) HS friends recently and one said, “college was like a smorgasbord of women and, after that, I didn’t really know how to choose just one!”. I don’t know if he really “hooked up” with that many girls in college (TMI for me, so refrained from asking) but this was from a guy who truly loves and respects women yet didn’t marry until he was close to 40.</p>
<p>I have no problem with this issue, wifes earn much more than their husbands. I think it’s ok as long as the husbands work. In today’s economy, it’s hard to know ahead who will be earning more. Two examples come into mind, Meg Whitman(Ebay) and Sheryl Sandberg(Facebook). They both billionaires, I can guess that neither of their husbands are that successful.
Google for Sheryl Sandberg’s speech for Barnard graduation, I agree a lot with her philosophy and I sent the youtube to both of my girls.</p>
<p>I suppose the candy jar thing (that seems to be a part of pop culture) may push it to later. I knew a few guys like that (from tennis) that were having fun in their 30s and 40s to the point where maybe they didn’t want to get married as they didn’t want the responsibilities.</p>
<p>I guess that I grew up in a considerably more old-fashioned environment than what you see in popular culture - I suspect that the old-fashioned stuff still exists; somewhere.</p>
<p>I think it was about this time last year that I’d heard about the growing education gap between men and women, and how women were seemingly settling for “a nice butt and a guy who does the dishes.” I guess since I have that and an educated good wage earning husband, I probably ought to stop complaining about the little stuff (get that basketball off the TV, I want to watch the Emmys!)</p>
<p>I think we need to give men a little more credit than this. I think a lot of it is the same sorts of things that are making women want to settle down older than usual, too. They’re focused on their careers, getting additional education, and enjoying their own hobbies without feeling so much of the traditional pressure to find a nice girl and settle down already-- women aren’t the only ones who are traditionally pressured to marry perhaps a little bit sooner than they would otherwise. If I had to guess I’d think that the number of men in that category is much higher than the number of men who are just having too much fun to pick one. o.O Men aren’t the only one who participate in that kind of behavior!</p>
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<p>Yes. I am a much deeper sleeper than H, and I always slept through baby-stuff in the middle of the night - I had to be awakened if my help was needed to care for something. I suppose that doesn’t fit the stereotype of Mommy Maternal who hears every little movement in the night, but so be it.</p>
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<p>Oh absolutely…not saying the majority of men are dogs and tried to convey that in my first post. But, as a parent to young men, I can see they’re mainly living in the present when it comes to their relationships and they certainly aren’t as analytical about them as women usually are. Come to think of it, maybe my boys are dogs after all…they tend to end relationships if the girl presses them for more commitment although they don’t have trouble being monogamous. D and I call it “the KOD” (kiss of death) and try to warn the steady GF’s to be very subtle about it because, to the boys, it comes across as clingy/pushy and they hate that. Whether they’re dogs, or just hunters, remains to be seen…</p>
<p>My sons have only ever been interested in serious relationships. </p>
<p>Interestingly, among women friends my age and a bit older, a fair number of our highly educated sons are turning out to be the primary caregivers.<br>
:)</p>
<p>I feel sorry for my future daughter in laws…my sons work very long hours. I hope they marry women who are not nearly as driven so my future grandchildren have a stable homelife with at least one parent who is around.</p>
<p>in re: the studies showing that womens’ marital satisfaction is tied to the sharing of household work . . .</p>
<p>we call it “choreplay”</p>
<p>That part in the article about housekeeping is so true. I tell my dh every time I get the chance that he better be glad to make enough money now so I don’t have to work anymore. He did so little in the house over the 23 years we been married. His extra time was always taken up with different needs. First it was getting an undergraduate degree, then graduate degree, and finally his needing to travel for his job. </p>
<p>Our biggest fights were always about me having to do all the work. It was not 50/50 at all. More like 98/2 in our house. I had to work more than fulltime, be a fulltime mom, and everything that needs to be done in and out of the house. He did nothing for so long that he didn’t want to do anything. </p>
<p>Once the twins came, he was so scared to have to do something that he asked me to take a buy out at my company. I was 40 with infant twins and it didn’t take much convincing me to stop working. </p>
<p>I think the new modern problems are still money but more often now it is the division of work in the home.</p>
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<p>That’s very common in today’s marriages where “free time” is at a premium. I feel that the moment we decided to hire cleaning and gardening help, it relieved a lot of pressure between H and me. That happened in year 2 in our marriage when we had no children. It’s cheaper than therapy or divorce.</p>
<p>My son is single and works long hours. Per my recommendation, he has a cleaning lady for his 1BR apt who also does his laundry.</p>
<p>I don’t trust my wife to do housekeeping. That isn’t her strength. We have a person come once a week to do the cleaning, but in between I do the dishes and clean the kitchen, she cooks and does so with a considerable amount of mess, do my own laundry (hers tends to pile up), and I try and keep things neat. The latter isn’t easy since my wife never met a piece of paper that she couldn’t keep.</p>