<p>Excellent post, Ema.</p>
<p>With a lot of indications, employers will be doing a lot more hiring. Our employees are getting calls from recruiters and we actually have to try to sell our company to new recruits.</p>
<p>07DAD- but what about when the tasks that need to be done are on neither person’s “to do list”, or when one person sees a real necessity, and the other doesn’t? When kids are in the picture, tasks come up that can’t be planned for, yet need to get done. And they may not be something either parent could have anticipated.
If successful marriage and child rearing were just a matter of making up to do lists that are amenable to both, it would certainly make life easier. The toughest times in both my marriage and child rearing have been those surprises that require both partners to step up to the plate.
I’ve told my kids that marriage isn’t a 50-50% proposition. It’s a 100-100% proposition. It you’re not prepared to put in 100% to the relationship when it may not be on your agenda, including things you might not like doing, you probably shouldn’t make a life-long commitment.
I don’t mean for this to turn into a thread about marriage, but child rearing requires a kind of selflessness that doesn’t always translate into neat categories.</p>
<p>We have made (and modify) an "our list</p>
<p>Lol…imagining what would be on “my list” and what would be on “H’s list”</p>
<p>My list:
shopping
cooking
laundry
picking up the house
touching up the bathroom
sweep/mop/vac floors</p>
<p>H’s list
take out trash
clean golf clubs
shop for new tennis racket
renew gym membership
have sex twice a day</p>
<p>Well it’s a marriage with kids that is 100% commitment. A marriage without kids is 50-50, IMHO. </p>
<p>Even this first empty nest year, I’ve noticed how easy it is.</p>
<p>^^^Funny, mom2collegekids. My Dh would include 2 hiking trips a year in the Sierras and daily trips to Peet’s for coffee. The trash would be on my list, along with the rest of yours.</p>
<p>Of course, diaper changing, soothing cranky kids and dealing with meltdowns, cleaning pet messes, getting up for sick kids, cleaning up vomit, etc., aren’t on anyone’s list.</p>
<p>It helps too if you really like each other. That can be under rated by the twenty something’s. </p>
<p>No matter what the challenge, h and I really always liked each other</p>
<p>Yes, poetgrl, but you also have a lot of help in the home. </p>
<p>Also, I think that sometimes it’s the emotional issues, and how we handle that within the marriage and the family unit that really can tax us, and still requires 100% commitment.</p>
<p>Okay. But here’s the thing. </p>
<p>I made a 100% commitment to myself and my kids. I brought that to the table. All men are 100% committed to themselves. </p>
<p>Women who put themselves second can count on being treated that way. Look at mom2. She is an excellent example if being SAHM and staying committed to herself. </p>
<p>It is a mistake to do it any other way</p>
<p>Now that the kids’ needs are not front and center, we now have our own parents’s issues.
Of course, everything is much easier when finances are secure.
I stand by my 100% proposition. Maybe you can let up a bit at times, but the willingness has to be there.</p>
<p>Our split is not 50/50, but it is still fair. Sometimes it is 100/0 in one direction and sometimes in the other.</p>
<p>Generally, my husband does the routine house cleaning (taking out trash, dishwasher, sweeping) and almost all errand running. He also pays the bills. I do the big cleaning, meal planning, cooking and scheduling of our lives. It works for us because he isn’t that organized and I am a truly terrible driver. He does much more housework than I have ever done, but I am a beter cook than he, so I do most of that.</p>
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<p>Then the marriage doesn’t last very long.</p>
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See the above answer. But, really, “a real necessity” in my life is a very core concept to survival. Real necessities are things that easily come to mind and make for a very, very short list. The trouble for the couple comes when one spouse believes their wishes are “real necessities” so that the other spouse is disloyal to the couple if not on board.</p>
<p>Child rearing was something that I believed to be a 100% commitment for me. When I considered remarrying, this was expressed upfront. I did not need this to be her commitment, just that she understand that it was mine. It worked like a charm. Probably 95% of the time the child rearing presented no couple dilemma. My wife liked my son and loved me as a caring and committed father.</p>
<p>So, I parented my way (which may be easier when not married to the other biological parent). My wife developed her own relationship with my Son and over time my wife and I and my Son’s mother were always able to get the parenting covered.</p>
<p>I think that romantic ideal gets a lot of women in trouble, Moonchild. I’m not saying it’s not ideal, but I am saying its unrealistic. </p>
<p>Young women need to be committed to themselves. They absolutely cannot count on somebody else staying 100% committed. We see this all the time. And financially it’s always the woman who loses out in that narrative of the ideal marriage.</p>
<p>I never said to put yourself second. </p>
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<p>:( You gotta meet my guy. And my son.</p>
<p>Of course you can’t count on anything from someone else.
Too often people enter marriage, especially with kids, thinking it’s a lot easier than it is, and counting on a 50-50 split, and when the other person can’t hold up their half for some reason at some point, the unit breaks down. If you go into it knowing that sometimes you have to give more than you get, (that’s all I’m saying really) your chances of success are much greater.</p>
<p>My husband is 100% committed to the marriage, me, the kids. But in life there are significant moments. You have to know your partners best interest will not always be the same as yours. </p>
<p>In the old marriage, the family moved as a unit to support the mans career. So many women got so burned by that. You see it all of the time. </p>
<p>I’m not saying this is better. I’m just saying this is how it really is.</p>
<p>And I am with you totally on the woman’s need to support herself. This is understood.</p>
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<p>Yes, we agree. This is the reality that at times the relationship takes precedence over what might be better for an individual. That’s what I mean by 100% commitment.</p>
<p>If young people don’t get this- then they probably shouldn’t get married.</p>
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<p>Seriously? </p>
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<p>zoosermom-- Once a couple gets to this point, I found that both can let go of the tit for tat anger and speak up if they feel it is getting out of fairness balance.</p>
<p>My husband is 100% committed to me, the children and our family. 100%. He has worked two physically demanding jobs for the last 15 years to, as my late MIL used to say, put HER kids through school. One doesn’t work two such jobs for that long without a personal commitment of his own. What we do in my marriage is on the rare occasion that there is a genuine conflict over something big, we talk it through and come to an understanding of who wants/needs one side more than the other and we each generally defer to the person of greater need/want. It works for us because we are both generally reasonable people who don’t ask for outrageous things. When my son got accepted at his high school, my husband had some concerns initially because it is in another borough and outside of our comfort zone. He was inclined to take the choice that was easy, comfortable and familiar. Especially since the effort to get the child back and forth for activities and events over the four years would fall almost exclusively on him. When we discussed it, I told him that I wanted this so badly that I would move heaven and earth and even learn to drive on a highway to make it happen. He understood that I wanted it more and accepted my choice graciously. Has never thrown the commute up in my face because once the decision is made, it is OUR decision together. I love that about him.</p>
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<p>Yes, this is another way of putting it. People need to know that it’s not always 50-50, and sometimes they will feel they are the ones’ doing the hard lifting. Be prepared for everything not being even-steven all the time, that’s all. If it’s always the same person doing the work of the marriage, obviously, it’s not going to work.</p>