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All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership?
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20 reviews of this product found across Reddit:
Umm... no no no no. First of all he should be going with you, secondly, he NEEDS to get his butt in gear and stay home with the kids. If it's him that has something less important to do, then HE should find a sitter if it's so damn important, because what you are doing IS important.
You might want to check out the book All the Rage: Fathers, Mothers and the Myth of Equal Partnership
You don't have to read it chapter by chapter or anything, you can pick it up and put it down, but it really breaks down a lot of men's bullshit and gives some ways to counteract it. I read so many passages of it to DH I thought he was gonna slap me.
If you’re really not a troll, if you really want to understand why your wife, and probably your mom and your grandmother, feel like they have no choice but to do everything while feeling resentful and enraged about it, you should read this book:
All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership.
If you want to score points with your wife, buy two copies so you can read it together, and then READ IT and discuss with her.
But I agree with everyone else, your mom and grandmother grew up in times when divorce was harder and women weren’t usually breadwinners. Your wife makes good money and can do everything without your help AND is clearly unhappy with you and your life together. If you think she’ll never leave, you’re living in a fantasy that will soon come to an end—unless you do the work to educate yourself, understand her point of view, and become the partner she needs.
Someone on this sub once linked me this book. I read it and it really helped me start having some conversations with my husband. Is everything perfect? No. It is better though.
I urge you to read the book All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership. It has all the sociological citations showing that what's being discussed in this thread isn't just women generalizing about men. It's an observable and measurable phenomenon in heterosexual relationships across all societies.
u/entrepeneur888 you've already received good answers to your question. If you want to dig further into, I suggest you read the book <em>All The Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership by Darcy Lockman</em>. There's been a lot of scientific study about this very topic, and Lockman digs into it in her book.
>It's all lies, feigned incompetence, or outright stupidity. I
And culturally-inculcated ignorance + male entitlement!
Forgive me, but I like to post these links whenever this topic comes up, because they do a good job describing the issue:
- She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink
- You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
- The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives: Men who claim to believe in equality often aren’t willing to live it
- Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
- This is a book, rather than an article: All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
- Related: The Myth of the Male Bumbler
> I keep asking him questions such as “Are you ready to drop everything (like your free time, and realizing he will no longer have time to do the things he wants to do) for a small crotch gremlin??” And then he shoots back with “I don’t think anyone is ever really ready to have/is prepared for a kid..” I keep bringing up all the hassle of being awoken in the middle of the night to a screaming child to be fed, the vomit, the drool, and the grossness of it all, like is he really really ready to take care of it?????
Are you friends with anyone that has a small child? Preferably a infant- or toddler-aged child?
If so, see if you make arrangements (probably after the holidays) for your BF to watch the child for a weekend. As in, the parents show up Friday afternoon or evening and drop off the kid(s). You should also make it a point to leave for the weekend on Friday evening as well.
Make your BF shoulder the responsibilities of dealing with parenthood for 48 hours. Encourage him to be prepared, of course. Let him know this is happening, encourage him to read parenting books, watch YouTube videos, talk to other parents, etc. in preparation.
The parents and you shouldn't return before late Sunday afternoon at the earliest. Boyfriend should deal by himself with the diapers, tantrums, sleep deprivation, the works.
When you return and the kids are gone, tell him that what he went through is just one of many reasons you're not ever having kids. with anyone. Now, he might try to argue that " But I'd I'll have you to help." Don't fall for it. When men say to women "I'd have you help with the kids", what they actually mean is "I'd be able to dump all the drudgery of childcare on you and not have to ever do it again.". Instead, respond with "I could get hit by a bus on the way home from work/school/the gym/whatever and die, leaving you a single parent, and you'd still have to deal with those things and more."
It sounds to me like your Bf has the Kodak Moment version of fatherhood stuck in his head. He wants kids and doesn't understand the reality.
If it were me, I'd consider everything you've already written as all the proof I need to exit the relationship.
>...she was complaining about her husband the whole time and he actually called several times during dinner because he couldn't find their daughter's toothbrush. He didn't only call her but two other girls from the bachelorette party because of this.
Forgive me, but I like to post these links whenever this topic comes up, because they do a good job describing the issue:
- She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink
- You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
- The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives: Men who claim to believe in equality often aren’t willing to live it
- Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
- This is a book, rather than an article: All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
- Related: The Myth of the Male Bumbler
Read this. Preferably together. All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CLLVZ52/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_KNXZBQENMQ4S4FY4SS4X
Agree to disagree. But on the point about no women feeling that way, it’d be nice of you to do some reading to broaden your world view.
From Joanna Russ’ sci-fi classic, The Female Man: “Of course you don’t want me to be stupid, bless you! you only want to make sure you’re intelligent. You don’t want me to commit suicide; you only want me to be gratefully aware of my dependency. You don’t want me to despise myself; you only want the flattering deference to you that you consider a spontaneous tribute to your natural qualities. You don’t want me to lose my soul; you only want what everybody wants, things to go your way; you want a devoted helpmeet, a self-sacrificing mother, a hot chick, a darling daughter, women to look at, women to laugh at, women to come for comfort, women to wash your floors and buy your groceries and cook your food and keep your children out of your hair, to work when you need the money and stay home when you don’t, women to be enemies when you want a good fight, women who are sexy when you want a good lay, women who don’t complain, women who don’t nag or push, women who don’t hate you really, women who know their job and above all—women who lose.“
Margaret Attwood: “Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”
Hannah Brooks Olsen, “Why We Smile At Men Who Sexually Harass Us”: ” The sexual harassment isn’t what irritates me. For me, this isn’t frightening or even that uncomfortable. This is every single day. I leave the house. Men talk to me. I hold my breath and I am polite and I am unshakable and then I get home. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat... I am tired of holding the hands of men in my life while also keeping my fists clenched as men I don’t know penetrate my space and expect my time… And so I smile. And I make conversation. And I am charming and sweet and I even swallow hot stomach acid to choke out the words “thank you,” because these are the actions that, it has been proven to me over and over by trial and error, work best. A small smile heads off the rage. A wave back keeps the situation civil. A forced laugh keeps the man outside of the drugstore from following me any further. A full-fledged conversation when I am trapped in line helps me suss out whether or not this person is violent, or just overly-friendly.“
From a female Reddit user about the Cool Girl passage in Gone Girl: ”This passage helped me to move out of a relationship that centred on me being Cool Girl. My ex’s friends would always comment on what a ‘chill’ gf I was. I realised what they were saying is how great it was that I just did everything my bf was into and let him do what he wanted without every bitching. The weekend: ‘oh you want to play golf all weekend and see your buddies?’ Well sure take my car so that I’m home alone, and then when you get home, the house will be clean and there will be snacks and beers out ready for you and your buddies to watch some sports. What’s that? You need to borrow money for coke/ weed? Yeah sure I can lend you some money, even though you never paid me back the last amount you owed me’”
Another one : *”My mother did really sacrifice so much for him. She thinks it’s romantic to cook and clean for a man and keep track of his appointments and health and help him dress appropriately and all of that other man-child shit. It’s so off-putting to me. My dad can’t cook or clean and if my mother isn’t around he just deteriorates.”
- All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
- She Divorced Me Because I Left My Dishes In the Sink
- It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal
- You Should Have Asked
- Women Aren’t Nags—We’re Just Fed Up
- The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives
- Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
- The myth of the male bumbler
I am sorry this happened to you. This sounds incredibly hurtful.
I would recommend the book, "All the Rage" by Darcy Lockman. It's about inequality between the genders in child-rearing, but the books spends a lot of time deconstructing the myth that women are just biologically wired to be better at childrearing. It's a view I think a lot of us have, maybe subconsciously even if we don't want to, because that idea is just so baked into our society. I know it's something I've always kind of secretly thought in the back of my mind, just based on all the examples of parents I've seen in my life.
The book goes into our biology and how our brains work, and hormones the male and female body release during pregnancy/ being close to a pregnant partner. It also looks at how other species operate on child rearing. It basically goes straight to the science on this question - it's super interesting.
Spoilers: the result is that (other than the ability to lactate), mothers do not have any biological advantage over fathers in childrearing. All the advantages mothers end up having (seeming to be better at caring for the child, anticipating the child's needs and reacting quicker) come from practice. Mom starts breastfeeding and gets into the habit of caring for child, dad (generally) doesn't do as much, and mom's brain starts to make those connections and develop those skills so she gets better at it, while dad does not. Thus, by the time baby is a year or two old, mom just magically seems so much better at parenting, and in tune with the child's needs, while dad is so far behind the learning curve, when he tries he messes up and mom has to step in, creating a self-perpetuating loop of the well-meaning but bumbling father, and relying on mom as the expert. And all of our societal expectations and gender roles only make this situation worse, and cause parents to stay trapped in these roles of mom doing more than dad.
The book explains that the unique thing, and the most important thins, about how human brains work is our ability to learn and adapt. New parents who put in the work learn those skills, and their brains form new pathways and adjust. Parents who are more hands off don't. It is literally just a matter of practice.
My mom was a stay at home mom, and it was great, I loved having her home. I think women who want to be mothers, and stay at home mothers, are great and should do what makes them happy. But the idea that that is the only way, or even the best way to be a "real woman" is just nonsense on every level.
The most important thing isn't being a "real woman" (or a "real man"), but being a good person - being kind, and hardworking, and supporting the people in your life that you love. Being a good sister, daughter, wife, friend, aunt, whatever. A person's value isn't tied to whether or not they have kids. To say that to anyone - especially someone like you who is sounds like possibly cannot have kids - is just beyond cruel. I'm really sorry you had to put up with this.
Posting these links 'cause the issue of equitable division of childcare and housekeeping will never be resolved if we don't educate ourselves and talk about it:
- She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink
- It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal
- You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
- Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up
- The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives: Men who claim to believe in equality often aren’t willing to live it
- Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
- This is a book, rather than an article, but absolutely worth the read: All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
- Related: The Myth of the Male Bumbler
>I want to prove to my fiancé that I am right! I wish there was a way to show him exactly what I mean. Asking other parents won't help because we all know they lie, and I can't make him read all of the things that I have.
Do you know someone with small children? If so, make arrangements for your fiancé to babysit them for a weekend, Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. All on his own.
Don't just drop the kids on him, of course. Give him a few weeks notice, direct him to good resources on YouTube and the like, have the parents write up necessary information about the kids' needs, etc.. But when Friday comes, grab your purse and a weekend bag, and take off. Be out of communication the entire weekend. Make him stand on his own two feet with those kids.
If at any point before or after the babysitting weekend, he protests that it's not a fair test because "you would normally be there to help", what he's actually saying is "you would be there for me to dump the kids on whenever childcare gets difficult or I just don't feel like doing it."
Because the reality is this:
(A) you could get hit by a bus on the way to work one day, or decide you don't want to be his partner any more, and he would have no choice but to take care of of the kids he wanted.
(B) even if (A) doesn't happen, it's 100% not fair for you to be stuck doing all the childcare. They would be his kids, too, and he needs to suck it up because modern parenting means that he will be a FULL partner in childcare and housekeeping.
Posting these again 'cause this stuff will never be resolved if we don't educate ourselves and talk about it:
- She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink
- It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal
- You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
- Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up
- The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives: Men who claim to believe in equality often aren’t willing to live it
- Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
- This is a book, rather than an article: All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
- Related: The Myth of the Male Bumbler
​
>I love him and want to be with him, just him, no kids....
EDIT: I appreciate you all, but the "just leave him" advice is not what I am looking for!
I mean...I don't know what you expect. He wants kids, and you don't. What kind of compromise do you think can happen here?
If you're lucky, he'll realize that he doesn't want to change his lifestyle to accommodate children, and from there conclude that he doesn't want children at all. That's the bes-case scenario.
What's more likely to happen is one of the below three scenarios:
- You cave, and the two of you have one or more children. He's happy, but you're miserable. Eventually your misery and resentment starts to have a corrosive effect on your relationship with him (and possibly the kids).
- He caves, and the two of you don't have kids You're happy, but he's miserable. Eventually his misery and resentment starts to have a corrosive effect on your relationship with him.
- You both realize that you have fundamentally incompatible life goals. You agree to split up, and eventually you both find happiness with other people who feel the same way you each do about having children.
I've posted these link in various subs, but I'll post them again 'cause this stuff will never be resolved if we don't educate ourselves and talk about it:
- She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink
- It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal
- You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
- Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up
- The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives: Men who claim to believe in equality often aren’t willing to live it
- Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
- This is a book, rather than an article: All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
- Related: The Myth of the Male Bumbler
Posted these links before, gonna post them again 'cause this stuff will never be resolved if we don't educate ourselves on it and talk about it:
You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
This is a book, rather than an article: All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
Related: The Myth of the Male Bumbler
(thanks to u/unoforall for suggesting the "Women Aren't Nags--We're Just Fed Up" and "It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal" links)
>...imagine you're with a guy (this is a post about mom friends, so yeah), he never helped in the household, maybe hasn't even given you any support ever, and you get a child. Surprise, he doesn't step up (whoever would've thought...). And despite you telling him what is to do around the house, with the child and so on, he still won't help with anything because he never did, and never will.
Posted these links before, gonna post them again 'cause this stuff will never be resolved if we don't educate ourselves and talk about it:
- She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink
You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
This is a book, rather than an article: All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
Related: The Myth of the Male Bumbler
(thanks to u/unoforall for suggesting the "Women Aren't Nags--We're Just Fed Up" and "It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal" links)
>Ugh, typical. "I want kids but can't handle them." So you'd be most likely doing everything around them...
This, right here. He wants to be a Kodak dad and leave the scutwork to you.
Forgive me, but I like to post these links whenever this topic comes up, because they do a good job describing the issue:
You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
This is a book, rather than an article: All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
Related: The Myth of the Male Bumbler
Going to re-post these for the OP and any latecomers:
- She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink
- You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
- The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives: Men who claim to believe in equality often aren’t willing to live it
- Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
- This is a book, rather than an article: All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
- Related: The Myth of the Male Bumbler
>The thought of having children just really depresses me. I picture a life of me running around doing everything and him just sitting on the sofa, me feeling oppressed, resentful, tired, and crying constantly, begging for help, getting it for a day, and having no choice but to carry on as a slave for 18 years in a constantly onslaught of thankless drudgery.
What's worse is that I feel like this is virtually guaranteed to happen if i have kids, not just with him, but with anyone. I feel like as a woman, people just see me as a thing do'er and that's my lot whether I like it or not.
Hi, u/hulmesweethulme!
I don't have a personal story to relate, but I beg you: please read the book All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership by Darcy Lockman.
The book is a pretty comprehensive review of the scientific research that's been done/is being done about how heterosexual couples share--or rather, don't share--housekeeping and childcare duties. I'm reading it now. I'm five chapters in. I can tell you that so far, the science absolutely confirms your instincts--if you decided to have a kid with this man, you would absolutely be doing everything: all the housework and all the childcare.
What's more: the book mentions that in general, men tend to be much more egalitarian about sharing the housekeeping load with their wives/girlfriends before the kids come along. If your man is NOT doing BEFORE the kids arrive, he is absolutely NOT going to step up if the two of you have kids. If anything, he will become an order of magnitude worse.
The book is an infuriating read. Not because of poor writing/logic, but because of the sheer scope of the problem--the heavy influence of traditional gender roles, how much of this issue is deeply embedded in societal expectations, how mothers who try to fight against it are dismissed and shamed, and (IMO most importantly) the overwhelming pervasiveness of male entitlement and men's belief that they simply should not have to take on those responsibilities.
Since I'm only five chapters in, I've not come across any solutions yet (other than "be gay", because apparently same-sex couples--since they basically exist outside of gender norms anyway--have very detailed and specific conversations about housekeeping/childcare division before they have kids, and those conversations keep the issues from arising).
Other things you can read about this phenomenon:
- She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink
- You Should Have Asked (scroll down a bit to see the comic)
- The “Woke” Men Who Still Want Housewives: Men who claim to believe in equality often aren’t willing to live it
- Millennial—And Macho? Why Young Men Want Old-School Marriages
- The Myth of the Male Bumbler
- Metafilter.com: the famous Emotional Labor thread; the Mary Sue's annotated version of said thread.
Oh, and the author mentions:
"Many of the successful older women she interviewed had eschewed children or spouses altogether, assuming they could not have both families and careers." (This was in reference to research done by Mary Blair-Loy for her book Competing Devotions: Career and Family Among Women Executives)
An interesting corollary to Blair-Joy's research is this report: women from the very richest households are now having <em>more</em> children than those less-well off.
>"... a deeper look at the data shows that increasing abundance for families at the top is built on declining opportunities for those at the bottom... as wealthy people’s income rose faster—much faster—than poor people’s, it became that much easier for the wealthier to hire low-wage workers to help them care for their children ... Inequality has given women the freedom to 'have it all'—but only for those who already have a lot."
In other words, women have more children when they have the resources to offload the grunt work of childcare onto others.
TL;DR:
- The scientific research confirms your instincts.
- If you have kids with this guy, you're definitely screwed.
- If you have kids with any other man, there's still a decent change that you'll be screwed.
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