As a guy who was never married, has no kids, works from home, and does all the cooking and cleaning while my girlfriend on her days off sleeps and scrolls reddit endlessly on the couch, I'm fairly tired of being underappreciated as well. Marriage and kids aren't the only form of emotional responsibility. But I think that everyone's free to make their own decisions, and I'm pretty sure we make a positive decision to stay together every day or else we don't.
Is some of that a "take it or leave it" attitude? Yes, but both people have that in every relationship, or else they should.
I think if you're in a relationship that's primarily defined by what you don't want to do, you should get out of it as quickly as possible.
If this resentment has persisted for a long time and communication hasn’t improved the situation why stay in the relationship? It seems like your advise applies to you as well as GP.
Sure, I mean, I'm only writing to say that we all have stuff we do for people and it's not always picture perfect, it's a balance. In my situation, she's also my best friend, the sex is great, and we like going to a lot of concerts.
If I ever find myself writing extended essays about why I'd love to have a wife like me, and I truly hated making her breakfast, I would bail.
The essay there weaponizes sarcasm + the emotional experience of that reality to hit the reader over the head with, in an attempt to break their script and force them to a change in perspective.
This - evidently - worked and works, but there are trade-offs to it.
Specifically, it is zero-sum, which eventually led to the gender war we have now.
Since the defenses have been (for the most part) broken down, a modern pivot would likely move towards more unification again, I guess.
One direction out of it is reducing the social burden on the family in the first place. Perhaps at some point we end at a zero-sum state, but IMHO we're still a long way from there.
I'm thinking about suits and Y-shirts and other garment that require either special care or cost enough to need babying for instance. Many professions still set them as standard job attire, which makes dealing with them either costly or time consuming. Meals are another point where the expectation on the level of meals cooked in a family will directly impact the QOL of the primary care giver. Home design will also bring more or less chores etc.
Looking at countries with high men/women gap, they tend to keep high maintenance traditions alive and social expectations are more punishing towards families that "cut corners".
The social mechanics to decouple woman permanently from reproduction are already in the making. Incubators and AI educators and people can have children with a company, the rest of the social problems (the social network harem effect) then go out the window. If you need to be a millionaire to have a conventional family, tradition is out, corporate cloning is in. The working alternative to religious fundamentalism.
This comment was dead on arrival, but I've vouched for it, because I believe it's interesting.
I do not believe the conspiracy part, but I do also believe that this decoupling will happen eventually.
It seems like the logical conclusion of the trajectory we're on. Leaving biological reality behind in the pursuit of individualism.
It might be a good thing, but we might also find that we were not ready for the total freedom from said biological reality.
But that is to be said about a lot of things, SV is pushing towards.
But maybe we will also see stuff crashing down in the near-ish future, and then, pondering about the "end of biological reality" will seem like unreal hallucinations.
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Hmm.
The LLM I've been feeding this comment section pointed me at the Universe 25 Experiment. I've never heard of that before.
Check out a book called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?
It’s looking far more likely that traditional approaches to these questions will become more popular with time, simply because the people that have kids don’t have the opinions you’ve mentioned here.
Which makes a lot of sense in a cultural evolution sense - you wouldn’t really expect individualism to outcompete group activity on a long timeline.
While I support equality between biological sexes this had some ill effects.
Giving birth is a woman job. Breastfeeding is a woman's job. Replacing breast milk with something else might be one of the causes of allergies and other ill effects (I'm guessing).
To me it looks like women want to be compensated for the unpaid work of birthing children and taking care of them during their upbringing.
No one fucking likes unpaid work. It's not right.
For me this if the current feminism and I do support it.
People absolutely do like unpaid work, so much so that the phrase "do-it-yourself" appeared as a marketing term. I do all the unpaid labor I can. It builds competence, lets you ensure quality, and is generally cheaper/more efficient (out of the formal economy = no taxes, which is immediately a huge drag).
Wanting compensation for raising your kids is like wanting compensation for making yourself a nice dinner. The compensation is right in front of you.
Given that surrogacy runs to 20-80k for the woman carrying the child I don't think women will appreciate their new wages if we convert all social relations into market ones.
Tbf, that's a very "modern"-ish way of viewing the idea of "committing".
And there are good reasons for that, of course, but with that thinking, you're always going to be not fully there, which might be harmful in different ways than the ways it tries to protect against.
It's a hard problem to solve, because Humans and interpersonal stuff is hard, but, ideally, one would frontload the friction, so that there is no need to keep an out on hot standby.
Sure in our modern era there are a lot more divorce and it's probably partly because people are less inclined to make efforts to stay in a relationship. But there's also statistically less abuse and domestic violence and that's partly because women by and large have a lot more options than they used to.
I don't think the trade off of having less divorce and more long lasting relationships is worth the increase of domestic violence and abuse so I do believe that people in any relationship should have an out (even if it's not in case of abuse or a breakdown of a relationship but instead for supporting oneself after the death of the only parent bring money home).
That still means that I would teach my kid that the secret behind any successful relationship is to make efforts and that one should not give up at the first problem but you never know what the future might bring and having some way out is always useful
The thing is, assuming you get married as a step toward building your own family, once you have kids, there isn't an out that doesn't involve damaging them for life. Your contingency plan is going to be bad no matter what, and not being present in their lives and putting them in daycare is making a real sacrifice to mitigate a risk that is better mitigated by being discerning in the first place.
Being able to spend all of your time with your family is the freedom to strive for, not a loss of freedom.
Then I'm confused by what you're trying to say. Reread it a few times, let me try to state how I understand your argument:
- thinking about having a way out (so not being a stay at home wife for example) is a modern way of thinking about "committing".
- By thinking this way, you're not fully in the relation, so it's harmful to the relationship stability. (which I interpreted as divorce)
ok, I admit the last part, I'm not sure what you mean by front-loading the friction... I just focused on not keeping a hot standby.
Sorry for my confusion, not trying to be difficult here, I really don't get what you mean if not what I originally interpreted it as
No, I wasn't referring to divorce, because divorce is actually a pretty healthy failure mode (or can be, at least). The worse failure modes are the ones where people do not disengage for whatever reason and stay in the situation indefinitely.
What I wanted to get at is that "relationship turning sour" is (usually) nothing one has zero control over.
Because the logical chain proposed was "Things can always turn sour" -> "You always need a way out". Or at least that's how I read it.
So I've put the prerequisite into question there.
My point, in a gist, is that I think it should be possible to greatly reduce the probability of "things turning sour" by doing much much more work upfront (before committing to a situation), and through that, the need for an out could be shrunk.
Probabilities are of course probabilities, but still.
Or, even simpler, I feel like people, generally speaking, could spend more time _actually_ getting to know each other before moving forward; and it would only do them good + they would treat each other better + they'd actually see each other (more).
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Moving fast and breaking things is everywhere, and it seems to be breaking people too.
=> So the friction of _really_ looking at who a person _actually_ is (which might be unpleasant) might be necessary.
Even though SV would love to have you believe that frictionless existence is desirable.
It is, up until it isn't. And then you're fucked.
But the solution is not to assume that everything is broken, but to build healthy stuff instead.
The fact that everything in life is compared to monetary value is the problem. There abstraction of paternalism to the state is another. For the state you are a number for your family and friends you have a name
- you're assuming the 3 person you're hiring are women
- the people you hire only work for slices of time in a day
What's gone "wrong" is in the 70s women were still fighting for ERA and were significantly more dependent on their husband. Being in a half-slave status providing for their family 24/7 with nowhere else to go was more of a norm.
As a single guy living by myself and have no intention of getting married or having kids, the day to day tasks are much simpler. Also it becomes more simple if you have money to afford help like having someone once a week clean up the whole apartment.
So it seems like what you want is not a wife, but money
Here’s a thesis: the feminism of the 70s was a reaction specifically to the trends of the 60s. You can see this here in 2 places: the double standard and easy acceptance of male infidelity; and attitudes to divorce.
The trope of society praising male promiscuity is largely an invention of the 20th century.
Biblical and Hebrew texts all encourage punishment of both man and woman in instances of adultery.
As a man I don’t like promiscuous men because they’re competition. I don’t want to introduce my female friends to them because they’re not relationship material, and I don’t find them trustworthy as a wingman. Call it jealousy, but I think the same dynamic applies to the other gender.
On the other hand most societies are more tolerant of male promiscuity.
You accept its a feature of the modern west. It goes back to at least early modern times when at the very least it was routine for the aristocracy to keep mistresses. The Romans definitely expected fidelity from wives but not from husbands. Even today Middle Eastern cultures which criminalise female infidelity tolerate it from men. Greater tolerance of male than female infidelity is true of South Asia too.
I know the Christian attitude was that both were equally wrong, but that was, for most cultures, a radical change from the previous attitude and I doubt it was every completely accepted. I do not know what the Old Testament attitude was, but, again, I would ask whether it was really 100% accepted that punishmets should be equal.
300 wives and 700 concubines. His taking of 'foreign wives' who turned him to idols was listed as one of the main reasons God was unhappy with him, indicating what the scribe thought about this.
that double standard exists for a rather obvious reason -- male infidelity biologically cannot result into their cuckolded partner unwittingly raising someone else's child, while female infidelity often results into that to this very day. the state will, in fact, force the victim to provide for the child if he doesn't immediately realize the child isn't his.
There is an element of this essay that seems a bit short on the whole rights-and-responsibilities concept that should be highlighted.
On the one hand, she's right that most people would want a wife and she gives a reasonable overview of why. That is why men generally want wives. The wives bring a lot to the table.
If you do the same exercise for husbands, generally most people would also want husbands. The men also bring a lot to the table. Relationships happen when everyone benefits.
Now if she's coming at this from a place of mutual joy and satisfaction then this essay is a pretty good summary of what men are probably looking for in a wife. But I see "instant classic ... [in a] feminist magazine" get the impression that it is probably being interpreted as wives shouldn't have to bring all the things men want to a relationship.
Yeah sure. I can agree with that. They shouldn't have to. Indeed, they don't. As we've discovered in the 1970s-2025 window they can renegotiate the social contract to a large extent. But I'm not really on board with what contribution the essay is supposed to have had beyond highlighting things what men like in women.
Realistically, you meet with one, two, three potential candidates and you realize it's not what you need and want. You could have them, it's just the disadvantages are too high.
You're right that it's always been there, but wrong that you think it can be won. Every woman's gain is her son's loss, and every father's gain is his daughter's loss. It's an iterative game with a long term aggregate outcome for the society in question. You're framing it from the perspective of individuals. Women cannot win without men also winning and vice versa.
I don't even understand this at all. If you believe gender equality is an intrinsic good then any women's gain up to gender equality would be a gain for anyone who has that principle regardless of their gender.
Do you think that black emancipation from slavery was "white's loss". It's just such a nonsensical position to hold.
Not at all. What I mean is each sex has a vested interest in the well being of the other, since both of them have a vested interest in the well being in their children of either sex. If my wife gains from affirmative action while her 5 sons lose, it's a net loss to my wife. By the same token, emancipation of women is good for the man with 5 daughters.
The race comparison doesn't hold in quite the same way, because there isn't automatically a heredity line. One group can just exploit the other indefinitely.
> If you believe gender equality is an intrinsic good
First, I believe that women have privileged position compared to men. So tipping the scales in favor of women removes gender equality.
Second, comparison with black emancipation makes no sense. For evolutionarily foreseeable future, as long as humanity exists, so will men and women, and they need to get along with each other. Meanwhile you could imagine a perfectly functional world without emancipated black slaves.
Yeah, I'm not sure on balance it's been a good thing. It's doubled the number of wage slaves and created bitterness amongst them. Now they all get to come home to an unclean house with no food, fork out for someone else to raise their children and even walk their dogs. Perhaps the baby was thrown out with bathwater to some degree?
Even the apparent victories of feminism are somewhat dubious.
For example, the female vote. People love to talk about how women had to fight to get the vote, but they never talk about men. In the UK, men got the vote only 10 years before women (1918 vs 1928). Prior to this, only some men and, yes, women, had the vote. It took almost 100 years for all men to get the vote, and an additional 10 for women.
I want to live in a fair and equitable society. Everyone deserves a chance. I just don't see how forcing women into the workforce has anything to do with that.
This is literally just patriarchy talking, you think that men know what's best for women, and what's best for them is for them to stay at home cooking and cleaning. Which is awfully convenient for the men that don't want to do those things.
>I want to live in a fair and equitable society. Everyone deserves a chance.
Except for the women that want careers, they can go fuck themselves apparently.
There is no patriarchy. We live in an oligarchy and always have. Did anyone ever ask men whether they actually want to spend their lives in the workforce or if they'd rather spend more time at home working on their own things? Loads of men would love to be able to spend more time at home.
> Except for the women that want careers, they can go fuck themselves apparently.
Complete nonsense. You are putting words into my mouth. I never said women who want careers shouldn't be able to have them. I said I don't agree with forcing women into the workforce. Do you see the difference?
I also cannot do anything about how human reproduction works. Women, like men, have to make choices and that choice will come with sacrifice. Adults have to learn to accept this or live forever in frustration.
Can you explain how women can both be allowed to have careers if they want while also not being "forced" into the workplace?
It just sounds like you want women to face extreme societal pressure to be mothers, and the few women that break out and have careers are going to be ostracised.
In modern, liberal, western society women are free to do whatever they want. If they want to get married at 25 and have 5 children there is nothing stopping them. If they want to go study neurobiology there is also nothing stopping them. The vast majority of women when given the choice, do not want to have 5 children at age 25. They want 1-3 children at age 32.
> Can you explain how women can both be allowed to have careers if they want while also not being "forced" into the workplace?
In the same way that people are at to listen to reggae without being forced to do it.
The problem with work is cultural, though. We are struggling with the fact we don't really need to work much any more. Most of our essential needs are beyond covered: food, warmth, shelter. But we can't get out of the work mindset. Even our popular music is littered with references to work.
Practically speaking, it's difficult for people to work less because they are wage slaves. You can work less, but then you'll earn less and won't be able to compete with dual earners for housing etc. It's a very difficult thing to reverse.
> It just sounds like you want women to face extreme societal pressure to be mothers, and the few women that break out and have careers are going to be ostracised.
Ridiculous. My partner is a woman and we're child free. I wish there were more child free women. I find them a lot more interesting than breeders. But it should be their choice. My point was that feminism has failed to create choice and instead caused a situation where women feel compelled to join the labour force, whether it's what they really want or not.
In a similar vein to this essay, I want to be a father so badly. I love being a woman, and am satisfied with the machinery I have been given.
But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living.
I want to be a father so I can raise a kid, provide, teach and impart to a little slice of my own genes. And be praised whenever a diaper is changed or I fetch the little one from school.
But alas I was born with a womb, a sexual attraction to men, and the drive for a high-impact career. The three seem incompatible.
I think what you seek is a great companion to truly share the responsibilities with.
I am a father of two wonderful kids. I do more drop offs than my wife, I changed just as many diapers / handled sick care, I handle more of the nighttime routines and give each kid a 10 minute back rub every night while my wife lays in bed (9 years and counting for my eldest) and cook more than my wife. She does clean more than me, folds more laundry, prepare their lunches, organizes their after care and play dates and babysitters more. She also worked harder when the kids were 0-6 months than I did for sure.
I begrudge her for none of what I do “more”. It’s hard work but I love being with my kids and my wife works her tail off running her business. We have a great balance and I feel lucky. And yet life isn’t perfect and, it being hard work, it’s easy to point fingers instead of focusing on gratitude and real world trade offs (two things the paper and feminism generally lack).
I think it comes down to ambitions. Do you have ambitions to be financially successful, to have a wonderful career or marriage or to be a great parent? Although feminists are loathe to talk of hierarchies for obvious reasons, they nevertheless have their use. So let me hierarchize: I truly have greater ambitions around being a parent than anything else. We also happen to be financially successful (more so because of my wife) but she has greater ambitions around that than I do.
So anyway, I think we are the counter example to your last statement and show that it can be compatible. And many of my friends are similar.
This can be resolved by choosing a better man as a partner, one that is supportive and willing to be an equal partner. I understand finding someone that fulfills that as well as this person also being someone you're attracted to and compatible with socially is challenging, but I have seen relationships like this before so I know it's possible.
This cannot be resolved, you will not be an equal parent or even close to it the first few months, maybe even over a year. Breast feeding and various dependencies that develop (like that the kid wants to fall asleep at the breast) mean that most of the effort of parenting early falls on the mother.
And then there's the fact of life that other stuff needs to be taken care of. Trash still needs to be taken out, groceries bought, etc further pushing you towards the stuff outside of parenting.
This can hardly be resolved with money. We could hire nannies, get the top nursery, whatever. It would even be cost-efficient if it let mom work. However, the kid doesn't want to be without his mom and much more so she doesn't want to be away from him for a longer time! Even with me 4-6 hours is about it.
Very few men lactate, that is absolutely true. However, in our family it is the mother who has the drive and career ambitions, which is why the child has fallen asleep on the father instead, including when said child was but a few months old and the mother had a six-week business trip abroad.
I am sure children benefit from having several parents and role models, but I am not so sure that the shape of the genitals matter as much as whether the parent(s) is/are emotionally in tune with the child. The classical father of yore was simply not much of a parent. Today's can choose either.
That is true for a few months. You have children for rather longer than that. Even with breast feeding you can express the milk. I did that. I used to work from home with my younger daughter asleep in a sling.
Your child might want the mother, but this is no true of every child. Different kids in the same family can be different in this way too.
I'm a father, have had sole custody of my five children for 8 nearly 9 years.
Both parents have the same responsibility to their kids, to do the absolute best for them, and we should fight back against outdated cultural norms that assume that mothers are the default parent, and that fathers "babysit" their own children.
> we should fight back against outdated cultural norms that assume that mothers are the default parent
Its changing very slowly. Its very deeply ingrained which is self-reinforcing (schools phoning the mother when a child is sick is an example that came up in a previous discussion). Its assumed by the law in many countries (virtually no paternity leave here in the UK, for example).
I just love how you assume being a father is easy. Grass is always greener and what not.
Being a father comes with its own responsibilities and subjection to judgment by the community. The phrase "deadbeat dad" is in the common vernacular, but you rarely hear about "deadbeat moms" (trust me, they exist).
> full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born
This is simply not true. If this were true, child support laws and requirements would not exist.
You actually don't have full responsibility once the child is born. Even then, you can give the child up for adoption.
You do have something that men don't have, which is full control over whether a birth happens in the first place. Men don't have this.
Deadbeat mums definitely exist. I was married to one. A woman who wanted to be a traditional housewife and flat out refused to work gradually did less and less and eventually we divorced leaving me a single dad.
I think a broader problem is that women assume that as men do not have the problems women do, we are better off and lack the empathy to realise men have different problems. Its pretty evident in things such as the higher suicide rate for young men in many countries.
My wife has some severe challenges (hormonal and otherwise), so I have changed almost all diapers, and work part time/nights as a software developer purely for the fact that I need to be available to take our child regularly throughout the day, at one point I was full time childcare and job. My wife has a free pass to go on day trips and climbing excursions for her mental health. I guess the point is, to find someone who genuinely wants to help and participate, and find something that works for you. It's such a huge part of life, it's important to get the balance right. That's a difficult thing to do, but knowing what someone's core beliefs about family, responsibility, and expectations is important.
This stuff cuts both ways. We talk in terms of “men this, women that”, but the reality is much closer to “people”.
In the past, societal norms provided a lot of shelter for the shitty behaviour of men - and they still do - but it doesn’t follow that men have a monopoly on shitty behaviour.
My reality is full time stay at home parent, sole breadwinner, chef, handyman, school and holiday organiser, and being constantly lectured about My Part in the Patriarchy.
I don’t see this as an indictment of women. I see it as an indictment of my chosen partner, and my decision making in this category.
And there’s the rub. As long as we categorise behaviour by gender, we’ll perpetuate a dynamic that permits shitty behaviour with gender as an excuse.
This belittles men, especially those who are single fathers and have similar career struggles as single mothers. Our perceptions create our reality and if we constantly think we've been given the short end of the stick then we'll look for evidence around us to prove this perception. There's a whole other side to motherhood that comes with fulfillment, meaning, and growth.
Does it, or is is a complaint about the patriarchy? I don't see any part of the OP comment that seems misandrist or reducing the role that engaged fathers play.
The assumption that being a father is easy denies the lived experience of fathers. How would she know whether being a father is easy or not? She's never been one.
She would know that in her society there are different sets of expectations about fathers than mothers, and that seems to be what she's aiming at? Are you sure you're not over-reading into what she actually wrote?
Then she would do well to look inwards and try to understand why that is. We all have to play the hand we are dealt. The sooner one realises this, the sooner one can begin the path to happiness.
"My soul, will you ever be good, simple, individual, bare, brighter than the body that covers you? Will you ever taste the
disposition to love and affection? Will you ever be complete and free of need, missing nothing, desiring nothing live or
lifeless for the enjoyment of pleasure? Or time for longer enjoyment, or amenity of place, space, and climate? Or good company? No, will you not rather be satisfied with your present state and take pleasure in all that is presently yours? Will you not convince yourself that all your experience comes from the gods, that all is well and all will be well for you, all that the gods see fit to give you, now and hereafter, in the maintenance of that perfect Being which is good and just and beautiful, which generates all things, sustains and contains all things, embraces all things as they dissolve into the generation of others like them? Will you ever be such as to share the society of gods and men without any criticism of them or condemnation by them?" -- Marcus Aurelius
We are not "dealt a hand". There are many possibilities, and the idea that you have to take the simplest, most obvious, one is largely false. There are other people in this thread talking about how they did things differently.
There are many ways to play a hand in poker, just as in life. Doesn't mean you don't have one.
I'd love for everyone to start out with the same hand. But this is not a gender issue. This is a human issue. The sooner we realise we're just duking it out in the gutter while the real winning hands are laughing in the street the better.
>I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living.
Agree on judgement, but duties and freedom and care-free living?
Sorry, both are gone for fathers too. At least those who care (talking as a father here).
Sure, a woman has even less freedom for a few years after a child is born. And a caring partner will try to at least ease this period for a woman.
But rest of a time? It's pretty 50/50 in my experience. My wife (also a backend dev like myself) has her career and her free time, in our family we share cleaning duties and all the cooking is on me (both because I'm better at it and it's less of a burden for me).
I'd like to eliminate judgement (and event more often self-judgement) she sometime faces, but for now I have no solution to present.
Bottom line: it's a fantasy to thing that a responsible father just carries on with whatever life he had before the kid was born and just occasionally fetches one from school to have a few word on the go.
I don't know why you couldn't be a great father. In the sense you're talking about. I know it would come with the physical baggage (or not, if you adopt?)
A friend I love dearly is raising a 3 year old little girl... she never expected to get pregnant at 42... and she is as much a father as a mother. She lets the girl play in mud puddles while other parents stare, and collect bugs, and go look at art in museums. Absolutely unconcerned with how the world thinks a mom with a 3 year old should behave.
[edit] it did slow my friend's career over the past few years, but, didn't kill it. And she's back to it now. But more importantly... I've never seen anyone love anything as much, even when she says she's frustrated out of her mind. And me, not having kids, I'm a little jealous of that feeling.
[edit2] I'm an uncle, so maybe that's more my speed ... just jumping in for the easy fun parts and teaching the kids new things and being the visiting fireman. But that's not what being a father is, at least as far as my brother's day to day driving them to and from school and taking care of them.
My brother is the fun uncle of my daughter. Know the fun uncle is always appreciated. You should visit them soon :) And tell my brother to get back here for his overdue visit.
Hehe aww, thanks. Can't tell ya how much I love those kids. They're 4 and 6. The boy is just obsessed with baseball. They live down in LA, I'm in PDX. When they come up here, they get so excited like I'm the best part of visiting Portland, and when I'm heading down my bro tells them I'm coming and they just wanna tell me jokes or sing songs or shoot hoops. (I'm always raising the basket hahah). It is seriously the ultra light easy version of not having kids but just seeing them at their best. lol. They're best friends. My brother and his wife tell me they're never that chill with each other except when they want to impress me. But my brother and his wife, they astonish me all the time with the patience and attention they show the kids.
Anyway, your bro is missing out. Send him an invitation.
> ... And be praised whenever a diaper is changed or I fetch the little one from school.
I may be calling names now, but maybe this is an unnecessary "oldschool" meme that should already be forgotten. In my country (Estonia), I don't see dads actually being praised for every small childcare chore they courageously complete. Nobody does that, really. It's more like a meme that e.g. feminists love to bring about and keep alive in Facebook or elsewehere, thus showing an ongoing conflict between men and women (or -- being a man vs being a woman, with women actually as the superior sex or side). Let it fade away finally, for god's sake, and let dads quietly do their thing.
Source: first-hand experience as a primary caregiver for our children for several years, while the mom was working full time. It was not really an optimal scenario in terms of sharing economical responsibility (it did raise conflicts at times), but I liked "doing stuff" with both children, and never expected any direct admiration from society, etc. Luckily, I also didn't get almost any of this. :) I just did my thing as a dad, got children to kindergarten and then back home, did all the kid-chores there as well, etc, and those were some beautiful times.
I'm in Hong Kong, fathers do get praised for childcare chores but it also comes with a downside. Despite being very active in my school PTA, being one of the only fathers being a "Class Parent", and spending a lot more time at my son's school, whenever my son is hurt the reflex they have is to always call the mother. And that's despite the fact that everytime my wife tells them to call me.
They praise dads for being involved because they don't see it as normal and as they don't see it as normal, they always think that the mother is somehow the person to contact in emergencies. I'd much rather not be praised for every little thing and for people here to trust in a father's competence.
Great example, thanks for sharing! We seem to have that same reflex (always calling moms in case of emergency) in our country. I guess it just takes time, probably a few decades, for societies to really start trusting dads as caregivers equally to moms. By trust in this regard I mean "pay no attention whatsoever to the sex of the caregiver because it doesn't matter".
In the UK someone described me as a "mothering" father. i.e. people (and very nice people) struggle with finding the vocabulary to describe men looking after children.
its changing slowly but we are very far from society accepting men as equal parents.
What an interesting comment. Do you feel that the aspects of fatherhood that you are most jealous of are relatively lower expectations of time commitment directly watching after the kid and encouragement of professional success?
And if it’s not too prying to ask what are your ideal expectations for your partner? How important is their career? What is their ideal role in childrearing?
Thanks for the curiosity. The most attractive aspect of fatherhood is two fold: not having to be an incubator while also sharing genetic material, and being shielded from the brunt of the judgement when a ball inevitably gets dropped.
The first since I am highly conscious of my physical and mental health, and I am terrified of haywire hormones and bodily changes out of my control.
The second due to the societal norms put onto mothers where I am from (SoCal). When a child shows up to school in dirty clothes, the mom is blamed, not the father absent of other evidence.
It is also my direct lived experience; my father provided, my mother worked while also caring for us, and bore all the responsibility and blame while my dad got to do the fun part.
I heard my mother complain about her career sacrifice, of cleaning the snot off her fine blouses when I would cry into her arms. I resolved to make different choices, but in doing so, I ask what other choices could I make? If these are the two role models presented to me, why would I ever want the position of my mom?
I'm a house-husband to a wife with a womb who birthed our daughter. She's a software dev at a major software company. I did most of the diapers (little one is soon 7 and out of them for a while now), I do all the cooking. We had daycare partially to give breaks, but also so the little one would get good social exposure at a young age. I sadly can't drive due to a mix of anxiety and sedating medication for other health stuff, so she does before-school appointments most of the time (so she can go to the office after without me having to bus home), but for the most part I come along with appointments and I'm the one to go along on school trips and do the before and after school bus times. I do almost all the away playdates, with playdates at home being a joint endeavor.
Her carefree living has gone, but she can still go to work parties while I stay home and look after our daughter. She's never told me she experienced any overt judgement about being the sole breadwinner (there was a male manager who asked her after mat leave how her vacation was. I wonder how much he was involved in the early years of raising his kids‽). I will admit I do get more praise than I should be for doing my role, but really that praise is pretty empty, the bar is so low for men. The praise I do get mainly comes from women older than us. I've only once gotten a "Mr. Mom" comment and that was from an older American acquaintance.
She took about 4 months off if I recall correctly for mat leave after our daughter was born. She was going crazy at home.
She has some limitations for sure, she feels like she's as far as she'll get at least while our daughter is young, in terms of the promo-game. But she and the company are content with where she's at, though she is a bit envious at times about how some of her colleagues have been promoted to higher levels despite starting at the same time or after her.
She's very involved and a great mom.
I hope that didn't come off as a brag (I'm terrible at keeping the place clean and tidy, we hire help for that), my point is that you probably can have a high-impact career, be sexually attracted to men, and have a womb, and have a child. The freedom and care-free living will go regardless of one's gender, that's just part of being a good parent. There are plenty of men out there up for a majority parenting role.
For some context I'm around 40, and in my age group there's a lot more involved fathers (we see lone fathers with children at the park all the time, including with solely presenting-female children) and working mothers than when I was a child. Living in a major city in Ontario, Canada.
> And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living.
Being a father myself, i can say it’s a huge sacrifice. If I was to guess why birth rate is dropping, it’s entirely because people are having kids later or not at all so they can focus on themselves.
You can hire a nanny. I know there's stigma there, too, but I know some "career women" who do this and it works fine. If you're that motivated (and your interests are lucrative enough), you can pull it off.
I feel you but this kind of discourse only polarizes the already divided society. Mothers face a lot of difficulties, and fathers also do. Arguing whose fate is worse seems really unproductive, what makes sense is looking forward and working towards diminishing the effects of these disadvantages.
I'd like to have my cake and eat it too. It's your choice whether you want to spend your life being envious about cherry-picked parts of other people's lives, or whether you learn to appreciate and enjoy the things you do have. This cherry picking is the exact poison that social media delivers, making people depressed the world over. I guess men and women have always felt it about each other. The big difference is that men cannot have what women have, but women can have at least some of what men have.
None of that stuff really seems that difficult or time consuming. I think the danger of being in the position of a stay-at-home mom is that your partner can abandon you at any time and leave you with the full burden and no financial support.
I think the problem really stems from a lack of suitable men rather than the role itself
> your partner can abandon you at any time and leave you with the full burden and no financial support.
Yes, absolutely. Or that a financially-dependent partner (I'm deliberately not applying gender), even without kids (though children massively raise the stakes), can become trapped in an abusive relationship.
I'm going to wade into political waters, by pointing out that this is a wider problem that can be addressed at the societal level. When the full burden of all poor outcomes is placed upon unsupported individuals, then individuals in aggregate respond by making more-cautious decisions - whether that's to stay in an abusive relationship, avoid having children, have fewer children, or avoid relationships altogether. The same could be pointed out for the choice between, eg, choosing corporate employment vs trying entrepreneurship. A society that insulates its citizens against some downside risks allows individuals more agency over their own lives.
As a guy who was never married, has no kids, works from home, and does all the cooking and cleaning while my girlfriend on her days off sleeps and scrolls reddit endlessly on the couch, I'm fairly tired of being underappreciated as well. Marriage and kids aren't the only form of emotional responsibility. But I think that everyone's free to make their own decisions, and I'm pretty sure we make a positive decision to stay together every day or else we don't.
Is some of that a "take it or leave it" attitude? Yes, but both people have that in every relationship, or else they should.
I think if you're in a relationship that's primarily defined by what you don't want to do, you should get out of it as quickly as possible.
If this resentment has persisted for a long time and communication hasn’t improved the situation why stay in the relationship? It seems like your advise applies to you as well as GP.
Sure, I mean, I'm only writing to say that we all have stuff we do for people and it's not always picture perfect, it's a balance. In my situation, she's also my best friend, the sex is great, and we like going to a lot of concerts.
If I ever find myself writing extended essays about why I'd love to have a wife like me, and I truly hated making her breakfast, I would bail.
I feel like this confrontational approach to the problem has achieved basically all it can achieve over the last 55 years.
We're heavy in the diminishing returns here - if it hasn't even inverted already.
New tools and approaches will have to be found to further push these goals.
What kind of confrontational approach do you mean?
The essay there weaponizes sarcasm + the emotional experience of that reality to hit the reader over the head with, in an attempt to break their script and force them to a change in perspective.
This - evidently - worked and works, but there are trade-offs to it.
Specifically, it is zero-sum, which eventually led to the gender war we have now. Since the defenses have been (for the most part) broken down, a modern pivot would likely move towards more unification again, I guess.
> zero-sum
One direction out of it is reducing the social burden on the family in the first place. Perhaps at some point we end at a zero-sum state, but IMHO we're still a long way from there.
I'm thinking about suits and Y-shirts and other garment that require either special care or cost enough to need babying for instance. Many professions still set them as standard job attire, which makes dealing with them either costly or time consuming. Meals are another point where the expectation on the level of meals cooked in a family will directly impact the QOL of the primary care giver. Home design will also bring more or less chores etc.
Looking at countries with high men/women gap, they tend to keep high maintenance traditions alive and social expectations are more punishing towards families that "cut corners".
The social mechanics to decouple woman permanently from reproduction are already in the making. Incubators and AI educators and people can have children with a company, the rest of the social problems (the social network harem effect) then go out the window. If you need to be a millionaire to have a conventional family, tradition is out, corporate cloning is in. The working alternative to religious fundamentalism.
This comment was dead on arrival, but I've vouched for it, because I believe it's interesting.
I do not believe the conspiracy part, but I do also believe that this decoupling will happen eventually. It seems like the logical conclusion of the trajectory we're on. Leaving biological reality behind in the pursuit of individualism.
It might be a good thing, but we might also find that we were not ready for the total freedom from said biological reality. But that is to be said about a lot of things, SV is pushing towards.
But maybe we will also see stuff crashing down in the near-ish future, and then, pondering about the "end of biological reality" will seem like unreal hallucinations.
___
Hmm. The LLM I've been feeding this comment section pointed me at the Universe 25 Experiment. I've never heard of that before.
Check out a book called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?
It’s looking far more likely that traditional approaches to these questions will become more popular with time, simply because the people that have kids don’t have the opinions you’ve mentioned here.
Which makes a lot of sense in a cultural evolution sense - you wouldn’t really expect individualism to outcompete group activity on a long timeline.
While I support equality between biological sexes this had some ill effects.
Giving birth is a woman job. Breastfeeding is a woman's job. Replacing breast milk with something else might be one of the causes of allergies and other ill effects (I'm guessing).
To me it looks like women want to be compensated for the unpaid work of birthing children and taking care of them during their upbringing. No one fucking likes unpaid work. It's not right.
For me this if the current feminism and I do support it.
People absolutely do like unpaid work, so much so that the phrase "do-it-yourself" appeared as a marketing term. I do all the unpaid labor I can. It builds competence, lets you ensure quality, and is generally cheaper/more efficient (out of the formal economy = no taxes, which is immediately a huge drag).
Wanting compensation for raising your kids is like wanting compensation for making yourself a nice dinner. The compensation is right in front of you.
Given that surrogacy runs to 20-80k for the woman carrying the child I don't think women will appreciate their new wages if we convert all social relations into market ones.
Isn’t being a stay at home wife being compensated to do that work?
Your bills and mortgage are paid for, so is the food. You get to spend time with the kids. Sounds way less stressful than a high stakes job.
You also have no way to get out of a bad relationship if things turn sour. Being stay at home is extremely risky, you give up freedom.
Tbf, that's a very "modern"-ish way of viewing the idea of "committing".
And there are good reasons for that, of course, but with that thinking, you're always going to be not fully there, which might be harmful in different ways than the ways it tries to protect against.
It's a hard problem to solve, because Humans and interpersonal stuff is hard, but, ideally, one would frontload the friction, so that there is no need to keep an out on hot standby.
Sure in our modern era there are a lot more divorce and it's probably partly because people are less inclined to make efforts to stay in a relationship. But there's also statistically less abuse and domestic violence and that's partly because women by and large have a lot more options than they used to.
I don't think the trade off of having less divorce and more long lasting relationships is worth the increase of domestic violence and abuse so I do believe that people in any relationship should have an out (even if it's not in case of abuse or a breakdown of a relationship but instead for supporting oneself after the death of the only parent bring money home).
That still means that I would teach my kid that the secret behind any successful relationship is to make efforts and that one should not give up at the first problem but you never know what the future might bring and having some way out is always useful
The thing is, assuming you get married as a step toward building your own family, once you have kids, there isn't an out that doesn't involve damaging them for life. Your contingency plan is going to be bad no matter what, and not being present in their lives and putting them in daycare is making a real sacrifice to mitigate a risk that is better mitigated by being discerning in the first place.
Being able to spend all of your time with your family is the freedom to strive for, not a loss of freedom.
> there are a lot more divorce
That is not what I was talking about. Mainly because it's a dumb talking point.
You've I think replied to what you expected one would write and not to what was written.
Then I'm confused by what you're trying to say. Reread it a few times, let me try to state how I understand your argument: - thinking about having a way out (so not being a stay at home wife for example) is a modern way of thinking about "committing".
- By thinking this way, you're not fully in the relation, so it's harmful to the relationship stability. (which I interpreted as divorce)
ok, I admit the last part, I'm not sure what you mean by front-loading the friction... I just focused on not keeping a hot standby.
Sorry for my confusion, not trying to be difficult here, I really don't get what you mean if not what I originally interpreted it as
Aah, okay, I see.
No, I wasn't referring to divorce, because divorce is actually a pretty healthy failure mode (or can be, at least). The worse failure modes are the ones where people do not disengage for whatever reason and stay in the situation indefinitely.
What I wanted to get at is that "relationship turning sour" is (usually) nothing one has zero control over. Because the logical chain proposed was "Things can always turn sour" -> "You always need a way out". Or at least that's how I read it.
So I've put the prerequisite into question there.
My point, in a gist, is that I think it should be possible to greatly reduce the probability of "things turning sour" by doing much much more work upfront (before committing to a situation), and through that, the need for an out could be shrunk.
Probabilities are of course probabilities, but still.
Or, even simpler, I feel like people, generally speaking, could spend more time _actually_ getting to know each other before moving forward; and it would only do them good + they would treat each other better + they'd actually see each other (more).
___
Moving fast and breaking things is everywhere, and it seems to be breaking people too.
=> So the friction of _really_ looking at who a person _actually_ is (which might be unpleasant) might be necessary. Even though SV would love to have you believe that frictionless existence is desirable.
It is, up until it isn't. And then you're fucked.
But the solution is not to assume that everything is broken, but to build healthy stuff instead.
> Sounds way less stressful than a high stakes job.
If it's by choice, then yes. Otherwise, it could be really bad.
> (I'm guessing)
Please don't do this. It's not helpful.
The fact that everything in life is compared to monetary value is the problem. There abstraction of paternalism to the state is another. For the state you are a number for your family and friends you have a name
I keep reading about what women did in the 70s as housewives and compare it to what they can do today.
The current generation of women falls so wildly short pieces like this read more like science fiction than any fiction of the period.
I'd happily pay mid six figures to someone who can provide the whole housewife package.
Hire a three person staff and you're set. On the salary, you might want to raise that a bit.
What's gone wrong in the period between that three women today are as capable as one in 1970?
The two interesting points:
- you're assuming the 3 person you're hiring are women
- the people you hire only work for slices of time in a day
What's gone "wrong" is in the 70s women were still fighting for ERA and were significantly more dependent on their husband. Being in a half-slave status providing for their family 24/7 with nowhere else to go was more of a norm.
If women were more effective than men at the position why would I hire men?
If men are more effective than women why are women today more than three times worse at being housewives than they were in the 70s?
Getting paid 10 times the average US wage is a very funny definition of slavery.
As a single guy living by myself and have no intention of getting married or having kids, the day to day tasks are much simpler. Also it becomes more simple if you have money to afford help like having someone once a week clean up the whole apartment.
So it seems like what you want is not a wife, but money
Here’s a thesis: the feminism of the 70s was a reaction specifically to the trends of the 60s. You can see this here in 2 places: the double standard and easy acceptance of male infidelity; and attitudes to divorce.
The trope of society praising male promiscuity is largely an invention of the 20th century.
Biblical and Hebrew texts all encourage punishment of both man and woman in instances of adultery.
As a man I don’t like promiscuous men because they’re competition. I don’t want to introduce my female friends to them because they’re not relationship material, and I don’t find them trustworthy as a wingman. Call it jealousy, but I think the same dynamic applies to the other gender.
On the other hand most societies are more tolerant of male promiscuity.
You accept its a feature of the modern west. It goes back to at least early modern times when at the very least it was routine for the aristocracy to keep mistresses. The Romans definitely expected fidelity from wives but not from husbands. Even today Middle Eastern cultures which criminalise female infidelity tolerate it from men. Greater tolerance of male than female infidelity is true of South Asia too.
I know the Christian attitude was that both were equally wrong, but that was, for most cultures, a radical change from the previous attitude and I doubt it was every completely accepted. I do not know what the Old Testament attitude was, but, again, I would ask whether it was really 100% accepted that punishmets should be equal.
> On the other hand most societies are more tolerant of male promiscuity.
Quotation needed.
How many concubines did Solomon have?
300 wives and 700 concubines. His taking of 'foreign wives' who turned him to idols was listed as one of the main reasons God was unhappy with him, indicating what the scribe thought about this.
that double standard exists for a rather obvious reason -- male infidelity biologically cannot result into their cuckolded partner unwittingly raising someone else's child, while female infidelity often results into that to this very day. the state will, in fact, force the victim to provide for the child if he doesn't immediately realize the child isn't his.
There is an element of this essay that seems a bit short on the whole rights-and-responsibilities concept that should be highlighted.
On the one hand, she's right that most people would want a wife and she gives a reasonable overview of why. That is why men generally want wives. The wives bring a lot to the table.
If you do the same exercise for husbands, generally most people would also want husbands. The men also bring a lot to the table. Relationships happen when everyone benefits.
Now if she's coming at this from a place of mutual joy and satisfaction then this essay is a pretty good summary of what men are probably looking for in a wife. But I see "instant classic ... [in a] feminist magazine" get the impression that it is probably being interpreted as wives shouldn't have to bring all the things men want to a relationship.
Yeah sure. I can agree with that. They shouldn't have to. Indeed, they don't. As we've discovered in the 1970s-2025 window they can renegotiate the social contract to a large extent. But I'm not really on board with what contribution the essay is supposed to have had beyond highlighting things what men like in women.
> most people would want a wife
Are you sure about that? Maybe that was true in 1970ties or even yearly 2000, but today stats are pretty clear: most men do not want a wife!
Modern women have ethical troubles with making even simple sandwich. Tons of legal risks. 60% people today are overweight and on mental medication...
And fathers in families today are portraited as a homer simpson!
All the stuff wife brinks to the table, can be easily automated or outsourced at minimal cost!
Well, they probably want one, as in the essay, but have just accepted they can't have one and moved on with their lives.
Maybe, I'm not sure.
Realistically, you meet with one, two, three potential candidates and you realize it's not what you need and want. You could have them, it's just the disadvantages are too high.
Where is this excerpt from? I like the questions at the end.
Really? I thought they were trite and not particularly engaged with the source matter. Why did you like them?
The one at the beginning was far more interesting.
i am scared of it
Eh. I'm just tired of feminism. It promised equality but instead brought the gender war while driving down salaries.
There has always been a gender war, throughout the entirety of human existence.
You just don't like that women have won a few battles recently.
"You just don't like that women have won a few battles recently."
Everyone can burn the house. Not sure how this count as "winning a battle".
("women" are not the only people doing that, seems to be the new game in town..)
You're right that it's always been there, but wrong that you think it can be won. Every woman's gain is her son's loss, and every father's gain is his daughter's loss. It's an iterative game with a long term aggregate outcome for the society in question. You're framing it from the perspective of individuals. Women cannot win without men also winning and vice versa.
>Every woman's gain is her son's loss
I don't even understand this at all. If you believe gender equality is an intrinsic good then any women's gain up to gender equality would be a gain for anyone who has that principle regardless of their gender.
Do you think that black emancipation from slavery was "white's loss". It's just such a nonsensical position to hold.
Not at all. What I mean is each sex has a vested interest in the well being of the other, since both of them have a vested interest in the well being in their children of either sex. If my wife gains from affirmative action while her 5 sons lose, it's a net loss to my wife. By the same token, emancipation of women is good for the man with 5 daughters.
The race comparison doesn't hold in quite the same way, because there isn't automatically a heredity line. One group can just exploit the other indefinitely.
> If you believe gender equality is an intrinsic good
First, I believe that women have privileged position compared to men. So tipping the scales in favor of women removes gender equality.
Second, comparison with black emancipation makes no sense. For evolutionarily foreseeable future, as long as humanity exists, so will men and women, and they need to get along with each other. Meanwhile you could imagine a perfectly functional world without emancipated black slaves.
We have very different definitions of what functional means.
Yeah, I'm not sure on balance it's been a good thing. It's doubled the number of wage slaves and created bitterness amongst them. Now they all get to come home to an unclean house with no food, fork out for someone else to raise their children and even walk their dogs. Perhaps the baby was thrown out with bathwater to some degree?
Even the apparent victories of feminism are somewhat dubious.
For example, the female vote. People love to talk about how women had to fight to get the vote, but they never talk about men. In the UK, men got the vote only 10 years before women (1918 vs 1928). Prior to this, only some men and, yes, women, had the vote. It took almost 100 years for all men to get the vote, and an additional 10 for women.
I want to live in a fair and equitable society. Everyone deserves a chance. I just don't see how forcing women into the workforce has anything to do with that.
This is literally just patriarchy talking, you think that men know what's best for women, and what's best for them is for them to stay at home cooking and cleaning. Which is awfully convenient for the men that don't want to do those things.
>I want to live in a fair and equitable society. Everyone deserves a chance.
Except for the women that want careers, they can go fuck themselves apparently.
> Which is awfully convenient for the men that don't want to do those things.
I do. Now what.
Have you asked women? Or even just observed their choices? Women overwhelmingly value motherhood over their careers when asked, see e.g. https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/8791-mult-country-survey-m...
There is no patriarchy. We live in an oligarchy and always have. Did anyone ever ask men whether they actually want to spend their lives in the workforce or if they'd rather spend more time at home working on their own things? Loads of men would love to be able to spend more time at home.
> Except for the women that want careers, they can go fuck themselves apparently.
Complete nonsense. You are putting words into my mouth. I never said women who want careers shouldn't be able to have them. I said I don't agree with forcing women into the workforce. Do you see the difference?
I also cannot do anything about how human reproduction works. Women, like men, have to make choices and that choice will come with sacrifice. Adults have to learn to accept this or live forever in frustration.
Can you explain how women can both be allowed to have careers if they want while also not being "forced" into the workplace?
It just sounds like you want women to face extreme societal pressure to be mothers, and the few women that break out and have careers are going to be ostracised.
In modern, liberal, western society women are free to do whatever they want. If they want to get married at 25 and have 5 children there is nothing stopping them. If they want to go study neurobiology there is also nothing stopping them. The vast majority of women when given the choice, do not want to have 5 children at age 25. They want 1-3 children at age 32.
> Can you explain how women can both be allowed to have careers if they want while also not being "forced" into the workplace?
In the same way that people are at to listen to reggae without being forced to do it.
The problem with work is cultural, though. We are struggling with the fact we don't really need to work much any more. Most of our essential needs are beyond covered: food, warmth, shelter. But we can't get out of the work mindset. Even our popular music is littered with references to work.
Practically speaking, it's difficult for people to work less because they are wage slaves. You can work less, but then you'll earn less and won't be able to compete with dual earners for housing etc. It's a very difficult thing to reverse.
> It just sounds like you want women to face extreme societal pressure to be mothers, and the few women that break out and have careers are going to be ostracised.
Ridiculous. My partner is a woman and we're child free. I wish there were more child free women. I find them a lot more interesting than breeders. But it should be their choice. My point was that feminism has failed to create choice and instead caused a situation where women feel compelled to join the labour force, whether it's what they really want or not.
In a similar vein to this essay, I want to be a father so badly. I love being a woman, and am satisfied with the machinery I have been given.
But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living.
I want to be a father so I can raise a kid, provide, teach and impart to a little slice of my own genes. And be praised whenever a diaper is changed or I fetch the little one from school.
But alas I was born with a womb, a sexual attraction to men, and the drive for a high-impact career. The three seem incompatible.
I think what you seek is a great companion to truly share the responsibilities with.
I am a father of two wonderful kids. I do more drop offs than my wife, I changed just as many diapers / handled sick care, I handle more of the nighttime routines and give each kid a 10 minute back rub every night while my wife lays in bed (9 years and counting for my eldest) and cook more than my wife. She does clean more than me, folds more laundry, prepare their lunches, organizes their after care and play dates and babysitters more. She also worked harder when the kids were 0-6 months than I did for sure.
I begrudge her for none of what I do “more”. It’s hard work but I love being with my kids and my wife works her tail off running her business. We have a great balance and I feel lucky. And yet life isn’t perfect and, it being hard work, it’s easy to point fingers instead of focusing on gratitude and real world trade offs (two things the paper and feminism generally lack).
I think it comes down to ambitions. Do you have ambitions to be financially successful, to have a wonderful career or marriage or to be a great parent? Although feminists are loathe to talk of hierarchies for obvious reasons, they nevertheless have their use. So let me hierarchize: I truly have greater ambitions around being a parent than anything else. We also happen to be financially successful (more so because of my wife) but she has greater ambitions around that than I do.
So anyway, I think we are the counter example to your last statement and show that it can be compatible. And many of my friends are similar.
> and expectation once the baby is born.
This can be resolved by choosing a better man as a partner, one that is supportive and willing to be an equal partner. I understand finding someone that fulfills that as well as this person also being someone you're attracted to and compatible with socially is challenging, but I have seen relationships like this before so I know it's possible.
My guess is that is easier said than done, and most of the time would only be known after it was too late.
Of course, full accountability belongs on the man for the failure of the parenting partnership.
This cannot be resolved, you will not be an equal parent or even close to it the first few months, maybe even over a year. Breast feeding and various dependencies that develop (like that the kid wants to fall asleep at the breast) mean that most of the effort of parenting early falls on the mother.
And then there's the fact of life that other stuff needs to be taken care of. Trash still needs to be taken out, groceries bought, etc further pushing you towards the stuff outside of parenting.
This can hardly be resolved with money. We could hire nannies, get the top nursery, whatever. It would even be cost-efficient if it let mom work. However, the kid doesn't want to be without his mom and much more so she doesn't want to be away from him for a longer time! Even with me 4-6 hours is about it.
Very few men lactate, that is absolutely true. However, in our family it is the mother who has the drive and career ambitions, which is why the child has fallen asleep on the father instead, including when said child was but a few months old and the mother had a six-week business trip abroad.
I am sure children benefit from having several parents and role models, but I am not so sure that the shape of the genitals matter as much as whether the parent(s) is/are emotionally in tune with the child. The classical father of yore was simply not much of a parent. Today's can choose either.
That is true for a few months. You have children for rather longer than that. Even with breast feeding you can express the milk. I did that. I used to work from home with my younger daughter asleep in a sling.
Your child might want the mother, but this is no true of every child. Different kids in the same family can be different in this way too.
I'm a father, have had sole custody of my five children for 8 nearly 9 years.
Both parents have the same responsibility to their kids, to do the absolute best for them, and we should fight back against outdated cultural norms that assume that mothers are the default parent, and that fathers "babysit" their own children.
> and that fathers "babysit" their own children.
That really, rally annoys me.
> we should fight back against outdated cultural norms that assume that mothers are the default parent
Its changing very slowly. Its very deeply ingrained which is self-reinforcing (schools phoning the mother when a child is sick is an example that came up in a previous discussion). Its assumed by the law in many countries (virtually no paternity leave here in the UK, for example).
I just love how you assume being a father is easy. Grass is always greener and what not.
Being a father comes with its own responsibilities and subjection to judgment by the community. The phrase "deadbeat dad" is in the common vernacular, but you rarely hear about "deadbeat moms" (trust me, they exist).
> full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born
This is simply not true. If this were true, child support laws and requirements would not exist.
You actually don't have full responsibility once the child is born. Even then, you can give the child up for adoption.
You do have something that men don't have, which is full control over whether a birth happens in the first place. Men don't have this.
Deadbeat mums definitely exist. I was married to one. A woman who wanted to be a traditional housewife and flat out refused to work gradually did less and less and eventually we divorced leaving me a single dad.
I think a broader problem is that women assume that as men do not have the problems women do, we are better off and lack the empathy to realise men have different problems. Its pretty evident in things such as the higher suicide rate for young men in many countries.
My wife has some severe challenges (hormonal and otherwise), so I have changed almost all diapers, and work part time/nights as a software developer purely for the fact that I need to be available to take our child regularly throughout the day, at one point I was full time childcare and job. My wife has a free pass to go on day trips and climbing excursions for her mental health. I guess the point is, to find someone who genuinely wants to help and participate, and find something that works for you. It's such a huge part of life, it's important to get the balance right. That's a difficult thing to do, but knowing what someone's core beliefs about family, responsibility, and expectations is important.
This stuff cuts both ways. We talk in terms of “men this, women that”, but the reality is much closer to “people”.
In the past, societal norms provided a lot of shelter for the shitty behaviour of men - and they still do - but it doesn’t follow that men have a monopoly on shitty behaviour.
My reality is full time stay at home parent, sole breadwinner, chef, handyman, school and holiday organiser, and being constantly lectured about My Part in the Patriarchy.
I don’t see this as an indictment of women. I see it as an indictment of my chosen partner, and my decision making in this category.
And there’s the rub. As long as we categorise behaviour by gender, we’ll perpetuate a dynamic that permits shitty behaviour with gender as an excuse.
This belittles men, especially those who are single fathers and have similar career struggles as single mothers. Our perceptions create our reality and if we constantly think we've been given the short end of the stick then we'll look for evidence around us to prove this perception. There's a whole other side to motherhood that comes with fulfillment, meaning, and growth.
> This belittles men
Does it, or is is a complaint about the patriarchy? I don't see any part of the OP comment that seems misandrist or reducing the role that engaged fathers play.
The assumption that being a father is easy denies the lived experience of fathers. How would she know whether being a father is easy or not? She's never been one.
She would know that in her society there are different sets of expectations about fathers than mothers, and that seems to be what she's aiming at? Are you sure you're not over-reading into what she actually wrote?
Then she would do well to look inwards and try to understand why that is. We all have to play the hand we are dealt. The sooner one realises this, the sooner one can begin the path to happiness.
"My soul, will you ever be good, simple, individual, bare, brighter than the body that covers you? Will you ever taste the disposition to love and affection? Will you ever be complete and free of need, missing nothing, desiring nothing live or lifeless for the enjoyment of pleasure? Or time for longer enjoyment, or amenity of place, space, and climate? Or good company? No, will you not rather be satisfied with your present state and take pleasure in all that is presently yours? Will you not convince yourself that all your experience comes from the gods, that all is well and all will be well for you, all that the gods see fit to give you, now and hereafter, in the maintenance of that perfect Being which is good and just and beautiful, which generates all things, sustains and contains all things, embraces all things as they dissolve into the generation of others like them? Will you ever be such as to share the society of gods and men without any criticism of them or condemnation by them?" -- Marcus Aurelius
We are not "dealt a hand". There are many possibilities, and the idea that you have to take the simplest, most obvious, one is largely false. There are other people in this thread talking about how they did things differently.
There are many ways to play a hand in poker, just as in life. Doesn't mean you don't have one.
I'd love for everyone to start out with the same hand. But this is not a gender issue. This is a human issue. The sooner we realise we're just duking it out in the gutter while the real winning hands are laughing in the street the better.
I wonder if you understand that your comment essentially amounts to "those disadvantaged by prejudice should simply accept their place"
It is within your power to influence others and change society. It's not within your power to change your essential biology.
>I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living.
Agree on judgement, but duties and freedom and care-free living?
Sorry, both are gone for fathers too. At least those who care (talking as a father here).
Sure, a woman has even less freedom for a few years after a child is born. And a caring partner will try to at least ease this period for a woman.
But rest of a time? It's pretty 50/50 in my experience. My wife (also a backend dev like myself) has her career and her free time, in our family we share cleaning duties and all the cooking is on me (both because I'm better at it and it's less of a burden for me).
I'd like to eliminate judgement (and event more often self-judgement) she sometime faces, but for now I have no solution to present.
Bottom line: it's a fantasy to thing that a responsible father just carries on with whatever life he had before the kid was born and just occasionally fetches one from school to have a few word on the go.
Yes, there are no solutions, only trade offs.
I believe procreation is the highest impact a human can achieve.
The result of 14 billion years of cosmic evolution, a thermodynamic miracle, the waking universe looking back on itself.
Imagine what we can achieve when robots can do the laundry and dishes.
> Imagine what we can achieve when robots can do the laundry and dishes.
First, you mean like clothes washers and dishwashers, which already exist?
Second, my imagination of what we can achieve by procreation seems limited to "more humans". A trillion humans? A quadrillion humans? Enlighten me.
hm.
I don't know why you couldn't be a great father. In the sense you're talking about. I know it would come with the physical baggage (or not, if you adopt?)
A friend I love dearly is raising a 3 year old little girl... she never expected to get pregnant at 42... and she is as much a father as a mother. She lets the girl play in mud puddles while other parents stare, and collect bugs, and go look at art in museums. Absolutely unconcerned with how the world thinks a mom with a 3 year old should behave.
[edit] it did slow my friend's career over the past few years, but, didn't kill it. And she's back to it now. But more importantly... I've never seen anyone love anything as much, even when she says she's frustrated out of her mind. And me, not having kids, I'm a little jealous of that feeling.
[edit2] I'm an uncle, so maybe that's more my speed ... just jumping in for the easy fun parts and teaching the kids new things and being the visiting fireman. But that's not what being a father is, at least as far as my brother's day to day driving them to and from school and taking care of them.
My brother is the fun uncle of my daughter. Know the fun uncle is always appreciated. You should visit them soon :) And tell my brother to get back here for his overdue visit.
Hehe aww, thanks. Can't tell ya how much I love those kids. They're 4 and 6. The boy is just obsessed with baseball. They live down in LA, I'm in PDX. When they come up here, they get so excited like I'm the best part of visiting Portland, and when I'm heading down my bro tells them I'm coming and they just wanna tell me jokes or sing songs or shoot hoops. (I'm always raising the basket hahah). It is seriously the ultra light easy version of not having kids but just seeing them at their best. lol. They're best friends. My brother and his wife tell me they're never that chill with each other except when they want to impress me. But my brother and his wife, they astonish me all the time with the patience and attention they show the kids.
Anyway, your bro is missing out. Send him an invitation.
> ... And be praised whenever a diaper is changed or I fetch the little one from school.
I may be calling names now, but maybe this is an unnecessary "oldschool" meme that should already be forgotten. In my country (Estonia), I don't see dads actually being praised for every small childcare chore they courageously complete. Nobody does that, really. It's more like a meme that e.g. feminists love to bring about and keep alive in Facebook or elsewehere, thus showing an ongoing conflict between men and women (or -- being a man vs being a woman, with women actually as the superior sex or side). Let it fade away finally, for god's sake, and let dads quietly do their thing.
Source: first-hand experience as a primary caregiver for our children for several years, while the mom was working full time. It was not really an optimal scenario in terms of sharing economical responsibility (it did raise conflicts at times), but I liked "doing stuff" with both children, and never expected any direct admiration from society, etc. Luckily, I also didn't get almost any of this. :) I just did my thing as a dad, got children to kindergarten and then back home, did all the kid-chores there as well, etc, and those were some beautiful times.
I'm in Hong Kong, fathers do get praised for childcare chores but it also comes with a downside. Despite being very active in my school PTA, being one of the only fathers being a "Class Parent", and spending a lot more time at my son's school, whenever my son is hurt the reflex they have is to always call the mother. And that's despite the fact that everytime my wife tells them to call me.
They praise dads for being involved because they don't see it as normal and as they don't see it as normal, they always think that the mother is somehow the person to contact in emergencies. I'd much rather not be praised for every little thing and for people here to trust in a father's competence.
Great example, thanks for sharing! We seem to have that same reflex (always calling moms in case of emergency) in our country. I guess it just takes time, probably a few decades, for societies to really start trusting dads as caregivers equally to moms. By trust in this regard I mean "pay no attention whatsoever to the sex of the caregiver because it doesn't matter".
In the UK someone described me as a "mothering" father. i.e. people (and very nice people) struggle with finding the vocabulary to describe men looking after children.
its changing slowly but we are very far from society accepting men as equal parents.
What an interesting comment. Do you feel that the aspects of fatherhood that you are most jealous of are relatively lower expectations of time commitment directly watching after the kid and encouragement of professional success?
And if it’s not too prying to ask what are your ideal expectations for your partner? How important is their career? What is their ideal role in childrearing?
Thanks for the curiosity. The most attractive aspect of fatherhood is two fold: not having to be an incubator while also sharing genetic material, and being shielded from the brunt of the judgement when a ball inevitably gets dropped.
The first since I am highly conscious of my physical and mental health, and I am terrified of haywire hormones and bodily changes out of my control.
The second due to the societal norms put onto mothers where I am from (SoCal). When a child shows up to school in dirty clothes, the mom is blamed, not the father absent of other evidence.
It is also my direct lived experience; my father provided, my mother worked while also caring for us, and bore all the responsibility and blame while my dad got to do the fun part.
I heard my mother complain about her career sacrifice, of cleaning the snot off her fine blouses when I would cry into her arms. I resolved to make different choices, but in doing so, I ask what other choices could I make? If these are the two role models presented to me, why would I ever want the position of my mom?
I'm a house-husband to a wife with a womb who birthed our daughter. She's a software dev at a major software company. I did most of the diapers (little one is soon 7 and out of them for a while now), I do all the cooking. We had daycare partially to give breaks, but also so the little one would get good social exposure at a young age. I sadly can't drive due to a mix of anxiety and sedating medication for other health stuff, so she does before-school appointments most of the time (so she can go to the office after without me having to bus home), but for the most part I come along with appointments and I'm the one to go along on school trips and do the before and after school bus times. I do almost all the away playdates, with playdates at home being a joint endeavor.
Her carefree living has gone, but she can still go to work parties while I stay home and look after our daughter. She's never told me she experienced any overt judgement about being the sole breadwinner (there was a male manager who asked her after mat leave how her vacation was. I wonder how much he was involved in the early years of raising his kids‽). I will admit I do get more praise than I should be for doing my role, but really that praise is pretty empty, the bar is so low for men. The praise I do get mainly comes from women older than us. I've only once gotten a "Mr. Mom" comment and that was from an older American acquaintance.
She took about 4 months off if I recall correctly for mat leave after our daughter was born. She was going crazy at home.
She has some limitations for sure, she feels like she's as far as she'll get at least while our daughter is young, in terms of the promo-game. But she and the company are content with where she's at, though she is a bit envious at times about how some of her colleagues have been promoted to higher levels despite starting at the same time or after her.
She's very involved and a great mom.
I hope that didn't come off as a brag (I'm terrible at keeping the place clean and tidy, we hire help for that), my point is that you probably can have a high-impact career, be sexually attracted to men, and have a womb, and have a child. The freedom and care-free living will go regardless of one's gender, that's just part of being a good parent. There are plenty of men out there up for a majority parenting role.
For some context I'm around 40, and in my age group there's a lot more involved fathers (we see lone fathers with children at the park all the time, including with solely presenting-female children) and working mothers than when I was a child. Living in a major city in Ontario, Canada.
Where I live, no Dad is being praised for changing a diaper. And golf clubs suffer.
> And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living.
Being a father myself, i can say it’s a huge sacrifice. If I was to guess why birth rate is dropping, it’s entirely because people are having kids later or not at all so they can focus on themselves.
Start with the Dad jokes. That's the gateway to gender freedom in parenting!
You can hire a nanny. I know there's stigma there, too, but I know some "career women" who do this and it works fine. If you're that motivated (and your interests are lucrative enough), you can pull it off.
I don't know how much this would change things, expectations in particular, but there are guys like me who would like to be stay at home fathers.
I feel you but this kind of discourse only polarizes the already divided society. Mothers face a lot of difficulties, and fathers also do. Arguing whose fate is worse seems really unproductive, what makes sense is looking forward and working towards diminishing the effects of these disadvantages.
What you wrote above is just unfair.
I'd like to have my cake and eat it too. It's your choice whether you want to spend your life being envious about cherry-picked parts of other people's lives, or whether you learn to appreciate and enjoy the things you do have. This cherry picking is the exact poison that social media delivers, making people depressed the world over. I guess men and women have always felt it about each other. The big difference is that men cannot have what women have, but women can have at least some of what men have.
Get a surrogate maybe? Should tick many of the boxes you have listed.
None of that stuff really seems that difficult or time consuming. I think the danger of being in the position of a stay-at-home mom is that your partner can abandon you at any time and leave you with the full burden and no financial support.
I think the problem really stems from a lack of suitable men rather than the role itself
> your partner can abandon you at any time and leave you with the full burden and no financial support.
Yes, absolutely. Or that a financially-dependent partner (I'm deliberately not applying gender), even without kids (though children massively raise the stakes), can become trapped in an abusive relationship.
I'm going to wade into political waters, by pointing out that this is a wider problem that can be addressed at the societal level. When the full burden of all poor outcomes is placed upon unsupported individuals, then individuals in aggregate respond by making more-cautious decisions - whether that's to stay in an abusive relationship, avoid having children, have fewer children, or avoid relationships altogether. The same could be pointed out for the choice between, eg, choosing corporate employment vs trying entrepreneurship. A society that insulates its citizens against some downside risks allows individuals more agency over their own lives.