Mums have it easy
Discussion
I work 2 jobs and am steadily selling off my bikes/guitars/ other toys (bought by doing shot loads of overtime when I was younger) in order to pay the mortgage. Mrs has given up work, although she is thinking about doing some voluntary work in the summer...
She just spent £400 on tropical fish!
She just spent £400 on tropical fish!
meehaja said:
I work 2 jobs and am steadily selling off my bikes/guitars/ other toys (bought by doing shot loads of overtime when I was younger) in order to pay the mortgage. Mrs has given up work, although she is thinking about doing some voluntary work in the summer...
She just spent £400 on tropical fish!
Tequila Girl? She just spent £400 on tropical fish!
I am obviously living in some fantasy world and was never exposed to all this wisdom and experience. This thread seems to be the companion piece to single women over thirty thread , and a cousin of the Little bit council and Little bit private threads.
Are there so many disgruntled and angry men out there? My first wife was a senior financial executive who worked full time until having a child and then took off work to raise him. By that stage I was in a position where there was no huge financial need for her to work. However I would say that the time she devoted to child raising and providing a constant presence in the home avoided the whole latchkey problem.
My present wife is a highly qualified lawyer and does not work but organizes all things domestic including couples social life. This is by choice as I am personally much happier working and feeling deadline pressure. We each get our preferred lifestyle. I have no doubt whatsoever that in either case they would have continued working had there been a financial necessity.
Ptofessionally and personally the women I have known personally have in general borne very little resemblance to the mindless,shallow,grasping,man hating monsters that seem to inhabit many peoples' lives here and the crude or pretentious behaviour that shows up suggest to me that the guys experiencing this nightmarish misery should think hard about improving their relationships or terminating them. All this moaning suggests that people would prefer to lie in the bed they made rather than get off their arses and do something about it.
Are there so many disgruntled and angry men out there? My first wife was a senior financial executive who worked full time until having a child and then took off work to raise him. By that stage I was in a position where there was no huge financial need for her to work. However I would say that the time she devoted to child raising and providing a constant presence in the home avoided the whole latchkey problem.
My present wife is a highly qualified lawyer and does not work but organizes all things domestic including couples social life. This is by choice as I am personally much happier working and feeling deadline pressure. We each get our preferred lifestyle. I have no doubt whatsoever that in either case they would have continued working had there been a financial necessity.
Ptofessionally and personally the women I have known personally have in general borne very little resemblance to the mindless,shallow,grasping,man hating monsters that seem to inhabit many peoples' lives here and the crude or pretentious behaviour that shows up suggest to me that the guys experiencing this nightmarish misery should think hard about improving their relationships or terminating them. All this moaning suggests that people would prefer to lie in the bed they made rather than get off their arses and do something about it.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my OP, but my main point was that if they're just a stay at home mum and complain how difficult it is, it just isn't!
Looking after kids and your partner earns enough that you don't need to work? Absolutely no problem.
Looking after kids and doing part-time work? Absolutely no problem.
Looking after kids and studying? Absolutely no problem.
Looking after kids, choose not to work or study, moan how difficult it is, expect your partner to take over kid duty when they get in...problem!
I feel so guilty that my wife goes out to work everyday and all I do is play with my lovely children. If I wasn't doing my masters I'd feel embarrassed to be alive.
Looking after kids and your partner earns enough that you don't need to work? Absolutely no problem.
Looking after kids and doing part-time work? Absolutely no problem.
Looking after kids and studying? Absolutely no problem.
Looking after kids, choose not to work or study, moan how difficult it is, expect your partner to take over kid duty when they get in...problem!
I feel so guilty that my wife goes out to work everyday and all I do is play with my lovely children. If I wasn't doing my masters I'd feel embarrassed to be alive.
The ultimate divide is whether you see spending a morning doing potato printing with your sprog as a chore getting in the way of doing something unimportant or whether you see it as the most superb opportunity to get someone to be incredibly proud of a sheet of multicoloured knob images.
I very much suspect that one of the reasons that blokes find it natuarally easier to entertain children all day long is that we've never really grown up and not only instinctively know how to waste an entire day but how to make children entertain us while entertaining themselves.
I very much suspect that one of the reasons that blokes find it natuarally easier to entertain children all day long is that we've never really grown up and not only instinctively know how to waste an entire day but how to make children entertain us while entertaining themselves.
DonkeyApple said:
I very much suspect that one of the reasons that blokes find it natuarally easier to entertain children all day long is that we've never really grown up and not only instinctively know how to waste an entire day but how to make children entertain us while entertaining themselves.
Speaking for yourself?IME women seem to be naturally better with kids, and most blokes I know had no interest in kids stuff until they had children of their own.
I'm a single dad of two kids under 10 who, after much legal wrangling, live with me.
I'm quite capable of caring for them, providing security and consistency, working with the school to get them a decent education, running my own business in a daily six hour window, running my house including obviously all cooking, cleaning and maintenance and looking after our vehicles. The problem is not doing all of these things but it's doing them well and often at the same time. It is hard work and a decent wife & mother is worth their weight in gold.
I'm quite capable of caring for them, providing security and consistency, working with the school to get them a decent education, running my own business in a daily six hour window, running my house including obviously all cooking, cleaning and maintenance and looking after our vehicles. The problem is not doing all of these things but it's doing them well and often at the same time. It is hard work and a decent wife & mother is worth their weight in gold.
RicharDC5 said:
DonkeyApple said:
I very much suspect that one of the reasons that blokes find it natuarally easier to entertain children all day long is that we've never really grown up and not only instinctively know how to waste an entire day but how to make children entertain us while entertaining themselves.
Speaking for yourself?IME women seem to be naturally better with kids, and most blokes I know had no interest in kids stuff until they had children of their own.
DonkeyApple said:
RicharDC5 said:
DonkeyApple said:
I very much suspect that one of the reasons that blokes find it natuarally easier to entertain children all day long is that we've never really grown up and not only instinctively know how to waste an entire day but how to make children entertain us while entertaining themselves.
Speaking for yourself?IME women seem to be naturally better with kids, and most blokes I know had no interest in kids stuff until they had children of their own.
Looking after kids takes good organisation. I'd say the people who can't organise a piss up in a brewery/look after a kid are the ones being childish.
If a childish mentality is best for looking after them, then the best people to look after kids would be other kids.
RicharDC5 said:
DonkeyApple said:
RicharDC5 said:
DonkeyApple said:
I very much suspect that one of the reasons that blokes find it natuarally easier to entertain children all day long is that we've never really grown up and not only instinctively know how to waste an entire day but how to make children entertain us while entertaining themselves.
Speaking for yourself?IME women seem to be naturally better with kids, and most blokes I know had no interest in kids stuff until they had children of their own.
Looking after kids takes good organisation. I'd say the people who can't organise a piss up in a brewery/look after a kid are the ones being childish.
If a childish mentality is best for looking after them, then the best people to look after kids would be other kids.
I bought some nunchucks for my nephew last week because we have been playing a lot lately with wooden swords and shields in the garden. He's obsessed with medieval weapons at the moment.
I haven't seen him yet, but I've not been able to stop playing with them in the meantime. At this rate I'll be like Bruce Lee by next weekend.
I haven't seen him yet, but I've not been able to stop playing with them in the meantime. At this rate I'll be like Bruce Lee by next weekend.
DonkeyApple said:
RicharDC5 said:
DonkeyApple said:
RicharDC5 said:
DonkeyApple said:
I very much suspect that one of the reasons that blokes find it natuarally easier to entertain children all day long is that we've never really grown up and not only instinctively know how to waste an entire day but how to make children entertain us while entertaining themselves.
Speaking for yourself?IME women seem to be naturally better with kids, and most blokes I know had no interest in kids stuff until they had children of their own.
Looking after kids takes good organisation. I'd say the people who can't organise a piss up in a brewery/look after a kid are the ones being childish.
If a childish mentality is best for looking after them, then the best people to look after kids would be other kids.
RicharDC5 said:
Speaking for yourself?
IME women seem to be naturally better with kids, and most blokes I know had no interest in kids stuff until they had children of their own.
DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted. IME women seem to be naturally better with kids, and most blokes I know had no interest in kids stuff until they had children of their own.
Good grief indeed.
DonkeyApple said:
Legend83 said:
Try having twins! (although it pays dividends when they get to school age)
If it makes you feel better having children only one year apart is harder work than twins. At least with twins you can line them up and shovel the same stuff into them and also use same nappies, same clothes and generally be doing the same things at the same time. And they both sod off to nursery simultaneously. Happy days coming!
And to be fair, we have the income to support them. I'd really not want to be in this position on minimum wage.
RicharDC5 said:
DonkeyApple said:
RicharDC5 said:
DonkeyApple said:
RicharDC5 said:
DonkeyApple said:
I very much suspect that one of the reasons that blokes find it natuarally easier to entertain children all day long is that we've never really grown up and not only instinctively know how to waste an entire day but how to make children entertain us while entertaining themselves.
Speaking for yourself?IME women seem to be naturally better with kids, and most blokes I know had no interest in kids stuff until they had children of their own.
Looking after kids takes good organisation. I'd say the people who can't organise a piss up in a brewery/look after a kid are the ones being childish.
If a childish mentality is best for looking after them, then the best people to look after kids would be other kids.
DonkeyApple said:
It's not an inability to grow up. That's the part you have misinterpreted. It's just highlighting that men still play games whether it be sport or boys toys when adults and that makes it naturally much easier to keep children actively entertained.
Precisely, when my boys were babies/toddlers I was a spare parent basically (in charge of fetching and carrying and holding things). Now they're older, I'm coming into my own. When I'm not at work I'm with my two lads. Whether it's fixing the car, playing football/cricket, going swimming or just arsing about with things for the sake of it (I spent an evening last week coding a little text-based adventure game in python with my 8 year old). In the main, men have hobbies, women have problems.
Best of luck...I've got two kids. For some of this we paid the equivalent of a second mortgage for childcare so my wife could go back to work. The rest of the time she was a stay-at home mum.
It wasn't the happiest time in our marriage in some ways, although in retrospect they were golden years in terms of parenthood.
We would bicker about what to do at the weekend, I wanted a bit of space to enjoy being at home after a week at work, she wanted memorable family days out. She would compare me to other dads who were more active and spontaneous with the kids after she's done the parental "leadership" Monday to Friday. This pissed me off because I knew those "great Dads" f
ked off to the pub or watched footy on a Saturday morning whenever they fancied from what I could see.
She loved being a mum and the social network of other mums, but worried about her career which she worked hard to develop (degree & PhD). I was in a rut (not helped by serious lack of sleep with my son) and the single income made money tight, I felt I couldn't spend a penny on me and no time to myself anyway. We had no grandparents nearby so no time for 'us'. It bred a bit of conflict but we talked about it and listened to each other. Properly.
Bottom line, does it matter which role is harder? What would measuring that achieve? Each role is important with its own downsides. 6 years down the line, both kids are at school and increasingly independant. That time of them being babies/toddlers has gone, never to return. And we're proud that as parents we got through it. We made quite big changes, moved to the country, wife's career has taken off again.
What's the point of arguing who's got the easier life?
It wasn't the happiest time in our marriage in some ways, although in retrospect they were golden years in terms of parenthood.
We would bicker about what to do at the weekend, I wanted a bit of space to enjoy being at home after a week at work, she wanted memorable family days out. She would compare me to other dads who were more active and spontaneous with the kids after she's done the parental "leadership" Monday to Friday. This pissed me off because I knew those "great Dads" f
ked off to the pub or watched footy on a Saturday morning whenever they fancied from what I could see.She loved being a mum and the social network of other mums, but worried about her career which she worked hard to develop (degree & PhD). I was in a rut (not helped by serious lack of sleep with my son) and the single income made money tight, I felt I couldn't spend a penny on me and no time to myself anyway. We had no grandparents nearby so no time for 'us'. It bred a bit of conflict but we talked about it and listened to each other. Properly.
Bottom line, does it matter which role is harder? What would measuring that achieve? Each role is important with its own downsides. 6 years down the line, both kids are at school and increasingly independant. That time of them being babies/toddlers has gone, never to return. And we're proud that as parents we got through it. We made quite big changes, moved to the country, wife's career has taken off again.
What's the point of arguing who's got the easier life?
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