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My $0.02 is being a mom sucks. In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house, but their wives are working just
by itake 1y ago
My $0.02 is being a mom sucks.
In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house, but their wives are working just as many hours the men are. Having kids means tension in relationship, unpaid labor by the woman, and stress parenting kids. Even if the husband steps up, he still can't breast feed for 3 hours per day.
Pregnancy is really terrible on the woman's body. Post-partem disorders, child birth problems, its just not nice.
Then when you finally get back to your career after 3 months - 5 years, you're passed on promotions, you're n-months behind your peers, and you just don't have the time to hustle for a promotion if you're time is consumed raising kids.
Or if you choose not to have kids, you get financially rewarded for your time. You get more professional responsibility and career development. You get external validation for your hard work (bonuses, promotions, etc). You get full control of your own money, without needing to negotiate spending your partner's money. You get to live in a better location, because smaller places are more affordable near your work. You don't have a 1+ hour commute to your job.
Being a mom just sucks.
- qmr 1y ago> unpaid labor I have never expected to be paid for raising my children.
- acdha 1y agoNo, but if the load is uneven and you’re giving up career possibilities it becomes harder not to think about what you were giving up because instead of some hard to quantify 1950s-style bargain you’ll be thinking of lost promotions relative to your peers when you're doing laundry at 11pm.
- PakistaniDenzel 1y agoNo - being a mom and having to work full time sucks. Being a full time mom probably isn't that bad.
- louwrentius 1y agoSome Women who are full time mothers report feeling isolated. Many chose to keep their job even if all the money goes to day care.
- scottyah 1y agoMaking friends irl is hard when everyone has TVs and phones
- supertrope 1y agoThere's also the benefits of career progression, avoiding a long resume gap, saving for retirement, not being financially dependent on your spouse, and increased financial resilience for the family.
- beefnugs 1y agoAll modern problems are capitalism problems
- wolfgangK 1y agoYou forgot the "/s", or do you actually believe that it's capitalism's fault is a mother taking care of her children is "unpaid labor" ?
- more_corn 1y agoI can think of some communism problems that are not capitalism problems. Central planners causing famine that kills millions not once but twice that I know of. Also reports from communist nations sound like living under communism sucks balls. I suppose the Nordic socialist democracies are pretty nice. They probably have birth rates below replacement levels as well though. It turns out if you offer women the choice to have a career, enough of them take it that you drop below the replacement rate.
- dividefuel 1y agoIf you read forums of new parents (e.g. parenting subreddits), the common consensus is that being a stay at home parent is far harder than a job.
- tjwebbnorfolk 1y agoYes of course being a mom AND WORKING A FULLTIME JOB sucks because doing anything that effortful and working a job sucks. Drinking beer and playing video games for 10 hours a day AND WORKING A FULLTIME JOB would also suck. From everything I hear, being a mom is pretty awesome and rewarding. But there are only 24 hours in a day and you can't have everything and you have to choose what is most important. Welcome to life.
- lazyasciiart 1y ago> From everything I hear, being a mom is pretty awesome and rewarding. Then you don’t even read magazines, let alone mom forums, or attend playgroup, or basically hear anything.
- cFyrute 1y ago[flagged]
- bombcar 1y agoHere’s the key to understanding-ask what they would change and it’s usually something kid-adjacent but not directly kid related. For example, grocery pickup at Walmart has been the best gift to mothers since disposable diapers.
- tjwebbnorfolk 1y agoLet me guess: you're not married, nor do you have kids, nor do you hang out with people who have kids.
- lazyasciiart 1y agoWrong on every count. And I’m a woman, so I probably have a hell of a lot more exposure to moms than most people pontificating away here.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- KaoruAoiShiho 1y agoNot convinced that this is down to women. In my personal experience women want to have kids wayyyy more than men it is the men who are refusing them or want to delay. In fact I would say this is basically everyone I know, the men are the ones being anti-natal while women want kids way earlier.
- pantalaimon 1y agoI think it depends on age. Men in their 20ies don't want kids because they still want to enjoy life without responsibility, but by the time they are in their 30ies they are ready to settle down and the idea of having a family becomes more and more appealing.
- KaoruAoiShiho 1y agoYes and that is too late and in the meantime have wasted 10 fertile years of 2 or 3 female partners.
- lisbbb 1y agoOh good god! Get over yourself! Those 2-3 female partners were willing participants, not being led on. If you believe they were being led on, then you are not saying very much about women and their level of intelligence! I don't feel as though I wasted any of the "fertile years" of my female partners who ended up not wanting to marry me! I had a couple of different long-term relationships in my 20s before I found a woman to marry and start a family with, which we did just fine in our 30s despite having two miscarriages in between kid #1 and kid #2.
- potato3732842 1y agoIf 20-something women wanted kids at that age they could marry 30-something men who want to settle down if they were suitable marriage/mother material in the eyes of those men.
- angmarsbane 1y agoSame boat. I know a number of women who couldn't find partners who both wanted kids and could pay half the bills so those women are now freezing their eggs or pursuing single motherhood by choice. Of the woman I know who are married, all of them had to talk their husbands into the first child and second child.
- triceratops 1y ago> In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house As a man in a "modern relationship" I strenuously object to this. I mean yeah I want that (who wouldn't?), but I know I'm not going to get it because my partner has a job too so we have to help each other. Literally every one of my married male friends also regularly cooks and cleans.
- UncleMeat 1y agoMany men advocate for an equitable household. But the stats are clear. Women still perform substantially more labor at home than men do across the US population.
- epicureanideal 1y agoThe stats are rigged and biased by not counting the types of work men do, and if they did count it they wouldn’t reach the “right” conclusions so wouldn’t be published. This is written about quite a bit.
- fknorangesite 1y ago> This is written about quite a bit. Go on.
- epicureanideal 1y agoIt’s sometimes difficult to find the links through Google on short notice but I found one random site that discusses this. Of course the site is pro fathers but they do link to primary sources to verify the claims in the article. There are plenty of other places this is discussed, and I’m not associated with and haven’t ever before read the following website. It just happened to easily show up in my search. https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-good-life-these-chores-dont-count-on-mens-hidden-second-shift/ https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-good-life-th...
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- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- echelon 1y agoI think that you're right and that this is one of the predominant reasons for declining child births. I think that if I were a woman that I would personally choose career or personal life first before having children, all other things in my life held equal. I have a lot invested in those things, they're here and tangible, and they bring me joy. Media says that it's the economy, but I've never once believed that to be the leading factor. People had babies when they didn't have fresh food, running water, or even homes. Certainly far worse lives than we have today. Peter Zeihan, whose YouTube prognostications seem iffy, likes to call children "expensive furniture". They were useful labor on the farm a hundred years ago, but in small apartments they can be a real nuisance. Modern parenting is wild - there are too many rules and regulations and things just have to be just perfect to have a kid. Our great grandparents just had them all over the place and would let them roam around in the wilderness. Today we have to coddle and bubble wrap, sign them up for classes, take them places. Just thinking about it seems stressful. At the same time, we've got these little dopamine cubes in our pockets that are taking our time away from socializing and dating and meeting people. It takes time and deliberation to find someone to settle down and commit to raising "expensive furniture" with for the next twenty years. You can just keep scrolling your feed and filling life with experiences. Perhaps instead it's that the modern life creates the perception that something different or exciting could be just around the corner - like a kind of hedonistic treadmill, or wishful longing. Our ancestors just accepted their fate and lived their short lives. We have too many things taking our time and attention, and everything has to be "perfect" before we commit. Not making any value judgments here, just stating observations.
- itake 1y agoYeah, drives me crazy when governments are trying to lower the cost of childcare with tax incentives or creating dating apps to encourage connectivity. Yeah, this might convince some people, but money is not preventing educated women from having kids. My 31-year-old ex-girlfriend told me she needs a high degree of career stability, especially after recently losing her job. Even if she landed a new role quickly, it often takes 1–2 years to feel secure and fully ramped up in a new position. As someone at a level 4/5, she'd likely be aiming for a promotion once that stability sets in. Realistically, that puts her promotion around age 33 to 35, which is right around the time when starting a family becomes more biologically challenging.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- ajkjk 1y agoThose sound like premodern relationships? Every with-it youngish person I know has long rejected that model.
- dan-robertson 1y agoYou say ‘modern relationships’ but I feel like you’re describing a stereotypical 1950s relationship in that paragraph. The lack of contrast surprises me.
- itake 1y agoin the 1950s, your choice for life partner is the 50 kids in your high school class. Women got married below the age of 25 and didn't have careers. Today, Tinder and Instagram gives you access to literally the entire planet of single people and the illusion that you have the chance to be with one.
- dan-robertson 1y agoI think I agree with you that though women could work in the ’50s, there weren’t really careers available to them in the same way as for men. Maybe it is just women having ‘real’ careers and therefore higher opportunity cost/more practical liberty/fulfilling alternatives to children making a big difference. I guess what I’m getting at is that, even if you describe men’s desires accurately, I don’t think it describes their behaviour in my parents’ generation let alone mine. But maybe this just varies a lot by country/income/education/social class and I see some weird sample. I know divorce rates have become super divergent by education in the US for example so presumably relationships are quite different too.
- GuB-42 1y agoThe big difference is that mom is working now. The problem is not who does the most household work, the problem is that the one who does (usually the mom) can't compensate by not working. A single income is rarely sufficient for a family.
- dan-robertson 1y agoWasn’t the non-working housewife mostly a middle class thing and a weird blip in history? Women worked long before the baby boom either with less heavy tasks related to subsistence agriculture or cottage industries, and many worked during the baby boom. (I think the difference from today is partly different rates and partly women having actual careers in ways they didn’t before) Maybe that is a good explanation for the baby boom though.
- thrownawaysz 1y agoThe fact that this was written by a man is hilarious
- itake 1y agohow so? Most of the ideas I shared I got from the female author Logan Ury in her book, "how to not die alone"
- boogieknite 1y agoits a reasonable take and expresses my opinion as a male i have a long term spouse and let her make the call because i know it sucks too, i doubt i would sign up for it theres always adoption. yes, i know the adoption process is rigorous and expensive
- lisbbb 1y agoBeing a Dad really sucks, too--I'm unemployed at 52 at what should be the height of my career when my kids really need someone who is making money so help pay for college tuition and my wife has cancer, so save it how rough breast feeding is when breast feeding only last about a year or so anyways.
- itake 1y agoI'm sorry you're going through that. I don't mean to discount the man's issues with modern dating. We are trying to do our best, but its still really hard.
- BobaFloutist 1y agoGood news is if your income is still low by the time they head to college, depending on the state, in-state tuition to a state college will be reasonable or free. If your income is higher by then, it'll probably be ok.
- MisterSandman 1y agoWith the current US government, I would not count on the state subsidizing your tuition.
- BobaFloutist 1y agoWell there is that.
- like_any_other 1y agoA generation looking for fulfillment in cubicles... let me show you how that works out: In early 2017, with her 45th birthday looming and no sign of Mr. Right, she decided to start a family on her own. She excitedly unfroze the 11 eggs she had stored and selected a sperm donor. Two eggs failed to survive the thawing process. Three more failed to fertilize. That left six embryos, of which five appeared to be abnormal. The last one was implanted in her uterus. On the morning of March 7, she got the devastating news that it, too, had failed. Adams was not pregnant, and her chances of carrying her genetic child had just dropped to near zero. She remembers screaming like “a wild animal,” throwing books, papers, her laptop — and collapsing to the ground. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/01/27/feature/she-championed-the-idea-that-freezing-your-eggs-would-free-your-career-but-things-didnt-quite-work-out/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/01/27/f...
- oceansky 1y agoCubicles? I would love one, today it's nearly always open offices.
- imtringued 1y agoI consider this medical malpractice. Freezing eggs in your late 30s is way too late. You're taking an almost infertile woman and subjecting her to unnecessary complications while taking her money even though the staff should be fully aware that this is going to end in failure. In vitro fertilization simply does not worth reliably beyond 35. You need eggs from your early 20s. After 35 your last option is natural conception, because multiple passes of IVF are incredibly expensive. It's like a lottery at that point. Natural conception is worse, but you have 12 free tickets every year for five years. That will get you two children if you are lucky.
- znpy 1y ago> In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house, but their wives are working just as many hours the men are. This absolutely isn't the reality I observe in my circle, but I acknowledge it was the reality for my parents and grandparents. Not gonna lie: it just seems like you made a poor choice in picking a partner. Don't blame it on the entire male population.
- senectus1 1y agoyour experience sucks. I'm a 50 yr old man with two teenagers and a wife, I'm the major bread winner, but we both work 5 days a week. I do most the shopping and cooking. being a mum doesn't have to suck. choices are being weighed and made.
- yegle 1y ago> Even if the husband steps up, he still can't breast feed for 3 hours per day. Breast pump is a thing, the husband can definitely do the feeding with frozen breast milk warmed up in minutes. Or just do formula.
- thehappypm 1y agoYes, and no. Even if dad can give the baby mom‘s pumped breastmilk, Mom still needs to pump more to keep the supply up and avoid pain. So mom has to wake up anyway.
- phil21 1y agoAnd conversely being a dad sucks. For the same reasons you list. There is no longer a way to come up with a sane division of labor for the average couple. Both parents are not intended to be working full time. It does not work for either party. Heck, humans are not designed to operate as two parents even. There should be multiple generations of help at hand for it to truly be a decent experience. Humans need breaks and our hyper scheduled existence is entirely unnatural. I watch friends who have kids where both have professional careers and to be honest none of it looks like a fun time. I don’t think it’s good for the kids either. 15-20 years of “sucking it up” and dealing with a horribly overbooked and stressful life is not good for any party. Women have it worse on average, but no one appears to be having a good time.
- beng-nl 1y agoGreetings from the trenches. My wife and I both work (because we both want to but, realistically, we also don’t have much choice). We split it all 50-50, and I pay more because I earn more, but There isn’t enough time for the house work, childcare, and work. Let alone time for ourselves or for eachother. It leads to tension and stress for both. So I’ve had enough of “mothers have it so tough and dads have it so easy” Any way thank you for making me feel seen.
- giantg2 1y agoAlmost everything you said can apply to father's too. Plus the way father's are treated in family court. Being a father can suck.
- epolanski 1y agoBeing a mother is always going to be tougher than being a father. But, I don't share at all the bit where men just want to work, etc, that's really not the experience of most couples I know (Europe, non rural).
- ambicapter 1y agoIt sucks even more when you're broke, which too many people are right now. We've optimized for extracting money from people, it's no wonder they have no more money to spend on their children. Since they now have more choice to not have children, well, they're going to make the obvious choice on a population level.
- cm2012 1y agoIve been married for 12 years and know a dozen married couples pretty well. I know of one where the husband expects to come home to a meal and a clean house. Chores are almost always split. Me, my dad and my brother in law all do more chores than our wives. The only couple actually like the gender stereotype you invoke is a conservative one in their 60s.
- mitthrowaway2 1y agoI like being a parent much more than being a breadwinner. Working in an office, commuting, sitting in front of a computer, climbing the ladder, meetings, deadlines, office politics, fighting for promotions and raises and bonuses, OKRs and KPIs, insane pivots to chase fads, the constant fear of layoffs hanging over your head... It sucks. The only rewarding part is coming home to my partner and child. I much prefer cooking, cleaning, and parenting. I would choose being a full-time parent in a heartbeat over my career if I had the option. But due to my particular skills, my earning potential is much higher than my partner's. It wouldn't make much sense for us. So I slog it out so we can afford what we need. She works too, but not full-time. But so much of what you talk about is foreign to me. My partner and I have no concept of "my own money" vs "my partner's money"; it all goes into a joint account that we both control and we trust each other to spend wisely. And yeah of course we both share the housework and childraising (because that's table stakes for an egalitarian relationship). I don't just come home from work and play video games or something. Seeing my kid grow, play, and copy me is the biggest external validation I could ask for. If you value your income more than your kids, then you either shouldn't have kids, or you should marry someone who prioritizes domestic work and parenting over their career. But then don't think they're not pulling their weight just because they earn less than you. That said, I think if the government wants to encourage more babies, it should pay a basic income to stay-at-home parents, something perhaps comparable to the cost of daycare. Then maybe people like you won't consider it unpaid labor anymore and it will become a more respected option.
- nottorp 1y ago> it should pay a basic income to stay-at-home parents However, birth rates are through the floor even in countries with 2 years paid parental leave.
- mitthrowaway2 1y agoTrue. The pay you get on that leave is according to the pay you earn at your job, is it not? If so, that's a policy that rewards working parents with busy, high-paying careers, having kids later in life, rather than young full-time parents. I don't know which policy is better but that might be one reason.
- MangoToupe 1y agoTbf, the pressure to have a career also sucks.
- sjw987 1y ago"In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house" This is a sexist take. It is not universally true, and a like-for-like retort would be considered sexist.
- dyauspitr 1y agoBetween daycare, transportation to events, eating out and paying for cleaners because you don’t have time to do them yourselves all add up. Unless you’re making more than $60k it doesn’t make financial sense for the mom to work.
- ponector 1y agoAnd then all your favorite activities are either impossible of much more expensive with a kid. As simple as it is: to travel somewhere pay more for kids, get more expensive hotel room capable of 3 guests. Sports? Who will stay with kids during your trainings?