I edited the title because I had to, because it said “reasonable” instead “unreasonable”… lol…
The second shift.
We’re certainly not perfect, at it as my fiancée is more a planner and I’m more knock down obstacles as I get to 'em. Which shakes out as if we want things done well they’re assigned to my fiancée, and if we want things done at all they’re assigned to me. So even though we try, my better half is house manager and I’m house minion.
I can see this being a useful strategy. A lot often falls on my wife. But it’s like fighting an uphill battle to help. She asks for it, but if I take the initiative, often she just gets annoyed with how I did it. If I ask her she gives me a list of way too detailed processes for menial tasks. It just makes me feel like an employee. Like, girl, I love you, but I know how to mop my house. What is this transforming cleaning tool you’re using and why are you handing me a page with 12 steps of instructions? Just let me mop the damn floor how I know to do it.
I’m a lady, and think that the expectation that men ought not be too emotional is absolutely damaging and unreasonable and am not sure how it still persists.
The second shift - get yourself a single dad, ladies! And a cleaning service for the biweekly bigger cleaning. I don’t have that problem. We do each have half a second shift because that stuff doesn’t go away, but it’s shared, and I didn’t need to explain that it exists.
I’m a lady, and think that the expectation that men ought not be too emotional is absolutely damaging and unreasonable and am not sure how it still persists.
Thank you.
What does “second shift” mean here? Is it related to emotional baggage?
Housework and mental load, a lot of times guys come home and relax, and don’t realize (or don’t care) that the reason they can do that is because their female partners are handling so much more of the other work.
It’s not true in every M/F relationship, thankfully. But is very prevalent still, the expectation that women take care of getting the kids to appointments, getting supper arranged, knowing when the toothpaste is going to run out, staying home when someone is sick, remembering to call the absent line at school when kids are out, the work outside of work is not usually evenly distributed and when trying to get it evened out guys often have to be reminded which they then interpret as nagging.
Again - this is not every relationship, even my lunatic ex was aware and handled about half of the kid and other stuff, he had a single mom and saw what she did, and I am an indifferent housekeeper at best, which probably has something to do with it. (I saw a joke somewhere about how you could have a girlfriend good in bed or one good at keeping house but not both, so I joke with the husband that he made his choice.)
Thank you for your detailed answer and letting me know of this second shift. It sounds like, the job to take care of things at home, after people get back home from their work outside of home. I read once somewhere that being a good roommate helps long term relationships succeed.
If somebody puts a file into your 3D printer without your permission, then society says you have the properly continue the print for 9 months, paying for electric & materials yourself, straight to jail if you interfere or alter quality of print, then its your property afterwards and shame on you for leaving it in a donation bin.
Of course the asshole gets to say “just a prank bro”, the cops ask why you were’t home when your house wasnt broken into, society says you should have subscribed to the print company “enhanced security” subscription for a printer you didn’t even ask for.
This is a fascinating analogy, and I couldn’t agree more.
are there any expectations based on sex, opposite or otherwise, that aren’t unreasonable?
Yes. That’s exactly why it’s always pissed me off when women I’ve worked with have had a kid one day and immediately returned to work the next. I expect all women who have the option of taking maternity leave to use it, and I find that expectation perfectly reasonable. “Society” agrees with me about that, at least to a certain extent, clearly; were that not the case, no such thing as maternity leave would even exist.
Well, it didn’t, in the US, when I was having kids. Society did not agree, it had to be fought for by moms. I did get the FMLA unpaid leave with my second set and could use accrued PTO, with the first two it was work or starve.
Sorry. It’s embarrassing that it was ever that way, in the U.S. or anywhere, I think.
I guess a counter to your example would be that paternity leave should be just as available and expected as maternity leave should be, so ideally it wouldn’t even be something specific to one sex. (Of course moms do have the painful and difficult part, but it’s also about getting the kid a good start and full attention at first)
As a man who agrees that dads should be allowed, supported and encouraged to take a long paternity leave, I must say that the idea of a woman working the day after giving birth is much more horrifying than the man working the day after his wife gave birth.
Definitely true.
I mean, yeah. Ideally, it should just be that and not what I said, which I also find sad.
Yeah partners of whatever sex should get paid parental leave, I think the problem here was that it got structured as medical leave, short term disability. Not “we just had a baby and that is taking every minute of our day, and it’s important to society to give families a good start.” It is getting better just started at below zero, less than the absolute minimum a society ought do if there was some pressing reason they needed everyone working as much as possible.