Housework Thread

[Tactical Genius]

On the mental illness front, cleaning the house may not have caused my post-partum psychosis, but it was absolutely incompatible with recovering from it. For the first year that I was out of the mother and baby unit, even though I was "just a stay at home mother" and in theory had nothing to do but parenting and housework, the only way we coped as a family was: a) we hired a very lovely Spanish woman to come in for two hours every morning to help me get both kids ready for school and walk with me to the school (she was amazing, she was a fully trained nursery teacher, but no-one would employ her because she couldn't speak much English. I have a reasonable level of Spanish fluency, and access to Google translate, so this didn't bother us at all. When she stopped working for us we gave her an excellent reference, her English had improved, and she managed to get a permanent job at one of the local nurseries), b) we paid for cleaners weekly, c) my mother-in-law came in and did all our laundry for free.

It's quite hard to explain the terrifyingly low level of functionality that I was trying to recover from. The unit said they released me at "70% of normal function", but I think I was operating at about 40%. I still had mental health professionals coming in daily to check on me. I was sleeping about 14-16 hours a day and often completely zoned out when I was awake.

Two things:

1. You Psychosis was not caused by looking at your dirty Kitchen so you are essentially not disagreeing with me.
2. Is there a reason your put "just a stay at home mother" in quotation marks?

[Sporting]

So it's officially a thing to caricature my points to debunk them, this is why I stopped contributing to that other thread. And I get accused of debating in bad faith?

Mental and psychological stress is part of life. Actually, life is more or less navigating one stressful situation to another, work, education, health, relationships.
It is the modern western society that lies to their children that life is going to be a stress-free bed of roses and nothing has to be worked for. This is further compounded by TV and social media that further compounds this nonsense. So people going through tough situations end up believing it is just them and their trials and tribulations are somewhat unique to them.
There is a reason alot of these mass-shooters end up going back to shoot up the schools they feel failed them.

Stopped contributing to which other thread?

Sorry if I caricature what you say. The written message has its limitations.

I get what you say about stress being part of life but you seem to believe - apologies again if I misunderstand - that we should just get on with things. Of course trials and tribulations are common but that knowledge doesn't make it any easier for individuals to deal with their problems. Very few people believe, unless they have huge financial advantages, that life is going to be a bed of roses.

Not sure what you're getting at by the reference to mass-shooters, to be honest.

Are you saying the men do not do any work and sit around eating and drinking all day, whilst the women graft non-stop?

Looking at the average 40 year old woman in the UK, there is a lot of pot calling the kettle black here sir. No more elaboration needed.

I'm not sure what you want to say here: maybe that I was making an unfair comparison between African and western society? I was referring to what I experienced over five years living in Sudan and travelling to Egypt and the CAR: i was exaggerating but from what I saw women worked far harder and for infinitely lesser rewards than men..

[Tactical Genius]

Stopped contributing to which other thread?

The Sarah Everard thread. I said this,
"One of the first things you are supposed to learn as a man is to remove emotions from your decision making and think and act logically. When I was a kid, boys who struggled to cope with this (usually from single-parent households) would be sent to the nearest Martial Arts and boxing gyms."

This was twisted to, "exercise makes men non violent"

and then stuff like this,

"Another murdered woman. In this instance, running cage fighting fitness classes definitely didn't provide a sufficient outlet for the man's rage and violence"

It's just tiresome having people demand i defend points I didn't make

Sorry if I caricature what you say. The written message has its limitations.

Easy way around this, extend the same courtesy i extend everyone else around here, if you disagree with me, quote me directly.

I get what you say about stress being part of life but you seem to believe - apologies again if I misunderstand - that we should just get on with things. Of course trials and tribulations are common but that knowledge doesn't make it any easier for individuals to deal with their problems. Very few people believe, unless they have huge financial advantages, that life is going to be a bed of roses.

Ok, so what do suggest people do, I would like to hear your thoughts?

Not sure what you're getting at by the reference to mass-shooters, to be honest.

Ok, what bits do you not understand or take issue with. do you not see a common profile of many of these people?

I'm not sure what you want to say here: maybe that I was making an unfair comparison between African and western society? I was referring to what I experienced over five years living in Sudan and travelling to Egypt and the CAR: i was exaggerating but from what I saw women worked far harder and for infinitely lesser rewards than men..

Ok, so what were you "exaggerating" about.
There is nothing I want you to say btw, just speak your mind, I have not been to the Sudan or the CAR but are you really saying the women do a majority of the work in these nations?

[Sporting]

Ok, so what do suggest people do, I would like to hear your thoughts?

It's not only what people who are suffering can do, but how those around them should react and respond. You wrote:" I hate working, but not as much as I hated being broke and unemployed, so I suck it in and find ways to cope".

What if somebody can't suck it in and finds it impossible to cope? My solutions: there ain't no easy ones, but empathy and understanding that we are all different and not machines would be my starting point. I am not saying, by the way, that you don't possess these qualities. Obviously if someone is bone idle that's a different issue. How can we tell? I don't know, but let's listen to the sufferers.

Ok, so what were you "exaggerating" about.
There is nothing I want you to say btw, just speak your mind, I have not been to the Sudan or the CAR but are you really saying the women do a majority of the work in these nations?

I was exaggerating when I wrote "No wonder so many of them are shagged out by age 40 while the men sit around drinking and eating." Obviously this point was made for emphasis. I mean, this board is the rough equivalent of a pub, not the Oxford Union or a law court. However:


https://www.ilo.org/africa/whats-new...-en/index.html


"in most countries for which data disaggregated by sex are available, the share of women in informal employment in non-agricultural activities outnumbers that of men. In sub-Saharan Africa, 74 per cent of women’s employment (non-agricultural) is informal, in contrast with 61 per cent for men. Female vulnerable employment (typically unpaid family work) was also considerably higher than the rate for males, at 84.3 per cent compared with 70.1 per cent for males in 2014 in Sub-Saharan Africa."

And perhaps even more relevant:


https://www.britishcouncil.org/voice...en-south-sudan

"South Sudan’s population is 83 per cent rural. Most people live as farmers and pastoralists without electricity, roads, banks, telephone networks and the other trappings of modern society. Women are more likely to die in childbirth than complete primary school. Out of a population of eight million, there are no more than a couple of thousand girls completing secondary education. Around 90 per cent of South Sudan’s women are illiterate, compared with 75 per cent of men.

Traditional tribal gender roles are rigid. Women occupy the private space and do not assume roles of leadership and decision-making in the public sphere. If there are financial constraints in a family with a son and daughter, then it is most likely the boy who goes to school. Girls who do begin primary school hardly ever finish. They are often taken out when they reach puberty for fear of molestation and harassment (this is a real concern, as large numbers of young women are impregnated by teachers) or in order to get married or contribute to household chores."

[Tactical Genius]

I really want to drill into this work thing and I would really wish to know your opinion. Is it your opinion women do the majority of the work on the continent whilst the men take it easy and enjoy the fruits of their labour?
Now this is really important here so I would like an answer in your own words and would love you to expand on this and what you were emphasising?

I was exaggerating when I wrote "No wonder so many of them are shagged out by age 40 while the men sit around drinking and eating." Obviously this point was made for emphasis. I mean, this board is the rough equivalent of a pub, not the Oxford Union or a law court. However:

[Sporting]

Busy now but my personal opinion based on direct evidence is that yes, women do the lion's share of the household work.

i was trying to emphasise the opinion I have just given. And that Sudanese men in general don't do housework. I am obviously not speaking for all African nations.

[Balderdasha]

Quote from this article:

Do women work longer hours than men?

When all work – paid and unpaid – is accounted for, women work longer hours than men. This is according to the UN’s The World’s Women 2015 report, which found women spend an average of 30 minutes a day longer than men on paid and unpaid work in developed countries and 50 minutes longer in developing countries.

The report, prepared by the Statistics Division of the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs, presents the latest analysis on the status of women around the world.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/...ours-than-men/

[Balderdasha]

Covid-19 has exacerbated this trend. Women are more likely to have lost formal paid work and more likely to have picked up informal unpaid work such as childcare or caring for elderly or sick relatives.

[Balderdasha]

Something worth noting is that there are some horrific manual labour jobs out there that are less likely to be carried out by women, such as mining. I think men are more likely to die in industrial accidents. But then women are more likely to die in childbirth and they don't get paid for that.

[Tactical Genius]

Busy now but my personal opinion based on direct evidence is that yes, women do the lion's share of the household work.

i was trying to emphasise the opinion I have just given. And that Sudanese men in general don't do housework. I am obviously not speaking for all African nations.

Hmmm, this is slightly different from this,

No wonder so many of them are shagged out by age 40 while the men sit around drinking and eating.

Looks like a small but important clarification there, much appreciated.
In your travels, did the local men come across as hardworking outside of the household?

I'm not ignoring you Balderdasha, I will respond.

[Balderdasha]

The Sarah Everard thread. I said this,
"One of the first things you are supposed to learn as a man is to remove emotions from your decision making and think and act logically. When I was a kid, boys who struggled to cope with this (usually from single-parent households) would be sent to the nearest Martial Arts and boxing gyms."

This was twisted to, "exercise makes men non violent"

So, I probably shouldn't respond to this as it's from the other thread which you've distanced yourself from but you did just quote me.

I fundamentally disagree that a) men should be learning to remove emotions from decision making and b) going to the nearest martial arts or boxing gym will help resolve this matter.

I grew up in a working class town where all the working class families with multiple boys sent them to the nearest martial arts or boxing gym to deal with them. It didn't help. A lot of them are now in jail for various violent offences.

Now, I don't think this is the fault of the martial arts classes. There are plenty of things to learn from these and before Covid I took both my children to a month trial of junior jujitsu classes (my son was too young to follow the instructions properly but I would happily take them back once it's possible after Covid).

I don't know what will solve the issue of male violence, but I think there's enough evidence that attending martial arts / boxing gyms is insufficient.

The words that you quoted from me were an exaggerated response and flippant, so I apologise for that. They weren't just in response to you but also where the whole discussion had veered to.

I think, somehow, men need to be allowed to experience and express their full range of emotions, including grief and sadness, not just channel anger or fear into a punch bag. I don't know how to do that practically or on a societal wide level.

[Balderdasha]

Two things:

1. You Psychosis was not caused by looking at your dirty Kitchen so you are essentially not disagreeing with me.
2. Is there a reason your put "just a stay at home mother" in quotation marks?

To clarify, the quotation marks were not quoting you directly, more general societal assumptions. But it was slightly in response to you saying something along the lines of, what else does a stay at home parent have to do other than parenting and housework? At the time, what I had to do was focus on my recovery.

Also, worth noting that for me as a person, part of my recovery was very much making sure that I didn't just do parenting and housework and I'm very grateful that I have a partner who recognised that. I started volunteering for a young carers charity a few months after I left the mother and baby unit because doing something worthwhile and outside the house is very important to me. It also allowed me to interact with other adults and talk about something other than my children.

Looking at my dirty house did not cause my psychosis, no, but the shift from paid work to the relentless unpaid grind of parenting and housework was a contributory factor to me experiencing post natal depression after the birth of my first daughter. It is hard to go from a role that is valued monetarily and where you get regular feedback from adults that your work is good, to a role where the main reward for your hard work is that a baby stops screaming at you for maybe five minutes (in hindsight our daughter had colic that should have been treated, she was a very, very shouty baby who could never be laid flat).

And looking at my dirty house absolutely contributes to my anxiety levels. Obviously, there is something I can do about it, which is clean and tidy. Sometimes I don't have sufficient time, motivation or energy to clean it to a level that removes all that anxiety. And for me, cleaning and tidying my house is bound up with internal feminist rage that this is what a lot of women worldwide spend the majority of their day doing.

[Balderdasha]

Well, yeah in as much as brushing your teeth properly, showering properly or wiping your arse when you do a shit are all skills.
If you cannot do any of those as an adult, they would be considered character deficient unless you have a mental of physical impediment.

If you can't cook because you were too lazy to learn or considered it beneath you

On whether cooking / cleaning is a skill or a character flaw. I do actually consider my dearth of housekeeping skills to be a character flaw. I never really learned properly as a child for various reasons. My mother used to get up at 5am and do several hours of housework, which meant by the time I woke up it had all been magically done, like by house elves. Then when I was at an age where I probably should have started learning, my mother had got a full time job and we hired a weekly cleaner, so again, it got magically done without me doing anything. We had pets who were supposed to teach us responsibility / looking after things, but we also had a very friendly old lady next door who loved small furry pets but couldn't have her own because her shitzhu dogs yapped at them too much, so she would come to our house / garden and clean all the animals out for us (she had a key to the back door).

At school, I went to an all girl's school where we were pretty much taught that housework was outdated and beneath us and we would all be professors or scientists or leaders of industry. I went to a university where we had weekly cleaners.

I did learn to cook. I had to because I became vegetarian age nine and my parents didn't really like cooking vegetarian food for me. Also I used it as a way to retrain myself after I was anorexic as a teenager.

I would love to be someone who either enjoys housework or just does it as a matter of course every day. Instead it is always a struggle, always a chore. I always leave it too late and then have to do excessive amounts at weekends.

[Balderdasha]

I quite like the Japanese system where all students are responsible for cleaning their own school. I feel like that might help instill it as a necessary daily habit.

Caveat that I have never been to Japan and would have probably hated that system as a child.