Recently I was emailed by Proctor & Gamble wondering if I may be interested in posting something for International Women’s Day about the surveying they had just undertaken exploring “the changing face of motherhood”. Not changing quite fast enough. Here’s how they reported some of their findings to me:
When it comes to helping out with childcare in the home, dads are doing the lion’s share at 70% with grandmas coming in at number two (21%).
That’s not saying that those women surveyed reported fathers as doing 70% of the workload with parenting, that’s saying that 70% of mothers nominated fathers as the main person ‘helping them out with childcare’. (Exactly how much help is going on, who knows, it doesn’t seem to have been asked but it would have been a much more worthwhile question?) But here we go again. Fathers do not ‘help out with childcare’. They look after their own children, just as mothers do. Calling this responsibility by any other term is belittling to fathers. ‘Childcare’ is part of the work of being a father, it is not some generous extra service gifted to mothers. Even the term ‘childcare’ suggests an outsourced care responsibility.
Of course, here’s the crux of the P&G research:
With products designed to make everyday tasks like washing the dishes a little easier and more enjoyable, P&G helps to support mums everywhere in small but meaningful ways. That is why the company likes to think of itself as the Proud Sponsor of Mums. Not surprisingly, getting more help around the home was deemed by most mums as the key to improving their quality of life.
If you mean sharing the workload of domestic labour more equitably then yes, mothers do indeed believe that this is “key to improving their quality of life”. Problem is, getting “more help around the home” suggests that domestic work is solely the responsibility of mothers. If other households are like mine, both fathers and mothers are doing the work of cleaning in our house, not quite equitably enough for my liking but we’re working on that – so, it is probably about time cleaning products were marketed to both of us.
I have emailed P&G about this problem with their research and reporting.. I will let you know if I get a response.
Ugh that kind of thinking drives me crazy. I’m ‘lucky’ in that my husband does pretty much 50% of everything, household chores and child-related work, and most of the time I can’t get my head round why this isn’t normal. Attitudes like this are why. Neither of us ‘help’ the other, it’s our house and our child, and we both look after them.
I couldn’t agree more! I was talking about this just the other day, when I saw some news article on TV talking about how men are helping women with childcare and housework. It made it sound like the men were doing the women a favour by helping with the chores, rather than contributing equally. Made my blood boil!
That kind of attitude seems so entrenched in so many sectors of society. I am constantly being told how lucky I am that my husband is hands on with our daughters, sorry I thought that was called fatherhood, just like my being hands on with with them is called motherhood. We still have a ways to go getting him so ‘hands on’ with the housework though.
Marketing to mothers by those selling cleaning products is one of my pet hates especially when they use guilt against us. I wrote about it here if you’re interested, http://thenewgoodlife.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/quit-with-the-guilt-trips/
We’re a Canadian-American family living in Japan, and parenting roles are MUCH more traditional here (at least in this semi-rural area) than even in N. America. Comments from my Japanese mother-friends often turn to how ‘special’ my husband is for doing dishes, taking night wakings, “allowing” me to have naps on his days off, etc. And when they see me without my daugther they ask “Is your husband babysitting?”
Language barriers and cultural considerations make it hard, but I do try to explain that he does housework because we both live in the house, he is sensitive to when I need extra rest because we are partners, and he cares for our child because he is her father. He is an amazing man in many regards, but these things specifically should not be EXCEPTIONAL in a world where genders and parenting roles are given equal respect.
My husband calls it babysitting when he watches our children. When I correct his language and say instead that he is parenting, he expresses irritation. We (the human race) have a LONG way to go….
*slow clap*
I thought about writing an angry letter to Huggies after they did their “even dads can use them” campaign.
The idea that men are incapable of doing these things perpetuates the idea of mens work vs womens work, and it also enforces the idea that men do not play an important role in raising their kids.
To say every man would be fullfilled by child raising is the same thing as saying every woman would be fulfilled by child raising (a fallacy) but I think men as a gender would be better off if they all felt like being a nurturer was an OPTION.
This is like fathers “baby-sitting” for cookies.
Er, don’t we call that “parenting” ?
I hate the way all cleaning products are marketed at mothers only. “We interviewed 100 mums and 99 of them said Product X was the best at getting rid of tough stains”. Well whoopdy-f-ing-doo. My husband stays at home to look after our daughter. Did they ask any dads about stain removal? Or are all dads just too hopeless to notice dirty clothes? Perhaps they are too busy working 9-5 to support their Stepford Wives.
Just for ONCE – for ONCE – I would like to see “Recommended by parents”.
Arg! I just wrote a thoughtful post on the idea of men “helping” with the care of their own children, and now I look all plagiaristic (not that I’ve even posted that post yet). Oh well, if it’s worth saying, it’s worth saying twice.
When my husband gets home from work and has had his shower (he rides a bike, and comes home smelly), our baby is his responsibility, excluding feeding. If I change a nappy or go into her room to do the dummy replacement thing, he thanks me without irony. Because in those times, he is the primary parent. This is how it should be for every parent.
Louise Curtis
House work is pretty equal in our house.
Noone does much of it at all…..
We got a note from school the other day telling me that they don’t have the kid’s immunisation record and can I bring it in please. It was addressed to me. Just me. Bloke looked at it and said “Can I send them a note explaining that you are not the person in the house who remembers where we put the important things?”
Obviously, on the day the note came home, the boy was picked up by his father. As were quite a few of the other children. There’s no after school care here and many of the dads are self employed and have more flexibility.
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