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They don't, necessarily. But if TitaniumButterfly says he found one who does, and is excited to get a vacuum for Christmas, I guess I'll go with that story for her, specifically. I do not personally know any women like that. I've known several with mothers who drilled the necessity of housekeeping into them and are neurotic and angry but effective about household things, but that isn't the same thing.
Yeah, because people would tell them to get a job and put their kids in childcare. Which is also what they mostly say to women who complain about it. Or get a nanny, in some social circles.
In the sense that she's doing the job of one and a half nannies plus a maid, that is correct, that is lower social status than running a business.
But plenty of higher status people would suck doing lower status work. It is complementary but unequal.
I meant the stay-at-home dad comment to mean more that men don't seem to be particularly unsuited to housekeeping, certainly not to a similar extent that (trads say) women are unsuited for work outside the home.
I'm still not convinced that their roles are really complementary, and my impression is that it used to be less unequal. When everyone's a farmer/hunter-gatherer, the relative complexity of work within and outside the home is far closer than when your society is built on white-collar work.
I suppose. The main problem for stay a dad at home with a young infant and the mother away is that (depending on the baby) they might need a lot of soothing, and breasts are way better soothing implements than bottles or pacifiers, it can be very frustrating for all concerned. The father is unhappy that it's hard to sooth the baby, the baby is unhappy that there are sometimes breasts and sometimes not, and the mother in unhappy because she's either pumping at work or giving up on food snuggle times.
Of the churchgoing families with babies I know, some have stay at home moms, some have the dads at home (but maybe feel a bit shy about it, and won't actually say "stay-at-home-dad"), and some have the mom and dad working complementary shifts (I assume this is hard for rest). All have rather messy houses, none vacuum twice a day and are happy about that. Marie Condo now has a messy house, because cleaning dozens of times a day was not bringing her joy.
It doesn't necessarily stay complementary once the children are older than three or so, and, yeah, I don't really understand women who aren't homeschooling staying as housewives once their youngest is in elementary school, unless they are literally running a home business. I don't think that stay at home dads of older children is a thing at all, unless they're doing some kind of seasonal or creative work, in which case they would say they're doing that, not cleaning the house.
I do find cleaning a single house as a primary job description to be a bit demeaning, but not looking after very young children or homeschooling.
Ahaha great throwaway line. That whole industry of self-help women who write books on how awesome they are and then promptly fall apart makes me very sad.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos
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