It’s framed as sexist towards women, but the reality is so much more complicated. How many women WANT to work less to be with their kids? How many men would do it if they got proper paternity leave? How many of these “unpaid care hours” are just what used to be called housewives or housekeepers?
The article content is somewhat ambiguous in how it initially talks about childcare, but then further on refers to actual unpaid care in the context of an individual with care needs
They need to get that right because while I agree childcare is a massive issue.. what little help people get with childcare still dwarfs that offered to unpaid carers (both financial and practical)
Even though the pandemic is by the governments own perspective in the rear view mirror, the cuts from councils and other front line services when it comes to those provided to vulnerable individuals have not gone away, people are still having what little support they have taken from them
They intentionally left out that men on average work more hours, the statistics about men caring for adults and they also seem to forget that they are talking about the fact these are their children they elected to have. Why is everything from that paper manipulated by a feminists agenda to create more victims? I mean how many women want more hours, less time with the kids and even less time to themselves? All this legislation and bureaucracy when they could just pay men and women a better wage to reflect worth instead of constantly trying to pitt us against eachother?
You mean looking after your own children? Unpaid care, jesus.
I run my house and do school runs and work full time, but I’m a man so that’s fine ;p
This article is confusing and misleading in equal measure.
The fact that women are doing substantially more childcare than men *is* a significant issue. However, it’s also a very nuanced one with lots of different factors involved. You have to go through several paragraphs for any meaningful suggestions to be made.
And the award for most misleading headline goes to …
I honestly quite like the idea of a wage for primary caregivers, even if it’s minimum wage you give a lot more financial freedom. The problem is funding it, because that would be a hell of a lot of money. The current wage for caregivers (Who aren’t looking after children) is actually tragic, but I think mothers and fathers who don’t work to look after their children could do with a bit more financial independence too.
Why does the headline say care and the article say childcare?
‘Care’ on its own does not usually refer to childcare. I appreciate both are care but in media language… care means something else, usually for an older adult.
When is the Guardian going to run an article amount men doing DIY doing “unpaid construction work”?
What a load of nonsense.
As a bloke who spent the best part of 10 years looking after my kids while my other half slogged her guts out in A&E, I’d neither consider what I did ‘unpaid’, she supported all of us for most of the time, nor would I choose to swap with her if I had to make the choice again.
Problem with this type of article, this wouldn’t had been a problem many years ago when it was considered normal for mothers to stay home, and now we’re in a time where you can’t simply have a mother stay home and the father go to work, it’s not livable, you’ll need both parents at work to make enough to pay the bills.
And the government not about to change a thing, they can now tax the other half of the population.
The new normal? Either you have no children and work, you have children and struggle or, you claim to be a single parent, our new normal heavily incentives the latter, and I’ll blame no one who decides to do so.
Even my wife said “what a load of bollocks”, she works full time and is both a mother and a carer.
This article is misleading and doesn’t provide the whole picture.
Various time-use surveys clearly demonstrate that when you add time spent doing paid and unpaid labour together, men still work longer per week. The split on who does what in a relationship is certainly there, but you work as a unit to get shit done. So long as the total effort is roughly equal, it doesn’t matter who does what so long as it gets done. This obsession that every single thing in life has to be split 50/50 is utterly mundane.
What’s the percentage of working age men financially supporting an entire family by themselves?
Wtf even is this article. I’ve had a child and you expect me to take care of it for free!?!? Outrageous! Well done for doing the bare fucking minimum. Whats the point of calculating these numbers, just tells me people are working too much, should spend longer with thier kids, childcare should cost less or more sinister, there is still a massive gap in the market for paid childcare so people can work more hours so they can pay for all the childcare they’re using.
I get its about women taken on more of the share of childcare but when men don’t really have much in the way of legal rights to take time off to care for new born etc it will generally lead to a care disparity. Plus depending on who is in a better paid job the one earning less will probs take on the larger share of care, that’s the reason why I’m going to be the one taking care of the kids most of the time, nothing to do with having dangly bits or whatever.
Women don’t get married don’t have kids. Men don’t get married don’t have kids. Sorted.
18 comments
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45 hours of looking after their own kids.
It’s framed as sexist towards women, but the reality is so much more complicated. How many women WANT to work less to be with their kids? How many men would do it if they got proper paternity leave? How many of these “unpaid care hours” are just what used to be called housewives or housekeepers?
The article content is somewhat ambiguous in how it initially talks about childcare, but then further on refers to actual unpaid care in the context of an individual with care needs
They need to get that right because while I agree childcare is a massive issue.. what little help people get with childcare still dwarfs that offered to unpaid carers (both financial and practical)
Even though the pandemic is by the governments own perspective in the rear view mirror, the cuts from councils and other front line services when it comes to those provided to vulnerable individuals have not gone away, people are still having what little support they have taken from them
They intentionally left out that men on average work more hours, the statistics about men caring for adults and they also seem to forget that they are talking about the fact these are their children they elected to have. Why is everything from that paper manipulated by a feminists agenda to create more victims? I mean how many women want more hours, less time with the kids and even less time to themselves? All this legislation and bureaucracy when they could just pay men and women a better wage to reflect worth instead of constantly trying to pitt us against eachother?
You mean looking after your own children? Unpaid care, jesus.
I run my house and do school runs and work full time, but I’m a man so that’s fine ;p
This article is confusing and misleading in equal measure.
The fact that women are doing substantially more childcare than men *is* a significant issue. However, it’s also a very nuanced one with lots of different factors involved. You have to go through several paragraphs for any meaningful suggestions to be made.
And the award for most misleading headline goes to …
I honestly quite like the idea of a wage for primary caregivers, even if it’s minimum wage you give a lot more financial freedom. The problem is funding it, because that would be a hell of a lot of money. The current wage for caregivers (Who aren’t looking after children) is actually tragic, but I think mothers and fathers who don’t work to look after their children could do with a bit more financial independence too.
Why does the headline say care and the article say childcare?
‘Care’ on its own does not usually refer to childcare. I appreciate both are care but in media language… care means something else, usually for an older adult.
When is the Guardian going to run an article amount men doing DIY doing “unpaid construction work”?
What a load of nonsense.
As a bloke who spent the best part of 10 years looking after my kids while my other half slogged her guts out in A&E, I’d neither consider what I did ‘unpaid’, she supported all of us for most of the time, nor would I choose to swap with her if I had to make the choice again.
Problem with this type of article, this wouldn’t had been a problem many years ago when it was considered normal for mothers to stay home, and now we’re in a time where you can’t simply have a mother stay home and the father go to work, it’s not livable, you’ll need both parents at work to make enough to pay the bills.
And the government not about to change a thing, they can now tax the other half of the population.
The new normal? Either you have no children and work, you have children and struggle or, you claim to be a single parent, our new normal heavily incentives the latter, and I’ll blame no one who decides to do so.
Even my wife said “what a load of bollocks”, she works full time and is both a mother and a carer.
This article is misleading and doesn’t provide the whole picture.
Various time-use surveys clearly demonstrate that when you add time spent doing paid and unpaid labour together, men still work longer per week. The split on who does what in a relationship is certainly there, but you work as a unit to get shit done. So long as the total effort is roughly equal, it doesn’t matter who does what so long as it gets done. This obsession that every single thing in life has to be split 50/50 is utterly mundane.
What’s the percentage of working age men financially supporting an entire family by themselves?
Wtf even is this article. I’ve had a child and you expect me to take care of it for free!?!? Outrageous! Well done for doing the bare fucking minimum. Whats the point of calculating these numbers, just tells me people are working too much, should spend longer with thier kids, childcare should cost less or more sinister, there is still a massive gap in the market for paid childcare so people can work more hours so they can pay for all the childcare they’re using.
I get its about women taken on more of the share of childcare but when men don’t really have much in the way of legal rights to take time off to care for new born etc it will generally lead to a care disparity. Plus depending on who is in a better paid job the one earning less will probs take on the larger share of care, that’s the reason why I’m going to be the one taking care of the kids most of the time, nothing to do with having dangly bits or whatever.
Women don’t get married don’t have kids. Men don’t get married don’t have kids. Sorted.