It's no secret that women are getting pretty tired of men not pulling their domestic weight, especially when it comes to child-related labour. There are lots of posts/comments on here about it, and it's also all over female-oriented subreddits and social media.

First off, I think women are totally right about domestic skills being a "bare minimum" of sorts: cleaning, cooking, laundry etc, basically all the things you should already be doing as an adult. There's no excuse for not being able to take care of yourself and not being able to contribute in a household. Anybody can learn, it's good for you, and I personally have come to actually enjoy it. And it's even easier in a partnership because 2 people only create like 1.5x the mess/work that one does. I think there are a lot of things men need to get in order before they date, but this is one of the main ones.

That being said, I think adding kids to the picture changes the calculus entirely. I can say with confidence that I would not be down for all of the duties associated with childrearing. I would be fine to take on a portion for sure, but there is no way I could answer the call of 50/50. And that's okay, I'm just not going to have kids. But there was a time when I could have been talked into it if things had gone differently in a previous LTR. I feel immense relief that I didn't get on that ride but it has me wondering, how many guys agree to start a family having zero idea what 50/50 childrearing looks like? Are these guys flaking on a commitment they fully understood? Or are they finding themselves locked in a job that they are ill-suited and uninterested to do?

My questions for women:

1) Before having kids, would you talk with your husband about all that's coming down the pipe in terms of parental duty? Or would you assume that he either knows what all is entailed, or if he doesn't, that he's just going to step up and learn to do half of whatever needs to be done?

2) For those who want/wanted kids, assuming the following scenario is a good relationship with a good partner, which would you choose:

Having kids with the understanding that you will be doing most of the child-rearing (say averaging 70%). Your husband is fine to contribute more domestically or financially if you want to work less or if you guys need more money, but he is upfront about not wanting to do 50/50, particularly when the kids are young and not self-sufficient. He is fine not having kids if you aren't up for this.

OR not having kids and living a DINK life, say with this same guy to keep things simple.

So basically the choices are kids but you do most of the kid work, or no kids. Obviously you can say you would just find a partner that was down for 50/50, but it appears that this may not be the majority of men. Or maybe the "duds" are just overrepresented in social media. Either way, I don't think there's anything wrong with men not being on board, they just need to realize this before they are stuck on the ride.

My question to men:

If you have kids, would you still do the same knowing what you know now about what it actually entails? Are there any men who could have gone either way on kids but took the plunge assuming you'd figure it out, only to end up totally out of your element?

If you don't have/want kids, would it change your mind if you had a smaller portion of responsibility for the kids (say 30% or less), but equal hours overall? This would mean either more income, more household labour, or some child-related labour but you get a bit of control over what specifically you take on.

I think there might be a weird stalemate where women want 50/50 labour division but men don't want kids enough to do that. If there's enough men that are up for 50/50 and enough women that don't want kids, everyone should be able to find a match, but I'm not sure that's the case. My guess would be that a higher percentage of women want kids compared with the percentage of men who are truly down for 50/50 childrearing. If true, these excess women will have to either forego having kids altogether or take on extra child-related labour. This could be willingly in an arrangement like the above example, or unwillingly if they find out their husbands are duds after they've already had kids. I'm guessing the latter case would end in divorce but either way, not a good scenario.

Thoughts?