Why Men Can't Have It All

timetogo134 · 2012-08-03T16:15:35+00:00

Nice article. I loved the Atlantic article about how women couldn't have it all, but was distressed by the author's cavalier remarks along the lines that only women need to make the hard choices while men do not. That women are facing a problem in the form of choosing between having a relationship with the kids or a fulfilling career that men have no parallel to. Obviously that's utter bullshit. Men had the choice forced upon them from the get go. We're not supposed to be caring, involved parents to children. Any man who makes it to every ballgame is seen as exceptional, i.e. far outside the norm. The choice was made for men before we even had a chance to think about it.

Imthere · 2012-08-03T16:30:39+00:00

There are some nice comments on hacker news

I get the same thing too, but people seem hyper-scared for our family when I'm at home with our twin 18m boys: "Well is your mom (kids' grandma) going to help him? No!? I can't believe you'd leave him alone like that."

I'm about |---| this close to start responding with highly offensive responses like "Well, I can't believe your husband trusts you with a credit card, because women are bad at money and math". My wife gets just as offended as I do when her friends say stuff like that to her.

chavelah · 2012-08-03T16:07:35+00:00

"There is much debate and strong opinion on the issue of women, working, and motherhood. But believe it or not, this is a good thing because struggle doesn't always indicate that something is wrong, but sometimes, that something is right. I would prefer that fatherhood be viewed in that same sober light."

Love it.

ohgeronimo · 2012-08-03T17:24:45+00:00

[permanently deleted]

AvgGuy101 · 2012-08-04T00:27:32+00:00

Ok. While there certainly are some good points in this article, I am getting more than just a little tired of hearing people making snide comments about the parenting abilities of our fathers, grandfathers, etc. It seems to me that those of us who have nice cushy 9 to 5 office jobs have forgotten just whose sacrifices enabled our mommies to stay at home and wipe our snotty little noses when we were children.

Many of us have apparently forgotten that it has not been that long ago that the majority of jobs for the average worker involved long, hard days filled with much manual labor. I would love to see just how much hands-on parenting time some of these keyboard warriors would spend after working all day at one of these jobs.

Back in the day, it was simply a smarter division of labor for men to work and for women to take care of more of the day-to-day parenting chores. That doesn't mean that fathers shirked their parental responsibilities and in fact I find it highly insulting for some desk bound keyboard jockey to imply that my male ancestors did.

After all, it sure is a lot easier to take care of a couple of kids after spending a brief 8 hour day working in a nice cushy office than it is doing the kind of back breaking, sun up to sun down, manual labor that many of our male ancestors did. It even gets easier when you work even fewer hours from a nice, cushy home office.

Title	Why Men Can't Have It All
Author	sligowaths
Upvotes	34
Comments	7
Date	August 3, 2012 1:47 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/xmalu/why_men_cant_have_it_all/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/why-men-cant-have-it-all.1016617 https://theredarchive.com/post/1016617

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