16-12-2009, 00:18
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"Househusband backlash as high-flying wives ditch men they wanted to stay at home
It's the bitterest of ironies: thousands of men who've given up work to care for their children are being ditched by their high-flying wives - who wanted them to stay at home in the first place
At the time it seemed like a good idea. After all, Richard Dean told himself, he was earning less than his wife Louise, a high-flying marketing executive. And did it really matter who was at home to look after their children?
With that in mind, it was not such a difficult decision for him to give up his career as a manager in the manufacturing industry to look after their ten-month-old son, Jack.
He hoped it would bring them closer together as a family. In reality, it sounded the death knell for their marriage. "I sensed that Louise was becoming more detached and less interested in me sexually within a year of becoming a househusband," says Richard, 50. "She was always picking on me for silly little things she said I hadn't done, like the washing up or not tidying away the toys.
"It was as if she was losing all respect for me, just because I was the one at home, doing the domesworktic duties. Then, one day two years ago, she announced she was leaving me - and taking the children with her. She told me she was going to go and live with her mother 20 miles away. To say I was devastated does not do my feelings justice. It was as if the bottom had fallen out of my world."
For five years Richard, from Watford, Herts, had worked hard to become a perfect "mother" to their sons, Jack, who is now nine, and Edward, seven. But from the moment he gave up his job, Richard says Louise, 47, failed to see him as a "man".
The phenomenon of the househusband is an increasingly popular one. The number of men deciding to become househusbands has increased by a staggering 83per cent since 1993. According to recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, there are more than 200,000 fathers in the UK choosing to give up their careers and raise their children at home.
But are the couples who go down this domestic route sowing the seeds of marital disharmony? It seems that in many cases the rise of modern career women has had an unexpected - and disastrous - knock-on effect on many husbands who assume the traditionally 'female' role.
In short, having a man whose primary function is not as alpha male breadwinner, but domestic drudge just ain't sexy.
Divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd-Platt says that in her experience, the decision to allow the wife to be the main wage earner will have a detrimental effect on as many as half of these relationships, and that divorce statistics in these cases have risen by at least five per cent in the past two years.
"My warning would be to think long and hard about letting the man stay at home,' she says. 'I know it is very trendy for the wife to be the breadwinner, but in my professional experience this decision will strain the marriage. It may be fun at first to say 'I have a househusband', but the wife will quickly begin to resent the fact the man is not pulling his weight financially.
"She will think: 'You're not supporting me' - within all of us I think there is still a very deep-seated belief that men should be the protectors. A gradual lack of respect begins to eat into the relationship, and it puts men in a very vulnerable position.
"The role these men are performing at home is, of course, very valuable, but women can find it very hard to recognise and respect a man who is doing it."
It's a marital timebomb which exploded under Richard Dean's relationship with little warning, yet he and his wife embarked on their "househusband" experiment with high hopes.
Richard says: "Our elder son was just a baby and I was intrigued by the thought of spending all day, every day, with him. It didn't offend my masculinity at all - we'd also just moved into a bigger house and there was a lot of renovation work to be done, so when the baby was asleep I would don my hard hat and do some building work.
"I know my grandfather and my father could never have been househusbands, but I didn't see why there should be a social stigma in this day and age."
Balance quickly shifted
But Richard says the balance in their relationship quickly shifted.
"I was happy to do all the cooking, cleaning, shopping and washing, but I began to feel that Louise was taking me for granted," he says. "She'd come home exhausted after a ten-hour day, and I'd be desperate to chat, to have some adult conversation, but she'd say she was too tired."
He says he poured his heart and soul into being a good "mother", more so after their second son was born two years later. 'I made sure I structured my days with the children - I took them swimming, we went to the park and I did lots of activities with them, like reading and crafts. I lived and breathed those children, but not once did I regret the decision to put my career on hold.
"Yes, it's hard not making your own money, but I was doing the essential job of bringing up our children."
But then the hammer blow fell, and Louise walked out, taking the boys with her.
"I begged her not to go, but I think she had simply decided she could find someone more dynamic than me," he says sadly. "Suddenly, the children I'd cared for since they were babies were being taken away.
"It's all very well to be a househusband, but she had come to look down on me, to think of me as not very masculine, and not hard-working. It was as if all the things I did around the house didn't count - that was nothing compared to how hard she had to work in her mind, which was so unfair.
"And the great irony was that we'd decided together that I should stay at home with the children."
While the pain of the separation was humiliating enough, worse was to follow when Richard attempted to establish proper contact with his children.
For two years he fought through the family courts, desperately trying to gain full access to Jack and Edward. And at the same time, he was forced to find to meet maintenance payments. Having effectively quit his career five years earlier, he had to start at the bottom all over again.
"I was left out in the cold," he says. "It left me in an impossible situation, because I'd been out of the workplace for five years, caring for my children, and yet now I was expected to get straight back to work and start paying her some maintenance."
The moment Richard's wife said she was leaving him and taking the children, she changed her working hours from full to part-time so she could spend more time with the boys, while her mother helped with the rest of the childcare.
"It was very cleverly done," he says. "I've had to take a series of menial part-time jobs just to keep me going financially, and on top of all that I've had two years of solicitor's bills in taking my wife to court to get better access to the children, which has cost me at least £12,000.
Stress
Richard is still desperately fighting for better access to the two children he did so much to raise, but now sees only every other weekend. 'It's no wonder I am suffering from stress, and have gone from living in the lovely home we owned to a two-bedroom flat in a much rougher area of town.
Vanessa Lloyd-Platt says there is a huge problem built into the legal system at a time when more and more fathers are becoming primary carers for their children.
"There has been a massive turnaround in roles within a marriage, but there is still a very strong belief in the legal system that allowing the father to have residency of the children is somehow against the natural order of things, and many judges still believe the children will be better off with their mother."
(...)"
Es ist selten, dass das in einem Medienbeitrag besprochen wird. Auf Deutsch in Kürze: Frau will Hausmann, er macht das und sorgt für Kinder und Haushalt, Frau kommt damit nicht klar und schätzt das nicht, Frau wirft ihn hinaus, Frau nimmt Kinder mit und Mann steht vor den Ruinen: Beruflich, familiär, menschlich.
Nebenbei wird das höhnische Gesabbere widerlegt, das man so oft als Antwort zu hören bekommt wenn man die Tatsache benennt, dass man als Vater keine Chance hat, nach einer Trennung die Kinder zu behalten: "Würden die Väter vor der Trennung hauptsächlich für die Kinder da sein, dann hätten sie bei der Trennung auch dieselben Chancen, die Kinder zu behalten". Eine miese Lüge, billige Rabulistik die nur dazu dient, einen einkalt durchgesetzten weiblichen Machtanspruch auf Kinder unter allen Umständen zu zementieren.
Auf der Werbeleiste links zufällig entlarvende Werbung für eine Partnervermittlung: "Date rich men" und "Find Ukraine beauty".
"Househusband backlash as high-flying wives ditch men they wanted to stay at home
It's the bitterest of ironies: thousands of men who've given up work to care for their children are being ditched by their high-flying wives - who wanted them to stay at home in the first place
At the time it seemed like a good idea. After all, Richard Dean told himself, he was earning less than his wife Louise, a high-flying marketing executive. And did it really matter who was at home to look after their children?
With that in mind, it was not such a difficult decision for him to give up his career as a manager in the manufacturing industry to look after their ten-month-old son, Jack.
He hoped it would bring them closer together as a family. In reality, it sounded the death knell for their marriage. "I sensed that Louise was becoming more detached and less interested in me sexually within a year of becoming a househusband," says Richard, 50. "She was always picking on me for silly little things she said I hadn't done, like the washing up or not tidying away the toys.
"It was as if she was losing all respect for me, just because I was the one at home, doing the domesworktic duties. Then, one day two years ago, she announced she was leaving me - and taking the children with her. She told me she was going to go and live with her mother 20 miles away. To say I was devastated does not do my feelings justice. It was as if the bottom had fallen out of my world."
For five years Richard, from Watford, Herts, had worked hard to become a perfect "mother" to their sons, Jack, who is now nine, and Edward, seven. But from the moment he gave up his job, Richard says Louise, 47, failed to see him as a "man".
The phenomenon of the househusband is an increasingly popular one. The number of men deciding to become househusbands has increased by a staggering 83per cent since 1993. According to recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, there are more than 200,000 fathers in the UK choosing to give up their careers and raise their children at home.
But are the couples who go down this domestic route sowing the seeds of marital disharmony? It seems that in many cases the rise of modern career women has had an unexpected - and disastrous - knock-on effect on many husbands who assume the traditionally 'female' role.
In short, having a man whose primary function is not as alpha male breadwinner, but domestic drudge just ain't sexy.
Divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd-Platt says that in her experience, the decision to allow the wife to be the main wage earner will have a detrimental effect on as many as half of these relationships, and that divorce statistics in these cases have risen by at least five per cent in the past two years.
"My warning would be to think long and hard about letting the man stay at home,' she says. 'I know it is very trendy for the wife to be the breadwinner, but in my professional experience this decision will strain the marriage. It may be fun at first to say 'I have a househusband', but the wife will quickly begin to resent the fact the man is not pulling his weight financially.
"She will think: 'You're not supporting me' - within all of us I think there is still a very deep-seated belief that men should be the protectors. A gradual lack of respect begins to eat into the relationship, and it puts men in a very vulnerable position.
"The role these men are performing at home is, of course, very valuable, but women can find it very hard to recognise and respect a man who is doing it."
It's a marital timebomb which exploded under Richard Dean's relationship with little warning, yet he and his wife embarked on their "househusband" experiment with high hopes.
Richard says: "Our elder son was just a baby and I was intrigued by the thought of spending all day, every day, with him. It didn't offend my masculinity at all - we'd also just moved into a bigger house and there was a lot of renovation work to be done, so when the baby was asleep I would don my hard hat and do some building work.
"I know my grandfather and my father could never have been househusbands, but I didn't see why there should be a social stigma in this day and age."
Balance quickly shifted
But Richard says the balance in their relationship quickly shifted.
"I was happy to do all the cooking, cleaning, shopping and washing, but I began to feel that Louise was taking me for granted," he says. "She'd come home exhausted after a ten-hour day, and I'd be desperate to chat, to have some adult conversation, but she'd say she was too tired."
He says he poured his heart and soul into being a good "mother", more so after their second son was born two years later. 'I made sure I structured my days with the children - I took them swimming, we went to the park and I did lots of activities with them, like reading and crafts. I lived and breathed those children, but not once did I regret the decision to put my career on hold.
"Yes, it's hard not making your own money, but I was doing the essential job of bringing up our children."
But then the hammer blow fell, and Louise walked out, taking the boys with her.
"I begged her not to go, but I think she had simply decided she could find someone more dynamic than me," he says sadly. "Suddenly, the children I'd cared for since they were babies were being taken away.
"It's all very well to be a househusband, but she had come to look down on me, to think of me as not very masculine, and not hard-working. It was as if all the things I did around the house didn't count - that was nothing compared to how hard she had to work in her mind, which was so unfair.
"And the great irony was that we'd decided together that I should stay at home with the children."
While the pain of the separation was humiliating enough, worse was to follow when Richard attempted to establish proper contact with his children.
For two years he fought through the family courts, desperately trying to gain full access to Jack and Edward. And at the same time, he was forced to find to meet maintenance payments. Having effectively quit his career five years earlier, he had to start at the bottom all over again.
"I was left out in the cold," he says. "It left me in an impossible situation, because I'd been out of the workplace for five years, caring for my children, and yet now I was expected to get straight back to work and start paying her some maintenance."
The moment Richard's wife said she was leaving him and taking the children, she changed her working hours from full to part-time so she could spend more time with the boys, while her mother helped with the rest of the childcare.
"It was very cleverly done," he says. "I've had to take a series of menial part-time jobs just to keep me going financially, and on top of all that I've had two years of solicitor's bills in taking my wife to court to get better access to the children, which has cost me at least £12,000.
Stress
Richard is still desperately fighting for better access to the two children he did so much to raise, but now sees only every other weekend. 'It's no wonder I am suffering from stress, and have gone from living in the lovely home we owned to a two-bedroom flat in a much rougher area of town.
Vanessa Lloyd-Platt says there is a huge problem built into the legal system at a time when more and more fathers are becoming primary carers for their children.
"There has been a massive turnaround in roles within a marriage, but there is still a very strong belief in the legal system that allowing the father to have residency of the children is somehow against the natural order of things, and many judges still believe the children will be better off with their mother."
(...)"
Es ist selten, dass das in einem Medienbeitrag besprochen wird. Auf Deutsch in Kürze: Frau will Hausmann, er macht das und sorgt für Kinder und Haushalt, Frau kommt damit nicht klar und schätzt das nicht, Frau wirft ihn hinaus, Frau nimmt Kinder mit und Mann steht vor den Ruinen: Beruflich, familiär, menschlich.
Nebenbei wird das höhnische Gesabbere widerlegt, das man so oft als Antwort zu hören bekommt wenn man die Tatsache benennt, dass man als Vater keine Chance hat, nach einer Trennung die Kinder zu behalten: "Würden die Väter vor der Trennung hauptsächlich für die Kinder da sein, dann hätten sie bei der Trennung auch dieselben Chancen, die Kinder zu behalten". Eine miese Lüge, billige Rabulistik die nur dazu dient, einen einkalt durchgesetzten weiblichen Machtanspruch auf Kinder unter allen Umständen zu zementieren.
Auf der Werbeleiste links zufällig entlarvende Werbung für eine Partnervermittlung: "Date rich men" und "Find Ukraine beauty".