Are All Moms Mad at Dad?

By Lisa Belkin

The most read story on parenting.com today is “Mad at Dad,” a 4,000-word look at how very angry mothers of young children are at their husbands.

Based on a what author Martha Brockenbrough describes as a survey of 1,000 “nationally representative” mothers from MomConnection, an online opinion panel, the article is a disturbing portrait of motherhood.

“We love our husbands,” she writes, “but we’re mad that we spend more mental energy on the details of parenting. We’re mad that having children has turned our lives upside down much more than theirs. We’re mad that these guys, who can manage businesses or keep track of thousands of pieces of sports trivia, can be clueless when it comes to what our kids are eating and what supplies they need for school. And more than anything else, we’re mad that they get more time to themselves than we do.”

She continues: “We carry so much of this life-altering responsibility in our heads: the doctors’ appointments, the shoe sizes, the details about the kids’ friends. Many dads wouldn’t even think to buy valentines for the class, for example, or know when it’s time to sign kids up for the pre–camp physical, or that curriculum night is next Thursday at 7:30 and you need to hire a sitter and bring a nut-free vegetarian appetizer that can be eaten without a fork. Even moms who work full-time take it upon themselves to store all this data in our already overstuffed heads. We’re the walking, talking encyclopedias of family life, while dads tend to be more like brochures.”

The story is chock full of survey results. Among the nuggets of data are these:

  • 46 percent of respondents “get irate with their husbands once a week or more,” Brockenbrough writes. “Those with kids younger than 1 are even more likely to be mad that often (54 percent). About half of the moms describe their anger as intense but passing; 1 in 10 say it’s ‘deep and long-lasting.’ “
  • 44 percent are “peeved” that their partners “often don’t notice what needs to be done around the house or with the kids,” a percentage that rises to 54 percent among mothers with three or more children.
  • 40 percent say they “are also angry that their husbands seem clueless about the best way to take care of kids.”
  • 40 percent “are mad that Dad can’t multitask.” Among those with three or more children, the anger rises here as well, to 46 percent.
  • 31 percent say the get little or no “help” from their husbands with chores. “In fact,” Brockenbrough says, the women think the men “generate more” work for the wives to do.
  • 33 percent say their husbands “aren’t shouldering equal responsibility and are less concerned than they are about their children’s basic needs, like nutrition and clothing.” For mothers of three or more children that number rises to 41 percent.
  • Nearly one-third “complain that parenthood has changed their lives more than their husbands’.”
  • One-quarter feel that they spends “more mental energy on parenting than dads do.”
  • 50 percent of respondents say “their husbands get more time for themselves. The lack of time off is a huge issue for the moms carrying the most anger. More than 60 percent of the moms who get mad weekly — and almost three-quarters of those who are angry every day — feel this way.”

There are also a stream of anecdotes. Here are some of Brockenbroughs capsule portraits of women (and these are just the ones willing to share their names and hometowns):

And there are worried warning from experts:

“Anger is corrosive,” says Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D., the mother of two grown children and a University of Washington sociologist who’s studied couples’ dynamics for decades. “It’s like a termite that starts to reproduce more termites. If you never get rid of the termites, one day you’re going to lean on a wall and it’s going to crumble underneath your weight.”

Redford Williams, M.D., director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Duke University, is blunt about it. “Anger kills,” he says. “It’s not just that it can damage your heart — which it does — but it’s also been found in epidemiological studies to identify people who are more likely to have a heart attack or drop dead from any cause.”

What the story is missing, though, are thoughts from fathers. Do they look in the mirror and see the same clueless, clumsy, self-centered oafs that their wives describe?

There is a “Dad to Dad” forum on parenting.com, and one thread asks that question. A few of the fathers defend themselves, others agree with most of what the article throws their way.

Does this ring true in your house? And what to DO about all this anger?

Comments are no longer being accepted.

sandy January 29, 2009 · 5:00 pm

wow. wow wow o wow.

the vitriol in that column was, quite simply, overwhelming. No coevals mentioned there, that I could see. I hope that many many others write in with very different stories because therein lies my hope, and salvation for true co-parenting. My partner is everything that the other mothers (seem to) desire and detest the lack of in their own spouse, according to what was written. HE is the one who knows the ski PE schedule, and, the night before makes sure that all is prepared (right down to long underwear, ski socks and a snack in the pocket). HE is the one who knows which day is pizza day. HE is the one who bakes the class cake for his children’s birthdays. HE is the one who juggles the Xcel worksheet to make sure that there is enough in savings for college. HE is the one to sacrifice sleeping in to make sure they get to school on time. He knows which mac&cheese brand they will eat, when they decided to like edamame, what stuffed animal is their favorite, and the names of all their friends. He reads them books, listens while they learn to read them back, and carries them to bed to tenderly tuck them in.

If some of these women are so very very unhappy, I would have to say that is time to assess. I am a woman as well, and I know that I have had to sit down with myself and write a list of MY priorities. Then it is MY responsibility to share that list and to jointly discuss/reassign family tasks so that they are shared.

heavens. I worry about the mindset of these “nationally-representative” women. How will this type of mindset be passed down to their children, male and female? What “unfairnesses” will be swallowed whole by these children? The kids DO know and feel what is going on, trust me.

It is past time to break down gender inequalities. I urge everyone to do their own growth with this issue. And to make choices. Perhaps hard ones. As Obama himself said, it is time to put away childish things. It is time to do the work for equality.

Crimson Wife January 29, 2009 · 5:34 pm

I wonder whether there was an observed difference in anger levels between moms who are employed full-time and those who are full-time homemakers. When I was an employed mom, I was constantly angry at my DH because I was doing way more than my fair share of housework and childcare. Once I was able to quit my paid position, things became much more equitable and our relationship dramatically improved.

Anne Louise Bannon January 29, 2009 · 5:46 pm

I, too, say wow. But I suspect that there are a lot of guys who either expect to be clueless or feel that way (even if they’re unwilling to admit it). When you look at the family TV comedies of the past few years, there is a huge number of clueless dads. I don’t mean occasionally goofing up because the show wouldn’t be funny, but otherwise an attentive father (check out Everybody Hates Chris as an example). I mean total idiots with long-suffering wives, as in According to Jim. No wonder people don’t watch sitcoms any more. These shows are just plain insulting to men.

Still, I can’t help but wonder if those shows reflect the way a lot of men are feeling about being parents in today’s society. It’s not like our dads were the same attentive parents we expect today. Our dads came from a different social contract – or were caught in the earliest upheavals of that older Mom-stays-home-Dad-goes-out-and-works thing. So how do you parent when you don’t have a good model to follow? When I did an article on TV’s clueless dads a couple years ago, a good friend of mine pointed out that he does feel clueless much of the time.

Which would explain why a lot of women are torqued-off.

Anne Louise Bannon
YourFamilyViewer.com

Eilat January 29, 2009 · 5:52 pm

Thanks for this, Lisa. It just affirmed to me that I am married to the greatest guy. He is 100% my partner in parenting. He may even take on more than I do. Always on top of the kids’ details, and he cooks dinner too.

Jessica Baker January 29, 2009 · 5:59 pm

I just do not understand why women tolerate relationships that seem to be making them miserable. I am a married mom of a toddler and am expecting my 2nd next month. I do not work outside of the home. Although he has a fairly demanding job, I feel like my spouse certainly does his fair share of parenting. As for house work, I do more but he certainly does enough, and neither of us judge the efforts of the other (this goes for parenting as well). If he ever started to phone it in and seemed unwilling to change, I would seriously reevaluate whether I wanted to be married to him! Maybe this is because I could earn more than enough money to live as a single parent, and this gives me the confidence to assert my expectations. I have many friends whose husbands feign incompetence, act disinterested or just plain lazy – these are women who consider themselves feminists. What gives?!

MarkOS January 29, 2009 · 6:01 pm

Lots of this stuff has nothing to do with kids. Some boils down to the classic conflict between A (tidy) and B (not-so-tidy). Guess who ALWAYS gets upset first? Amazingly, the person who thinks they are not at fault. Happens everywhere, home, office.

Know what ladies? Grow up, get a life.

franco January 29, 2009 · 6:18 pm

Interesting, and sad. A few thoughts:

1) I get the sense that a lot of people don’t talk about how they view parenting or think seriously before marriage about how they think their husband will participate in child rearing. You need to have realistic expectations based on conversation and observation. This doesn’t excuse the non-participation of some husbands.

2) I think that we have to be careful in the expectation that anyone perfectly values the same things. Some of the complaints seems like the kind of expectations that (some) women/mothers build up for themselves and others that have little to do with the quality of child rearing. Frankly, I could care less about valentine’s day cards and would feel no guilt if my kids never participated in that again. I’m not going to devote a ton of energy to remembering details of the dietary needs of every kid in my child’s class. Frankly, I don’t want or expect my wife to care about those things either. That said, I WILL cook, clean, nurture, sign up for sports/camp, grocery shop (w/ my own list), etc.

3) As for the anger about the alleged disparate impact of having children. Well, I can’t argue about the impact of maternal feelings generally. However, one thing missing from this is the additional pressure (much of it self-imposed) that men feel financially. I don’t know a married guy who didn’t feel a heightened sense of responsibility upon having children and didn’t feel as if their lives changed radically over night. They should feel this way, of course. I guess I think that many men feel the impact not through cataloging the (sometimes important) details of their children’s lives, but through the pressure to provide for their family in the short- and long-term.

Sally January 29, 2009 · 6:47 pm

I have only been married a couple years, but we had twins right away and I often feel myself becoming VERY angry at my husband, but I have figured out three things that help:
1) I get angrier more quickly when I’m tired. Knowing this can help me calm down.
2) Usually, I’m mad at the SITUATION, and my husband just happens to be the only adult around for me to target. Understanding when I’m angry about something he is doing and when I’m just angry about something we can’t control is important for me.
3) He doesn’t know I want him to help with the dishes or do the laundry unless I ask him to. He can’t read my mind. He doesn’t think like I do.

I really think #2 is a big part of most mothers’ anger. You can’t get mad at your 6 month old for not sleeping, so you assume it is your husband’s fault for overstimulating her.

Mark Lonergan January 29, 2009 · 6:47 pm

A lot of what’s described here is, very unfortunately, true. Women in the United States have no role models for parenting, having been raised predominantly by harried and frantic (and often single) working mothers in the 1970s and 1980s. Women began to believe that men were superfluous and unnecessary as parents, to the detriment of millions of children raised without fathers.

The solution? Grow up and embrace the responsibilities of becoming a parent. Bring children into intact families with both a mother and a father. Stop whining about what you’re missing and enjoy what you’ve got. Go back to the models our grandmothers enjoyed and learn about being a real mother.

One thing IS clear. The angrier the mother, the more abuse ultimately is heaped on the children. Dr. Laura asks the question often: “Would you want to come home to you?” If the answer is no, then you have some growing up to do.

grad student January 29, 2009 · 6:49 pm

I’m still considering kids, in part because I know I am going to be very tempted towards this anger and want to work through the situation before hand with my spouse. One bit of balance I appreciated was Judith Warner’s point that women sometimes have expectations way out of bounds. If I want my husband to cook for me, I have to be willing to eat the food. I’m often not….so I do most of the cooking. Is it ok for the kid to have a mismatched outfit for school? If men step up, women have to let go of some of the worry–we both have to change.

But men do need to step up. Thank you, #1 and #7, for letting us know that some are.

sb January 29, 2009 · 6:55 pm

I used to get annoyed, and yes, angry, with my husband about the lack of attention he seemed to pay to things like diapers, clothes, food, baths, nap schedules, etc. It is tedious, consuming, and important.

Then I realized that it also takes a tremendous amount of mental energy to keep track of those things. Really only one parent at a time needs to deal with those details. Why waste even more energy being angry?

We both work from home, we both take care of the kids, and we both share household responsibilities. It isn’t 100% equally shared, but we do our best to back each other up, to fill in the gaps. I pay the bills, he remembers when it’s garbage night (and brings it out).

I think of the time and thought I put into the little things as one of my contributions towards our not always smooth lives. That makes it seem better somehow, less like I’ve been diminished by being forced into a “typical” wifely and mother role.

But I still get angry about needing more time to myself. That one’s hard!

melk January 29, 2009 · 6:57 pm

My observation, as a very experienced parent of two adult sons is as follows. I see the daughters of so many friends and relatives turning parenthood into an obsessive, all-consuming activity in which THEY are the only true experts. They know far more than the parents who raised them. Everything has to be done their way, even when the kids are entrusted to the care of their husbands. Totally ridiculous. Parenting is a fairly simple occupation. People in primitive societies manage it rather well. I spent a huge amount of time raising my boys and also managed to write a dissertation and create a considerable amount of family weath at the same time. It’s just not that complicated.

Mike January 29, 2009 · 7:03 pm

Among our friends with kids, I sometimes see the wife essentially hoarding information, and then being pissed at the husband for not knowing it, and since he doesn’t have the data at his fingertips, he is clueless, the wife is frustrated and then she just does it herself and gets mad. Not a good outcome – you want the dad to help, engage him, make him a stakeholder and give him a vote on how the task gets done.

Another point is that men and women often work quite differently around the house. If I have five hours and a list of tasks to do I will work like hell for three or so hours to get the tasks done, and then chill on the couch for the last hour or two. My wife will putter along, doing the tasks, calling someone on the phone, doing a little of this and that (the famed “multi-tasking”) and will get her tasks done in the time period, but only just – she’s never really “done” until she’s out of time. We both did the same amount of work, but we allocated it differently. This is normally ok – we’re not all supposed to be alike in every way – though it can be a little annoying if she gets snippy because I am enjoying my hour in front of the TV while she continues to work, or when I would rather that she be done sooner so we can go and do something together. That’s where communication and tolerance has to come in.

Jessica January 29, 2009 · 7:45 pm

My husband carries more than the fair share of the average male, and for that I am grateful. But there are some elements of life that are simply robbing our entire family of potentials of talent. It frankly makes bad economic sense. And yet “they” are holding the particular reins we need. Unfair, and another ‘U’ for unsatisfactory.

Bummer!

Jessica January 29, 2009 · 7:46 pm

Oh yeah, and take that:

//growingupartists.blogspot.com

Seems to be the only meritable output I have to offer. They do call me Houdini, though.

Jan January 29, 2009 · 7:47 pm

Have to say I am in the often angry camp. In my 20s I made a series of career decisions to set myself up for a reasonable work-life balance–a well-paying job that requires under than 50 hours per week. Unfortunately, I did not have the forsight to marry a man making similar choices. Love him, but we never see him. I find that the anger can poison the little time we do have together. Better to just embrace single motherhood and rejoice when he is home.

Girls are raised to think about how they are going to make everything work. Boys (especially those raised by stay at home mothers) can grow up in a fantasy land. There is a tendency for men to establish self-worth based on their career accomplishments. Family life can be an after thought for a dad. If a woman feels this way, she doesn’t have kids.

So a word of advice to those in the dating scene. Just because a man is loving and inspiring and humorous and has a million other wonderful qualities does not mean he is going to make a great life partner. Kudos to the prior posters who obviously knew this bit of wisdom when selecting such wonderful fathers for their future children.

I am off to put the kids to bed.

Laura January 29, 2009 · 8:11 pm

@Sally ” He doesn’t know I want him to help with the dishes or do the laundry unless I ask him to. He can’t read my mind. He doesn’t think like I do.”

But this is exactly what these mothers are angry about! For some reason, it is almost always true that mom is the one who wants the laundry to get done, or wants the dishes to get washed. Men who respond to criticism of their contributions to the household by saying “but you don’t ask me to do things!” are ignoring the mental energy that goes into keeping track of everything that needs to get done.

In some relationships, it may be true that the woman is ‘naturally’ more detail-oriented or prefers things to be more clean than the man. However, this phenomenon is simply too widespread to be accounted for by individual differences. I am guessing that most men are happy with the status quo – it saves them quite a lot of work. They’ll admit it, if you ask them. It is much easier for them to apologize every so often and bring home some flowers and chocolate than it would be to put in the effort to change long-ingrained, energy-saving habits.

Mr. Gilligan January 29, 2009 · 8:12 pm

I dont want a return to anything less than complete second-wave feminism equality, along with authentic co-parenting. But that begs the question as to whether there is something else operating, i.e., a culture of complaint in which many women, full of legitimate anxities, displace those anxieties and target the closest available adult (their husband) in a whining, pathetic, non-stop barrage of permanent disatisfaction with EVERYTHING.

Maybe this is our payment for all the years of oppressive privilged patriarchy,deservedly so.

But will no one agree that much of it simply might be good old fashioned whining, bitching, and moaning?

Ed January 29, 2009 · 8:12 pm

I will say that I have to believe much of this is a perception. My wife and I used to have the same fights over and over again; in which she was convinced that she was doing everything around the house. I was equally convinced that she was delusional about it.

So we agreed to keep detailed chore logs for a month. Well when all was said and done we found out that shockingly I was actually doing close to 35% more of the chores and childcare responsibilities. My wife was honestly shocked, she was absolutely certain that she was doing more.

I’d suggest this to the men out there who really believe that they pull their own weight.

Vince January 29, 2009 · 8:13 pm

Wow – sounds like a bunch of women married their dreams and not reality. Live with the consequences or bring those boys into the 21st century (or, at the very east, teach your daughters to make better choices…).

Donald N.S. Unger January 29, 2009 · 8:14 pm

I’ve been writing and thinking about parenting issues, and about how fathers are represented, for a while now, looking back over the past 30+ years.

As a statistical matter, it’s clearly true that, in virtually all situations, women do more. We can (and do) argue about why this is, chiefly about Nature vs. Nurture.

But what I have been noticing more and more is a tendency for women to get hung up between, “You’re not doing enough!” and “You idiot! You’re not doing that right!”

My wife and I have a 13YO daughter. We’ve always worked to divide childcare and housework. We would describe each other as equally sharing parents. That happened in part as a matter of decision and negotiation before we had a child. But it also happened because, the way my wife would describe it, she was able, early on, to step back and “let me” do things that she would think of as “mistakes.”

She understood, early on, that the benefit of having a co-parent (or a co-housekeeper) is bought at the cost of sometimes having things done in a way other than the way you would do them. You can have things done for you, or you can have thing done “right.” And if you’re the only one who can get things “right,” well congratulations, you’ve guaranteed that no one else can do them in your stead.

Men complained (and some still do) that women breaking into a variety of professional spheres over the last generation changed the office and the factory. All-male enclaves changed when they had to open up (at least a little) to women. Genuine sharing of childcare will mean that parenting changes as well. It was painful but positive change to have women take a more equal role in the professional sphere. It will ultimately be positive for men to take a more equal role in the domestic sphere—but that change too is painful.

Adina January 29, 2009 · 8:17 pm

I think that this post and the one about only children are related. I find that my husband and I have a decent division of labor, both in terms of parenting and chores. His job is more demanding (and pays more), and I do more (but not all) stuff around the house, and leave the office at 5:10 every day.

BUT, this all works with one kid. Two? Not sure we’ll be able to achieve the same balance.

jah8 January 29, 2009 · 8:18 pm

my wife gets made at me towards the end of each and every month without fail. then the menses madness dissapates and shes appreciative of all the things I do, not the things I didn’t.

ljw January 29, 2009 · 8:19 pm

When I find myself in the angry camp, it’s usually not because I want my husband to step up more,. It’s because I feel he takes for granted exactly how much I do and doesn’t quite understand why it’s important.

sarah January 29, 2009 · 8:21 pm

It’s hard when both parents are working at full time demanding jobs. I put my career on the back burner (continued to work but was more part-time ie. 25-30 hours) than my husband. Then I wasn’t as resentful that I was responsible for remembering all the nitty gritty of everyone’s lives. This worked for us because I’m not particularly ambitious. It’s hard to have all three: kids, a career and a spouse. Something has to give. I think women have the expectation that their husbands will be equal partners but this is often not the case. It’s certainly better now than when my kids were small (they’re now 17 and 20). It seems to improve with each generation, but reality is lagging behind expectations.