Factors Driving Unhappiness in the Modern World

[curious_george]

I constantly read how people feel social media is responsible for much of their unhappiness. If this is really true, why don't they just stop checking in? Seems like an obvious solution....or does everyone else have to stop loggin in too? Personally I don't use FB or twitter, however sites like this are very valuable.

people engage in all sorts of behavior that they know is bad for them: cocaine, heroine, cheeseburgers, cigarettes, working in a dimly lit office, alcohol. Knowledge that a behavior is bad for you is not the impetus for change.

Yes - I have personally always been against social media of all kinds because I view it as a cheap drug. I've had this view ever since the MySpace days, lol. I'm starting to feel old. I'm kind of out of touch with social media and there are some platforms people mention I've never heard of.

I just joined facebook four years ago and only use it as an address book for people when I don't have their number to arrange in person events, buy/sell groups, learn about smaller organizations that are on facebook but don't have their own website, etc. This is the only value I see in facebook and the only reason I use it. I don't just randomly scroll through facebook constantly like some addicts do. I am very selective about how I use it.

The only other social media I'm on is this forum. I come here because it is cheap, always accessible, and it's challenging to replicate some of the intellectual conversations with over 100 people at the same time in person. So I just view it as a way to interact with a lot of intellectual people at once and learn and grow.

The problem with social media is that it's an addicting drug that is free, always accessible, and provides the pleasure of socialization but none of the long term emotional and physical health benefits from real, genuine friendships. I view it the same way I view fruit and candy, which is mostly to focus on fruit but accept candy if fruit is not available and I really want a sugar hit.

Where I'm at it's 5 am in the morning. My friends and family are not awake right now to discuss the long term negative health benefits of social media use. I still have an urge to socialize about this topic though, and I have some free time, so here I am. On social media. Talking about the long term negative health impacts of social media addiction, lol. I'm still struggling with how to use this forum well without becoming addicted.

It is very similar to any other drug, and I don't think the long term negative health outcomes are fully understood yet, especially with regards to childhood brain development.

My kids are also not on any kind of social media for this reason. They also have no smartphones for the same reason.

Instead they go outside everyday and play with their friends in the neighborhood. In real life. Often they do things like ride bikes, play football, basketball, etc. So they are both developing real friendships and also getting physical activity at the same time.

I'm sure there are some studies somewhere showing the negative mental health outcomes of social media addictions and how addicting the behavior is. I've never actually viewed any of the studies, so this is all just my opinion.

[chemistk]

it's interesting how you characterize the forums.

I personally don't categorize them as social media, there's no ads, very few pictures, no memes, and you can absolutely max out the content you see in a day around here.

I see them as an outlet for discussions I can't really have in person, and certainly won't have on more traditional forms of social media. I get to refine my perspective and get a glimpse into how others view a wide array of issues without worrying about too many negative side effects caused by the discussion. Many times, I've been left with some very deep and ponderous  thoughts and arguments on a huge range of subjects. These are the same discussions I want to have IRL but can't because many in my circles don't want to engage or directly conflict with my views.

What I'm trying to get at here is - are there underlying causes driving some of these things?

Things that we can easily fix as a society?

Thoughts?

- Yes

- No

- Inequality is a beast, isn't it? Take a whole heck of a lot of random luck, mix it with a finite lifespan, and you get billions of people who are born, live, and die feeling unfulfilled, discriminated against, or who are just outright abused every day until they die.

Think of how many sci-fi/thriller movies exist with some form of premise that involves a utopic society carefully isolated from the rest of the world. Think of how many Star Wars type movies that have created such a broad universe that it's realistic to pretend that you could find "your people" on a planet out there somewhere and live in utopia. Think of the various religious interpretations of Heaven - each is a place where everyone is happy and content.

You, I, and We can't fix inequality. Some people will always die from disease unfairly, or be killed by a wild animal, or be hit by space debris. The perception of inequality and the narrative that an individual creates wherein they believe themselves to be deserving of something that someone else has is intoxicating. It's such an easy road to go down, to feel as though one is entitled to something or that they are left out of something else.

How are you to convince them otherwise, let alone whole populations of people who accept that mindset? You can't. The only way you could is if you were to know, verifiably, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they earn their desired reward at some cosmic point in the future.

I, like many others, have suffered and will suffer again through this same mindset. You can certainly try and place yourself relative to others in terms of how fortunate you are in life. Being born into Western society, with no physical deformities, is already enough to make you among the world's luckiest. And yet I guarantee you that you have in the past and will do so in the future, considered that you are not equal to someone else and that you want to have what someone else has. Technically you're doing it now - instead of finding peace in your life and accepting what you have whole-hog, you're seeking a salve for the pain that the world around experiences.

Death is the great equalizer. Death, aging, and the hopelessness of our perception of the time-dimension all serve to ensure that we continue to feel as though we are not enough. Because neither you nor I can know what lies beyond, so we conclude that what is now, is all. And through that conclusion you find that you have little time to do too many things. This is the foundational aspect, I believe, of most if not all of our problems as individuals and as a society.

We become swept up in the world around us because a narrative unfolds before us as we grown from young children to young adults. We learn that society, whatever form that takes, is the most efficient avenue to helping us enjoy those things we are able to enjoy. If we're lucky enough, we can find room to enlighten ourselves to the causes and effects of the best and worst parts of humanity and to recognize what we conclude as the best way to live our own life. But we tend to not be so lucky to also be able to pursue that goal without negative (to us, or to others) consequences.

So we settle, into a balance that allows us to find the highest amount of happiness that also leads to the longest amount of time to experience that happiness. We climb towards the sun, moon, and stars, only to wither from existence mere inches from where we started.

If you can tell me how to enlighten whole populations to this perspective without also collapsing society in a mass-panic realization of the fleeting nature of life, I'm all ears.

[wenchsenior]

I constantly read how people feel social media is responsible for much of their unhappiness. If this is really true, why don't they just stop checking in? Seems like an obvious solution....or does everyone else have to stop loggin in too? Personally I don't use FB or twitter, however sites like this are very valuable.

B/C social media in particular is designed to be addictive (though internet browsing is addictive in general) b/c it releases bursts of dopamine.

[ChpBstrd]

I constantly read how people feel social media is responsible for much of their unhappiness. If this is really true, why don't they just stop checking in? Seems like an obvious solution....or does everyone else have to stop loggin in too? Personally I don't use FB or twitter, however sites like this are very valuable.

The rise of social media has killed off a lot of the IRL opportunities people used to have for socializing. There are a lot fewer soda shops, skating rinks, bowling alleys, movie theaters, malls, social/fraternal clubs, and even bars than there were in the era before social media took over everyone's life. Even church attendance is down by half over the last 20 years. The people who would have been their customers or members a couple generations ago are now spending their social time on apps. Thus, we no longer really have as many alternatives.

If your friends from school/college refuse to go out, and insist upon using social media instead, you will end up using it too. To abandon them and seek out reality-based friend networks would be extraordinarily difficult, especially after your social skills have withered from years spent online.

[curious_george]

it's interesting how you characterize the forums.

I personally don't categorize them as social media, there's no ads, very few pictures, no memes, and you can absolutely max out the content you see in a day around here.

I see them as an outlet for discussions I can't really have in person, and certainly won't have on more traditional forms of social media. I get to refine my perspective and get a glimpse into how others view a wide array of issues without worrying about too many negative side effects caused by the discussion. Many times, I've been left with some very deep and ponderous  thoughts and arguments on a huge range of subjects. These are the same discussions I want to have IRL but can't because many in my circles don't want to engage or directly conflict with my views.

What I'm trying to get at here is - are there underlying causes driving some of these things?

Things that we can easily fix as a society?

Thoughts?

- Yes

- No

- Inequality is a beast, isn't it? Take a whole heck of a lot of random luck, mix it with a finite lifespan, and you get billions of people who are born, live, and die feeling unfulfilled, discriminated against, or who are just outright abused every day until they die.

Think of how many sci-fi/thriller movies exist with some form of premise that involves a utopic society carefully isolated from the rest of the world. Think of how many Star Wars type movies that have created such a broad universe that it's realistic to pretend that you could find "your people" on a planet out there somewhere and live in utopia. Think of the various religious interpretations of Heaven - each is a place where everyone is happy and content.

You, I, and We can't fix inequality. Some people will always die from disease unfairly, or be killed by a wild animal, or be hit by space debris. The perception of inequality and the narrative that an individual creates wherein they believe themselves to be deserving of something that someone else has is intoxicating. It's such an easy road to go down, to feel as though one is entitled to something or that they are left out of something else.

How are you to convince them otherwise, let alone whole populations of people who accept that mindset? You can't. The only way you could is if you were to know, verifiably, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they earn their desired reward at some cosmic point in the future.

I, like many others, have suffered and will suffer again through this same mindset. You can certainly try and place yourself relative to others in terms of how fortunate you are in life. Being born into Western society, with no physical deformities, is already enough to make you among the world's luckiest. And yet I guarantee you that you have in the past and will do so in the future, considered that you are not equal to someone else and that you want to have what someone else has. Technically you're doing it now - instead of finding peace in your life and accepting what you have whole-hog, you're seeking a salve for the pain that the world around experiences.

Death is the great equalizer. Death, aging, and the hopelessness of our perception of the time-dimension all serve to ensure that we continue to feel as though we are not enough. Because neither you nor I can know what lies beyond, so we conclude that what is now, is all. And through that conclusion you find that you have little time to do too many things. This is the foundational aspect, I believe, of most if not all of our problems as individuals and as a society.

We become swept up in the world around us because a narrative unfolds before us as we grown from young children to young adults. We learn that society, whatever form that takes, is the most efficient avenue to helping us enjoy those things we are able to enjoy. If we're lucky enough, we can find room to enlighten ourselves to the causes and effects of the best and worst parts of humanity and to recognize what we conclude as the best way to live our own life. But we tend to not be so lucky to also be able to pursue that goal without negative (to us, or to others) consequences.

So we settle, into a balance that allows us to find the highest amount of happiness that also leads to the longest amount of time to experience that happiness. We climb towards the sun, moon, and stars, only to wither from existence mere inches from where we started.

If you can tell me how to enlighten whole populations to this perspective without also collapsing society in a mass-panic realization of the fleeting nature of life, I'm all ears.

Well - this is certainly an enlightened perspective.

On some level a person can see this as freeing. As a way to not see the world through the lens of inequality and unfairness and comparisons in life and to continue going on about their day to worry and be angry at other perceived injustices in the world instead. And so on as we slowly resolve all the perceived conflicts we created about the world in our own mind.  There are some schools of thought that see the whole purpose of life as resolving these sorts of inner conflicts and ariving at more enlightened perspectives. This forum is great for this purpose.

A lot of our mental suffering and negative reactions and feelings toward things and people arise from our own thought process. Cognitive behavioral therapy is absurdly effective at treating things like depression and anxiety for this reason. We have an amazing ability to sort of prevent, or change, how we react to our own perception of the world in order to create our own emotional happiness in life.

Pain is guaranteed, but how we react to that pain - the suffering - is optional as they say. 

Coming to this realization though may not be of much benefit to the person who is still emotionally suffering because of their own thoughts. To that individual the suffering that is created by their own thought process seems very real to them. So simply invalidating their suffering may not be wise. One has to go through the process of improving their perspective on things and themselves first.

What I am pondering in this thread is exactly how much of our own pain and suffering and unhappiness in life is ultimately under our own control or the control of another human being. Not just our emotional pain and reaction to things, not just the perceived unfairness of life, but physical disease and relationship problems as well. It seems like human beings collectively cause a lot of our own pain and suffering and unhappiness in the world.

How much can we reduce the odds of getting cancer and heart disease by our own diet and lifestyle choices, for example? Implying that someone is partially responsible for their own heart disease in life isn't going to win any favors. But denying that we have any particular control to influence this will cause even more people to suffer from heart disease in the future. A form of suffering that is partially avoidable. Should we deny our own authority over our lives in order to win favors?

The underlying lifestyle drivers for heart disease are various substances that we ourselves created. Things like cigarettes, excessive drinking, ultra processed foods, pollution, and so on.

How much of this is under our own control?

If someone smokes, and if smoking increases the odds of developing heart disease, and if the smoker is unaware, does one have a morale obligation to make them aware in order to reduce their odds of future suffering?

Maybe there is a book somewhere that outlines the major causes of suffering in life that people accidentally fall into and how to prevent them. A simple, free ebook that shows the generally ideal lifestyle to optimize for physical health and disease prevention, mental health, positive relationships, financial well being, and so on. Something like the "How not to Die" book combined with a cognitive behavioral therapy book, the "spark" exercise book, the "why we sleep" book, etc, but which simply outlines the key elements for what to do and what to avoid and why. Something that is simple enough that most everyone understands it, yet highly researched with heavy references to scientific papers for people who want to dig into the lifestyle recommendations. Something that is updated annually as our scientific understanding of the world and ourselves improve. I'm sure something like this already exists somewhere. 

A lot of how to live a healthy lifestyle and avoid suffering and unhappiness in life are obvious to people on this forum. Many people are taught this from their parents even. Growing up in foster care in the ghetto though I can say that having acess to basic information about how and why to live a healthy lifestyle is not something that I had access to at the time. I also wonder if everyone else in the ghetto had access to quality information on living a healthy lifestyle for free, or if health were even considered or prioritized in schools for example, if this would improve the ghetto.

I'm sure something like this already exists somewhere. A book, or a website or something, right? Not something overly complicated - just something to give to people who may have struggled to graduate high school and say "look, here's some idea of how you should live for optimal physical, mental, and emotional health" with a lot of scientific evidence backing up the general recommendations.

And maybe there are some things I'm missing as well. I mean I'm 36 and still learning how to live.

[roomtempmayo]

Pain is guaranteed, but how we react to that pain - the suffering - is optional as they say.  [...]

What I am pondering in this thread is exactly how much of our own pain and suffering and unhappiness in life is ultimately under our own control or the control of another human being. Not just our emotional pain and reaction to things, not just the perceived unfairness of life, but physical disease and relationship problems as well. It seems like human beings collectively cause a lot of our own pain and suffering and unhappiness in the world. [...]

A lot of how to live a healthy lifestyle and avoid suffering and unhappiness in life are obvious to people on this forum. Many people are taught this from their parents even.

The fashionable recommendation in 30-something male pop philosophy self help is going to be the Stoics, who are going to tell you that you can't always change your circumstances, but you can change your reaction.  But reaching for the Stoics as a 30 something advantaged person in a rich, free society is overkill.  Stoicism is a philosophy for young Roman men living under an oppressive empire, forced to fight and die in a series of stupid provincial conflicts, with no hope to take action to really change their circumstances.  If that's not you, and I don't think it is, then Stoicism is the wrong sort of retreatism for your life.

From a variety of angles, we're coming to understand that the most accurate unit of analysis for happiness, health, family cohesion, stress, intergenerational wealth/poverty, and on down the list of good and bad life outcomes isn't the individual, at least not beyond some basic genetic predispositions that are out of our control.  Most of the good and bad outcomes are about getting yourself in the right literal and metaphorical neighborhood: good outcomes beget good outcomes.  If there's one consistent point from Raj Chetty's Atlas of Opportunity project, it's that who we interact with regularly is critically important for our life outcomes.  I don't think we fully understand how these neighborhood effects work yet (i.e. why depression is contagious, or why upward mobility clusters in geographic locations), but they're huge.

An anecdote relating to marriage that I suspect travels to other parts of our lives.  My wife and I are old enough at this point with a large enough web of loosely connected friend groups to see good and bad outcomes cluster in different groups.  Perhaps most notable is that our closest group of friends have mostly been married for 10-15 years, and not a single couple has gotten divorced.  We aren't some sort of fundamentalists where divorce is taboo, and everyone is happy in their marriages.  We live in a cluster of marital health, and it reinforces our own marriage.  Meanwhile, we have more distant friend groups where everyone is unhappy in their marriages, getting divorced, cheating, etcetera. 

Someone might think that the way to have a successful marriage is to read books written about what people with successful and unsuccessful marriages do, and then try to replicate the good stuff while avoiding the bad stuff.  Basically to try and turn it into abstract knowledge.  I don't think that's likely to be a good strategy, or you wouldn't see such profound clustering.  Instead, I'd suggest just spending time with people you admire and whose life outcomes you want to be your own.  You'll assimilate into that culture and take it on without even realizing it.

Perhaps the most direct way to say it is that most good and bad life outcomes are not products of conventional knowledge, they're a set of cultural practices transmitted through a community by socialization.

[ender]

I constantly read how people feel social media is responsible for much of their unhappiness. If this is really true, why don't they just stop checking in? Seems like an obvious solution....or does everyone else have to stop loggin in too? Personally I don't use FB or twitter, however sites like this are very valuable.

B/C social media in particular is designed to be addictive (though internet browsing is addictive in general) b/c it releases bursts of dopamine.

My personal take is that the dopamine IVs, exemplified by social media like Facebook, will be considered the tobacco companies of this century in hindsight.

[curious_george]

There is also the unequal division of household labor and the self help industry insisting that we must not ask men for help and must instead praise them for any tiny effort they make (that was in the "what's wrong with straight people" book that Malcat recommended).  Social media might make the burden worse for some people as there can be a competitive aspect to housework, parenting, etc.

I debated replying to this for a while as it sort of bounced around in my head. I took the trash out, and mowed the lawn, and talked to my wife about this some.

I agree this is a problem and a source of frustration. We are increasingly living in a world where women are doing a majority of the work in general. Something like half the paid labor force or more in the US are women now(1). In addition more women are graduating from college than men(2).

Meanwhile women also tend to be paid less than men, often wind up doing a majority of the housework, and also wind up providing most of the child care. I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

This is far more common, in my experience, than the opposite situation.

I'm not sure, realistically, what the solution is though? I have talked to some of my guy friends about this in the past and they just sort of shrugged their shoulders or actually blamed their wife for working too hard.

My wife is an extreme left wing democrat and her solution would be to extend and expand the child tax credits to be like double or triple the current rate and fully refundable and paid monthly, and to force companies to pay equal wages. I'm not sure if either of these things address housework labor division though.

Even in my own house the labor is pretty divided. I work and pay bills, take out the trash, mow the lawn, clean and do laundry about half the time. My wife also cleans, does laundry, cleans dishes, makes food, and does most all of the child care. We try to make the labor time equal but we *also* have the labor split pretty hard by how much either of us enjoy doing specific things.

1.https://www.brighthorizons.com/resources/Blog/the-mancession-women-surpass-men-in-the-workforce
2.https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/08/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion/

[SunnyDays]

There’s a big difference in the types of chores you’ve described above beyond the amount of time they take.  It’s the amount of mental energy they take that makes typical women’s job more exhausting than typical men’s jobs.  Mowing the lawn and taking garbage out are literally no brainers.  Child care and meals take a million decisions to accomplish.  Just consider meals - you have to plan what to eat 3 times per day at least, see if you have the ingredients, if not, buy them at the best possible price, store them appropriately when you get home, cook the meals and clean up.  Unless you eat s lot of takeout or some other form of premade meals, it’s time consuming and tiring and something that has to be done every day of your life.  Child care is even more complicated.  The best way for each person in a couple to appreciate what the other does is to go on a solo vacation without preparing everything in advance.  That could be an eye opener.
The social pressures put on women to have the perfect job, the perfect family, the perfect house and the perfect body is immense.  Ironically, the pressure generally comes from other women and from ourselves.  It’s the source of a lot of unhappiness and needs some serious reconsideration.

[teen persuasion]

There is also the unequal division of household labor and the self help industry insisting that we must not ask men for help and must instead praise them for any tiny effort they make (that was in the "what's wrong with straight people" book that Malcat recommended).  Social media might make the burden worse for some people as there can be a competitive aspect to housework, parenting, etc.

I debated replying to this for a while as it sort of bounced around in my head. I took the trash out, and mowed the lawn, and talked to my wife about this some.

I agree this is a problem and a source of frustration. We are increasingly living in a world where women are doing a majority of the work in general. Something like half the paid labor force or more in the US are women now(1). In addition more women are graduating from college than men(2).

Meanwhile women also tend to be paid less than men, often wind up doing a majority of the housework, and also wind up providing most of the child care. I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

This is far more common, in my experience, than the opposite situation.

I'm not sure, realistically, what the solution is though? I have talked to some of my guy friends about this in the past and they just sort of shrugged their shoulders or actually blamed their wife for working too hard.

My wife is an extreme left wing democrat and her solution would be to extend and expand the child tax credits to be like double or triple the current rate and fully refundable and paid monthly, and to force companies to pay equal wages. I'm not sure if either of these things address housework labor division though.

Even in my own house the labor is pretty divided. I work and pay bills, take out the trash, mow the lawn, clean and do laundry about half the time. My wife also cleans, does laundry, cleans dishes, makes food, and does most all of the child care. We try to make the labor time equal but we *also* have the labor split pretty hard by how much either of us enjoy doing specific things.

1.https://www.brighthorizons.com/resources/Blog/the-mancession-women-surpass-men-in-the-workforce
2.https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/08/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion/

There was a lengthy thread I saw on Twitter last week (before everything Elon took over) by a writer whose character was a new mother, and breastfeeding.  Drawing on her own experience, the writer included lots of details.  Well, some readers/reviewers had complained about it, TMI, didn't want to see so much of it.  But hundreds of other new mothers chimed in and loved that they were finally SEEN, and could totally commiserate.  The common theme was that newborns, and feeding them, was all-encompassing.  The media representation of newborns quietly playing/sleeping in the background while mothers did other stuff was ludicrous to them.  A comment was made, roughly: farmers get subsidies for growing food, breast-feeding mothers should get paid/subsidized, too. 

More broadly - the things caregivers (primarily mothers) have done traditionally have been entirely unpaid.  This means it has zero value in our capitalistic society.  And traditional "women's" jobs (pink collar) are lower paid and often without benefits (the assumption is that their spouse's job will provide benefits), even jobs requiring advanced degrees (library field is especially bad).

So, yeah, a lot of us are thinking like your wife.

[Metalcat]

There is also the unequal division of household labor and the self help industry insisting that we must not ask men for help and must instead praise them for any tiny effort they make (that was in the "what's wrong with straight people" book that Malcat recommended).  Social media might make the burden worse for some people as there can be a competitive aspect to housework, parenting, etc.

I debated replying to this for a while as it sort of bounced around in my head. I took the trash out, and mowed the lawn, and talked to my wife about this some.

I agree this is a problem and a source of frustration. We are increasingly living in a world where women are doing a majority of the work in general. Something like half the paid labor force or more in the US are women now(1). In addition more women are graduating from college than men(2).

Meanwhile women also tend to be paid less than men, often wind up doing a majority of the housework, and also wind up providing most of the child care. I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

This is far more common, in my experience, than the opposite situation.

I'm not sure, realistically, what the solution is though? I have talked to some of my guy friends about this in the past and they just sort of shrugged their shoulders or actually blamed their wife for working too hard.

My wife is an extreme left wing democrat and her solution would be to extend and expand the child tax credits to be like double or triple the current rate and fully refundable and paid monthly, and to force companies to pay equal wages. I'm not sure if either of these things address housework labor division though.

Even in my own house the labor is pretty divided. I work and pay bills, take out the trash, mow the lawn, clean and do laundry about half the time. My wife also cleans, does laundry, cleans dishes, makes food, and does most all of the child care. We try to make the labor time equal but we *also* have the labor split pretty hard by how much either of us enjoy doing specific things.

1.https://www.brighthorizons.com/resources/Blog/the-mancession-women-surpass-men-in-the-workforce
2.https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/08/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion/

There was a lengthy thread I saw on Twitter last week (before everything Elon took over) by a writer whose character was a new mother, and breastfeeding.  Drawing on her own experience, the writer included lots of details.  Well, some readers/reviewers had complained about it, TMI, didn't want to see so much of it.  But hundreds of other new mothers chimed in and loved that they were finally SEEN, and could totally commiserate.  The common theme was that newborns, and feeding them, was all-encompassing.  The media representation of newborns quietly playing/sleeping in the background while mothers did other stuff was ludicrous to them.  A comment was made, roughly: farmers get subsidies for growing food, breast-feeding mothers should get paid/subsidized, too. 

More broadly - the things caregivers (primarily mothers) have done traditionally have been entirely unpaid.  This means it has zero value in our capitalistic society.  And traditional "women's" jobs (pink collar) are lower paid and often without benefits (the assumption is that their spouse's job will provide benefits), even jobs requiring advanced degrees (library field is especially bad).

So, yeah, a lot of us are thinking like your wife.

To be fair, none of this would be considered "extreme" in a lot of the developed world.

[curious_george]

There’s a big difference in the types of chores you’ve described above beyond the amount of time they take.  It’s the amount of mental energy they take that makes typical women’s job more exhausting than typical men’s jobs.  Mowing the lawn and taking garbage out are literally no brainers.  Child care and meals take a million decisions to accomplish.  Just consider meals - you have to plan what to eat 3 times per day at least, see if you have the ingredients, if not, buy them at the best possible price, store them appropriately when you get home, cook the meals and clean up.  Unless you eat s lot of takeout or some other form of premade meals, it’s time consuming and tiring and something that has to be done every day of your life.  Child care is even more complicated.  The best way for each person in a couple to appreciate what the other does is to go on a solo vacation without preparing everything in advance.  That could be an eye opener.
The social pressures put on women to have the perfect job, the perfect family, the perfect house and the perfect body is immense.  Ironically, the pressure generally comes from other women and from ourselves.  It’s the source of a lot of unhappiness and needs some serious reconsideration.

I see your point, and I think it's definitely true. The traditional women's labor roles, especially child care, are far more exhausting both mentally and emotionally than traditional men's labor roles in the household. Frankly if I were a woman in the modern age I would decide to not have children. The burden is too great, especially if I were also expected to hold down a job, take care of my body, exercise, etc. If my wife went on a solo vacation I would need to take vacation at work/ quit my job to have enough energy to take on all the responsibilities. Even then it would not be enjoyable. I have no ides how single parents survive.

I think it also depends very much on the people and relationship as well though.

For example, my wife says she enjoys childcare and says this is her dream in life. She asked me out 20 years ago when we were both in high school. She was 15 years old and already had names picked out for her children, told me her plan was to focus 100% on being a mom, and made it very clear she was only dating to get married and be a mother and had no interest in working or going to college. I was her first boyfriend, was very shy, and she very much pursued me to accomplish this goal in her life. This was her entire plan and goal in life that she had at a very young age.

I think for her never having to work a traditional job outside of the home, never worrying about money or bills, never worrying about fixing vehicles or household items, having extensive family members for babysitting, and having a husband who is very close and supportive physically, emotionally, and financially, are all beneficial in helping her to focus on childcare.

I have no idea why she enjoys it though and finds it easy *shrugs shoulders*. I feel about the same towards changing diapers as she feels toward developing software, doing taxes, or changing brake pads.

[curious_george]

There is also the unequal division of household labor and the self help industry insisting that we must not ask men for help and must instead praise them for any tiny effort they make (that was in the "what's wrong with straight people" book that Malcat recommended).  Social media might make the burden worse for some people as there can be a competitive aspect to housework, parenting, etc.

I debated replying to this for a while as it sort of bounced around in my head. I took the trash out, and mowed the lawn, and talked to my wife about this some.

I agree this is a problem and a source of frustration. We are increasingly living in a world where women are doing a majority of the work in general. Something like half the paid labor force or more in the US are women now(1). In addition more women are graduating from college than men(2).

Meanwhile women also tend to be paid less than men, often wind up doing a majority of the housework, and also wind up providing most of the child care. I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

This is far more common, in my experience, than the opposite situation.

I'm not sure, realistically, what the solution is though? I have talked to some of my guy friends about this in the past and they just sort of shrugged their shoulders or actually blamed their wife for working too hard.

My wife is an extreme left wing democrat and her solution would be to extend and expand the child tax credits to be like double or triple the current rate and fully refundable and paid monthly, and to force companies to pay equal wages. I'm not sure if either of these things address housework labor division though.

Even in my own house the labor is pretty divided. I work and pay bills, take out the trash, mow the lawn, clean and do laundry about half the time. My wife also cleans, does laundry, cleans dishes, makes food, and does most all of the child care. We try to make the labor time equal but we *also* have the labor split pretty hard by how much either of us enjoy doing specific things.

1.https://www.brighthorizons.com/resources/Blog/the-mancession-women-surpass-men-in-the-workforce
2.https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/08/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion/

There was a lengthy thread I saw on Twitter last week (before everything Elon took over) by a writer whose character was a new mother, and breastfeeding.  Drawing on her own experience, the writer included lots of details.  Well, some readers/reviewers had complained about it, TMI, didn't want to see so much of it.  But hundreds of other new mothers chimed in and loved that they were finally SEEN, and could totally commiserate.  The common theme was that newborns, and feeding them, was all-encompassing.  The media representation of newborns quietly playing/sleeping in the background while mothers did other stuff was ludicrous to them.  A comment was made, roughly: farmers get subsidies for growing food, breast-feeding mothers should get paid/subsidized, too. 

More broadly - the things caregivers (primarily mothers) have done traditionally have been entirely unpaid.  This means it has zero value in our capitalistic society.  And traditional "women's" jobs (pink collar) are lower paid and often without benefits (the assumption is that their spouse's job will provide benefits), even jobs requiring advanced degrees (library field is especially bad).

So, yeah, a lot of us are thinking like your wife.

To be fair, none of this would be considered "extreme" in a lot of the developed world.

Yes - political ideas seem very different depending on the country and area. We live in a heavily Republican area in the US. This is considered very extreme here by most of the people in our social circle, who are mostly Republican.

If the rest of the developed world heard the discussions I have had with some of my Republican friends and neighbors they would think America is a third world country.

ETA: I have had arguments with some neighbors about if all black people are criminals, and if it is ok to shout racial slurs at African American kids in the neighborhood walking down the street...I was told "well that's what they are, so I don't see why you have a problem with it". I won't get into my time doing climate activism activities here, since there is a whole other depressing thread about that lol. I live in a low income area of the country.

[ender]

I have no idea why she enjoys it though and finds it easy *shrugs shoulders*. I feel about the same towards changing diapers as she feels toward developing software, doing taxes, or changing brake pads.

I highly doubt she "finds it easy."

[curious_george]

I have no idea why she enjoys it though and finds it easy *shrugs shoulders*. I feel about the same towards changing diapers as she feels toward developing software, doing taxes, or changing brake pads.

I highly doubt she "finds it easy."

Well - in real life this would be the part of the discussion where my wife would take over the argument, since she is much more vocal and opinionated than I am, and I'm repeating what she told me.

I guess I will just politely state that you and my wife disagree with each other, and this is something she has repeated for almost 20 years now, to everyone. I think her job is harder than mine, she thinks my job is harder than hers.

My wife is generally more dominant than I am and this is not something I would argue with anyone about. But she isn't on these forums so I will politely decline this sort of argument here as it seems like some people may be projecting their own situations and views here.

[Metalcat]

I have no idea why she enjoys it though and finds it easy *shrugs shoulders*. I feel about the same towards changing diapers as she feels toward developing software, doing taxes, or changing brake pads.

I highly doubt she "finds it easy."

I'm guessing she means that she thrives with the pressure.

I personally also often described my job as being "easy" for me because I was much more "at ease" with the constant pressure than my colleagues. It didn't mean the job was easy, it meant I thrived enormously under the pressure and found it comfortable.

I'm guessing that's what she means. That she's happily at ease with the demanding job of parenting and thrives while doing it.

[curious_george]

I have no idea why she enjoys it though and finds it easy *shrugs shoulders*. I feel about the same towards changing diapers as she feels toward developing software, doing taxes, or changing brake pads.

I highly doubt she "finds it easy."

I'm guessing she means that she thrives with the pressure.

I personally also often described my job as being "easy" for me because I was much more "at ease" with the constant pressure than my colleagues. It didn't mean the job was easy, it meant I thrived enormously under the pressure and found it comfortable.

I'm guessing that's what she means. That she's happily at ease with the demanding job of parenting and thrives while doing it.

Yes - this could be what she means. I don't think she *actually* finds it easy. I guess I should probably add some context to these discussions.

Usually I have these sorts of discussions when she seems stressed out, and I ask her if she's ok with this level of responsibility, or if she needs help cleaning or doing laundry or whatnot. Or when other people question her choice to not go to college or have a traditional job, she will tell them she enjoys being a stay at home parent much more and believes it is easier than working a traditional job. Or when other people question how many children she has had.   

We have had some arguments as well over how many children we should have in the past. I wanted a small family, and she wanted a larger family, and I brought up the stress that children cause her and she has always said taking care of children is easy for her and that she enjoys it. She won all the arguments as usual and we have four children now, lol. She very much directs my life (again, I have generally always been a people pleaser).   

I personally think she has some sort of intense psychological need of being a mother. I doubt she *actually* finds it easy. But she seems to enjoy it so much that the stress gets sort of masked and she seems to forget about it even.

She has been extremely consistent with this view over the years. Even in high school I brought this up and she said that it would be easy for her.

But yeah I do *not* think her job is easy. The idea of her disappearing for some reason and leaving me to raise the kids by myself would be a nightmare. I do what I can to help but she also shields me from a lot of the parental stress.

[curious_george]

I have no idea why she enjoys it though and finds it easy *shrugs shoulders*. I feel about the same towards changing diapers as she feels toward developing software, doing taxes, or changing brake pads.

I highly doubt she "finds it easy."

I'm guessing she means that she thrives with the pressure.

I personally also often described my job as being "easy" for me because I was much more "at ease" with the constant pressure than my colleagues. It didn't mean the job was easy, it meant I thrived enormously under the pressure and found it comfortable.

I'm guessing that's what she means. That she's happily at ease with the demanding job of parenting and thrives while doing it.

Ok - I talked to my wife about this some more to clarify what she means by "easy" and she says "of course my job is not actually easy, but I never expected it to be easy either". Then she laughed and asked why I'm on the MMM forum again and walked away.

So I think you're right. She has said before that it is easy for her and not other people, that being a mother is easy for her but isn't for everyone, etc. So I think she just finds the role more comfortable than most people but not easy in an absolute sense.

[sonofsven]

I think one factor is the lack of satisfying physical work. You get such a sense of accomplishment when you can see the physical results of your work at the end of the day.
I am very biased though, I've been addicted to this type of work since I was 14 yo and started learning to be a carpenter.

[curious_george]

Thinking about these labor disputes between the sexes some more since this seems like a common problem.

To the women on the board who have this problem, instead of giving your SO constant positive feedback and praise to convince them to do more housework have you ever considered just...not doing the housework? Or examining what you are doing because you want to do it vs what you are doing because of societal expectations?

I mean - you and your spouse are both adults in a loving and supportive relationship. It's not like your SO is going to yell at you or divorce you for not doing dishes.

If you don't do X chore for a while eventually whoever cares the most about X thing in the group will do it. What helps in our household is that our oldest kids also know how to cook, clean, do laundry, and mow the lawn. We teach our kids independent life skills at a young age. So if my wife doesn't do the dishes, and I don't do the dishes, then our older kids will do the dishes. Eventually someone always puts the dishes in the dishwasher because we all enjoy eating and none of us will eat with a dirty fork, lol.

In our house we only clean things that seem dirty also. This cuts back on a lot of unneeded cleaning so we can focus on other things. The general rule of thumb here is if you can't tell the difference in any way between something that is dirty and after you've cleaned it..it probably did not need cleaned.

Just some other things to think about.

[Morning Glory]

Thinking about these labor disputes between the sexes some more since this seems like a common problem.

To the women on the board who have this problem, instead of giving your SO constant positive feedback and praise to convince them to do more housework have you ever considered just...not doing the housework? Or examining what you are doing because you want to do it vs what you are doing because of societal expectations?

I mean - you and your spouse are both adults in a loving and supportive relationship. It's not like your SO is going to yell at you or divorce you for not doing dishes.

If you don't do X chore for a while eventually whoever cares the most about X thing in the group will do it. What helps in our household is that our oldest kids also know how to cook, clean, do laundry, and mow the lawn. We teach our kids independent life skills at a young age. So if my wife doesn't do the dishes, and I don't do the dishes, then our older kids will do the dishes. Eventually someone always puts the dishes in the dishwasher because we all enjoy eating and none of us will eat with a dirty fork, lol.

In our house we only clean things that seem dirty also. This cuts back on a lot of unneeded cleaning so we can focus on other things. The general rule of thumb here is if you can't tell the difference in any way between something that is dirty and after you've cleaned it..it probably did not need cleaned.

Just some other things to think about.

Lol

I don't want to derail this thread too much but from what you have said about your upbringing I find it likely that you have at least visited a very slovenly house before (garbage strewn around,  hoarding situation,  etc). Imagine if your partner was brought up in such a house. Would it work to just stop doing the chores, or would the partner just continue on in blissful oblivion until the filth and clutter drove you mad, or you worried  the place would become infested with vermin or unsafe for your children? Seems like trading one form of misery for another,  if you are the person with even average standards of cleanliness,  in this situation.  <what worked was getting extremely burnt out then having a giant meltdown and threatening to leave if he did not start pulling his weight>

On a broader level I have read that getting men to take paternity leave actually gets them more involved in bringing up their child long after the leave ends.  I've seen that myself because my spouse was the lower earner so he cut down to very part time work when we had our first child (we both worked hours outside of normal daycare times), and i think he would not have bonded with the children so well if he'd been working,  as i was the "default parent" outside of working hours (and even during them, if it was anything to do with school, smh. They called me at work once because my kid had too much earwax,  when my husband was the sahp).

[curious_george]

Thinking about these labor disputes between the sexes some more since this seems like a common problem.

To the women on the board who have this problem, instead of giving your SO constant positive feedback and praise to convince them to do more housework have you ever considered just...not doing the housework? Or examining what you are doing because you want to do it vs what you are doing because of societal expectations?

I mean - you and your spouse are both adults in a loving and supportive relationship. It's not like your SO is going to yell at you or divorce you for not doing dishes.

If you don't do X chore for a while eventually whoever cares the most about X thing in the group will do it. What helps in our household is that our oldest kids also know how to cook, clean, do laundry, and mow the lawn. We teach our kids independent life skills at a young age. So if my wife doesn't do the dishes, and I don't do the dishes, then our older kids will do the dishes. Eventually someone always puts the dishes in the dishwasher because we all enjoy eating and none of us will eat with a dirty fork, lol.

In our house we only clean things that seem dirty also. This cuts back on a lot of unneeded cleaning so we can focus on other things. The general rule of thumb here is if you can't tell the difference in any way between something that is dirty and after you've cleaned it..it probably did not need cleaned.

Just some other things to think about.

Lol

I don't want to derail this thread too much but from what you have said about your upbringing I find it likely that you have at least visited a very slovenly house before (garbage strewn around,  hoarding situation,  etc). Imagine if your partner was brought up in such a house. Would it work to just stop doing the chores, or would the partner just continue on in blissful oblivion until the filth and clutter drove you mad, or you worried  the place would become infested with vermin or unsafe for your children? Seems like trading one form of misery for another,  if you are the person with even average standards of cleanliness,  in this situation.  <what worked was getting extremely burnt out then having a giant meltdown and threatening to leave if he did not start pulling his weight>

On a broader level I have read that getting men to take paternity leave actually gets them more involved in bringing up their child long after the leave ends.  I've seen that myself because my spouse was the lower earner so he cut down to very part time work when we had our first child (we both worked hours outside of normal daycare times), and i think he would not have bonded with the children so well if he'd been working,  as i was the "default parent" outside of working hours (and even during them, if it was anything to do with school, smh. They called me at work once because my kid had too much earwax,  when my husband was the sahp).

lol

Yes I know several people with these sorts of hoarder houses actually...In fact my own biological parents house was a hoarder house, with trash and old food thrown about from floor to ceiling, which I lived until I was 10 before being legally removed and placed in foster care. This is pretty common in the ghetto.

I see your point. I guess I am assuming one partner would clean eventually in this scenario. Even with my background I still help clean my house. I would assume most men would eventually. Or maybe not. I guess the 'go on strike' tactic would not work if the other partner literally did not care about cleanliness. Hmmm...

Paternity leave would be amazing. Also maternity leave. These things would be very beneficial imo.

[roomtempmayo]

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.

[Metalcat]

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.

Oof...yeah. I know some Jeffs.

I had a visceral response to reading this.

[curious_george]

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.

Wow this is scarily accurate to the guys I know, even the part about the 11k income and his wife being a nurse and all the talk at family events of how amazing Scott, sorry I mean Jeff's business is going.

What is more scary about this though, is that at least one of the Jeff's I know in real life has domestic assault charges filed against him from his ex wife, and all the Jeff's I know are universally obsessed with guns and must carry a gun around at all times and must make it known that they are carrying a gun because 'this way they are safe' or that they 'need to teach their college educated wife things because she wasn't raised right' ...

I volunteer at a women's shelter at times. Some of the stories I have heard are downright terrifying.

[Morning Glory]

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.

Wow this is scarily accurate to the guys I know, even the part about the 11k income and his wife being a nurse and all the talk at family events of how amazing Scott, sorry I mean Jeff's business is going.

What is more scary about this though, is that at least one of the Jeff's I know in real life has domestic assault charges filed against him from his ex wife, and all the Jeff's I know are universally obsessed with guns and must carry a gun around at all times and must make it known that they are carrying a gun because 'this way they are safe' or that they 'need to teach their college educated wife things because she wasn't raised right' ...

I volunteer at a women's shelter at times. Some of the stories I have heard are downright terrifying.

@caleb perfectly described half of my social circle where I used to live. You are right about the guns, although sometimes its bows and arrows too. I'm picturing the obligatory "kid with deer carcass" facebook photo right now.

Katie also has a 2 hour daily commute.  The family can't possibly move to town because they need to be close to Jeff's business and/or the farm where he helps his dad four times a year.  She puts good snow tires on her prius.  On days when the weather is too bad her employer will pay for a hotel, and Jeff will load the kids into the pickup to come swim in the pool.

[wenchsenior]

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.

Oof...yeah. I know some Jeffs.

I had a visceral response to reading this.

:nods:

[SunnyDays]

If Katie has secret college accounts for the kids, odds are good that she also has a secret divorce account, because no one can keep up that kind of burden for too long.

Jeff will profess total surprise, because he never saw that coming.

[Phenix]

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.

I know a real life Jeff, and his name is Jeff (though his wife's name isn't Katie). His wife was a CFO and made very good money.
Anyway, Jeff is in "real estate" but I don't believe he's fully flipped a single house since I've known him.
When Jeff's wife was going through chemo, a few of us went over to their house to help out with some chores since Jeff was too busy. He was home when we were there and sat in his recliner the whole time. When the sweeper was on, he turned the TV volume to max and certainly seemed annoyed by our presence.
Unfortunately, their daughter married a Jeff so the cycle continues.

[ChpBstrd]

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.

Oof...yeah. I know some Jeffs.

I had a visceral response to reading this.

:nods:

Assuming Jeff has 15 tattoos, at an average cost of $500 each, you've described half the economy of my state.

[GuitarStv]

Does Jeff drink MGD and listen to Nickleback?

[sonofsven]

I think mmm Pete had "Jeff" in mind here https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/28/what-does-your-work-truck-say-about-you/

[Just Joe]

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.

Wow that is an accurate profile of someone I see at work. She is a hard working professional, he "collects stuff" apparently. Spends most of his time at home.

[Lady SA]

When I was pregnant, my therapist and a close friend both independently recommended I read the Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff. I was kind of skeptical at first, it sounded woowoo-y, and then I got it from the library. Promptly devoured it in a weekend and it blew my mind. Its premise is exactly this question you raised: why are so many humans (in the western world) so fundamentally unhappy/unsettled/etc? I had never considered the question, and they had suggested this book to me primarily for the baby-care aspects, but the larger questions it posed totally blindsided me. Highly recommend.

https://continuumconcept.org/summary

It's pretty woowoo at first glance. But my clumsy summary of the mindblowing idea that was introduced was that infant animals (humans included) are driven to survive, and come equipped with reflexes and instincts and physical characteristics which have evolved over eons, that set you on a path towards developing control and mastery to survive in your environment... but there's also a level of "calibrating" and fine tuning to adapt to the exact environment it finds itself in. Wolves, bears, armadillos, plants, their entire job revolves around calibrating and adapting the best to their physical environment, avoiding danger, etc.
But social animals, like humans, need the protection of the group to survive. So an added job is figuring out the ins and outs of proper/expected social and cooperative behavior so you aren't abandoned to be eaten by wolves.
We need to key off of certain experiences/innate expectations ("the continuum") to properly calibrate in the way we have evolved to survive, both physically and socially.

But the mindblowing concept was that modern western societies have drifted so far away from meeting these innate "expectations", the author proposes this makes a fragile and unstable foundation to build the rest of the psyche upon. And that a lot of the maladaptive behavior is actually perfectly logical attempts from the organism to try to shortcut and meet its own continuum needs that were missed before. "Theres a deep sense of wrongness". The book itself is a pretty fascinating read (there are valid criticisms regarding it, of course).

Just another resource in your quest to discover the sources of unhappiness :)

[curious_george]

When I was pregnant, my therapist and a close friend both independently recommended I read the Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff. I was kind of skeptical at first, it sounded woowoo-y, and then I got it from the library. Promptly devoured it in a weekend and it blew my mind. Its premise is exactly this question you raised: why are so many humans (in the western world) so fundamentally unhappy/unsettled/etc? I had never considered the question, and they had suggested this book to me primarily for the baby-care aspects, but the larger questions it posed totally blindsided me. Highly recommend.

https://continuumconcept.org/summary

It's pretty woowoo at first glance. But my clumsy summary of the mindblowing idea that was introduced was that infant animals (humans included) are driven to survive, and come equipped with reflexes and instincts and physical characteristics which have evolved over eons, that set you on a path towards developing control and mastery to survive in your environment... but there's also a level of "calibrating" and fine tuning to adapt to the exact environment it finds itself in. Wolves, bears, armadillos, plants, their entire job revolves around calibrating and adapting the best to their physical environment, avoiding danger, etc.
But social animals, like humans, need the protection of the group to survive. So an added job is figuring out the ins and outs of proper/expected social and cooperative behavior so you aren't abandoned to be eaten by wolves.
We need to key off of certain experiences/innate expectations ("the continuum") to properly calibrate in the way we have evolved to survive, both physically and socially.

But the mindblowing concept was that modern western societies have drifted so far away from meeting these innate "expectations", the author proposes this makes a fragile and unstable foundation to build the rest of the psyche upon. And that a lot of the maladaptive behavior is actually perfectly logical attempts from the organism to try to shortcut and meet its own continuum needs that were missed before. "Theres a deep sense of wrongness". The book itself is a pretty fascinating read (there are valid criticisms regarding it, of course).

Just another resource in your quest to discover the sources of unhappiness :)

Yes - this is part of what I'm getting at in this thread.

We evolved in a world thousands of years ago that was very different from the world we find ourselves in today. Some of these differences are causing friction, disease, stress, and unhappiness today for some people. I created this thread to bring awareness to these differences in an attempt to solve some of the problems and to better understand what other people see as the underlying things causing unhappiness in the modern world.

We have different diets, different physical activity levels, different amounts of sunlight at different times of the day, completely different social structures and relationships, etc, than the world we evolved to live in. We have a lot of needs, on several levels, that are not being met and I believe some of these differences are causing certain amounts of disease, stress, unhappiness, mental illness, etc in the modern world.

Furthermore I think a lot of people are *unknowingly* causing their own problems because they were born into this world and just sort of assumed that everything was optimal and healthy. But it's not. Instead they never go outside, don't exercise, work in an office, become stressed by the vast amount of mental stimulus they have everyday, have poor short term relationships that are increasingly shifting online to social media and causing these sort of thought bubbles, eat unhealthy ultra processed food because it was literally designed to taste good, get poor sleep that doesn't help them to recover from it all, etc.

Our bodies and minds evolved with certain needs that are required for optimal health and happiness. These needs are increasingly not being met in the modern world, or are being replaced by cheap imitations that are pleasurable but cause long term problems.

[nawhite]

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.

Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.

Ugh, I feel like I became a Jeff when I FIRE'd. I teach whitewater kayaking and buy lots of kayaks and rafts, I have a giant shed to store them, I only make money May-October, I get health insurance from my wife who still works full time with her Masters as a teacher. I reported about $8k in income last year.

That said, we don't have kids, my wife works because she chooses to, we check in about it all the time, and our nest egg covers just about all of our expenses so I know its not the same but still, wow did I feel seen by this description.