The "happiness poll " ,,why women are not as happy as they "should" be.

Apparently this poll says that women in 1970 were happier, and newsies today are flabbergasted about the fact that women have come so far, and are not happy..

I think there are many reasons for this

in 1970, if a woman worked outside the house, it was most likely an optional,very part time job and she knew she could quit it any time she needed to or wanted to.

Women back then (married, not sole support) had the run of the house, kids, neighborhood with little or no "interference" from their husbands.. They had TIME to get things done

(I know from personal experience that MY friends and I would often spend the day with the kids, or without them ..having put them in babysitting co-op care.. lunching, playing bridge, shopping, & goofing..and then , if our husbands were not out of town, we would get very "serious" about 3PM, and race back home to make dinner, tidy up..etc..)

Weekends were truly family fun time, since there was not a weeks-worth of undone chores to be done.

Men were not expected to do "housework", and most didn't, but the women I knew never held it against them.

As times changed, women went into the workforce in large numbers, but those household things remained..and then there was the additional guilt about the kids..

Pressuring recalcitrant guys into suddenly shouldering more housework duties has never been all that effective for many families ,and only added another "child" for the women to ride herd on..

Women these days have to please many more people than ever.. They have work worries, home worries, kid worries, childcare worries, and even financial worries (make more spend more).

As women have gained more freedom, they have also discovered that freedom has many strings attached.. As women earned more, their income became more and more vital to the family, and the things bought with payments required more and more income.


As houses got bigger and more expensive, the luxury of staying home evaporated...

Job security has gone the way of the Dodo bird, so no one feels secure, and women with jobs often find themselves supporting the family when dad gets downsized or laid off.

The pressures of modern living hit hard, but I think women have always been the designated worriers in families, so maybe they feel the pressure more intensely.

There are also more women in the workforce doing crappy jobs.. It's hard to be "happy" to know that your baby will be with strangers for several hours, and your older kids will be on-their-own, doing god knows what for several hours, while you go to walmart or k-mart or to a dreary office somewhere... and when you get home you will still have laundry to do, meals to prepare & other household stuff to tend to.

There are surely women with challenging careers, who have enough resources to "do it all", but I'm betting that most women do NOT love their jobs, and wish there were a way out of the trap they find themselves in..

generally meant DOING it all.

That realization didn't hit home until the late 70s when going to work outside the home was no longer an option but a necessity and we faced the reality that husbands tend to do less, not more, as time goes on.

Although I went on strike after my last one left home and my husband now does the cooking, laundry and kitchen cleaning. I still have to do the weekly stuff, but at least the daily grind is over.

degree.

I have many friend who got their degrees, and ended up not even working in that field..some loved work,..others hated it and quit..

a B.S. is just that..bull shit.

And the one thing I would love to be able to do is stop and be with my children showing them the beginnings of life.. not some stranger who has too many snot-nosed kids running around who has no patience for them...

I wish I could be paid to be a house mother. Bet there would be a better return on the dollar for the future.

One interesting point from the survey is that men like spending time with their parents, whereas women rank it more like a chore. That's because being together with parents for a guy most likely means hanging out with dad drinking a beer and watching the game, while for women it tends to be about taking care of health and housing issues.

no contest..guys win..

Women tody often end up caring for inlaws and their own parents..and the kids of their kids..all while still working that outside job.. who's got TIME to be "happy"?

And I also wonder if perhaps the prospects were looking pretty good for women back then, we were women, we were roaring, and we were doing what we wanted to do for once. We had a lot to look forward to. What do we have to look forward to now? That goes for men and women.

PS - my last three pooch procurements came via rescue groups, and I'll never have another pet otherwise! Best dogs ever. My dear departed Cooper looked much like your avitar... Dobie Shepherd... smartest, most loving damn dog you ever wanted to know. If he'd had thumbs, he would have been dangerous! I had to put him down three years ago, and I'm still not over it. But Jack and Sedwick are sweet too:)

they make the best pets.. I swear they KNOW you saved them.. I can see it in their eyes when they look at me :)

My wife and I have done a number of home checks for rescue orgs over the past several years and have always been glad to find good homes for good dogs.

All the rescue groups I've dealt with have been very thorough in the adoption process, even calling my vet to get the scoop on how I care for my animals.

When we had to put Cooper down, my daughter was inconsolable for days. Finally, I said, let's go rescue a puppy. At first it was, "Oh Mom! I can't think about it." I dropped it, and a day later, it was, "Mom, let's go see who needs rescued." Planting that seed helped us both move past the grief of losing Cooper. And our sweet, spoiled pooches show us every day that rescuing is good for them, and good for us.

Along with the home check, a vet's recommendation is a great asset. We were actually asked once stop in Eastern WA to check a home in Moses Lake and were very happy to find a lesbian couple with a horse ranch where one partner herself was a vet. That home got a great recommendation and it made both of us happy we were the ones to do the check, since who knows what someone else might have made of it.

I know that rescue isn't rife with freeper types, but it would only take one nitwit to decide that wasn't the "proper environment" for a dog. LOL

Thank you for adopting two homeless pets, I know they thank you every day of their lives.

I hope there is a return to sanity and reason sometime in the future, for everyone's sake.

I think this country has been on a downward spiral since the mid 70's. We've had social advancements and improvements in thigs like the civil rights movement, but economicly most Americans seem to be treading water and getting tired, or just drifting back. Alot of those propblems the OP mentions are due to increased economic burdens being placed on families in general. It would be great if we could step back to a time when you didn't have to have two incomes to survive.

My uncle told me back in the early 90's that my generation was going to be really disappointed in life in not really making "the American dream" because we were not going to have as high standard of living as his. I laughted it off at the time but now I see he was right. He could see the writting on the wall. I guess it's because he had already seen so many changes in his own life happening.

when every other segment they do is meant to dump guilt on Moms. Your a bad Mom if you don't schedule your kid out the wa zoo with 'enriching' activities, whip up a made from scratch gourmet dinner that meets your kids nutritional needs, and slink around in the bedroom for an hour or so of vigorous sex. Oh and this is after dressing to the nines for work, multitasking like the perfect employee.

Oh, and that after work drink to unwind and keep you from killing the kids. I won't even get into you kid smart mouthing you....God help you if the fertility police catch you.:mad:

Women are held to an artificially high mommy standard. No wonder women are unhappy. My hubby is from another country so I don't get the macho bull shit that most of my American friends get. He may not do it like I would but he does what I ask and doesn't give me grief when I ask.

I am very happy that daughter is almost grown.

and does more than his "share".. always has :)

Time Spent

Who lends time I ask you please
to care for what a woman must.
Her boss, child, friends she must appease
then give into her husband's lust.

First to ready each one for the day
then her own self she must gather
off to work for little pay
though there's much she'd do rather.

Her boss expects her time be spent
on work all of the day.
So o're te paperwork she is bent
as time just slips away.

Her friend she meets and spends the time
just whilling lunch away.
Sometimes she wonders where is mine
when will this spending pay?

Home again as nourisher
the diner she's begun
so little time spent just for her
she feels she'll come undone.

She now readies each for the night
and is glad the day's almost over.
Into bed she tucks each child tight
then turns into the rapacious lover.

If time were money would she spend
each second as if gold.
Or would she, as with time, lend
for a return of mearely old?

THIS is what society puts on women today:


If you take time for yourself, you're selfish. If you don't you must have low self-esteem.
If you put your husband first, you're a bad mom. If you put your kids first you're a bad wife. And if you choose a husband and no kids, you are selfish, if you choose kids and no husband you are a whore, if you choose no husband or kids you are not a "real woman".
If you put your job first, you're neglecting your family. If you put your family first, you're neglecting your job.
If you work outside the home, you are too ambitious, If you don't, you have no ambition.
If your house is not surgically clean, then you must be lazy, if it is spotlessly clean then you are anal-retentive.
If you stand up for yourself you are a bitch. If you don't you are a doormat.

How do we find the balance? And in the meantime, society expects me to do the shopping and the cleaning and the cooking and the kids and my job in heels, with my hair and makeup perfect at all times, wearing a designer outfit (in a size 5 of course) with a big fucking smile plastered on my face?
Then to top it off, I'm not even allowed the luxury of cramps once a month because some advertising asshole decided I should be having "happy periods". Am I happy? Hell no..and my husband helps with the housework. But I never will be until I say ENOUGH!
We stop letting "society" dictate what we should be and do, we need to stand up for ourselves and be strong enough to just be who we are and be content with that. That's when I'm my happiest...when I can be strong enough to just not care what my hair or my house looks like. When my kids are playing in the yard in stained t-shirts and I'm playing and laughing with them. I'm happiest when I've just collapsed in bed next to my husband after a long hard day and neither one of us have the energy to get up and turn off the hallway light so we bargain back and forth..."I'll give you a thousand dollars if you turn it off" "I'll give you a foot rub tomorrow if you do it" '" I won't make you go to my mother's..." That's my happiness.

Don't you know that size ZERO is the new size 5.. We must now be expected to look like a10 yr old boy ...except for the plastic baggie boobies... size 36DD of course :rofl:

I am a 1949er and I too, "gave up" on the outrageous expectation thing ages ago.. No one ever died from eating at our house, and I wouldn't eat off the floor unless there was a pistol aimed at me..and even then, I might need to think about it..

Life is too short to stress about stuff that's not all that important in the long run..

I would rather my kids remember me someday for the fun things we did, than the fact that the laundry was always done, and the house was spotless :)

I am so screwed...and not in a good way either! ;)
I still fall into the trap.. I get wrapped up in what everyone ELSE's expectations are of me. Then just when I feel overwhelmed and I'm stressing because I forgot to "Febreeze" the recliner...it hits me. Then I'm okay for awhile.
I'd hate to think how trapped I'd feel if I wasn't able to get myself back on track though...because I know how desperate it feels to be stuck in that mode.
And you're absolutely right..life is way to short.

Who was it who said "Twenty years from now, no one is going to know how clean my house was, but they will know if I've read to my children." (or something like that).

My sons refused to empty their clean clothes from the baskets, so I just kept buying more baskets:evilgrin:..

I made them do their own laundry from the time they could safely reach the knobs, and they would dump each others stuff into baskets and "steal" the dryer for their own..

Then they would unceremoniously deposit the other's clothes in the hall by their room.. I would just step over the baskets..Hey if they could, so could I..

This went on and on, until they all decided to "work it out" and I guess they got tired of having to iron every morning before school..

I think I ended up with about 15 clothes-baskets:)

You have describe my ideal happiness. I'll let you in on a secret. Just wait til you hit menopause. Post menopausal women are a force to be reckoned with cause they are totally fearless. Just think of Code Pink.

Society has such a warped double standard for women. If you don't think I am speaking the truth ....ponder this.

A young mother harried with 2 other kids accidentally leaves her kid in a hot car. The child suffers form the heat and dies. How does the legal system treat her.

A young dad harried with 2 other kids accidentally forgets to drop the baby off at the day care and leaves the infant in the car and dies from the heat. How does the legal system treat him.

Or look at how long it has taken our society to recognize post partum psychosis as an illness needing treatment, not jail time.

edited to add that the best thing I ever did for my daughter was take away the tv from third grade to 10th. It did wonders for our self esteem and peace of mind.

Yes I work too much, my house is rarely clean and I'm raising a daughter, but I love my life. I have a husband who adores me, a job that challenges me and a kid who...well let's just say I'm not sure what I did to deserve such an incredible child.

What would make me happier? Not having my brother deployed to the ME for the fourth time in five years. He leaves next month.

Men and women both are both dealing with the trials and tribulations of daily life. In different ways, perhaps, but it's kind of a wash when you get right down to it.

more women should have asked more questions before they got married, and maybe been more selective about their men??

I work 60+ hours without exception, and my wife works as well. We share our household work, and when she's not feeling up to it (Often since she's had health problems) I have no problem whatsoever taking up the slack. I join her in planning, executing, and managing the family's activities, and will not hesitate to grab the vacuum cleaner....

My wife and I talked at great length before marrying about all this stuff, and knew exacly what to expect from one another, from child care right down to who will typically load the dishwasher.

I read a lot of editiorials on this topic and it always slays me how many people complain about a spouse (Of either sex) not living up to his or her hopes for shared responsibility yet never took the time to sit down and share expectations BEFORE heading to the altar.

i'm sure many people do discuss these things with their significant others before marraige... but people change, and in some cases not for the better


as for your 'be more picky' idea... surveys from all over the world back up the conventional wisdom that men do LESS around the house, whether both people are working full time or not. there's not some huge pool of guys who are willing to pull their weight around the house.

In fact, if I didn't have my job and have an identity outside the home, I don't think I would be as happy. I am not dependent on a man, I am totally self-sufficient - that makes me happy too. It gives me the opportunity to have a relationship with a man where I can be an equal, and THAT makes me happy.

Of course this poll is irrelevant anyway, since happiness cannot be measured on a scale. It's strictly subjective.

"Women have always been the designated worriers in the families" - LOL! Dumbass sexist whomever wrote this. :rofl:

During my 38 year marriage, and various jobs/careers since age 11 (worked about 38 years off and on) , 99.999999% of the women I know, have known , were the designated worriers..

The men I have known seem to be pretty optimistic and felt that "things would work out"....

Everyone's different.. I'm happy for you.. I've had the "career", the "part-time", "the stay at home".. I consider myself lucky to have been able to participate, and I am not into calling people dumbass for merely telling their experiences :hi:

I was assuming that "designated worrier" phrase came from the article and that a man wrote it - not you. I've read a gazillion of your posts and would never have intentionally called you that. My apologies.

You're right, everyone is different. I am an optimist and always feel "things will work out". I don't think I never would have survived some of the experiences in my life otherwise. There's something to be said about making the best of any situation and I try to live my life that way - why worry? ;-)

:hi:

I know how annoying these dumbass (and i DO mean it this time) "studies" are.. Basically NO ONE is happy these days.. men or women, young or old.. It troubles me to know that my own kids (3 grown sons) will have to struggle more than we have, and may not ever have the opportunities we had:cry:

Then, after I retired, I became a housewife while he worked. He got the babies to take care of. I got the guilt of not being with my babies, but knew they were well cared for and oh so loved.

Then I got the kids in their teenage years. Wow, that was really hard. Teaching them to drive about scared me to death. But I would not change a thing. We raised our kids together, switching off jobs, chores and careers. We didn't make a lot of money by doing the switching around. We hardly had vacations, our cars were always old but we raised some really great children. I guess I'm luckier than a lot of women.

More take-home pay

Less hours needed to work

Mortgage, necessities could be easily paid for with one paycheck

More free time for recreation

A lot of groceries cost less than a dollar to buy (marked with the "cents" sign)

Average cost of a home: $40,000

Teacher's salary: $8,000

Good luck with that these days...

were not stuck in unhappy marriages because they had no choice. In 1970 I could afford to support myself and my children. I could afford clean safe housing for my family. My child support covered the cost of daycare so I could work and support my family. I could afford food shelter clothing and utilities. I could afford insurance and taxes. Could I do the same today? I doubt it.

But at least we can buy cheap Chinese-made TVs and factory-raised meat.

I couldn't even get the electricity in my own name with out my husbands permission, even though we were separated!
I took the electric company to court and fought for TWO YEARS and I finally won in the Appeals Court that the
Electric Company could no longer discriminate against single, separated, divorced or widowed women!!

My sister, in the early 80's had to fight tooth and toenail to get it.

So did/do many other custodial parents then and now.

The women's movement was just getting rolling. I'm not sure whether a majority of women were sensing that, though. Today our political situation is going downward!

I did see a stat that married women are less happy than single women, whereas married men are happier than single men. And, divorce causes a woman's economic status to lower, while men's increases. (Since I don't have links, take it fwiw.)

I would guess (just a guess!) that many of us see ourselves falling short of what our mothers did as mothers, and perhaps men remind us of that, still expecting us to do most of the parenting and housework and basically be more like their own mothers. At the same time, we may see ourselves falling short of what our male counterparts achieve, because of glass ceilings, taking time for motherhood, wage discrimination, etc. If there's pressure to be what your mother was AND what your husband is, the very struggle is frustrating and exhausting. Again, totally just one guess and certainly doesn't apply to all in any case.

Totally true then as it is now. :(

Going from ONE person able to support a family working 40 hours to the NECESSITY of TWO people each working 40 hours (or more) to support a family. And often STILL having problems getting by.

What we need is 20 hour work weeks for everyone, affordable housing (i.e housing as housing NOT an investment) and a shift in values away from so much materialism.

EDIT: Or "what her problem really is".

The mid 60's had fault based divorce and then by the 70's it was no fault divorce and easier to get one!

But it wasn't easy at all.





Until no-fault divorce, it was difficult to even get a divorce!!

I was divorced in 1983, after three long years of filing and waiting etc.
I then had to wait another year for it to be final!!

But I was working full time in the mid to late '70's and I was married and had young kids.
I knew a lot of women (co-workers) also working then, who were married with kids.

a social climate that is increasingly inhospitable to feminist ideas and women in general.

I blame our obnoxious patriarchal culture full of small isolated families and lacking any real sense of community in most places - women are alone - in our families, we are still expected to do the bulk of the work, period - housework, childcare, the very basic things that everyone living in a space should contribute to, and then work outside the home as well.

It's not the "outside the home" work that hurts us - it's the still-kicking idea that we should be unpaid domestic servants in our homes full of other people with working arms and legs and eyes who should be able to take care of themselves.

Women may have been more accepting of this position back when (at least externally, because let's not delude ourselves about the ability of people - especially women who are taught to put the happiness of others before their own - to pretend at happy) but that doesn't mean it was good for them or for society. I've also seen statistics showing that women are HAPPIER when they have their own job and income than they are at home. So I don't think employment is the source of the unhappiness - the unhappiness is the result of being a woman in a culture that loads its expectations and bullshit standards on your back and still expects you to jog around in stilettos smiling.

make a choice and stop blaming everyone else.

Care to clarify?

Woman are the majority in this country. They also run almost all the households and raise and teach the next generation of children male and female.

The idea it is mens fault that woman do to much housework is bordering on silly.

The idea that the men in this country are exclusively responsible for its culture is a bizarre insult to woman everywhere.

I've heard this complaint before and have always been curious what legislative remedy do you propose to solve this problem.

Read more carefully - I blamed the patriarchy, not men. The overarching control structure and value set of our culture got the blame.

And there is no "legislative remedy" - the remedy is for all human beings to start seeing all other human beings AS human beings and treating them as such.

every reason mentioned on why women are not happier is something outside of themselves, instead of having to do withe choices they make.

or how they "should" be.

THEN maybe they'd be happier.

When the focus is always on others definition of you, you will never regain power. When the focus is internal, it doesn't matter what others think of you.

In 1970 our family did not live the kind of life you describe, and neither did many in our working-class neighborhood. When I reflect on the families of my friends, and my sibs' friends, I can remember only a few whose mothers didn't work. Most families of my acquaintance couldn't have gotten by otherwise.

As a nurse my mother was able to work evenings and nights, so my parents handled childcare in shifts. When both parents were working, babysitting was handled by the older kids.

The dual incomes provided for necessities and few luxuries. There was no money for college. Family vacations were car trips. None of us ever traveled by air until we were adults.

But there are two things we had in our family that I rarely saw in families that were better off than us.

One was the example of a marriage that was a true partnership based in mutual love and respect, and the desire of each to make life better for the other.

The other was an upbringing that encouraged self-sufficiency. The girls as well as the boys were encouraged to pursue careers, not marriage. Both my parents supported this, but it was my mother who expressly established it. Success in chosen fields was a source of pride and joy to my parents as much as any grandchild.

Finally, I think the poll is bullshit, so it's no surprise I wouldn't agree with any analysis of why it's true. :)

I do waitress 2 nights a week. But I have to say, and I know this is not everyones experience, I am much happier at home taking care of the baby and the house. I love not having to get everything done on the weekend, and I can get extra stuff done around the house as well. We're poor, but I don't care.

that's just daft. Men have never been happy. Frankly, I'm glad that women are just as miserable now.

they wanted. They frequently just want the "next better thing".

Every time you go for something else, you usually have to give up something ... and once committed to the new thing, it's harder to get back what you lost..

People have forgotten that there is a difference between "different" and "better"