Women get a lot of flak for being painted as gold diggers, lazy stay at home moms, and other kinds of layabouts. I think part of this comes from a common cultural expectation that the man in a relationship is the ‘provider’. We’ve moved away from that being the absolute, but there is definitely still cultural baggage from it. However, things are changing.
More women are going to school and becoming professionals. More men are becoming stay-at-home dads. The balance of power is shifting, at least on paper. And I can’t help but wonder if some men are taking greater advantage of it, to the detriment of their partner. I hear more and more situations with a working woman living with a boyfriend/husband who is just a lazy mooch. Now I’m sure people are going to come into this thread and say “women do it just as much!” but I’m starting to wonder if that is really true.
Maybe guys aren’t lazier, they just have more excuses to be so it becomes harder to identify the moochers. I know a few stay-at-home dads who are very involved fathers and hardworking in spite of being home all day. And I also know a few others that blatantly take advantage of it; fathers who greet their wives to a child with feces encumbered, hungry baby and a messy living room. There is so much more pressure on a woman to be a ‘good’ parent vs a man, that when the roles are reversed (dad stays home and takes care of the kids) the bar is way way lower regarding expectations.
Even when kids aren’t involved, I see women in relationships with guys who are sporadically/unemployed. Maybe in the past it was less likely for the woman to be in a career position where she could support a deadbeat partner like this, but nowadays I feel like some men are exploiting it, and mooching off their partners in ways they may not have been able to get away with in previous decades. Thoughts?
Just the other day I was at Taco Cabana. I’m standing in line and in front of me is a couple placing their order.
The woman was a chunky gal while the dude was a slim very average looking dude. (Despite the fact that he was sporting a mullet.)
As they were placing their order I thought to myself: “I betcha anything the woman pays.”
When it came time to pay, sure enough, she paid.
I mention the above story because I think it highlights an interesting double standard.
In the above story, people tend to feel sorry for the woman. Mainly because it is perceived that the only way she can keep a man is to pay his way.
Yet, when it’s the guy with the trophy wife or GF, he’s just shallow.
My wife and I have debit cards linked to the same account. We’re both equally likely to be the one to swipe a card somewhere – whoever isn’t dealing with our son, or has their card handy, whatever.
For awhile my card was worn difficult to swipe, and I would always let my wife use hers just to avoid any hassle. We’d get the bill in a restaurant and I’d immediately hand the check holder over to my wife. People like you could have thought something similar about me being a freeloader in our relationship – especially since my wife is chunkier than me, since that apparently matters – but they’d be dead wrong.
I will expand the OP’s hypothesis a bit and say that I am seeing a trend of people of both sexes looking for a free handout.
Now that I have hit my forties it is surprising to me how many of my peers are still being subsidized by their parents, or living in homes owned by someone else rent-free, or not working/going to school for months/years and not concerned about it.
And yet they still find people to date them and support them. I woman I am facebook friends with met a forty year old guy who does not work and literally lives in his parents basement… and still married him and is now pregnant and living down there with him.
I confess that I do not understand that mindset at all.
I’m curious the number of stay at home dads that take advantage of it. I’ve known a few couples where this was definitely the case. Ironically, all of them were gamers and seemed to use their status to play games all day. As for their kids, they would either dump them off on other family members or just leave them semi unsupervised. Wife would come home from work to a messy house, dirty kid, and a husband feigning ignorance on what was supposed to be done.
Now I’ll concede that some stay at home moms pull the lazy con as well. But I would argue that women unfairly pull the lion’s share of the work in either situation. Several working moms I know wished their husbands would at least get a part time job so they could use the money for daycare/housekeeping since it would be a more cost effective use of the husband’s time rather than playing Xbox all day.
There’s gradually less pressure on guys to arbitrarily be providers and it feels like some slackers are blatantly talking advantage of it.
Another trend I’ve been annoyed by is this tendency for some guys to flat out refuse to do tasks that have no value to them, leaving it all to their partner. These aren’t petty stereotypical things like decorating the house a certain way, they are day to day things like cleaning up after ones self, buying groceries, setting a monthly budget, etc. I see a lot of people in relationships where the guy doesn’t care about that stuff, the woman does, and a resentment builds up as a result.
Are these women dumb for getting with guys that would be lazy moochers? Maybe. But sometimes qualities like this can sneak up over time . Just like realizing just how crazy or unfaithful a partner can be, finding out one is a moocher can also take some time. With changing gender roles, I wonder if it gives some guys more excuses, not less.
-The woman wants to ‘fix’ the guy; she sees him as misunderstood and feels special if she can get the guy to change in a way he won’t for anyone else.
-She is convinced a lack of male interest is due to men’s inability to respect the fact that she is a professional, independent, yadda yadda. In reality, the lack of interest is due to personality flaws. Maybe she’s a control freak, condescending harpy she-beast. Most guys won’t bother, but for a 40yo living in his parent’s basement the pros outweigh the cons.
-Her family life was dysfunctional, and had a distant slacker for a father. She may have been raised to believe she would have to put a disproportional amount of effort to get positive attention from men, and gravitate toward the lazy ones.
Women are working more and more, but still do the majority of housework as well. If you think the traditional 1950s era division of household labor was an equitable split, then modern women are certainly taking on more of the burden now.
And the negative effects of the recent recession tended to hit men more. Traditional male blue-collar jobs are under more economic pressure than traditional female service-oriented jobs.
I don’t think that referring to the person who contributes less financially as a “moocher” is accurate or helpful, though.
Yeah, I’ve noticed. It seems to be even more common in the black community. Or maybe I notice it that way because I’m closer. As it happens, I’m currently on the market, so I date a lot. Better than 60% of the time if I’m somewhere new, the waiter or waitress will attempt to pass the check to the woman I’m with.
