Attitudes in young people

[Deleted User]

My late ma-in-law god rest her was like this and was horrified one Christmas when my late OH washed the dishes as he was a man and men shouldn't be in the kitchen !!! I soon had a little chat and explained as tactfully as I could that in our house we all pulled our weight and washing dishes wouldn't kill him .True we did have certain jobs in the house I would iron and he would mow the lawn but he could cook a meal for the family after I showed him and persuaded him that all the best chefs were men (bless him he believed me as well :))
My youngest DDs OH is definitely a 'new man' as he is better at doing the washing and ironing as my DD and because they have a tribe of boys still left at home they both work full time and share the shopping and housekeeping chores.As I look after the boys after school they have all learned how to cook and make a decent cupp and hoover and tidy up Now I am a bit older than I was 12 years ago they do a lot more as I don't do picking up after boys who think the floor is the place to chuck their school bags etc.DGS Ben is at 21 fairly well house trained and as he is at Uni now he can cope with looking after himself quite well. The next boy down jack who is 17 next month is very good at hoovering and will clean the downstairs bathroom as well if I ask him to .next down henry at 15 is the tidiest of them all and his bedroom is really spotless as he cannot abide mess,especially in his room.the youngest mikey at 12 still needs reminding that Grannie is not there to pick up after him ,but he loves to cook and at the moment his ambition is to be a chef later on when he is grown up.So all of the boys will make pretty good husbands in time ,but probably because they have had vboth myself and my DD telling them that life is about sharing the chores and sooner their done the quicker we can go out or watch tv or do the more enjoyable things in life. At the moment they have a new little dog whoes ambition in life is to get all of his toys out of his special box and strew them around the sitting room This will drive our Henry daft at times as he hates clutter but the dog is only a tiny little thing and he will be traide as the boys are :):)

freyasmum

I am very lucky; my OH is not only a brilliant cook (though he doesn't always enjoy doing it), but is a very clean and tidy person. He does work more than I do at the moment, so I do the bulk of the cooking (although he was fantastic when I was feeling awful at the start of my pregnancy. And I had a cup of tea in bed every morning too), and we share the cleaning. If I were purely a stay at home mum, then I would do it all.

My daughter is ten and knows (and enjoys) helping in the kitchen. She knows how to put a load of washing on and then hang it afterwards (funnily enough; she's less keen on this one ) and loads and switches the dishwasher on. We also give her a weekly budget for her to plan and prepare her school lunches; this is going very well indeed. She was up beside me from being tiny, chopping mushrooms with a palette knife and using scissors to chop meat, etc. I intend to do exactly the same when my baby is born and then old enough - boy or girl.

I think it's a real unkindness (much as it may seem the exact opposite, and I know it's most definitely not done with the intention of beig unkind) to bring your children up without teaching them how to look after themselves. How can we expect them to be able to successfully look after themselves without first going through a steep learning curve?


Edit: My OH has spoken about his desire to be a stay at home dad, complete with veg patch and folding babygros.

GreyQueen

As a teen and twenty-something woman, I had some pretty vile experiences with male flatmates who may have been actually raised under a roof but who, in all other respects, were essentially feral. They came from nice middle-class homes but had been raised to be a certain way by Queens of the Hearth. And that way was to be domestically incompetant and expectant of some sucker of a female to pick up after them.

It didn't play well 35 years ago and there were long drawn out battles of wills over the washing-up mountain and other things. Battles I won because I'm bliddy minded and don't do doormat.

I'd say to any woman wanting a happy life, check out your amour in his natural habitat and, if he's a feelthy sloven, leave immediately.

Torry_Quine

My husband was brought up like that but he wanted to do things. He had to be shown how to run a home as we shared the jobs. I'm now disabled so we're both very glad he can cook and clean.

Hutchch0920

My future MIL and I have very different opinions when it comes to this and it caused extensive problems in our relationship to the point where she kicked me out on the street because of it.

She very much felt that I should do all of her son's cooking, cleaning, washing. I very much thought (given that we both work full time) that it should be split evenly.

Quite like the Queen of the Hearth idea, she wanted to control everything, including me and how my fiance and I were to look after each other in her home. Needless to say it didn't end well.

I am all about equality. If one of us was a stay at home I would expect them to do all the housework etc, but that isn't the case, we both work full time and I strongly feel that it should be split evenly, with some flex allowed between us both when we're tired or busy etc.

Pollycat

I posted this on another thread that veered off-topic:

Pollycat wrote: »

My first husband thought that any dirty pots put into the sink miraculously washed & dried themselves & hopped back into the cupboard without any human intervention.
He also used to take his shirts off and leave them inside out.
I washed & ironed them like that & hung them in the wardrobe.

Husband #2 (current) came knowing how to cook.
TBH, it wasn't anything to do with his Mother, he went off to uni & learned to fend for himself.

rach_k

I think there's a huge difference in what is meant by 'old style' in here and 'old fashioned' in regard to gender roles. I think of old style as being thrifty, make do and mend, making good use of what you have etc, which often happens to be how things were done in the good old days, but it's not related to men and women's (perceived) roles as they used to be. That old style and old fashioned happened at around the same time in history is irrelevant.

I hope our kids will take on some old style ideas. We try to be eco conscious and that often leads to the same results so they may not see it as 'old' but it's the same thing! We are also raising them to be independent people who know that they have choices in life. I am actually a stay at home mum through choice and, yes, I do pretty much all of the housework and school stuff, but that's because it works well for us and I enjoy it. I hope I make it clear to everybody that I'm not doing it because I'm the mum/wife.

moneyistooshorttomention

She's not "old style". She's just "old-fashioned" - and probably rather a masochist to boot (who on earth would want to "be a housewife" on top of having a full-time job?:eek:).

Add that she's storing trouble up with future daughters-in-law - as her sons might very well expect them to act in the same way - and those DIL's will know just where to look to see where that attitude originated from:cool:.

Or, on the other hand, she could get the message home to those boys that they must earn enough money for 2 then - so that the woman can stay home and be a "housewife" - so she's not trying to do a double shift....

Pollycat

rach_k wrote: »

I think there's a huge difference in what is meant by 'old style' in here and 'old fashioned' in regard to gender roles. I think of old style as being thrifty, make do and mend, making good use of what you have etc, which often happens to be how things were done in the good old days, but it's not related to men and women's (perceived) roles as they used to be. That old style and old fashioned happened at around the same time in history is irrelevant.

I hope our kids will take on some old style ideas. We try to be eco conscious and that often leads to the same results so they may not see it as 'old' but it's the same thing! We are also raising them to be independent people who know that they have choices in life. I am actually a stay at home mum through choice and, yes, I do pretty much all of the housework and school stuff, but that's because it works well for us and I enjoy it. I hope I make it clear to everybody that I'm not doing it because I'm the mum/wife.

I agree, Rach.
Nothing wrong with anybody being Old-Style as we understand the term on here.
I think the attitude the OP describes is 'old-fashioned' rather than 'old-style'.

monnagran

It really is no kindness to bring up sons who expect all household duties to be someone else's problem.

My father was born in 1914 and like most men of his generation could just about boil a kettle. He did however look after the garden, grow all our vegetables, kept hens so that we had eggs and kept bees for our honey.

When he was in his seventies Mum was diagnosed with dementia. That dear man taught himself to shop, cook, wash, iron and clean. He looked after his wife, who didn't know who he was, most carefully and lovingly for eight years. He then spent the next 16 years looking after himself. Yes, I was always available and on the end of the phone when there was something he couldn't work out, but he did it himself. He loved cooking!

I brought up two teenage boys as a single mum and if they wanted to have clean clothes, a meal at the end of the day and a reasonably hygienic bedroom, (one did, one didn't) it was down to them. I had to keep a roof over their heads. They were both taught to do everything they needed to live independently.
When they married they both did all the cooking as their wives didn't have a clue. One DIL rang me one day in a state of incredulity, her new husband had just put a new zip in her skirt.

Just as girls should be able to do painting and decorating, simple DIY repairs, and gardening, boys should be able to do their own domestic chores.

There is every possibility that we will all live on our own at some stage of our lives, and very few of us will be able to pay someone else to look after us.

So as a lot of posters have said, it is no kindness to pamper our menfolk.

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