General Chat

I could use other words.

I was talking with my niece; she's 32, had the same boyfriend since she was 17, and they've lived together for 10 years.

She went away for a girls weekend (a friend getting married, they had a hen's weekend). Before she left, she did all the housework (as usual), did the laundry, the ironing, made sure there was food for her partner etc.

She got home on Sunday night, and the house was a tip. Things lying everywhere, a weekend's worth of dirty dishes in the sink.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

To top it all off, she had a moan to her father.......... who said........... What are you complaining about? It's your job!!!!!!!!

My brothers still wonder why I left home when I was 21. I couldn't stand one more day under my father's rules. 4 brothers sat on their backsides & got waited on.

:-P

No horrible comments from spoiled males please :-)

btw.... my Darling Husband isn't like that.

I wouldn't have married him if he was lol

<3

I've got 3 older siblings - 2 brothers and a sister.
The boys (6 & 7 years older) went to boarding school, but when they were home, all 4 of us took turns to do the dishes, lay the table etc. If a brother was drying, a lot of tea towel flicking went on. :-(

During term time, my sister (4 years older) had to look after me whilst mum worked. During the holidays it was my brothers' job - which led to me wandering off on my own...
We all had to strip and make our own beds etc

One of my brothers never married, but is very capable of doing domestic jobs, the other married a lovely lady - who can't cook, nomatter how hard she tries, so my brother has done most of the cooking - and washing and ironing - and their 2 sons think it's normal.

My ex liked cooking. (bonus!!) He was useless at decorating - so it was my 'job' while he looked after the children, and did the 'domestic' duties - for some reason, a lot of decorating went on :-D

Only once did he make a mistake.
At the time,I was taking the elder, by bike, to nursery, then going to work, (cleaner in a student hostel) with the younger (14 months old), then picking the elder up from nursery at midday, and quite often going back to work (with both of them) to finish the job.
Ex suggested, once, as my afternoon was 'free', I cut the grass. .......
Free??!! with a 14 month old and a nearly 3 year old?????
He told me later, he was astonished at how long I could stare, and not blink :-D

Adam & Eve had a spot of bother with their two offspring - both boys.

Inexperienced parenting. Murder, no less!

I think that is more unusual nowadays than it was when I was young. My OH (78) can't cook but does all the ironing, helps with any other household chores and, if I am honest, does the lion's share of the gardening etc. Our much loved son in law, when he was alive, did most if not all of the cooking, plus a large share of the housework, Our three grandsons all cook and share housework. Our son does more cooking than his wife when he is not working away from home.

I think my niece's partner is a Neanderthal.

So are 2 of my brothers.

:-(

'Ironing' - an alien concept to me. What's it all about?

it's a sporting event.......

Throwing a household item at a lazy man.

I have no objections to domestic chores with the exception of ironing. I would not impose my ironing on anybody inc OH. Most of the time whipping the shirts etc out of the tumble dryer smarly will do the trick. When you need a tip top shirt for biz there are any number of ironing agencies who don't charge very much. We have a steam iron in case of need though.

Cooking is terrific fun not a chore.

When we had kids at home we employed a housekeeper. Their incessant tidying up and hoovering used to drive me nuts!

My OH was in the Navy and had to be taught to be untidy! :-) He is still tidier than I am, but has stopped putting my things away. He is quite good at housework and can cook if he has to. I always did the decorating but he is very good at DIY and used to cut the grass until arthritis put a stop to it. Funny that 2 new hips didn't let him start grass-cutting again!!

Both sons were shown how to cook and iron a shirt. They now share housework and child-care with their wives. Elder one does his own washing and ironing - when I asked why he didn't just put it in with the rest, he said he didn't see why d-i-l should do his laundry. I was quite impressed - I must have done something right.

Both have inherited OH's DIY skills and can fix almost anything. Very useful and much cheaper than trying to get hold of a reliable professional.

She wants to remind him
She is his Partner not his Mother :-D

:-D

Rollo, good to remember that not everyone has a tumble drier.

LadyScozz, that's awful. Even if he couldnt be bothered while she was away, he could have had a blitz for a couple of hours before she was due home.

By the time our 3 were in their early teens, I made a point of making them responsible for their own ironing during the school holiday. Once they entered post 16 (6th form) they even had to iron their own school civvies. On one occasion when I was called away on a family emergency, our son became so frustrated watching OH trying to iron that he took over.

All of them are quite capable of cooking & cleaning, sharing the chores on an equal basis with their OHs. University does have that effect as 'Mum' isn't around to do it for them.

Since he took early retirement, OH has enjoyed teaching himself to cook. We now tend to take it in turns. I cook the traditional staples while he experiments with foreign (Italian) cuisine. He's even tried his hand at baking.....with mixed results ;-)

Dad helped around the house, though Mum did most of it. Brother (10 years older than I) would sit back to be waited on. He continued that way after he married, but that wasn't uncommon in the 1950s..

I was lucky ........... OH's parents had a business and both worked in it. M-i-l had a "daily" every weekday morning who would do the cleaning, changing bed linen etc, while m-i-l cooked a 2 course lunch for noon when husband came home home from the shop. OH was raised to help out during school holidays, and had lived in a flat with a friend fro 2½ years before he left the UK, and then lived alone in Texas for 6 months until we married.

He said he could clean better than I could, could iron his shirts better and faster than I could ............... I didn't argue :-D

For most of our marriage, we shared the cooking and cleaning, now he does 95% of the cooking and of the housework.

We raised the daughter to do her share, taught her cooking etc etc. Then she married .............. and it was the biggest disappointment to me when she turned into the kind of wife who waited on her husband while holding down a full time powerful job (she's a partner in an architect firm) :-(

Our close friend J was taken aback when our son-i-l sat with arms folded as daughter made him lunch from a buffet-style meal. Being J, she commented on it,

......... daughter's response was

"I think it is what wives do, I love waiting on him, and I shall do it as long as I can". :-| :-|

14 years later, she still does.

He will help to clean the house, under instructions, and he does love cooking .......... but it is "special dishes" to show off to friends at dinners. He gets home first (he's a teacher), but never dreams of even starting the meal. i'v asked him about that ........ he says "But she knows what we're having."

What really p'd me off though was after she had our grandchild. She was in hospital for 2 nights, husband spent most of that time with her but slept and ate meals at home. First thing she did when she got home (with instructions to rest) was to clean all the dirty dishes piled up in the kitchen sink and on the counters, and to tidy the rest of the house.

Even more disgusting was the fact that her sister-i-l and her daughter had gone into the house to hang balloons, flags etc for baby's homecoming ....... and they didn't touch the dirty dishes or do any tidying.

But it is the way their mother raised them ...... no-one was allowed to help, she did it all.

Some women are their own worst enemies!

I am the oldest child, 4 brothers after me, the youngest 14 years younger.

Mum did everything. She even cut the lawns! I started "helping" at a very young age, asked why my brothers couldn't help and was told "because they are boys". Never got an explanation as to what that meant. When I got home from school my first job was preparing the vegetables for dinner (for 7 people) while the boys sat and watched tv. Mum and I did the dishes. I have memories that still annoy me..... eg.. my last year of high school, trying to study ... brother saying (not asking) he wanted a sandwich.... me telling him to make it himself........ then dad yelling at me "don't you want to help your mother?"... no comments about brothers wanting to help their mother!

I feel like telling my niece to give the boyfriend a boot up the backside, but I'm holding my tongue. She's old enough to know better....... but she was probably conditioned by her dad.

Something else...... when my youngest brother started high school, mum found a part-time job. Ofcourse she spent most of her wages on the house, rather than herself; after a couple of months dad told her he knew what she was earning, and cut the "housekeeping" money by that amount. A few years later, mum finally had enough and left him. He was bewildered.... said he had always been good to her.

Dad was always a control freak. He came to see me and said I had to choose between him and mum. I told him he had no right to ask that..... he walked out and I never saw him again, he died 20 years later. His choice, not mine.

England's exit caused by 'lazy men'.

I used the word "lazy"....... but I can think of lots more.

forgot to mention.... the niece I was talking with...... her parents are divorced... no surprise there.