To baby my teenage sons?

It's the parents responsibility to teach and model for their children how to behave and not wait on them hand and foot after a certain age. But yes even if mummy (or why isn't it daddy) didn't teach them how to wash dishes/do laundry it's not hard to figure out how to do it! It is shocking the ignorance though: that toilets need regular cleaning, that bed linen needs changing.
I have a friend who is a slave to her husband and adult son. I don't think either of them have made a sandwich let alone cooked a meal. Never done a load of laundry. That is her fault - they are hardly going to refuse her doing all the chores! She should have just not done stuff and told her son from some age that his laundry is his responsibility. That he can wash up after dinner x amount of times a week. Hoover the house once a week and so on. Her DH could argue that he has a job and her job is to keep the house, I can just about see that, but not her son who contributes nothing.

There isn't a problem doing things for other family members, as long as you know they can - and will - do it themselves when required.

I generally do most of the laundry, for example, it's my choice. But my husband and son do know how to use the washing machine and will do it if required or if I have gone away for a few days. The same applies to shopping, cooking and looking after the pets and each other. I don't come back to a hell hole 😁

Maybe suggest they take on certain chores around the house, so you are all doing something and contributing to the running of the household. You can still get pleasure from being a mum, but they will be taking on more responsibility and feeling more valued

Your approach to mothering your young adult sons is pretty awful to be honest. My kids learned to put a wash on, fill the dishwasher and put it on at about age 11. They learned how to make a simple meal in their early teens. Your job is to ensure they know they are loved and to give them the skills needed for them to take care of themselves in the adult world. No matter what you say about “this is only because I’m your mum”, but you are a role model for women. Just stop this nonsense.

Same. I was also really very embarrassed by this. Especially because I had friends who noticed and joked about me being spoiled.

as others have said, spoiling your kids doesn’t make them feel good. Your son has already expressed that to you - listen to him.

I've dated men and been friends with who were raised like this and it was a nightmare. Teenagers of both sexes need to learn to be independent and not to fall back on someone else doing the hard or boring jobs for them. Life isn't easy. That's something that everyone has to deal with. You're not just setting yourself up to be a hated MIL but you're setting your sons up to be poor partners, housemates, and colleagues.

i think babying anyone can knock their self confidence to smithereens

@TheNinkyNonkyIsATardis my son in law was very much not made to do anything by his dm but dd1 has got him well in hand. In her wedding vows she said she would do exactly 50% of household tasks ( exdh did nothing in the home) and that's what she does. He is a wonderful father and great cook, irons his own shirts, vacuums etc. I think his dm is a bit shocked!

Same with me! He's at university so obviously does everything there but when he comes home I don't expect him to do any chores. He does generally mow the lawn (in season) and clean the bathroom because he likes things clean and if I'm working but he's not asked to do anything. Ds is very good at fixing things and will for example sort out the pulley system on the curtains, paint the fences. My mum still looks after me when I visit and she's in her 80s!

My son didnot do chores there was no fuss about teaching him to cook wash etc. He did care about people though.Married for 20 yeasr he is the best dad, hardest working person I know. When he is home from work he just walks straight in to the cooking, looking after children washing, whatever is needed as apart of the family. So teach them about caring , working together, looking after each other. The rest will follow when needed. He is not and bever has been a 'mummy's boy' but we areincredibly proud of his values

I remember literally saying to DS1, then about 16, a couple of years ago when he said he'd had a long day at school and didn't fancy unloading the dishwasher and doing the washing up, "I've had a long day at work and don't fancy cooking dinner and so forth, that's tough luck for both of us".

I have an adult son and a teenage son. I’ve always promoted independence with them, taught them how to cook, use a washing machine, hoover all of that. They are both fully aware of how to clean and cook and have done so when I’m at work.
But I have found both of them have become increasingly chauvinistic with age and definitely still see chores as “women’s work” despite me drilling it into them that it’s not.
I find that males can be more influenced by other males if they don’t have a strong father figure.
So I do think that it’s unfair that we mums get the blame for men not pulling their weight as adults. I think it’s more nuanced than that.

It's a hard world, and therefore it's better for them to learn self- management now than to flounder when they're older.

MIL babied her boys, and hence my husband is still an unconfident cook, and BIL nearly broke up with his lovely girlfriend because she was sick of doing all the laundry.

I grew up rurally, and there were lots of jobs to do for the animals. No question, you did that before you settled down to your own rest.

Very good mental discipline.

You really do sound like a lovely, caring mum.
But, you're setting them up to be failures outside the home.
They need to learn how to do the things you don't let them do in order for them to make their own way in future.

Your not teaching your children to be independent, my friend does this with her daughter, her daughter is not so unbelievably lazy and won't do nothing for herself it's actually very sad to watch.

Our job as parents is to bring up independent adults

Literally that is the job.

You are not doing your job.

I think it is a very selfish type of Mother-Love not to give your children all the tools they need to succeed in life and for forming strong relationships. You take a lot of happiness from their gratitude and closeness. However you are not prepared to put in the hard work needed for their growth.

I am currently divorcing a man child who came from a house like this. Especially in hard times men go back to expecting the women in their life to baby them. At the worst time I was on the edge and would walk into every room to stuff everywhere, dirt everywhere, to hear his complaints about the mess. When I asked him what he was going to do about it I would get shouted at. His mother felt it was my role to support her boy at this time... no care for me or anyone looking after me!
Don't be this woman. Give them a day each to do dinner, take turns doing laundry and rotate cleaning rooms. This is taking care of them in the best way! It's taking care of their future.

So, basically, OP, you don't give a shit that if anything you're harming their mental health and long-term coping.

It's pretty consistent, research-wise, that hovering over teenagers and teaching them that they are incapable of doing routine adult tasks is bad for their mental health, not good. (And what is the terrible, terrible stress that these late teens are under that means they can't possibly put their own plate in the dishwasher or they'll collapse?) Treating teens as capable of coping and giving them a chance to cope is how you support their mental health.

@IamFineIamFINE
The vast majority of an adult's expectations are set up in childhood.

Words are very much less than actions.
Showing them "You don't need to do anything, I'll do it for you" will be the lesson that sticks WAY more than telling them "You need to be equal and pull your weight".

Habits are important - if they've never got into the habit of having to take the mental load to think about doing all these things and organising themselves around it (i.e. I've got work/school, and socialising, and I also need to have clean pants etc), then it won't come easily to them in adulthood, even if at some level they know they "should", they won't have the basis for it.
And if you look at the predominant complaint of women here, it's that some men never do the thinking & organising part - "He'll help if I tell him what to do but why do I have to take all the mental load"

So maybe try a reframe in your own mind - that it's kinder to send them out into the world knowing they're fully equipped to handle everything in it well, rather than believing it's kinder to baby them.

And maybe look at your own motivations - do you like doing these things because it makes you feel more needed as they grow up and naturally need you less? Perfectly understandable if so, but not necessarily helpful to them, or you, overall.

My husband’s mother tries to help him even though he’s asked her not to.

What we do is keep her more in the dark about things in our lives than we would if she would simply respect our boundaries.

Learn to respect your son’s boundaries. What you think is harmless really isn’t.

DD says I "baby" her brother too much and maybe I do. She was always so independent and touch averse that I actually enjoyed having a velco baby at times and at over 6ft with a beard (unless I nag him to shave) he still give great cuddles
BUT there are some things where I have firm lines such as tidying up after himself, manners, respect etc. I do his washing but he always asks if I could do his PE kit or school shirts or whatever and never assumes. If I don't cook for him he will happily sort himself out. I will always have his back though and defend him fiercely

Absolutely this. You are not helping them in the long run, you aren’t even doing for them if the truth be told- you are doing it for you- which is an understandable impulse as it sounds like your childhood had it’s problems. But you are doing the opposite of what you intend, so you need to stop doing this and help them develop their independence because they won’t magically learn life skills and change behaviour the minute they move out of your home if you don’t. It is extremely naive to think otherwise.

Infantalising teens and young adults does not make them feel loved- there are lots of ways you can show them that and be a caring, supportive parent that don’t include coddling them. Instead, it teaches them helplessness, that they don’t need to think for themselves and does not build resilience or problem solving skills. It just makes them more vulnerable.

You need to teach them how to cope in the world- especially one which you rightly acknowledge isn’t always an easy one to navigate. If you insist on doing everything for them now, how do they learn to be independent young adults? Better they learn- and make mistakes- now, whilst they have your support than later on when you can’t always help them much because the world will (rightly) expect them to be more responsible and treats them as such.

How can you model to them that they do nothing whilst you sort everyone for them, then expect to bring up young men who know how and when to do things like household chores (far less feel that they should do them), for instance?

I lived in halls with a young man like this. I spent the first year of university teaching him life skills. By the end of his third year he was no contact with his mum as he viewed what she had done as abuse. He’s happily married now and is an equal partner and involved father. We talked recently about his experiences as a child and he said he felt constantly suffocated by his mum.
i see why you have done this but you need to change your thinking. My parents are neglectful and I was forced to be very independent from a young age (an example of this is I paid for my own school trips and sanitary products). With my children I’ve done a lot of reading and talking to friends to find out what is normal.

They have literally asked you to stop and you insist on carrying on

Yes your setting yourself up to he an overbearing mother in law

You are setting them up to fail.
Do you seriously think that in several years time
when they meet the person they want to settle down with, live with, and possibly have children with, that what you have done will be of benefit to them? Do you not read the endless threads on here written by women who are at their wits ends because their oh is a lazy bastard?
Do you not read the replies saying the only solution is to ltb?
You will also be the hated mil.
Turning your sons into lazy, entitled men is not showing them love and does not make you a good parent.
Good parenting is about teaching your sons how to be resilient, decent, caring, hardworking, loyal, affectionate. How to put the needs of their wife (or husband) and children on an equal footing to their own, not in thinking they are top dog and it’s the wife’s job to pander to them.
You are making your sons unequipped for the dating market. They will be thrown back into the pond on a regular basis, unless they have other exceptional qualities such as; incredibly good looking and slim, incredibly wealthy. Even then, the wives are likely to still chuck them back into the pond, they will just stay with them a bit longer to benefit from a fit, rich man.