Sons whose lives are facilitated by their mothers - how to prevent it?

I think it's more a case of parents facilitating their children rather than any gender bias. IME for every teenage boy who never unloads the dishwasher there are at least as many girls who can't change a car battery/tyre or wire a plug.

Yeah - it kind of works best for us like I'd hold a team meeting at work - ensuring there's buy-in etc and that it's not a power thing. just that everyone has to pitch in.

Fluffy, your dh is a big part of the problem. Why is it that everyone in the house has to be helping before it is his turn to pitch in? He is teaching your kids that it's okay to offload the work onto someone else.

Neglect didn't really work on mine - they're quite happy to live in a mess/wear stinky clothes.

We make rotas. We all sign up to an equal amount of things. Everyone plans a meal of their choosing on their meal day. They can ask for help while cooking but they have to think of the meal and add things to the list because this is the mental load related to cooking.

They all have to empty their pockets before putting things in the laundry. They have to sort their own things out of the laundry. They can put washes on but as you say, it's often easier to wash it all at once.

Chores happen on a rota. I don't think anyone should get stuck on the same chore over and over again.

As long as we all do the same amount, and it's equal, there's not too much griping. The checklists mean they can choose when in the week to do things.

They have to tidy up after themselves and if they spill and don't clean it up, they're asked to do so.

I don't live with a man though - I think that would probably be a bit crap if he wasn't on board with the rota/equality vibe.

While I absolutely agree with the gist of this thread (i.e. that it's a good idea to at least try and prevent this behaviour), somewhat ironically I also think it's a tad symptomatic of the phenomenon as a whole that mothers feel it's their duty to try and make sure their sons don't turn into lazy, entitled men.

FWIW, and while the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data': my friend whose SAHM did absolutely everything for all her kids (including my female friend, who first learned to boil an egg while we were at uni) is a well-adjusted together adult these days whereas her two brothers are the embodiment of this phenomenon. I guess what I'm tryibg to say is: parenting is only a small part of the situation. Women learn to stand on their own two feet because, the upper classes possibly excluded, it's not socially acceptable for us to be useless. It is for men.

I have 2 boys aged 6 and 3 and as a working mother in a well paid job, I decided that I am not going to bring them up to think of household duties as just "a woman's job" be it mine or the helper's.

Starting a few months back, I instigated rules that are now second nature. When they finish their plate, they take it to the dishwasher and stack it, they know to tidy away after themselves, clothes go in hamper etc. they also help both myself and DH with cleaning, they do the bathroom sinks etc, so they know it's a group effort to keep a tidy home.
As they get bigger, they'll be expected to gradually take on more automatic responsibility in the running of the home, cooking for each other/us as a family etc.

I want it to become second nature to them to tidy away after themselves, cook a variety of meals and generally be the type of man I can be proud of!

Not men facilitated by their mother!

Not sure if my experience is relevant as I am not a parent, but the question of men being culturally facilitated is very interesting (and very true).

My mom used to run the house just like her business. Pretty weird but it did work on me and DB. Having a clean/organized house/garden, admin and food prepared was everyone's responsibility and sitting on the couch was not an option for anyone until the last of the chores were done. Before ten years old we would help out according to what we could do (hanging washing, changing bed linens, dusting..) but after that we were solely responsible for our own bedrooms and laundry. Cooking and food shopping were down to my dad and I and Garden/outside stuff to my mom and brother. The general tidying was done on a "first to come across the mess, first to clean it" basis, no way around it sadly.

Mom's nickname is "The Komandantur"

My sister used to live with a guy whose mum took her to one side to plead with her to iron his shirts... DSis said she would as long as he was doing other housework at the same time and not just sat watching football they both worked full time!
She ended up leaving him, and one of the reasons was that he’d only wash up one plate when he wanted to eat and leave the sink full.
Wonder if they might have had more of a shot if his parents hadn’t enabled him.

don't want to disrupt their A-levels

Okaaay, you could position it as helping them to keep a good life - work balance. Seriously, there will never be a good time, or rather now is as good a time as any. I know, I sloped of doing any chores I could, just by getting out books to do homework...

Watching with interest as I've come to the same conclusion recently about my DS. He is happy to live in a hovel, wear dirty, scrumpled clothes and never tidy up. So if I don't do the chores myself, I have to stand over him to make him do it - and then I resent him for turning my into a nag

What is realistic for a 12yo to do? (I know that technically 6yo can do the dusting and by 12yo they can cook a cordon bleu meal for 10 , but what do others actually expect of their near teens?)

It's only 'a boy thing' if you let them get off scot-free! And to the mums of teenagers, start now! Stop being a doormat.

Wow - format fail, there!

lol @ him picking through the basket and only hanging his own things up

I know, Vertical*! To be fair, we each have clothes horses in our bedrooms for our own clothes, to facilitate the putting-away-of-clothes once they are dry, so it's not quite^ as ridiculous as it sounds!

The easiest thing would be for them to start Saturday. Have them do the same chore daily for a month and then swap. So one child clears the table and washes up. The other dries and outs away. At weekends everyone can take part in a tidying half hour which will involve random chores.

I'm grappling with this one too. My DS (7) is extremely lazy (as in he would happily have me actually physically dress him and wash him if and I would) and getting him to do anything for himself is hard work (although I do insist). I have been told by numerous teachers /my parents/family members that this is just a 'boy thing'.

I do not agree that it is genetically coded in males to act this way. However, I do feel that as long as people keep saying this boys/men can side step responsibility for their own laziness.

I had 2 brothers and my parents would often ask me to do things on the basis that they wouldn't. If I complained DM told me that she knew they should be asked too but if they were they would make it harder for her by showing off and/or doing it so badly that it needed to be done again- there was an underlying understanding that if I didn't help DM would have to do everything and I would not be unkind enough to make that happen. As we got older, if DM was not around it was understood that I would look after the boys. One one occasion I was blamed for one of them getting in to trouble at work for turning up late with an unironed shirt as I should have made sure he was awake before I left the house and should have checked his shirts too.

One brother got a wife who did everything and got no respect frmo him, The other (now mid 40s) still has DM running around after him. DM has been know to call me (an hour's drive away) to ask for help when DB is in her house and perfectly able bodied.

I am determined that my son will not be facilitated in this way- but I can see that he is already showing signs that he has learned how to make it more difficult to expect him to look after himself than to do things for him. Every time I hear the 'boy thing' excuse I want to scream- it's only a 'boy thing' because people allow it to be.

Oh yes, I have a dh who was waited on hand & foot by his mum. It took me a while to retrain himI.have 2 sons. Ds1 cooked dinner yesterday both are capable of being lazy teenagers but they also do household chores when needed. More importantly I am starting to encourage them to manage their own money, make their own phone calls & take responsibility for organising themselves and being reliable. It's thinking for 4 people that I find more exhausting than doing chores the sooner they start thinking more for themselves the better.

Why isn’t this the mother’s fault? Do you think mothers only facilitate their sons not their daughters?

I'm determined not to have man-babies as sons, we try and get them to do as much as they can. They're now 7 & 9. They bring down their washing and put it in the washing machine (next step is to teach them to turn it on), they make their own packed lunches. They sometimes make a weekend lunch for us all. I don't do "waitress service" ie bring them something like a drink etc if they are sitting down in the lounge. It's the invisible things too, they expect me to problem solve if they get into difficulty and I try and let them solve it first. This is what's involved in adulting, working something out for yourself, not just following instructions. Any other tips people have are welcome! Sometimes I think other people are mad for letting my 7 year old pack for beaver residential but I do, I don't even check it. They need to learn to plan, think for themselves, and deal with the consequences of not doing so.

lol @ him picking through the basket and only hanging his own things up

Still he does more than mine, mine are youngish though.

I do think there is something in the idea that women / mothers run around after boys more, and that boys seem to expect this and feel no guilt. It's probably a society thing as well as an individual household thing. A lot of boys seem to learn quite young that they are superior to girls, even if it's in quite small ways ie that they don't come across as totally horrible or anything, this reflects in behaviour to mothers and of course later in life with partners and how they view other women etc. Shown up I think in the massive differential between boys moving out and girls - boys stay because they are given more freedom + looked after. Girls go because their parents are much more nosey into where they are going and who with etc and they have more responsibilities.

The girls come better out of this I think until they get lumbered with a man who moves from mother to wife and expects her to iron his pants etc

It's all a bit of a nightmare.

I thought men were supposed to be strong, independent, self sufficient etc while women are weak and needy? This is just yet another massive reversal isn't it, whereby men take their own failings and project them onto women. Pah.

Neither knows how to use the washing machine though blush but that's more because I think it's wasteful to do a small load.

We never do a small load, either, but when DS puts the washing machine on (he's 15) he just fills it with his stuff first, then with other appropriate stuff from the laundry basket until it's full. Then when it's time to hang it out to dry, he will hang his own stuff out, and call me to hang mine out! (And sometimes I ask him to hang mine out, sometimes I will hang his out.)

Kick Ass, I think more women than men want to sah when they have just had a baby. I didn't want my dh to be at home with our newborn when I could do it, so it wasn't a case of him refusing to facilitate my career. In all honesty he would have supported whatever I wanted.

Small steps like (this is what my 13yo does)

Clear away dinner plates, load dishwasher
I tell him what colour wash I’m doing so he will bring down his own dirty clothes
Take the bins out/bring them in
At the weekend he will do his own lunches - simple stuff like pesto pasta

Do you give them money each week? Could their jobs be linked to that’?

Why are you assuming it's the the mother's fault? Where are the dads? what are they doing?

Yes, I can very easily see how families structures themselves like this. It works well for a small group such as a family. It also works well for capitalism to have the opt in/out part of the population as demand/supply changes.

But the only reason why it is women who become the SAHP, and not an equal amount of women & men, is patriarchy. The people who benefit from patriarchy are men. The people who need to change it are men.

If men facilitated women's careers in the same way that women do to men, then this would cease to happen. So - why aren't dads doing this?