Things you do that your Mother doesn't approve of/thinks are unladylike

[noirchatsdeux]

Lighthearted!

My mother thinks it's terrible that I drink beer. Ladies don't drink beer. I'm 52 and she still pouts when she knows I've had some!

Any other unladylike ladies on here?

Looking like a scruffbag and living in wellies (horses)
Swearing
Being a “lazy” chef. I buy grated cheese, pre-prepped veg because sometimes I just can’t be arsed

I think she silently judges me for not putting every meal in front of DH (because he knows where the fridge is)

Well l am allowing my 9 year old to get her ears pierced this year and that is gonna go down like a lead balloon!!

Not cleaning my house to within an inch of its life

preferring to spend time letting my children have a childhood than being fussy about how the position of their body might alter the shape of the cushions.

Using the word 'cunt'

Excelling in my profession.

Her greatest wish for me was that I might be a PA to someone important. Instead I am the “someone important”. It’s deeply disappointing and distressing to her. She lies to friends and family to downplay my job

Yes, this! Mine still drops remarks from time to time about why can't I be more like X [childhood best friend] who is a 'big businessman's secretary' and wears 'lovely flattering clothes to work'. She used to downgrade my exam results to neighbours, even when they were nationally significant enough to be in the paper because I'd got a national prize for coming top in a subject, and when I won a scholarship for a postgraduate degree overseas I heard her saying to my aunt that it was 'only because Sack doesn't fancy the world of work!'

Then again, I do realise it's not just me -- she's deeply uneasy with what a lot of my high-powered female friends do for a living, and I once heard her tell someone else at a party that a friend of mine (who is an obstetrics consultant) 'worked at the hospital', deliberately giving the impression she could have been a receptionist/cleaner/clerical staff.

Thought of some more!

Wearing black
Not wearing perfume to go to the corner shop. Also not wearing the perfume she approves of. Apparently mine our tarty 🤣
Not jumping up and fussing around dh when he gets in from work. She hisses at me 'are you not going to go and give him a kiss jess been at work all day, what have you got planned for his dinner'
Not being 'done up' when he comes home too.
Sitting in the sun and getting a tan. She hates it if I rock up with a nice bronze colour.

Pierced ears. And red lipstick.

Either of these would signal to all passing men that I am a lady of the night, apparently.

Not my mum but granny - she thought I was an absolute schlob for going to the beach without a full face of makeup on.

@CeliaCanth my mother's version of that is "a whistling woman and a crowing hen, are to be found in the devil's den"!!

Yes to most of these additional disappointments:

Long hair in my 40s
Hill walking as a hobby
Not getting up early to make a cooked breakfast for DH to set him up for the day.
Leaving DH to iron his own shirts
Ironing generally being kept to a minimum - not ironing towels, socks, underwear...
Eating lunch (ladies should skip lunch - it makes us fat)
Wearing outdoorsy clothes (the North Face logo is like a red rag to a bull where DM is concerned. Even when it is raining heavily, it's apparently more ladylike to dress nicely and get wet, than be seen in public with waterproofs).

Never wearing heels.
Wearing DMs.

Watching sci-fi, fantasy, superhero stuff.

Eating a decent sized meal, and then having seconds. I like food. Every single time I have a meal with my mum she HAS to say that she can't eat a big meal, looks pointedly at mine (and then eats all of hers).

My mother isn't around any more, but at various times in my life there have been:

Getting angry
Saying no
Smoking
Wearing make up
Not wearing a girdle
Not wearing a bra
Whistling
Extra marital sex
Using tampons
Shouting - the genuine kind
Shouting - speaking too loudly or assertively
Not ironing, taking hems up with fabric glue, etc
Swearing
Having piercings
Having green hair/dreadlocks
Being scruffy
Arguing and refusing to concede and be nice
Feeding on demand
Using disposable nappies
Getting divorced
Getting divorced from the right kind of husband
Living in a commune
Living in sin

This same straight laced woman in her later years was found visiting a local environmental protest camp, sitting round the Fire pit chatting happily with a group of tattooed, pierced, dreadlocked protesters and drinking with equanimity a smoky cup of tea in a dirty tin cup.
Good on yer, Mum. 🙂

Err where to start 😂

Pretty much everything ever. I actually can't think of one thing I've done in my entire life that she's approved of.

My chosen profession, how I parent my children, where I live. Hell, even owning dogs in my own home appears to be a problem and somehow affects her!

Having tattoos is a major bone of contention.

Being bi. Yeah she won't even acknowledge that one.

The main problem seems to be that I'm not my sister, and I can't (and don't want to) compete. She can be the golden child, I'll continue to do my life my way and be a monumental disappointment. Luckily I'm not a disappointment to myself or my kids, and it's a VERY long time since I sought my mums approval.

I think it's important to add though that we (mostly) get on fine because I will always defend my decisions and that's something she respects even if she doesn't like it. I love her to bits and I know she loves me, though I obviously haven't turned out how she'd have liked me to 😂

Long hair once over 30 and a mother. I should have a nice sensible short haircut and bubble perm.

Making an effort to stay slim now I'm not "a girl" any more. It's vain apparently.

Clothes too sexy. Ditto black underwear (only worn by women of ill repute).

Wear jeans (only suitable for manual labourers).

Wear bikinis on holiday. Unsuitable for mothers to show so much flesh. (I actually have a nice figure.)

Too much make up. A nice Yardley lipstick is plenty.

Have a credit card (a slippery slope apparently even though I pay it off every month).

Have my own hobbies/interests/friends/leisure time. A woman should be too busy serving her husband and family to find time for "all that".

Let my children choose their own clothes (within reason). Dreadful that my daughter prefers leggings to pretty dresses.

Let my son have his hair long if he wants. (Looks so uncared for.)

Drink more than two alcoholic drinks in an evening (another slippery slope).

Wear tracksuit bottoms around the house. My poor husband!

Don't wait on or pander to my husband (we both work FT and all chores are shared fairly). She's astounded that he's "put up with that" for 25 years.

Don't make my children write long painstaking thank you letters for each and every gift. I do insist they say thank you but I don't mind how they do it: in person, call, text, email or a letter/card.

Earn more than my husband as it must humiliate him. He certainly doesn't seem bothered.

@JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows

Does anyone else's mum think "knackered" is a swear word?

Yes!!! My parents told me off for saying Knackered as a kid. It was like I'd said something much worse

When I was at school "knackered" was supposed to be really rude . It meant "tired after sex". I think it was a single generation thing because that meaning is no longer prevalent. But it was definitely a thing. There was a thread about it a few years ago and a lot of younger posters (I'm 46) didn't believe it!

Not something my mother said about me being unladylike but when Ronald Ragan became president she said his wife was too thin and you get that way by, "having too much sex".

I have to say I wish it were so but I've never been thin no matter how much sex I was having.

'Knackered' has nothing whatsoever to do with sex or post-coital tiredness it's from the term 'knacker', someone who disposes of large dead animals (like Ginger's carcass going past in the knacker's cart in the bit of Black Beauty that made me weep and throw the book at the wall aged ten). If you're 'knackered', you're exhausted and half-dead, and ready to be hauled off in the knacker's cart. It can also be used for injuries 'I knackered my knee playing football at the weekend'.

@sashh

Not something my mother said about me being unladylike but when Ronald Ragan became president she said his wife was too thin and you get that way by, "having too much sex".

I have to say I wish it were so but I've never been thin no matter how much sex I was having.

Well, I'll never see Nancy Reagan in the same way again.

Yes, when I was a kid (I'm 38) knackered definitely meant sexually exhausted. I use it all the time now though, just to mean tired.

Yes when I was little, 'knackered' could not be used by any of us children even in the right context. The equivalent now would be 'shagged out' and I actually do hear people say they are 'shagged' as in tired after work.

I think the sex reference came from the man "emptying his knackers" (testicles)/ ejaculating. Nowadays it's just a reference for really tired i.e fit for the knacker's yard.

My mum used to despair of my doc Martens when I was at college. My dyed hair too. She always wished I would look "elegant and feminine". I wasn't allowed to wear trousers on a Sunday until I was well into 6th form. My mum wished I'd get some nice court shoes and "ladies" tights to wear with skirts instead of the DMs and striped tights I still have DMs now and am looking forward to hairdressers opening again ✂️

I caused raised eyebrows by doing things like going to the cinema and ice skating alone when I was a student. No one else wanted to go. It was very revolutionary to not be taken there by someone, presumably a man. But nice girls don't mix with boys either so no wonder it was all a bit confusing. Strangely my Mum has changed so much. Now she likes my practical and sensible boots and thinks I am right to go to things that I like even if no one else is going.

@Trumpetpants Oh dear, so many.. Not digging a hole in the back garden to burn used sanitary products

Wait what? I've just read this and am thinking - hasn't she heard of a bin? This is the oddest one so far! Wow really screams of such shame at being a perfectly normal menstruating woman. All that "nasty" must be hidden and destroyed. How sad.

Staying in my pyjamas/dressing gown all day even if I am not leaving the house.

Painting my toenails.