Are men really this useless?

[justquestions]

Lighthearted and I mean that honestly, don't come with the men bashing!

I've worked as a nanny for over 20 years. Some families have been amazing and I've stayed with them all through the children's primary years and still get updates now that they're in their late teens/early 20's etc.
I just started a new job with three children. 2,8 & 11. They're lovely, I'm enjoying the job.

The problem I'm having is with the dad. He's nice and polite. But so out of touch with everything. Anything I ask him is met with 'I don't know, I'm not sure, Let me check' etc.
The mum came home and corrected all his mistakes and we laughed about it.
On the way home though I really thought, why is the mum on top of everything. Managing the schedules and holidays. Homework and housework. I obviously am there to do my job but there's only so much I can do within my hours. So I really thought that the dad seems a bit of a lazy bugger and I'm only just realising that all the dads I've worked with for the past 20 years have actually, mostly been the same and I've never even noticed.
Gender roles are clearly still very prevalent. The mums were working full time too and still keeping on top of everything. What do they keep the men around for? 🤨, sex I guess 😂
Sorry. Long post!

But the fathers haven't the skills. It's self perpetuating! Do any of the dads think it's a problem and therefore are motivated to do anything about it?

@Bunnyhair

The trouble is that nobody can make another person do something they refuse to do.

But no one is forcing you to choose a useless partner either! Works both ways.

Me and my OH do things more or less equally. We have our own "jobs" but there are also plenty of shared tasks and we'll often do each other's jobs when necessary.

I'm not "lucky", I deliberately chose a partner who wasn't a lazy, entitled git. I also "trained" him well in the early days, i.e. on our first holiday, I made it clear I expected him to wring out and hang the laundry after I washed it in the sink (in the 80s hotel room!), likewise made sure he knew he had to wipe down the sink/loo/bathroom mirror after he used it if there were marks/messes etc. That drew a line. I did the same with money and "joint" monies on that first holiday.

When we moved in together, I did exactly the same. The day we moved in, we cleaned it together, then a bit later once settled in, we did the garden together, we did DIY together. We sorted out finances together. We're both equally capable of everything (except any heavy lifting work which I leave to DH!). If the dishwasher needs emptying, whichever one of us who is free at the time will do it. He tends to hang out the washing, I do the ironing. He sorts out the banking and bill paying, I tend to sort out the sky/BT/insurance/utilities renewals and shopping around - but we could easily swap roles. When we had our young son, either one of us would bath him, feed him, change him, etc., either one of us would do the school runs, help with homework, etc.

I'd simply not have got involved nor married a bloke who didn't pull his weight in all aspects of the relationship, household and childcare.

In think my previous "semi serious" boyfriend pretty quickly got dumped when he started to show "lazy entitled git" tendencies. Life's too short to put up with a crap man - just ditch and move on. There's plenty of good ones out there when you're young, but they get snapped up quickly!

Whilst I agree it's always 'why are mothers doing everything' unfortunately this is still the norm. Many women are worn down by their partners refusing/not bothering to pull their weight. Couple this with many women working part time, this stuff falls to them. I'm always very skeptical when lots of posters sing about their DH's, I'd love to know what they really do!

I disagree that you can't 'make' someone do things. You can if you don't do it for them. Don't do their laundry, don't be the communicator with their family, don't do all gift buying, don't make up beds/be default hostess when partners family visit. Is this mean? Well they don't do it for you so why is it mean!

I am 'caught' in this position, it's a long story. However I also, and I will be flamed for this, point these things out to my children. When DH doesn't do things etc. I'm also very vocal about what my children do - skid marks - why haven't you cleaned the toilet, clothes all over bedroom floor - just left there.

Lastly I'm afraid there is an element of women wanting/liking control. Wanting things done a certain way, they often don't help themselves.

Yes, in theory, but the theory falls apart when the father is a lazy sod or a child is brought up by a single mother.

That's actually why I quite support the increase in school leavers going to university. It may "break the cycle" when boys have to fend for themselves, i.e. do their own shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. Yes, I know plenty don't engage and just slob around eating takeaways and leave their room a mess, but plenty also embrace independent living and learning essential life skills. Even more so in communal flats with shared kitchens/bathrooms etc where other flatmates will pull you up on leaving a mess and make you do your fair share of chores such as taking the bin bags to the bin store. There's also an element of gaining experience/new ideas when you're cooking your meal next to someone a bit more adventurous.

I'm sure that there's an element of employer's looking for "independence" when they specify they want a graduate for a job even if the job doesn't actually need a graduate level academic qualification - just that the candidates are more likely to be rounded and have life skills if they've lived away from home at University!

The candidates are all through Koru Kids - they're mostly students aged 21+ or freelancers who want a few hours' steady income. Male candidates are a minority, not surprisingly, but I've had plenty of interest. But literally none of the men have confidence in even basic cookery, and I've interviewed 5 now I think.

I had a housemate when I was at college who was a few years older than me, maybe 23-24 years old. He tried to cook pasta once, and was bemused because he couldn't figure it out. Turns out he didn't know you had to cook pasta in water - he just put it in a dry saucepan on the hob and was surprised when it didn't turn into a lovely carbonara. It didn't occur to him that there might be cooking instructions on the packet.

My DH is actually not like this at all. Apart from the washing but I’ve taken that over myself so that’s my doing and if I died tomorrow he’d be able to do it. But everything else he’s great!

The men I know are nothing like this.

FIL is 80, widowed, does everything for himself and always has. My dad is 70 next month and exactly the same - cooks, cleans, did half the school runs etc.

But until the chain is broken and women teach their sons to be independent self functioning humans, those males can’t then go on to teach their own children that too.

it’s a cycle of mothers doing everything for their sons and then those sons growing up to think their wives should do everything in the household.

Yes, I'm the same. I had a good role model with my father who'd do loads of the household chores, help cook meals, do the gardening and car washing, look after the DIY, and spent lots of time with me and my sister when we were growing up, i.e. playing footie with us in the park, taking us cycling or the beach etc. My Mum had a career (which was pretty rare in the 60s) so he did a lot of the housework and childcare, which enabled her to continue her career.

I just thought it was what every father did! Never occurred to me that other men didn't pull their weight. So when it came to me dating and starting to get serious, it was quite a shock to come across the lazy gits whose mothers did everything for them and who just "assumed" I'd look after them in the same way. No bloody chance! Took a couple of false starts, who were ditched pretty quickly, but then I found a lad who likewise had what I think is the "right" idea as he, too, had a very active/engaged father and just easily fell into the same kind of role as a partner (then father himself) as we'd both experienced from our own respective fathers.

How many children grow up with single mothers as the only parent? So how would children see male role models?

My mother was a SAHM who strictly speaking did everything at home, but generally did it badly...rubbish cook, dirty house, chaotic etc.

I worked out how to cook, clean and keep things running for myself. It really wasn't that hard. Am I to believe a grown man can't work it out?

I know it's a stereo type but my DH does look after the cars, fixes things, does plumbing and wiring around the house, makes things, digs the garden etc. He used to do all the washing when we had a dilapidated twin tub that was heavy work. When we both had a long commute whoever got in first started dinner. He didn't do the school runs, I reduced my hours to fit that in, he was always still late home from work still a long commute so I would then do dinner most days.

I don't know how you decide who does the most, if your OH was constantly sitting around while you were working it would get irritating, but we both seem to be fairly busy most of the time.

They "can" work it out if they need to, but if they've grown up in an environment where a woman does all the household stuff, and then finds a partner who does all the household stuff, it just becomes normalised and they don't "need" to work it out themselves. Especially if they don't leave home, i.e. don't go to university nor move away for work, and just move from the mother's house straight into a flat/house with their girlfriend, they never have the "need" to do stuff themselves. It's actually to see how they just "sleep walk" from one scenario to another without ever having to be independent and never seeing a father figure as a good role model to emulate.

OP
You need to add the word, SOME to the title thread

More likely a performance put on for you so you would do it and all the other things he didn’t “know” how to do.

Oh bless his cotton socks, he can’t even boil pasta, of course he doesn’t know how to clean the toilet/dishes/clothing… right?

Are you telling me he’s spent 20 years plus on this earth having never seen pasta in a movie, a magazine, a book… absurd and unbelievable.

Unless he had some sort of learning disability?

Oh of course they have the skills, or the ability to quickly acquire them. You don't need specialist qualifications to clean shit out of a toilet. And all the high earning men who can afford to help pay for nannies have the forward planning skills to know how to run a house.

They just don't because they are selfish fucks who are happy to force the women in their lives to pick up their slack.

Not necessarily. Some kids just don't notice someone cooking pasta in a film or TV program. My DS wouldn't have known how to cook it without explicitly being shown how or googling for instructions. I did all the usual baking/cooking with him at an early age, but as a teenager he had no interest whatsoever, so forgot basically everything we did together earlier. Same with the washing machine - he used to help me load and unload, set it, etc when he was very young, but again, as a teenager, not remotely interested. In the months leading up to University, I tried all sorts to get him engaged, and he just refused, so I gave up.

When he got to Uni, he started off doing the simplest of things only, i.e. cooking a pan of baked beans, toasting bread, etc. but he soon got bored. Same with washing - he'd botch it up by washing coloured and whites together, getting the temperature wrong, not ironing it, forgetting it in the washer and having it dumped on a mucky floor by someone else wanting to use it. He learned bloody quickly!! When he got fed up of simple/boring food, he started googling for ideas, showing more interest in the supermarket, etc. When he had to throw away ruined clothes, he soon learned to show more interest and do it properly when it cost him money to replace.

He soon became fully self sufficient! It's amazing what they can do when they have to! If he hadn't gone to Uni, he'd still be basically completely useless and dependent! The thing is, more importantly, that he's proud of himself for achieving it and being independent!

Oh no we weren't that kind of house - we all laughed at him, and he went back to living off takeaways. We had a cleaning rota, and if you didn't do the dishes on your night they ended up on your bed. He was free to be as incompetent as he liked, but only in ways that didn't affect the rest of the house!!

I was already a bit grumpy about this sort of thing because by this point in my life my brother had finished uni and was living at home again while working. He didn't lift a finger around the house, paid no rent, and my mum still made him a packed lunch every day. It came from a place of love, but it took her years to realise that it wasn't actually very helpful in the long run.

If James Bond were suddenly defeated by a washing machine - too hard for his poor little brain! - and literally couldn't make himself a single meal, none of those Bond girls would sleep with him.

Well quite. All the daughters who never had to do sod all at home worked it out for themselves when they left home. The sons are capable of doing this too.

BTW my Dad in the 1960s was also quite capable of learning how to look after himself. Became an excellent self-taught cook. Spoke to a guy who taught himself in his 50s how to cook after he got a divorce. They are quite capable.

They are also quite capable of realising that by not doing this stuff, their wife is picking up extra work. They know this. they just don't want to change.

Lets not pretend they can't do housework or household planning, and lets not pretend they are not well aware of how much extra work they are letting their wives do.

They are capable. They are also selfish.

@taxguru but none of our partners were like this to begin with! That’s the whole thing! It’s a boiling frog situation. It all starts out fine - everyone sharing the load - and then kids arrive (in my case a kid with significant SEN and complex needs, so we had several years of sleeplessness and absolute hell trying to get the right support) and everything falls out of balance.

Our family couldn’t function with both of us working full time, so because I had a much lower earning potential I cut down on my hours (not possible to get DC to accept care from others) and now I work part time and do everything and my DH just works. He does make his own lunches and dinners to be fair. But that’s it.

I didn’t choose this situation. I didn’t create this situation. I didn’t have time or energy to ‘train’ my husband while supporting a high needs child 24/7.

Maybe I should have picked a lower earning husband so he’d have to go part time rather than me. Maybe I shouldn’t have had a child unless I was a high earner with ringfenced assets. Go on, tell me all the different ways I haven’t thought of that it’s my fault that my DH doesn’t do the laundry.

You can all man bash your own men because mine is wonderful.
We do our own thing and things together.
And he tells me everyday that he loves me if we have a problem we talk it out we dont blame or twist things we work it out.
He can do some things better than me and i can do somethings better than him.
We dont go on about rights with each other and mental loads and whos paying what.
We have our own money in our own accounts a joint savings account a bill account and our own savings accounts.
We dont have plans for who dose the most house work if it needs doing we get on with it.
If hes at work and im not i`ll do it same for him.
I didnt train my husband i didnt act like his mum either we just get along really well.

I don't have my glasses on and thought you said complete cocks 🤣
It's good that they are competent cooks!!
*Runs off to find reading glasses.