to think that some women collude in the infantilization of men and to wonder ^why?^

[seeker]

There are SOOOO many threads along the lines of "Where do you buy your dp's clothes?" "Oh, I never take dp shopping with me""What shall I cook for the freezer for dp to eat while I'm having the baby"

WHY????????????

agree with you seeker.

DD1 (age 20) has pretty much moved out at this point. She sub-let in a flat close to her summer job last summer. I helped her move her things in from her university lodgings and asked her what she thought she'd be doing about food. Cue panic. We bought a small lodge pan and a baking pan, plus a sharp kitchen knife and a few pantry essentials. I sent her some recipes for simple meals and transforming of leftovers. She survived and no-one got hurt.

She had done a little cooking before she left home but knew nothing about the overall meal planning that is now second nature to me, what were basics for a variety of meals, what was a reasonable price for food items. You only get good at this kind of stuff by doing it. And really, I don't think it's all that complicated.

DS(17) always took more interest in the kitchen and cooks far more than DD1 ever did, but again he has never done the weekly shop or tried to stretch leftovers into another meal. When push comes to shove I'm confident that he will be well able to do it just as DD1 took to it. I chose not to push DD1 into kitchen duties when it really wasn't her thing because I was afraid of DS seeing his sister being taught this 'role' by me and shying off it himself. They all help quite a bit in the house according to what they're good at. DD1 would do the gutters with me while DS, who hates ladders, could get dinner together or do his laundry.

DS hates shopping though. I made him try on shorts and shirts the last time we went to get clothes for him, and intend to keep this up. I hope my efforts won't be sabotaged by some well-meaning GF or DP somewhere along the line.

I rarely bought clothes for exH because exMIL took care of this for almost 20 years of marriage and still does now that we're divorced . He occasionally bought clothes for himself; disastrous results (his taste is old mannish or pimp with nothing in between). When he did the laundry I could count on things being ruined, and when he cooked everything was raw in the middle (no patience) -- he felt very competent and gung ho about it however, and resented it when everyone took their dinner to the microwave.

Round of applause for frgr

Let's actual put our children at the centre of this. It's about raising them to believe that they aren't limited by assumptions and outdated attitudes about gender.

If a woman loves cooking, cleaning and shopping - fine. But think about the fact that if you always make it 'your' domain, simply because you love it, you are denying your children the opportunity to see that a man can also do those things equally well, and might enjoy them too.

And the same applies the other way round. If a man loves being a high flying career man, and wants to take some sort of pride in being the sole provider - spare a thought for your children who might have a better experience growing up realising that mums can also have interesting and successful work lives too.

Parenting means putting aside purely selfish notions of what we personally enjoy, and considering the whole family.

samey- I had a similar experience when staying at a friend's house.

I was staying there overnight and the 2 of us were going on a girlie night out.

Her DP was home alone smoking weed playing on the pc from 8ish til midnight when we came back. We had picked up 3 pizzas from a takeaway on the way back and when we arrived back she reheated his and brought him a drink to go with it before she reheated her own. I couldn't beleive he'd sat there all night waiting for her to cook for him .

She wont come for a night out where I live 'cos she cant 'leave him' for that long!

Surely after a year of your wife helping you choose some ok clothes, you'd be able to go to the shops and buy a few of your own?

It is babyish to have someone else buy your clothes.

DS (17) is, ahem, improving in matters domestic. He will happily rustle up a fry-up/toasted sandwich, pasta and a ready made sauce, but he has yet to tackle a made-from-scratch meal. But, on occasion, he has been known to put on a wash and absolutely does not expect me to choose his clothes (just pay for them [hmmm]).

I don't think he will be a helpless male as I am not at all embarrassed to go all Germaine Greer on him and talk about equal rights blah blah if ever he betrays any flashes of male chauvinism (quaint phrase). He's at a mixed school and I think the girls are pretty good at squashing any stereotypical assumptions the boys are foolish enough to make.

DH is a far from helpless male, but I must admit he is not to be let near the washing machine as he just can't seem to understand the concept of sorting laundry. But he has some sterling qualities: keeping the house well stocked with wine and happily shopping and cooking when I can't be arsed. He also handles most of the finances and we sort of share the car housekeeping.

Works for us.

To be honest, the excuses as to why you are still dressing your DH/DPs are making it sounds really dumb. Controlling, and dumb.

Why do I buy DHs clothes? first, DH has no problems with any of the jobs around the house. Not only does he cook, clean, do laundry, shopping, pay bills etc etc, he actually has equal responsibility for running the household, I don't have to be in charge and point out when things need to be doing.

but I still buy almost all his clothes and I don't see any problems with that. I don't think he is incapable of buying them himself, he managed fine before me. I simply fly to US for business quite often and always stay a bit longer to do all our clothes shopping. Why would I only do mine when I can get his loads cheaper there than here as well? just to make a point?
and he takes my car for servicing - not because I could not do it myself, not because "women of course are useless at that sort of thing, he he" but simply as he has a flexible schedule and I would need to take time off to do it myself. does that make me a baby too?

This thread is not about "you made him coffee, what a doormat!" but about women who assume or claim that their husbands cannot take care of themselves and husbands, who happily assume the helpless role.

"DH is a far from helpless male, but I must admit he is not to be let near the washing machine as he just can't seem to understand the concept of sorting laundry."

Poor bastard.

My father has a wife like you, aka my darling mother.

She doesn't let him near the washing machine because he won't do the washing the way she needs the washing done.

It's his home, they're his clothes. Let him wash them if he wants FFS.

I've seen my father sneaking around the house trying to get washing into the machine without my mother seeing.

Being a control freak about how jobs are done IS infantalising and borderline abusive. I don't sort washing, but if DH thought that meant he could ban me from using the washing machine in my home I'd kick him in the manjo.

Still urgh.

y'know dh tried that shit - and yes he really still does.

and if he, a very intelligent man, can work a car - three peddles, gears, various gages to look at, then i reckon he can work a washing machine.

and if he tries the 'what can go in with this' same old routine, i repy " why n0t try it and see"

if he wants to put red and white together and turn his shirts pink - then fine.

and i ALWAYS COME BACK TO THIS... i was born with a vagina - it didn't hold instructions on how to iron, cook and use a washing machine. there were no instructions in my fanny on how to dress, burp, change and feed a baby.

i have no more experience than him.

Fabulous post custardo!
I don't think mens cocks usually come with instructions on how to fix the car, cut the grass or be the sole earner in the family either!

The process of socialisation into this sort of behaviour isn't simple or short. Sometimes you only realise what is surrounding you when something pokes up out of the normal level and smacks you in the eye. I always accepted that my mother did everything for my father domestically, and i mean absolutely everything including separate cooked breakfasts for everyone and packed lunches, it barely registered with me. it continued not to register with me that she also was the breadwinner for the family, then after a while was the only worker of any sort, did all the childcare for the three of us, was the one who turned up without fail to school stuff, did approx 60% of the gardening... I don't know how many years it would have taken me to realise the numerous reasons she had ended up in this position, I would have assumed it was because of her martyr tendencies.

Then I got married... and literally at the WEDDING, I'd been married approx 30 minutes and my mother-in-law said to me, 'Oh you'll have to keep an eye on his food, he doesn't eat enough vegetables, he gets colds a lot in the winter'.

In that one remark lay so much... if my husband looked like a scarecrow, didn't appear to be providing for his family, got too many colds, was tired, bored, unfaithful... it was because I wasn't slogging like my mother slogged, to make it look as if we were a functioning family. It was ALL HER FAULT and now I was married, it was ALL MY FAULT.

Fuck that, basically.

LOL just told dh about this thread (after offering to buy him some new clothes as all his are rather old) and his reply;

'mumsnet, full of fucking harridans'

yay for us mners! A great nickname if I could be bothered.

Are the harridans the ones doing the cooking/cleaning/clothes buying, or the ones who are saying buy and clean your own fking clothes?

I agree Gay40, I want advice, it's so hard to be a real harridan these days, the rules keep changing.

Learnt something new:

"Noun: A strict, bossy, or belligerent old woman: "a bullying old harridan""

Basically someone who won't smile sweetly at their DH and accept that if he "looks like a scarecrow, doesn't appear to be providing for his family, gets too many colds, is tired, bored, unfaithful" it's all her fault.

Best post I've seen this month on MN, maktaitai. I hope your DH didn't have the same idea as your MIL!

clarification; bossing people around for their practices is illiberal.

I think he means 'let them buy pants'

No he didn't actually. He was a lot of things (we divorced within five years) but he absolutely was not sexist and I owe him a lot in that regard.

Who would want to have a sexual relationship with someone that they are effectively mothering? That's the bit I don't understand. And I agree with expat its about low self esteem - frightening though.

As fucking dysfunctional as my parents are my father was an excellent role model. My parents took in turns to cook Sunday dinner (the only meal we ever ate together due to their business) and as soon as we were old enough we had to help and then take our own turns at cooking.

DH is perfectly capable of doing everything and does - if I am there he will ask me about how long to steam the veg for. If I stay out of the kitchen he just gets on with it. I signed up for an equal partnership....where do I sign up for membership of the harridan club?

I've just posted in S&B that I shop for dh's clothes. I don't DRESS him, I just buy his clothes. We live in the back arse of nowhere, so clothes shopping is mainly online and I keep track of that budget - it's just logical to fling things in that he needs if I am ordering anyway. He does get to choose!

He does all the mending. Is that controlling too, or are we just playing to our strengths?

It's just weird how these things come to be expected. I know men who spent their twenties as style-conscious young things who managed their own wardrobes admirably, and once marriage and children came along, mysteriously lost this ability. I will admit to picking up work t-shirts for DH (at Asda, part of weekly shop if needed), and sometimes buying him presents, and things I spot in shops, but mostly, he sorts himself out. He has more expensive tastes than me, and I leave picking out jeans/suits/jackets/"good" clothes to him.
His hairstyle really annoys me as well, if I think about it, but I would never dream of demanding he change it. I would be livid if he did that to me, and there is no difference.

The "poor silly man" thing comes from all sorts of surprising quarters. When I was a Pastoral Tutor at a university hall of residence, we were debating making all the corridors co-ed. However, I had witnessed some proper facepalm moments in the existing co-ed corridors, and vetoed it. In certain of the co-ed areas, the men were getting their washing done, and leaving all of the tidying/cleaning to the women. Part of the halls experience imho is getting to grips with independent living, not falling back on antiquated gender roles.

I think the word-reversal in this blog post is particularly illuminating on this topic the good wife. I read this with my jaw hanging open, and then thought: YES.

"'mumsnet, full of fucking harridans'

Am I the only one who actually found that quite offensive? Or is that because I am a hairy egged, dungatee wearing feminist?

Pmsl @ seeker's hairy eggs -that's real dedication to the feminist cause of being unattractive and unfeminine and mannish :o