To think that men do not need to be trained?

[ConfusedPixie]

This has been bugging me since moving to my new share house. DP and I rent a room from a very nice couple and it's us four in the house. I have health issues, so does the Landlady. On days when mine flares DP 'looks after me' in the sense that he'll cook dinner if it's my turn, make me tea only because he drinks copious amounts of it and will usually be the one who loads the washing machine and hangs it out. We have a relatively equal relationship in terms of housework and things though he tends to do slightly more and does quite a bit more in holidays (he's a student).

Landlady always coos and makes comments whenever he does something about how well trained he is, how nice he is to do it for me and so on. Landlord won't lift a finger around the house and won't even make himself food when she's half-to-dead in bed upstairs and will start whining about being starving

But this isn't the first time I've been told about how well 'trained' DP is. I get it very often in fact.

AIBU to think that a grown man does not need training ffs?
We're two adults, work/study similar hours and share responsibilities whilst he takes on extra when I'm ill. Surely that is normal?!

Well it must have been his mother who trained him then, if it wasn't you?!

Yabu it's tongue in cheek. Some men, dh included are a work in progress . No all men are the same and need to be shownin the right way

YANBU, I hate the whole 'trained' thing. The most offensive aspect is that it infers that the woman is at fault if a man doesn't perform certain tasks.

I think everyone needs training when it comes down to it. Most people are taught how to do housework as small children. Unfortunately some men manage to reach adulthood without learning these basic skills, so yes, then they do need training. Sad but true!

piglet: Sometimes it is, but my landlady is genuinely amazed that he has been 'trained'.

Choco: In DP's case it was learn or survive on ready meals! He was expected to start cooking one meal a week as a teen and taught himself enough to get by. By the time we moved in together he wanted to eat good food and learn how to make it!

My goodness everyone's offended about everything on mumsnet today!

I think that the thing that gets me most is that it's never said about women. I had no clue how to work a washing machine until I was 19. I was taught (by a bloke!), there was never a comment of 'Oh, well trained!' whereas there is when the person who needs to learn is male.

Dh mother mollycoddled him far too much, but if I was nt well r coud not cook or clean, iam pretty sure he would step up, either tat or invite his mother to stay . He often delights by plying that dreadfulmRofessor Higgins song From My Fair Lady, about letting a woman in your life

YANBU. I am also well trained, but no one has ever commented on it as I am a woman. Similarly when I do housework it is never considered "helping" around the house.
Happily DP does not view it as helping, he views it as a division of tasks between two adults who live together and want to make life for each other as smooth as possible (as do I). But other people have commented...yes I'm looking at you Nana...

"I am also well trained, but no one has ever commented on it as I am a woman. Similarly when I do housework it is never considered "helping" around the house."

That is it exactly. This is why it bugs me. It's not something I'm hugely bothered about, but it's grating on my nerves recently purely because of how often I'm hearing it.

We never got my DGrandmother trained, she declined totally to operate their automatic washing machine, it was always grandpa's job.

Is your Landlady of an older generation?

Certainly in my Nan's generation men just didn't do house stuff and they weren't expected to so she considers all the stuff my DH does in the home and with the kids to be miraculous!

In principle, no, because everyone should grow up knowing how to do household jobs and should consider them just part of living in a household.

But if a person has grown up in a family where one person does all the household tasks, then they may genuinely not know what they all are I had to buy a book to work it out let alone when and how to do them. More formal training then becomes crucial to avoid repeating the cycle.

Some people like cleaning, ironing, washing, cooking, etc and are happy to do it all. Which is fine but doesn't teach the DC much.

I hate this sort of phrase. I hate that it is wheeled out, as your landlady has done, to suggest that men shouldn't naturally be expected to do housework and that if you have 'got' your DH/P to do some, it's through training. But then again I also get very irritated by the views I see sometimes on MN that basically agree with this school of thought and suggest that all men are feckless bastards who'll never help around the house or with children, and that this is somehow innately 'male'.

Squitten: In her early 40's I guess? My Mum is older and expects my Dad to muck in a bit! But she has much much older parents which might explain the thought process.

Horry: I was horrific with quite a lot of household type tasks still am, but nobody has ever told DP he has me well trained because I pitch in with the household chores.

Thurlow: That disturbs me as well. In this day and age we shouldn't be leaving the women to do everything by default.

YANBU. When I met DH he'd be living alone for years. In fact it was him who taught me how to load a washing machine, change a duvet, clean a toilet etc. In my defense though I was only 16 at the time and had been living at home where my mum did EVERYTHING, and threw a major strop if you tried to help.

Regina: I was the same when I left home, was a disaster the first few years

I knew how to do the duvet though, only because my Mum showed us how to turn it inside out, get inside and grab the corners of the duvet before shaking it back over, cue three pre-teen girls running around the house pretending to be ghosts.

When DP wants to change the bedding (he remembers better than I do when it needs doing!) He asks me to "Come and be a ghost, please?"