Men appreciating little house on the prairie women

[munkynutts]

So my mum (a working woman and bit of a rock n roll character) used to have this massive bug bear about my aunt - my dad's SIL.

She was everything my mum was and wasnt:
She didnt work and spent her time arranging flowers and baking bread
A very warm kind of maternal woman
A strong sense of family, her life revolved around family
Very kind of prim and beautifully mannered

She was a very nice woman. So is my mum, but very different.

So anyway, my mum and her got on really well, but it used to infuriate my mum that my dad found so much to appreciate about his SIL that was seemingly so opposite to her.

I kind of thought "okay mum, just chill" until I noticed MY BF doing the same.

He has this one friend whose wife is so sweet, she's a nursery teacher and just loves her job, caring for small children and doing fingerpainting and decorating her home with charmingly rustic stuff shes made. Exactly like my mum, I cant help but think - alright then, why didnt you just shack up with a woman who does fabulous things with conkers and makes her own jams then, if you're all that into it?

Dear MNers, dont freak out: I think both my mum and I get it. Our men are with us for a reason: because they appreciate our divey, slatternly, uncouth ways and spiky charms. We get it - it doesnt mean thats what they actually want.

But I'd be curious to hear if any of you have also found this with your DPs?

Have just asked DH am I a Scarlett O’Hara or a Melanie Wilkes. He didn’t miss a beat, just said vaguely ‘more a Calamity Jane’.

I also object to the term 'kept woman' to describe a sahp. The idiot man described upthread, who viewed his wife as effectively 'one of the kids', might like to examine just how much he benefits from what she does. Equsl contribution doesls not always mean in financial terms.
Kept woman to me implies a woman who is paid for sex on a full time basis - a professional mistress, so to speak.

@IWannaSeeHowItEnds

I hope you're talking to another poster, because as the OP, I was NOT making this about "kept" women or SAHM. I'm making this about homemaking types vs non homemaking types.

bit harsh on 'lovely homemakers' this thread!!!

im sure some of them are dark af behind the scenes. Or at the very least im sure they are all individuals who have their own inner lives going on.

Im a stay at home mum and I look and act very traditionally feminine I guess. I like crafts. I like baking. Im a lot younger than my husband.

Im also an absolute mess internally though. And i have a very dark past. I have other very varied interests besides homemaking,

You cant just judge people on the way the appear when you dont know them at all.

Also its a question of noticing qualities in other people that you feel you lack.
I posted on another thread recently about how the only time id really been jealous of someone talking to my husband it had been because they were an older single woman with a career.
I could tell he wasnt attracted to her really but it still got to me because she had these qualities that I felt I lacked.
Its mad to feel that way really because no one is exactly as they appear and hopefully your partner picked you and my husband picked me because they love us for who we are not just in spite of what we lack (if indeed we really lack anything at all)

Every now and again, my DH says he always thought he would end up with a dainty, fragile, quiet, bespectacled librarian, who had a soft voice, who loved flowers and unicorns and cooking and baking and sewing, and who never talked back.

Instead he has ended up with a size 16, busty, loud, feisty, rock chick who burps much louder than him, farts louder than him, who SHOUTS louder than him, and who tells him to fuck right off if he crosses a line. In addition, I rarely cook, (80% of the time I just serve up ready meals, frozen pizza, tinned food, sarnies, etc, if you want anything flash, cook it your fucking self.) Also I do not sew, and I do not iron.

He was attracted to me because I looked like Kim Wilde (I still do a bit.) And he liked my sense of humour, and the fact that I like cars and motorbikes (and any transport really.) And I am also interested in astronomy. So how I looked and us having a lot in common made him go for me.

But when we have a fight, he occasionally says he should have married a quiet little mouse of a woman instead of me, who can cook and bake and do wifey duties, and not a stubborn cow who won't even TRY to cook or bake.

So even thought I don't mean it probably , I say to him 'I should have married someone who was a high-flying, go-getting, globe-trotting professional, with a six figure salary; instead of a man who is in lower management, on 25% above minimum pay, and who has very little ambition! But we don't always end up with exactly what we want do we?!'

OP, the phrase cropped up in the thread. Not from you.

@IWannaSeeHowItEnds
"I must admit that I am annoyed by women who bring out super protective instincts on men and I can't quite put my finger on why. It might be jealousy but maybe the sense that we haven't evolved all that much and instincts override what we choose. I don't know."

I'm the same.

Dunno bout you but for me it's probably being raised by a woman who looked after herself, and because I've had to deal with a lot of shit and fight my own corner and have handled it myself. So you kind of thing "wow, I never realised I just had to act helpless like a child and issue winning smiles to get people to help or like me".

I think theres also a sense of frustration if you're "strong willed" and have had a lot of difficult turns in life. Because you kind of think pretty much anyone could just makes cakes and be smiley if they put their mind to it, so why is it something that gets rewarded?

I think in the society we live in, and historically how women have been seen, when nicey nicey "lovely" women are rewarded with protection from our DPs or society, it feels like a slap - like saying that still, today, you are rewarded and appreciated as a woman if you just focus on creating a nice home and caring for people. So it feels like an affront. Because we could all just go down that route.

I think that’s all coming down the stereotypes and what we have been taught is nice to see in a woman.
And a woman isn’t supposed to be the one who gets things done, swears ans has her own mind.
She is supposed to be the nice and lovely woman who loves children, does some activities iwth them (worthy of a picture on instagram or Pinterest), has sparkles in her clothes, ok food from scratch and is always welcoming.

So you end up with the ‘lovely’ comment attached to that.

I think it’s different from people (and not always women!) who make you feel at home when you visit etc...

Oh and the bring8ng the protective side is just about all that.
If the woman is all lovely but the damsel in distress, then it means their role is to be the knight who will protect them
(Same stereotype but applied to men)

DH can wrestle grizzly bears.

littlebluefox, how can being loud, lazy, unnurturing and, gross in your personal habits be something to be proud of?

Ma was a nurturing homemaker, a good woman who suffered to make her family's life as comfortable az she could in the face of extreme hardship. She was at least courteous to the ojibwe and sioux who belonged on the land pa illegally settled, at least providing coffee and provisions when they visited, if the books are right. The ojibwe left without injuring her or the children.

Ime men don't like to be the protecting knight once they have married a 'damsel in distress'. I know of several couples who had this dynamic and the relationship did not last long.

Most sweet, lovely, charming type of men and women I know actually have a harder inner core than many people who seem a bit rough around the edges.

I think i know what you mean op, but my dh wouldn't go for that type of woman in a million years.

@3silverfeathers

littlebluefox, how can being loud, lazy, unnurturing and, gross in your personal habits be something to be proud of?

Where did I say I was proud of how I was? (Maybe I am, maybe I am not.)

Ma was a nurturing homemaker, a good woman who suffered to make her family's life as comfortable az she could in the face of extreme hardship.

Do you think your mother is a better person than me because of this?

She is not.

Your description of her sounds a little bit farcical actually.

Many people think their mother is better than anyone else's; they really aren't. And yours is no exception.

My mother was a cunt of the highest order. Paragon of outward virtue, but abusive behind closed doors.

You certainly sound proud of your refusal to be a nurturer, and your farting and belching.

Ma lived in a time and a place most cant begin to understand. She pulked her weight or her family died. There was no grocery stores, just endless prarie.

Im afraid it makes her a better woman than me for sure. She made comfort and sustenance out of very little and raised a family. And yes, makes her a better woman than a farting rock chick who cant be fucked to cook.

@3silverfeathers

She made comfort and sustenance out of very little and raised a family. And yes, makes her a better woman than a farting rock chick who cant be fucked to cook.

Oh give her a fucking medal for making a meal for 10 out of a fucking carrot.

And yes I AM proud of being a farting rock chick who can't be fucked to cook, so fucking what? Am I supposed to be a little pansy who waits hand and foot on everyone? Is that what makes someone a good woman, and a good mother? Being a slave to everyone and being an appalling example to her daughters, by showing her that women do every fucking thing??? Do me a fucking favour.

If that is what you think makes a 'good woman' and a 'good mother,' then I pity you.

My mother was a cunt of the highest order. Paragon of outward virtue, but abusive behind closed doors.

You fully admit your mother was a cunt, then say she is a better woman than me.

You are not even making sense.

Bore off. Go troll someone else.

This discussion was interesting until the phrase better woman started being used as a description not a discussion point

Different women have different strengths, not better or worse.

Er, I think when 3silverfeathers writes about 'Ma', she is referring the mother in Little House on the Prairie.
'Farting rock chick' has made me laugh though 😂.

Completely agree @angryangryyoungwoman. As I said, it's disgusting that that poster started suggesting her mother was a better woman than me because she makes a meal for 10 out of a carrot, and I am a farting rock chick!

And then she calls her a cunt anyway PMSL !!! You couldn't make it up.

Yeah @Margot, I think that poster is winding me up.

I fucking hope so anyway She cannot POSSIBLY be serious!

PARP!!

3silverfeathers actually ma was extremely racist. She is described as hating the Native Americans (I do apologise for using racist language flippantly earlier in the thread), and saying that the only good one is a dead one. She doesn't give them coffee and provisions willingly, it is very clear from the books that they come into the homestead and steal it, leaving the Ingalls with very little food. She wasn't courteous to them out of a kind nature, she didn't dare speak because she was afraid of them.

It's interesting how we perceive ourselves as much as we perceive others. I don't fit into any box, I fart, I swear, I have had a career, had time off for children, I make cakes, creative things and a mess. I like dressing up and dressing down. I love sex and sports. Watching and playing. None of this is due to trying to be a certain way nor do I mind how others see me. I do what I enjoy, find interesting and try to be kind and non judgmental.

I said no such thing. My own mother, whom you brought up, not me, was a total lowlife. Not better than Charlie fucking manson.

Ma ingalls lived in a very different world to you. If she didnt work hard to keep her family fed and warm they died.

Nurturing a family isnt weakness, and any pioneer woman was a kick ass hard as nails individual who was an asset to her family. Life was not possible without her.

Selfishness and beligerence is no virtue, but whateve, rock on, while your family eat processed shite and look after themselves.

Selfless devotion to family is not weakness.

I would say neither selfishness nor selflessness are good in isolation. It's all about balance...