to find this 'Mother's Day' song offensive?

[applesauce1]

I'm a teacher. In assembly this week, the children have been learning to sing the following song:

The lyrics just really piss me off. I understand that traditionally, Mums have been responsible for these jobs, and this song is a traditional song thanking mums for that, but for god's sake, it's just so patronising.

I'd like to thank my mum for being a brilliant role model, for showing me how women can work hard at their jobs and rise through the ranks, for being fun and making me laugh, for showing me that women can do DIY. For showing me how to express my emotions and how to communicate.

The line "without a fuss" bothers me so much. My husband and I balance the roles of the house because we both work full time and when we have children, they will grow up knowing that it is not a woman's inherited responsibility to be a household slave without making a fuss, but that team work makes the dream work.

Anyway, here's the song (attached as an image). If your children sang this to you at school at a mother's day event, how would you feel about it?

Probably not the most coherent post I've ever written as I'm finding 5 minutes to drink a coffee before my class come back!

But children did not spontaneously write the lyrics to this appalling little ditty, so their liking for having the dinners made is irrelevant. This is adult casual sexism being passed on to young children.

Also, your children may like it NOW when you are with them but they are more likely to have successful careers if you do.

So by emphasising the stuff you do out of the home, and getting them to sing about it, there is an effect on them subconsciously which will stand them in good stead later.

I’m not offended by the song at all.

I do everything mentioned in the song, and so do all the other women I know with children.

It is encouraging children to be thankful and grateful for everything that is done for them, it isn’t telling anyone that they have to do the same when they’re older.

I honestly can't get worked up about things like this. Some people get offended so easily!

I am astounded. That’s appalling! What is that teaching our kids?

I’m not upset about the song. I like the general idea of it. And how sweet it is. But when I read ‘ she does all this without a fuss ‘ I realised that I do in fact make a really big fuss. Because I don’t feel it’s fair I should work full time and earn as much as my husband and have to do all this extra stuff aswell on my own. We are meant to share 50:50 but it doesn’t always seem to work out that way. So if at any point I feel anyone isn’t pulling their weight I don’t carry on without making a fuss - I make a big fuss. But that makes me unpopular. So I feel I can’t win. Sometimes being the mother is absolute pants. Any help in writing a new song for me - much appreciated. # wornout

It is encouraging children to be thankful and grateful for everything that is done for them

This is what I don't get, Why should children be thankful and grateful that the adults who are their parents mind them and feed them? Isn't that kind of the bare minimum.

Be thankful for the lovely people in your life who love you and mind you and care for you. But be thankful someone feeds you and cleans up after you when you are a little primary school kid? Weird.

Women do 80% of the housework, get paid 75% of the pay men get and are still expected to give up their careers for kids. Jobs that for childcare responsibilities are very few and far between. Men ate expected to be take in all the beginning and not see their kids and lose out in child custody battles as it is assumed that mothers ate the best carers. This type of insidious casual reinforcement of gender stereotypes will affect your children when they grow up as your girls lose out on jobs and your boys suppress their natural emotions. Already my daughter is hearing from boys in her class that she should stay at home and do cooking and that boys are better footballers. Why? Because the adults in theories tell them So, they hear it reinforced as normal and they sing bloody songs about it at school.

I don't find it offensive.

I do household stuff and work.
So does my husband. We both muck in.

There's lots more to be offended about in the world...

Someone complained about "my mums one in a million" which actually doesn't bother me, many songs have lyrics that I don't agree with, but I think the sentiment is lovely. I adored hearing both Ds' singing it during their time at pre-prep. Anyway, they just re-wrote some bits and its still sweet, but less sexist.

So, Drama, do you imagine this song will be wheeled out again for Father’s Day, with unchanged lyrics, apart from the substitution of ‘dad’ for ‘mum’, and the children will sing about their fathers purely in terms of their fathers cooking, cleaning and doing laundry? Or do you think it’s just accidental that your economic contribution to your household doesn’t feature in this charming ditty, and that the Father’s Day song will also celebrate dads only in terms of their domestic chores, and just forget to mention their role as providers?

We had an equally sexist one at ours 'she may not have a degree, but she can get me my tea' . After two years of it some mums(with more than one degree between them) complained and they did a different song the following year.

We used to sing this:

Daddy's strong and burly
Left school to be a mechanic
When mummy talks to another man
He very well goes manic

He comes home and has a bath
While mummy makes his tea
If I've been very good
He might read a story to me

Thanks to all the daddies
On this father's Day
Have an ale and watch the football
You work hard in every way

We had the song in the OP for several years and I groaned inside, when they omitted it last year I went straight to the head and warmly congratulated him on leaving it out

[ likes to be positive and picks battles carefully ]