to think that the 'man child' types on here had mothers too?

[littlepaddypaws]

and the probably micro managed / helicoptered their sons from a very young age so in the future so another woman would be expected to pick up the slack, and according to mners, they frequently do. esp now in the christmas run up.
are you brave enough to own up to doing this with your ds ?

My MIL babied my husband, still does actually and we're in our 40s now. She memorably told me after we were married that I'd have to remember to do x, y and z for him at which I actually burst out laughing and said that he'd have to do them himself if he wanted them done.

But, despite that, from the day we got married he has always done his fair share of the housework, present buying, laundry etc because he understands that we're a team and have joint responsibility.

Now my problem is with us babying our children. He constantly disturbs what he's doing to go and answer a demand for a glass of water from an 8 year old who is perfectly capable of turning on a tap. He cuts up food so we now have an 8 year old who can't use a knife. He butters bread for them etc. It makes me so frustrated, angry even, but he can't imagine having had to do those things when he was a child and thinks my parents were cruel for making me do things myself. And my cries of 'but how will they cope as adults?' fall on deaf ears because it didn't cause him to turn into a big man baby.

Not with us babying our own children, with him babying our own children.

I think its the combination of watching his dad do nothing and his mum doing everything. Sometimes the whole culture is like this and children only leave when married or worse just stay and bring the wife to live with them and be their new maid/slave. If you move away and out and find yourself forced to be independent there may be hope for you otherwise ita definitely mirroring your upbringing and cultural miliu

My db is coming home for xmas and my mum is super excited making his favourite foods. She will take great pleasure in getting his room ready and making his meals for the week he is home. Db will bring her a beautiful bouquet of flowers when he arrives, will wash up after meals and clean the house all week. Most importantly he will make her cups of tea, watch xmas films with her and spend a lot of time with her. She will always.make his meals when he comes home but he is a dab hand at cooking too and will always make a new dish that he has learnt for her. Some parents will cook and clean for adult kids and I don't see anything wrong with this but it should be instilled that this is behaviour that should be appreciated and reciprocated. After my mum has made a delicious meal we all chip in to clean up so she can put her feet up, our dad included. From a young age we were all given chores and would pitch in as my dad's mantra is that our home belongs to all of us so we all have an equal obligation to take care of it. As children my dad did not do many chores eg. cleaning, he was the sole earner and mum was a sahm. As we got older he did more cooking and cleaning and now my mum works too household chores are divided between them.

Both parents need to demonstrate empathy for each other and be role models in their behaviour for kids. If all a boy sees is his dad lounging whilst his mum martyrs herself then it doesn't set a good precedent for the future.

I agree with you OP, my aunt has four boys and has always done everything for them because she loves them. When she was younger she was a sahm and did everything. She now works full time and is 63 years old. Her sons don't do anything for her so how much do they love her? They still expect her to pick up their dirty clothes and are the same with their wives and so the trend continues. Some women do believe that the best way to show love is by doing everything for another person, changing that mentality is hard.

Thankfully DH isn't like this (he has his moments but not often). DS certainly won't be like this. We've always been more long range air support than helicopter parents.

Yes. Though I'm not saying the mothers have done it because they WANT to create lazy, entitled men, they themselves are part of the same vicious circle.

I know a woman - in 2019, people- who believes housework is woman's work and that the role of a mother is to do everything for her husband and kids

She went for a rare night out recently, and her 23 year old son, who still lives at home, texted her to ask when she was coming home, because he wanted her to make him a sandwich

They walk amongst us

OH was born 10 weeks early (in the early 70's) and had a seizure straight after. As a result his parents were told that he would probably at best have brain damage and at worst not survive much beyond a few weeks, (he's in his late 40's now and apart from the epilepsy and a mild memory problem he's fine). Because of this his parents wrapped him in so much cotton wool that it's still unravelling. When he moved in I made it absolutely clear that I am not his mother and would not do everything for him. A fact that became very obvious when his bank card went through a hot wash and melted because it was left in his pocket. It's hard work when he has had years of being told he can't/shouldn't be doing something as he has no confidence in his abilities but we're getting there. He's discovered he can cook, diy and, if he thinks something needs doing he'll do it rather than wait to be told. Yes it gets annoying sometimes but he's kind, thoughtful, generous and the funniest person I know.

DH's family are like this. MIL and FIL both very traditional and happy in stereotypical gender roles. To give an example until a couple of years ago BIL (late 20s) was living at home, she had to wake him up, would cook full breakfast for him and pack his lunch. I am constantly

DH was bright enough to understand that we are in an equal relationship between two adults. So there is hope

So some poor woman is married to a selfish, lazy arse and her son takes after his dad but this is all her fault. 🤦‍♀️

Men are 100% responsible for their own actions. If you are married to someone who is quite happy to watch you do everything whilst he is sat on his fat arse watching you then it is crap. It might make you feel slightly better to blame his mother for this sad state of affairs but the reality is that your DH doesn’t respect or love you enough to do his fair share and doesn’t see you as a true equal but his servant.

You are assuming too high a correlation between how people were brought up and how they turn out as adults.

DH had the potential to turn into one of these men. MIL and FIL are very traditional. Some would say stuck in the Victorian times. FIL would not know how to do things like turn the washing machine on, MIL does everything for him. He used to work in a 9-5 office job, she worked 12 hour shifts as a nurse. She'd come in at 8 after her shift and have to start cooking because that's a woman's job and it wouldn't even cross FIL's mind to start.

That's how DH and his sister were brought up, men sort the finances, women do the housework. All of it. Then DH went to uni, met me and I refused to iron his shirts and do his laundry. They're still horrified many years later that he does things like make me a cup of tea and cook for the kids.

My MIL did everything in her house, and wouldn't have let DH make so much as a sandwich.

He still managed to turn into a fully capable adult, and does at least 50% of the household work in our home.

Reading some of these posts makes me realise how lucky I am to have a fully functioning husband. He was brought up by a single mother after his dad left when he was very young. She had three jobs to make ends meet. He worked from 15. We’ve been married nearly 23 years. He’s been the most amazing, supportive and kind husband and father. I do think that it does kids no favours to do everything for our kids and it doesn’t equip them for life as an adult.

I constantly worry that I'll be one of those mothers who mollycoddles and does everything for DS, which will probably be all the more acute because we don't plan on having any more DC. I have diagnosed OCD which mainly manifests itself in obsessive cleaning and tidying. It's already ramped up considerably since having DS and I struggle with the additional mess and chaos of having a baby around, so find myself constantly picking and cleaning up around him. I wouldn't say I enjoy doing it, but it does give me a sense of peace. That said, I'm conscious of wanting to try hard to ensure he learns to do things independently as he grows rather than always taking control. DH came from a larger family with a SAHM who did absolutely everything for them all and is fairly useless around the house as a result. It doesn't really affect us as I prefer to do things for myself and he helps a lot in other ways, though I realise it's not a particularly functional set-up

Can people who cry ‘misogyny’ when a woman gets criticised please fuck off. It’s pathetic. Women are allowed to criticise other women

I'm thinking back to my upbringing. My mum and dad were very equal about housework (both worked and he'd done National Service, so was very capable about the house). But, whether it was cultural back then or her upbringing, but my mum was a control freak about the house. If anyone did anything 'wrong' (and my dad bore the brunt of this), ie, put the hoover away 'wrong' or rucked a mat, or didn't do things EXACTLY her way, the moaning and tutting and low-grade, passive aggressive comments and complaining were a thing of wonder.

So maybe it's past generations who saw that the house was a women's domain? Maybe that caused some of the micro managing, as women tried to forge their responsibilities and carve themselves a little bit of control over their own lives (I'm talking about women who were born in the 20's and 30's here, as my mum was).

Saying that, my brother has turned out fairly domesticated, although he got away with murder when we all lived at home! We both had to clean and tidy, but I was the one who got it in the neck if I hadn't 'met her standards'. Perhaps she was quietly training me to carve out my own household shaped niche in life.

Yeah, let’s blame women for every fucking thing to do with men. I mean it’s not like any of these blokes had fathers right??

My Dad did absolutely everything, he would tell us off if we even made ourselves a glass of squash because we would leave water marks in the sink.

He used to do washing everyday, so whatever was dumped on the floor that morning was washed, dried, ironed and put away when we got back from school.

He went through a stage of vacuuming the bottom of our socks when we got home as he was annoyed by black bits from socks sticking to the carpet.

I remember once me and my sister had a go at cleaning our own rooms, Dad complained that despite them being clean/dust free as we hadn’t cleaned things the way he would or in the order he would it wasn’t done properly and he would have to do it again. Oddly enough we didn’t bother after that!

Obviously he had abnormal household expectations, I think sadly a lot was caused by how my mum treated him and almost an escape from abuse.

I have very different standards to my dad, my flat is clean, it isn’t particularly tidy, there are always a few toys dotted around, the odd lonely sock etc. I do have what my cleaner calls ‘shit mountain’, my sons toy box broke and I haven’t replaced it, so his heavily used toys are in a little pile next to the sofa.

Funnily, I was just talking about this with a RL friend. My oh comes from a highly patriarchal family where his mum played the martyr (still does.. she insists to cook everything for Friday night dinners but has such a bad back she can hardly stand) whilst her oh sits and gets waited on. Drives me crazy to see this. Luckily, somehow my oh turned out more than competent (although his mum was still doing his laundry every week and filling his fridge at age 35, something I nipped in the bud immediately and she took very badly at the time). He does his fair share- and more- of cleaning and organising household stuff, although I prefer cooking since that's my speciality and he's pretty awful. Still, he's 43 now and been using a washing machine on a frequent basis all by himself for the past 8 years 👏👏👏😂

My issue is that he's picked up a really bad habit from his parents relationship- the fact that nothing is every talked about openly. So many secrets and unsaid things in his parents' household, I feel it's has a massively negative impact on my oh's perception of a healthy, functional relationship 😔 I suppose this is another thread I need to open...

As a single mum of boys, I do feel I have a responsibility to bring them up to be capable adults. We have a chore rota for some jobs, and we all chip in with others. We all live here after all! I do give them more leeway in their own bedrooms, but every so often I’ll end up nagging them to tidy because it’s a pigsty.. I do do the household laundry, but I only wash what’s put in the basket (ds1 learned the hard way when he ran out of clean pants, but he didn’t do it again!)
Since they were fairly young I’ve encouraged them to buy gifts for each other, and for me, on Christmas and birthdays. They’re both now good gift givers, who enjoy choosing things the recipient will enjoy.
I hope I’m standing them in good stead to be good partners or flat mates when they move out.

Dont waste your time looking back.