FIL expects me to serve his son

[Daisypowers]

Because I don't wait around on DP hand and foot like a 1950s housewife, FIL (69) thinks I'm lazy and a bad girlfriend. Whenever I'm there (this weekend for example) he will make little comments now and then. This weekend DP wanted to clean his walking boots in the garden, and FIL said 'oh maybe Daisypowers can do that for you' and gestured to me. Another time DP said he was going to make himself a sandwich after playing tennis and FIL said 'Daisypowers can do that for you, have a rest.' At the time I'd just sat down in the garden with a cup of tea to read my book after doing the food shop for everyone and deheading MIL's rose bushes because she's got a bad shoulder.

Me and DP are 35, both working full time, no kids, and do an equal share of everything domestically at home. DP perfectly capable of making a sandwich for himself. Both MIL and FIL quite old fashioned and MIL does absolutely everything for FIL - all the cooking, cleaning, puts out clothes for him to wear every morning, packs his suitcase for him when he goes on holiday etc. Should I say something? Really annoys me.

Not saying the FIL is excused for saying what he does, but he has obviously lived in a household where he doesn’t do the chores

He was 7 at the end of the 1950s. He presumably married Mil some time in the 70s/80s and if he doesn’t do his share he’s out of line with his contemporaries. He wouldn’t get away with it with any of my friends born in 1952/3.

He was! He grew up in a very traditional family in Poland, and then, post WW2, for the rest of his life lived in a Yorkshire pit village where he was a miner until he retired. So you'd expect traditional macho views when it comes to housework, but no!

He told us he used to get grief from his mates for pushing DH and SIL in their prams as babies (in the early early 1950s) but he didn't care. He still considered himself as head of the household, but he was certainly a very benign and domesticated one!

Because anyone who was old enough to be set in their ways by the 1950s should be long since dead by now!!

The mere fact of the FIL being alive in the 1950s is irrelevant. The people in his generation - and his parents' generation - were the ones who were challenging sexism, racism etc. It's absurd to suggest that someone who probably left the workplace within the last 5 years could be so out of touch with the modern world is laughable.

It isn't ignorance, it's a choice.

This post is both depressing and patronising.

this man is a lazy sexist pig.

it is not privileged to have noticed that attitudes to women have changed over the last hundred years.

do you work? Do you smile if an older colleague is openly sexist and just say well I am privileged to know that behaviour is wrong but he is a sheltered older man so he can possibly understand that it is no longer socially acceptable to treat women as general dogs bodies?

unless this man has serious intellectual challenges he understands that it is not normal to expect women to run around after men.

I am sure he has had a conversation, watched a tv show, read a book or watched the news since the mid 1960s.

he would have been I. The workplace probably until 2010 at least!

you are all behaving like he is in a smoking jacket watching a black and white TV set😂.

He's just a twat. I'd laugh at him

Oh absolutely. He should have changed his views from the views when he was in his 20’s. The problem it gets doesn’t seem to have and in my experience many men from this generation (even though he’s only 69) have the same feelings and views. Some openly state them as in the OP and many others deep down feel this way about women to some extent but wouldn’t dare say it.
My own FIL had his wife run around with all the cooking cleaning and anything ‘housewife related’ she seemed to be totally fine with it. Just seem to her that’s what a woman did. He is only 73 so not far off OP’s FIL.
He wouldn’t openly say such blatant things as in this post but he says subtle things like
’gosh I hated that drama on the last night. I mean, almost every senior job role was played by a woman, very unrealistic’ but not said in a feminist way, more in a way that he didn’t like thinking of women running a business or chief of police for example.
FIL may not agree with women in senior roles, and yes, if he thinks the 1960’s/70’s had it right, he would still think women should do all the domestic chores. I know many many older men (and a couple of younger men) who think this!

My dh polishes everyone's shoes and does all our ironing. He loves it. I think its something to do with he was in the army. His mum did everything for him and expected me to do the same. She was always a bit disappointed in us and shocked that infact he did all those things for us. He always volunteers and enjoys it though

Honestly though- when some people have such entrenched views, what they watch on TV or what others do, just goes straight over their heads. It’s ‘something others do, so fine for me to ignore’ mentailty. Sort of pig headedness. ‘I’m right and the rest of the world has got it wrong’ view.
Its inward thinking, arrogance, small mindedness.

I never expected someone else to fight my battles!

FILs comments were made to OPs DP, not OP herself. So perfectly natural for the DP to point out that OP is not his servant and everybody can clean their own shoes.

I think I would laugh at him, with exaggerated incredulity and ask why he believes his adult son needs to be treated like a six year old.

& visit much, much less often.

I really agree.

Good to read your partner stands up to him.

See less of him.

Easy peasy.

My dad was a Naval officer and had actually been taught how to iron in a knife-edge seam when at college, so nobody could iron like him.

We saved it up for him specially. 😀

You don’t think many men who were in their 20’s in the early 70’s- early 80’s had sexist views of women and their roles in relationships?
ok then.

I can only add to what PP have said. It is absolutely not a generational thing.

I am 60 and DH is 64,we would both think this behaviour was bizarre. Even my 91 year old FIL knows better than this.

I think the best course is ridicule. Ideally coming equally from you and DH.

"Oh dear, poor old dad. Does cooking frighten you, then? Let DH teach you a few recipes."

Aforesaid 91 year old FIL is very interested in learning new recipes and perfectly capable of doing all domestic stuff for himself.

My parents are in their 80s and my dad did more than his fair share of housework, always, in fact cooking and ironing and cleaning is mostly down to him. My PIL are also in their 80s and very similar to my own parents. FIL often says to DH to make me a cup of tea/something to eat. It's most certainly not a generational thing

Of course they did. But what has that got to do with it being a generational thing?

There are men in their twenties now who have sexist views of women and their roles in relationships... you only have to have a quick glance at the relationships threads for evidence of this. Those same men will probably still have sexist views in their sixties and seventies, but that won't make it a generational thing. It will just be a sexist thing.

The material point is that, at 69, he is in a generation where he ought to know better. Stop making excuses for him.

My in-laws were like this. When now-DH and I first moved in together, I scrubbed the house from top to bottom, I spent ages on it. Now-MIL saw him iron one shirt for work and accused me of being lazy. AND I hadn't heard her say it, he reported it to me as if to say "what are they like".

I mulled it over for 24 hours and then said to him if we are going to make this work, we need to be a team. Against the world, against them if necessary.

It turns out, she'd taught him all these life skills, laundry, mending, ironing, cooking, but all on the understanding that by being self-sufficient at university, he'd meet a lovely women and once he was married, he wouldn't have to do this stuff any more.

I guess they both got a bit of a wake up call, but I won. She no longer made comments, he continues to be a very capable adult. Actually she and I get along very well now.

My husband's gran once said to me that I should be doing all the cooking and his washing for him as he was the "bread winner". I just laughed and said he's quite capable of doing those things himself. For what it's worth we both work full time and I earn more than my husband (I obviously didnt tell her that).

Why not? Maybe some people do need to be informed that women can earn money nowadays and yes if breadwinners should get their slippers brought to them, the husbands need to step up. Some of DH's relatives assumed I was some kind of mail order bride after his money, so he was happy to share that I significantly out-earn him.

@MoreHipOpThanHipHop I think my MIL was like that. Taught her sons to cook etc so could be independent but was then shocked when DH did housework when we got together, especially after I had DS.

It’s strange. But I think for some parents, especially if they had the typical 1950s set up and still do even in old age, they do find it hard to accept it is different now. My DM definitely does for people of her generation she assumes they should have the same set up as she did with DF, but accepts it is different for our generation. Doesn’t mean they should tell the younger generation what to do though.

Remember a work colleague of mine telling me her MIL (similar age to my DM) had been really upset when my work colleague had gone back to work after having a baby as her son should be able to provide enough for her not to go back to work and had told her son that!

it is ingrained though
plenty of women whose husbands are retired are asked "are you going to write him a list of chores that needs doing "?
sexist

just speak to him op, or if you dont want to, ask your DH to

Whoever writes the list of chores is still carrying the mental load, though. I mean delegating tasks is better than doing everything yourself, but it's better still if they do things because they notice it needs doing, and it's even better if they do things because they have a concept of things that need to be done, like bins before bin day rather than only when it's overflowing, that kind of thing.

I would say something. I'd make fun of him to be honest. Would say things like 'hes capable of making a sandwich, he's not useless like you' or 'aw you managed to put your socks on like a good boy, well done. Maybe tomorrow you can manage to pick them out too'.

People like this think nothing of offending you, think nothing of offending them.

Sorry, I've been dealing with a sick dog so have only just caught up on the responses. Thanks!

Honestly making any kind of joke of it wouldn't go down well. The last thing he wants is to be shown up by/mocked by a woman. Probably just going to have to grit my teeth and ignore it aren't I?

MIL is just as bad and perpetuates it. I work from home mostly - we mentioned that on Tuesday nights I have swimming club and DP makes his own dinner when he gets in from work (around 6.30pm) . She later asked (with some concern in her voice) if I could find some time to make something for him at lunchtime and put it in the fridge ready for when he gets home. A while ago when we stayed for a weekend she ordered me to run DP a bubble bath after he'd played football because that's what she always used to do when he came home from football when he was young.
Thank god they never had girls.

And did you run the bath?

I would ignore FIL and carry on as you and DH want. I wouldn’t challenge him if it is going to cause more trouble. If MIL is easier to talk I might discuss with her why you and DH are a team and are perfectly capable of cooking your own meals and running your own baths, doesn’t matter whether you are male or female.