Mothers of boys -some of you are not helping

[iamjustwinginglife]

I'm sure there are numerous mums to boys who don't treat their sons like little princes and ensure they help out around the house however I'm not sure some mums are helping their boys to grow up in to decent men...and this is why we find Mumsnet full of posts about useless husbands who don't pull their weight at home.

Last night, I had a car full of teenagers all 17 (2 x boys, 2 x girls) and one of the boy's parents had come back from holiday. "It's nice to have them back, I won't need to clean up after myself anymore." Now, they're all good kids, it was just chatter-so I suggested that he carried on cleaning up after himself even though they were back. His reply was "mum likes looking after me, she says it's her job as a mum to make sure she looks after me and gives me everything I want." My child thought that sounded like a great idea-and I bit my tongue to not point out that some mums (me!!) were driving round the countryside at 1am.

This mum works part-time, the children are 17 and 20 and she's obviously got the time to do it but AIBU to think that allowing children to true up thinking they'll be waited in hand and foot isn't really helping them in future life.

"I bit my tongue to not point out that some mums (me!!) were driving round the countryside at 1am."

Have a word with yourself.

I don't think mothers of boys are the problem here OP, l think we have a society of bitter and twisted miserable females like yourself who absolutely cannot stand to acknowledge the kind and loving relationship between a mother and son. As a mother of sons l pick up on it all the time.

Love that you are trying to take down the patriarchy by having a go at women being rubbish mothers OP 👍👍👍 keep at it, winning tactic, you seem really smart!

Says the mother driving about at 1am after her son 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Have you actually read my posts?
if you had you might see that I’ve already made most of those points.
you seem very keen for an argument 🤷‍♀️

I have one of each but I do think there’s something about mums of girls that’s rather smug and disparaging of boys, especially boys who are sensitive. My DS has been getting picked on my a girl in his class who declares boys are horrible and smelly, and he is the ‘worst boy’, she forever hits him and pushes him over. She is one of 3 girls and her mum is forever banging on about how she could never ever have a boy because they’re so rough and filthy. I imagine if her precious brat DD was told by a boy that girls all smell she’d be storming into school like Darth Vadar but she doesn’t see a problem in how her DD has been treating my son and thinks he should ‘toughen up’.

@FurAndFeathers your the one quoting my posts to start with and the one who thinks no self responsibility at all
If run around after my dh and bring my kids up to think thats right , I would be to blame also not just my dh
Parents in general seem to do a lot more for kids until an older age than they used to

My fave was an MNer who said that neither of her teenage sons were expected to lift a finger at home but of course as soon as they moved out, they'd soon pull their weight 🙄

@abblie I think it was her dd

@LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet yep had similar and when my son stuck up for himself eventually he was the bully as hes a boy and she is only a girl
Lot of double standards and mumsnet is the worst for it

I have two sons and I've made it my business to teach them how to look after themselves and other people. Their dad does that brilliantly well too though! A positive role model who actively does the things you are trying to instill will make it part of life in a much more natural way. There's not a chance on earth I'd have stayed with a man who didn't pull his weight and offer 50/50 to life though. My mam instilled that in me! Bringing up girls to stand up for theselves in that way has just as much importance!

Also @healthadvice123
as your Google seems to be broken and you’ve no concept of lives outside of your own direct experience, here’s some evidence:

www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210518-the-hidden-load-how-thinking-of-everything-holds-mums-back

www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/advice/how-to-raise-my-son-to-share-the-mental-load/

“The difference shows up in the data: American girls ages 10 to 17 spend two more hours on chores each week than boys do, and boys are 15 percent more likely to be paid for doing chores, according to a University of Michigan study.”
www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/upshot/how-to-raise-a-feminist-son.html

Agree. My DS once got walloped by his bully at a party, so he walloped her back and she was screaming her head off and banged on about how boys shouldn’t hit girls. She ran up to me and demanded I tell him off. Normally I would because I don’t agree with hitting back but in this instance I (very maturely 😂) told her she started it and maybe she should think in future. It was better than telling her to fuck off, which was my preferred choice of words 😂

I’m really sorry. I have no idea what you’re trying to say 🤷‍♀️

I brought my son and daughter up to equally share in jobs and cleaning etc. what an odd generalisation you’ve made from one comment. Some parents just do more for their children than other parents.

Yep, all the mums fault. 🙄

Oh I bet you do! 😂😂

Me too! I thought I was doing a great job over last few years and all it took was a random posting on Mumsnet to teach me I'd been getting it so wrong. I will also improve my ways, thanks OP 🤣

So, because we question your ridiculous analogy, then you have hit a nerve? I suppose we should all let you get away with this and not call out your bullshit?

If we keep quiet, it's see they have nothing to say, because they know they are wrong, if we speak out you've hit a nerve.

Damned if we do and damned if we don't, because we are mothers of boys.

But the research shows that in general patents have greater domestic expectations of their daughters than their sons.
being aware of that is a helpful first step to changing it.

Your op presumes that if she'd had girls she'd have moved out at 16 full house trained to independently make their way on the world and make it a better place as they go. Or is it only entitled males that are an issue? Presumably girls growing up indulged are fine?

OK but what else is @Theluggage15 supposed to do other than share the chores equally? Is she supposed to give her son more chores so society can be fractionally balanced out?

I agree teenagers these days act all mature. But we are raising a generation of humans with no common sense.

OP I think this can happen with girls or boys. It's not about the sex of the child but about the parents ability or inability to teach the child life skills like cooking, cleaning, self care etc.

I have 3 boys and make them tidy up after themselves, tidy there own rooms, put dirty washing in the machine, dishes in the dishwasher etc, oldest has to strip his bed. They will be learning cooking skills too. The oldest is nuerodiverse so struggles with these things. I still try and get him to help with tidying the garden etc too. I will slowly introduce more chores as they get older but the youngest are still to young to do more than above. I do the majority of the cleaning as I am home most of the time but have explained to them if I return to work more hours they will help more.

I don't want my son's growing up expecting to be waited on hand and foot by anyone but equally I don't want them having an entitled and spoiled girlfriend who has been brought up to believe they are a "princess" so expect to be waited on. Neither are healthy situations.

I suppose dad could do something to show some kind of alternative viewpoint? Nah.