To Wonder Why Women put up with this?

[girlfriend44]

Reading a post on a thread about Christmas from the past on tinternet.
Someone had said the men went to the pub Xmas day and the women cooked the dinner. The men came home and ate the dinner and fell asleep.
The post had quite a few likes.
Does anyone else think that's wrong and the woman shouldn't have allowed it?
Why didn't the women go down the pub and the men cook etc?
Better still Why didn't they all make dinner together nd obody went to the pub?

Why do people have to go to the pub Xmas day anyway while dinners cooking?

Should women have made more of a stand and not allowed this?
Does this still happen today?

I think it's really rude to go down the pub Xmas day and leave people at home doing everything?

Am not in UK, and pubs and everything else apart from the odd garage forecourt shop is closed here. People prepare! So the concept of going to the pub on Christmas Day is alien to me and the generation gone before me too.

Anyway, I often wonder (and feel a bit sorry for) the staff who work in pubs on Christmas Day. Maybe they are owners who live over the shop, but still it's their Christmas too.

Probably gets them out of the way lol. My husband daren't enter the kitchen if im in there cooking. Small kitchen and he's more of a nuisance. He also wouldn't go off to the pub unless he's taking kids of course cos they arent allowed in my kitchen either if I'm cooking 😂, it's his job to keep them out. Think it is just what different families do and is what works for them. I personally don't care where they are as long as they aren't in my kitchen, if they're in the room, pub, out at the park, walking in fields I don't give a monkeys behind where they are. We don't have traditional roles in our house just I do most of the cooking because I'm at home most of the time. He does most of the childcare when he's home from work and weekends cos I go out football training and football matches etc. I do it through the day cos he's at work. Housework gets done by whomever gets to it first.

When I was a child in the 90s my dad always went to the pub on Christmas day and my mum would stay home and cook, she didn't like it but we all preferred it when he was out of the way because he was very tempremental. My SIL husband goes off to play golf on Christmas morning! I wouldn't stand for any of it.

It was always the way growing up (I was born late 70's)
And we drank in a 'club' a proper 'workies' and it had a men only bar. The women and the children had a different section.
It's now an Aldi's.

Plan to dump my lot at the pub on the way back from morning walk, then get back fiddle/faddle about -just me the dog and Christmas tunes! Bliss, love a bit of calm before the storm

Turkey, early in oven (J remember capon), presents, off to church, back and all hands to pump for the meal. Parents from working class but middling by then. Didn't do pubs. 1950s.

I completely agree with you. And I think life was so much nicer, less complicated, and much less stressful as an adult in the 1970s and 80s.

Oh give over with the rose tinted spectacles.

@Historybooks .I'm not angry.Im very much ok. I think its an absolutely naive and negative post presuming this was unacceptable. For a lot of families\households it worked,still does. As before,it wasnt enforced. I just think its unnecessary to jump in-full guns blazing and try to wind it onto a "theses poor women"mission.

It was a different time. Mem did manual labour and brought home a salary and women ran the house.

Now the UK is service driven and men and women expect women to work. Sadly some men also think women should run the house as well. Even sadder are the women who work and think they should run the house out of a sense of pride and being a woman looking after a man.

If my husband earnt two FT salaries and offered me to stay at home cleaning and making dinner I'd be happy to.

Until then, we share the work and the domestic labour.

I wouldnt let my OH cook the dinner, I want to enjoy it thank you and not have a million utensils all over the work tops and mess all over the floor

I would also appreciate him out of my way, we dont have a massive kitchen.

Its horses for courses surely, works for some and not others.

Also, like a previous poster mentioned, as a society we do seem quite poor on understanding the physical and cultural layout of how the working classes lived, all on top of each other in dark and smokey rooms, no kitchen or bathroom as such.

Most people don't live like that, though, not any more. It still happens but it's not the norm at all. My SIL's ex-husband used to go to the pub on Christmas morning while she cooked... but that's one of the many reasons SIL divorced him.

And the UK is not more sexist than most other countries. In plenty of countries, European and otherwise, it's the norm for men to barely set foot in the kitchen, ever, let alone on a celebration day.

I was born in the 70s and my dad would not in a million years have gone to the pub while my mum cooked Christmas dinner. He was at home helping with the dinner, pouring everyone's drinks, taking care of us kids etc. And I know my grandfathers never did that either. I doubt they did any of the cooking (I mean, we're talking about men who got married in the early 1930s here, and it just wasn't the norm back then) but they would definitely have been playing with the kids, getting drinks for guests, clearing up etc.

Absolutely this! Most other european countries are hardly bastions of equality in the home (or elsewhere) and as for countries further afield, forget it.

Yes, when l was younger some of the men would go off to the pub and it was very welcomed by the women who would then open up a nice big bottle of gin at home. My Mum would literally throw a turkey in the oven, my Nan and Aunt would have prepped vegetables and we'd all have a dance in the kitchen. We had a lovely time.

We used to pop to the pub on Christmas Day to cheers all our friends with ALL the family/guests. Everything was prepped on Christmas Eve by both myself and my husband and a to do/timing list written. Parents would arrive to stay over.

Early awake on Christmas morning, breakfast (salmon and cream cheese bagels and bucks fizz), present opening and relax for an hour or two. Get dressed, get kids dressed and off to the pub for midday with meat in the oven. Husband and I and the children would leave at 1pm to go home to finish off dinner whilst parents/other guests would be expected back by 2.30pm after the pub shut. It was a lovely tradition and I miss it now.

Because it's sociable. Pubs were the heart of the community until licensing rules changed and the smoking ban came in. Our local is still packed Christmas late morning.

It was a treat when all the family where together.

It was tradition.
In the old days men earned enough to do everything and wives stayed home.
Men knew their role, women knew theirs.
When I was married I grew tired of being in the kitchen in Christmas Day so I cooked Christmas Eve. There was plenty for Two days so made no difference really. These days everything is equal.

In my house the christmas dinner is done by a man, the women drink champagne and chill.

My mum and dad were dating in the 70s. My dad was a drummer in bands, and my mum would go to his gigs. There were loads of places where women weren't allowed at the bar, but they allowed her because she was with the band and getting their drinks. Just different times. Glad we've moved on at least a little bit.

I less brought up in an estate in London.

In the late 70s and early 80s all the men would go to the pub on Christmas Day.

It was quite normal and nobody thought anything of it. The women wanted the men out of the way so they could get on!!!!

When we have our big family Christmas lunch (16) anyone that can’t be arsed to cook pissed off to the pub with the kids and all the chefs stayed at home cooking, setting up the table with a glass or 5 of something fizzy.

Then when the food is almost ready everyone comes back together for a meal. It’s amazing and everyone is feeling the Christmas spirit.

Pub lot happy as they’ve had a great time seeing their mates, kids happy as a they have been to the pub had a coke and played on their iPad, Cooking lot happy as they managed to have a good catch up, cook in peace with something fizzy.

love, love, love it and wouldn’t change it for anything.

Because it was different times, knocking your wife about was acceptable (not that this happened everywhere).
Women stayed at home, cared for the home and babies ( not many job opportunities for women), men were the breadwinners, brought home the bacon, so to speak.
It would be embarrassing for a bloke to change nappies and cook dinners. My grandad did all the cooking and was a first class Baker, but that was seen as unusual back in the 40s and up to the 70s.
Apparently my Dad loved pushing me in the pram, but my mum said if he saw anyone he knew he quickly passed the pram over.
Times were so different and so much has improved, but we can't judge men and women of the past, it would have been a monumental task to change and life had to have got on with.