To think men don’t do house chores ‘well’ because

[Buryyiirwhat]

its bloody boring, not because they aren’t as ‘capable’ as women??

Out with a load of female friends, ‘mum’ friends and the conversation turned to how useless one partner in particular is with the kids, around house, organising stuff. He always ‘forgets’ things like what time school finishes for kids pick up, has to be reminded etc

A couple of other chipped in with how their DH doesn’t pull his weight. And now their sons are following the same path… a ‘male’ thing apparently…

I call bullshit! If there was a way I could get out of laundry, school admin, housework etc I would probably too… because it can be flipping tedious!

disclaimer - I married a woman so house stuff, car stuff etc with us is 50-50. There’s no gender spilt in certain tasks. And our 14 year old son keeps his room tidy, helps with housework and can do laundry because we make him!

YANBU - of course men are capable of being organised with domestic stuff. ‘Blue’ jobs and ‘pink’ jobs don’t exist.

YABU - no, they’re wired differently and shouldn’t be expected to remember when kids have homework due in or that beds don’t change themselves…

Of-course men are fully capable but some posters are drifting into blaming women for male incompetence. Some women - myself included - have put up with men not pulling their weight not because we are weak or believe men can't do it but because we love our children. If a man pulls his weight then starts being shit when children arrive (true for many) what do you do? There are no easy options in this situation and a clean well ordered house (where adults don't fight constantly) for the children is top priority - as it should be.

No, they don't do it well, so they are not asked again.

Because....
Most of them are entitled twats.
Full stop.

Kudos for honesty!
You know, I'm sorted out for life (probably won't live long enough to spend it all) thanks to my darling husband and nobody else.
However, starting with my father, I'm also immensely relieved that I won't need one of you
at home or at close proximity to myself, when the time comes. (No kids).

I think there are several layers to the problem. Boys and girls (of past generations....) definitely were raised differently: girls were encouraged to play with dolls/prams/pretending to cook, and boys used to play with cars/building blocks/tools. Girls would spend time with mum/nan in the kitchen, observing a lot unconsciously. Boys much less so - so many things about cooking or washing up only came into their focus somewhere around Uni years, after moving out of family home. From that point forward, some persevere and learn, and some are intimidated and and never do.
My DH definitely did not have any exposure to household tasks, so things that to me are basic common sense (using the warm water, rinsing the sponge, folding the dusting cloth) for him were absolute revelations.

Weaponised incompetence. Doing things so badly you won't be asked to do it again.

My response is: ah next time you'll find it easier. Do not give in.

My husband does a better job of housework than me! 🙈 He works a lot of hours and I have worked part time around the kids (until I start my new job next week) so I have done more but if I need him to he’ll quite happily clean the bathrooms or hoover round and he is very thorough. Now we’re both going to be working full time it will be more evenly split but he does more of the outside jobs like gardening and cleaning cars mainly because I don’t want to 🤣

I will not pick up the pieces for my partners laziness, and I won't be blamed for it. I love him, and he has many positives but he is also a twat, and only does jobs that he gets kudos for (visible, big changes so, does the big part of the DIY, but no prep or clean up, will cook if given all ingredients and recipe but won't tidy up). We got a cleaner about 6 months ago because it was that or I leave, after I handed him one of his belongings to put away while I ran about like a blue arsed fly and he put it on the ground and then stepped over it.

A few weeks ago he had friends to stay. 'You'll need to put clean bedsheets on for them' says I. It gets to 10pm the night they're staying, still hasn't done it, there's no bedsheets on the beds (because I had previously stripped them, because my friends had slept in them) and one of them says 'oh, you haven't put the new sheets on yet'. Nope. HE hasn't put the sheets on yet, not me - I told them. Remarkably, he then went and made up the beds.

I recently put a second washing basket into the bathroom, after he asked me where the clean towels go, how to work the washing machine, and 'what' was in the wet washing I asked him to hang up in one week. Absolute fuckery that I will not tolerate, so now I don't touch his washing. It's a free-ing experience. I'll do the kids, but he's not a child, so he can do his own. I'm not the laundry fairy. He hasn't done a wash in 3 weeks and I don't think hes realised I've withdrawn my services yet.

All that to say, it's not that men are not capable, It's that they are conditioned to believe that someone (a woman) should do it for them.

Dear reader, that woman will not be me.

I genuinely don't understand what it is that men are claiming not to know how to do. Because, honestly, what is there to know? A thing is dirty? You remove the dirt from it by washing or cleaning it, by hand or using the machine designed for that purpose (which is usually a whole lot less complicated than their phone/TV/gaming kit/work IT) Everything comes with instructions and in the remote possibility a man somehow doesn't know how to use some version of soap and water, there's always Google. It's shameful that any adult would pretend not to know how to wash pots or change beds. It's the most basic common sense.

Women who live with men are often expected to take on the mental load of life admin, especially with children. In our house we try and explicitly split it. One of us is responsible for child's doctor, the other the dentist. One of us deals with child playgroups, the other the nursery etc.

On the fence

Half is weaponised incompetence - if you can hold a job, you CAN remember the kids calendar, no excuse
no excuse from the ridiculous messages from MOTHERS on the class whatsapp group either to be fair, or maybe men and women can be equally stupid

Half is the unwillingness of SOME women to accept anything else than THEIR way, and berating their husband because he does not do everything the exact same way they want. Anyone talking about MY kitchen loses the right to moan.

One man I was in a relationship said that men don't see dust and he was Dutch where men are used to sharing household tasks.

Is this really a bloke?

if so, this is a refreshing post. And I believe you.

there are certain jobs DP would never think to do, and I don’t think it’s because he thinks it’s my job, I think he genuinely doesn’t care if it’s done or not and if I wasn’t here it would never get done. If we broke up and I moved out I think the house would look very different

No. I think if someone told me I didn’t stack the dishwasher ‘the right way’ or look after the kids ‘the right way’ I’d opt out too. So many of these relationships revolve around ‘he doesn’t do it MY way’. Boring. Do it yourself then. Much better to split who does what and accept they do it their way.

By the looks of it that’s what you do. Just let them get on with it (I did subtly raise it once with a colleague who moans all the time. Didn’t go down well. Now I just move the conversation on).

Even for men who do 50:50, I'd wager that there is much less "chore chat" like "how often do you wash your towels" amongst men.

I drive my husband batty by doing chores badly but in volume. He drives me batty by doing a detailed and careful job whilst leaving 80% not done.

I think we're about even.

It’s easier for women to say it’s ’a man thing’ than admit they’re married to a selfish twat who doesn’t care about them.

The only men who sit back and watch their wife carry all the domestic burden are emotionally stunted ones, the ones who’ve replaced a mummy or the women haters. Normal grown men just see it as part of the day to day living in a family home.

My dad never does any housework, despite being retired and my mum still working full time. He was brought up in a household (and dare I say generation?) where home stuff was the job of the mum and then wife.

My ex was brilliant with housework.... he wanted an immaculate house. It was me that was the slob (and still am, but I live alone now so only accountable to myself).

I think women and men are biologically different and this manifests in different traits and interests at a population level. I therefore suspect that what you observe in your household is pretty common. Women seem to generally have more interest in making and maintaing a nice and clean home environment. This isn't universal and doesn't mean that women want to spend hours slaving away to achieve this, but I do think my female friends get more enjoyment and contentment from having a pleasant living environment. The men I know, even the tidy, clean ones that pull their weight, seem less fussed about their surroundings. I suspect this is why women usually enjoy home decor and interior design more than men too.

I think what this means for relationships between men and women is complex. There are clearly basic standards and cleanliness that must be maintained and everyone should do their bit to achieve this. Toilets need to be cleaned, floors need to be hoovered and dishes need to be washed. I think there is a grey area though when it comes down to standards and how you fairly split domestic work that one party thinks is necessary and the other thinks is excessive.

OH does some things really well, better than me in fact.

Some he sucks at, because frankly, I think he just doesn't care. It needs doing so he does the bare minimum. The good thing is he doesn't give a shit how I do it either, or if I do it at all.

Tbf to him though, I'm exactly the same with most chores and stop at good enough.

By whom though? Majority of women I suspect

I think men just don’t give a shit about housework etc as much as women do. My dh is one of the best men I’ve known (and I was married to a lazy arse before him so I know what that’s like too) but he just don’t see the need to do things “properly” like I do. If I wasn’t here he’d do the stuff that needs doing like laundry but he’d hang it up scrunched up, not shaken out, so it would take ages to dry and be all crap. And he wouldn’t do all the little extra stuff that I do like dusting (he’d think why bother), he wouldn’t clean things well, he’d have no system for cleaning stuff like I do so it would barely get done. I mean I don’t really care about all this because he works full time and I don’t work (health issues and whatever else) so it works for us and that’s fine. I think I’d probably faint from resentment and shock if I went away for a month or something and came back.

If men can be surgeons etc they can absolutely clean a bathroom properly. They just don’t give enough of a shit about it.

When you say floors must be hoovered. Well why?

Like tv stands needing dusting. Why?

Obviously kitchen prep areas need to be kept clean as you eat off it. But dust on shelves doesn't hurt you? (Assume no kids playing on floor)

So it's one of those things that seems more a want to do than essential to do (like washing dishes)

I think what one person deems as "clean" is different to another. We all have different standards on these things.