To feel that many men are totally unprepared and unsuited to domesticity?

[JFDIYOLO]

So many instances shared on Mumsnet of grown men behaving like adolescents.

Spending hours gaming, incapable of regulating their emotions, violent outbursts, dick-led decisions, expecting Mummy 2.0 from their wives, utterly lacking in empathy and care during pregnancy, labour, newborn baby & toddler years, father fails ...

But why is this?

Was it always so, or do we just hear way more now from women who are no longer prepared to put up with it and ready to discuss and share advice?

Should there be some kind of exam, a screening process before they can proceed to the next level of In A Relationship?

I guess in the old days blokes would be down the mine for 10 hours and then back home for dinner. At least that’s what would have been happening in my family. No one would have been asking them to sift out the cat litter

You do realise there are men who actually live on their own and are perfectly capable fully independent grown adults, both straight and gay men

Yes but they're doing it wrong

Not all men are like that. The feckless ones that are are probably more likely to inspire their wives/partners to need to seek advice on the internet though. My partner is a great man, well house trained, holds down a job, is a caring father and provides for his children, but I'm not likely to start a thread about that. Maybe I should, for balance :)

No, men can easily learn domestic chores, they just don't fancy it. Women have always worked for pay, often shitty pay so if their husbands spent all the family money whoring or on drugs or drink etc they could feed their kids, so it has nothing at all to do with a change in roles.

The bottom line is the internet. It's fucked up generations of men. Men were always much more violent and unpredictable than women, and because they got away with behaving badly many did. The decent men have to become more aggressive just to survive in the toxic world the angry men create. And it's gotten far, far worse with their constant 24 hour exposure to women being anally raped, beaten strangled, under the pretence of sex and the other things that are freely and easily available on the terrifying shit show of the internet.

There's a ton of information out there about how bad the internet is for kids, teenagers, adults, how horribly bad what passes for porn nowadays is. It's not a debate anymore, it's all easily proven - but nobody seems to care.

I was born and nearly 30 before the internet took over. The world, from porn to entertainment is far different, and far worse, especially in the last ten to fftteen years.

Men, as a sex, are dangerous, lazy and selfish and women, as a sex, keep trying to make progress and keep being beaten and raped and tortured back into the cages men make for us.

And literally everyone has a Not my Nigel exception, including me. several in fact. Doesn't matter, the points stand.

There's no answer, or way to fix it. We're a failed species.

It's mumsnet. You generally only hear from unhappy people. Happy and/or content people don't have much reason to start threads about their spouses, families etc.

Similarly one could ask questions about why are so many women not being able to deal with life basics and being doormats in general. They are not. It's just that there is no reason to start a thread about how you didn't shake because someone knocked on your door, how you are ok driver or can do serious DIY and have an ok family🤷

No one can judge any parts of popular based on MN posts really.

I’ve seen men at both ends of the spectrum.

My boss for example is extremely capable, both at work and (I think) at home. The same skills that make him successful at work appear to make him a successful husband and father. He has self discipline and work ethic and is able to do an extremely demanding job and then leave work in time to be home for his kids when they get in for school. And then log in again.

Then I know men who barely work and yet don’t do any housework either.

Newsflash OP - some women are slobs too!!

Because men and women are genetically different. And as much as society had decided they they are now exactly the same, they really aren't.

Was just coming to say the exact thing!

I think there’s many who just can’t be bothered. It’s hard work and not very interesting so they leave it to someone else. In the past all men were out working long hours so it didn’t notice as much. Also there was more societal pressure on men to work, do household jobs such as cutting grass, etc

I definitely am, but I live alone so it's fine

When I was dating a few years ago, there was a clear divide between men who had never lived by themselves, and men who had. It was really stark, the difference in attitudes, abilities, maturity, and a sort of low level realisation that there's no one else to sort your shit out for you. Like me, some of them were messy, disorganised, lower standards than MN would approve of, but ultimately they would sort their shit out, blitz on a sunday, manage their laundry, bills, repairs etc, just like I do.

The other men (my brother included) went from home, to uni, to a houseshare, to living with a woman, then back to mummy post-break up or another houseshare 'to save money'. Unsurprisingly their lives were chaotic, they felt hard done by and resentful, and this 'money' they were 'saving' was none existent as they 'needed' to pay for their nights out/fast car/whatever expensive hobby that Group 1 was more realistic about financially, because ya know, responsibilities.

If I can be bothered to get back into the dating scene in 2025, I want proof they can adult properly early on, and 99% of the time that means living alone.

@ThejoyofNC You think it’s genetic that men can’t do housework? Seriously?

Honestly as a woman I feel totally unsuited to domesticity.

I wouldn't use MN as your barometer for the overall picture. As a PP said, you don't tend to get people posting about their contentment with the everyday division of dull tasks.

Me too!

Me too!

Yep. Loathe it. I just loathe filth more.

@Sosayallofus it's easy but lazy to blame the internet. There are plenty of us on here who will never have seen the sexual violence that exists on the internet because we have no interest in seeking it out. It's a choice some men make but they were creating and seeking out this stuff long before the internet. The rest of us are just more aware of what they are up to now and there are places like Mumsnet where people can get advice on how to escape these men.

There’s another thread recently about ‘men and women are different’. They are.

Think what motivates people. We are mammals who have evolved to succeed in reproducing and caring for our young. So men compete against other men for women and feel a constant need to seek status and new women to reproduce with. Women need to create stability and security for their existing young.

The smarter men will recognise the benefits of investing in their existing families. The smarter (or luckier) women will pick those men. The rest of us have to cope - or increasingly just choose not to play the game. Have some children and rely on the government instead of the father or just not have any.

Women all over the world who have options are increasingly not picking these selfish men and they’re not happy about it. They want sex and servitude and they’re bigger than us so that’s the way societies have evolved. The old pressures on men to behave better (religion and shame) are disappearing in the West so it’s not great out there for women.

Marriage was invented for a reason! Pick carefully before getting pregnant.

Not a man hater at all btw. I have a son and know it’s not easy to be a man.

They're men, not feral cats and I can't think of a single household task that needs particular genitalia. Fuck giving men excuses to be useless. They're perfectly capable of running a home, it's just dull and they'd prefer not to. Tough!

My ex thought I enjoyed doing housework “because you’re always doing something, every day!” Luckily we didn’t live together - that day we were meant to be going somewhere and I was waiting for the washing machine to finish and to hang stuff before leaving, and he was getting irritated with waiting. Prick.

Some men are lazy and selfish and live in mess. So do some women, but probably far fewer. Plenty of men can live normally though, especially those who work. I refuse to believe that men who can rewire a plug, or have memorised football statistics or what all those little Warhammer statues are called or who can drive a train or HGV don’t know how to operate a washing machine. It’s laziness and disinterest.

Yes I absolutely do. So did everyone in history until fairly recently.

that day we were meant to be going somewhere and I was waiting for the washing machine to finish and to hang stuff before leaving, and he was getting irritated with waiting. Prick.

Tbf that would irritate me too. I know waahing machines lie about times but I simply would put wash in when nothing is planned

If I was your partner, I'd be livid at being referred to as 'house trained'.