To think women make a house a home?

[NothingButShiteOnTV]

Yes, I know I am generalising! I have no doubt people will be quick to tell me their dad/brother/second cousin Jim were more decoratively flamboyant than Laurence Llewellin Bowen (sp) but the men I know either live in lovely homes either decorated by a deceased spouse/ex partner or they live in something just about a step up from a cave - and they do not care!
When I look around my home the 'finishing touches' have all been chosen and placed by me, my husband just sees them as things we can live without and unnecessary despite them making this house our home.
AIBU?

I’m a (straight) man - I’ve enjoyed decorating my own space for almost as long as I can remember. I find the space around you, whether that is the architecture or the interior design, can have a very powerful impact on your mood and your overall sense of wellbeing. I want the space around me to feel calming and welcoming,

The description some people have given of a “male room” makes me shudder - I couldn’t relax in that. Then again I can also look at the work of quite maximalist interior designers who use lots of colour and pattern, and whilst I can appreciate that as an image in a magazine it isn’t something I could live with myself - far too stimulating!

I’m fortunate that my wife shares a very similar taste (and interest). I hope when friends and family visit they feel as relaxed and comfortable in our home as we do.

YABU. DH can get very excited by kitchens and bathrooms, carpets and furniture.

Admittedly, he is less interested in throw cushions, candles and picture frames so perhaps if that is what you see as making a home maybe I'm wrong.

The societal expectations start at birth.

girls playing in the home corner at nursery. Girls being given toy hoovers and play kitchens.

my mil used to give the girl grandchildren dusters and say how much they loved helping around the house. Boy grandchildren were not included.

girls and boys grow up seeing their mums as housekeepers and caring about the home, while dad works and does diy.

these roles are absolutely ingrained. Girls are groomed into being responsible and proud of their homes. Boys know it’s not their job and they are expected to “care about the bigger things” as pp said.

Christ, this is some reductive bollocks.

It’s true in my relationship, any way. We’ve moved house (countries in fact) and it’s been very costly as we had to rebuy all furniture etc. DH is adamant we only get the essentials, which I agree with from a financial pov. But to make it homely for me, I need rugs and plants and storage cabinets and nice bowls. He just cannot see the necessity of it. So we’ve currently only have the basic essentials in terms of furniture for now but I’m slowly incorporating more as we go along. He didn’t think a rug was necessary (in a marbled large space!) but agreed once it came that it made the space much nicer to be in! So we’re getting there… Having plants delivered tomorrow which I’m excited about.

But I was given Action Men and dinosaurs as a kid, mum was too busy as a working single mum of two to be bothered about interior design, and I'm highly practical and do much of the diy in our home.

I can't relate to any of this. Different worlds I guess.

My male partner has a far better eye than me
I mean be describes my fashion sense like 'freezer tapas'..ie I stick whatever I lay my hands on on and team it with anything else random I find 🤣🤣🤣

You're a man who chooses to be on Mumsnet. You're not the average man.

I can't be arsed with homemaking I sort of look down on it

But do wish I had a housekeeper

Ouch!

Other way round in my household. I'm more a kind of it just needs to be practical and the way it looks is secondary or sometimes not considered.

However my partner has brought into our household, candles, scents, plug in aroma things, ornaments, constantly wants new decorative bed sheets etc, artwork.

Edited to add he has bought plants...lots of plants!

It's interesting how many people seem happy with the idea of innate sex differences when talking about male propensity to violence, but put everything down to conditioning when talking about female propensity to nurturing.

Is it ‘finishing touches’ that really make a house a home though? I think that what feels like home differs from person to person. I guess I’m a bit like you in that the visual appeal of the house is one of the things that makes me feel relaxed and ‘at home’. We lived in a rented house between selling our house and buying another and I worked hard to make it feel cosy and ‘ours’ despite knowing we would only be there for a year. Many of our personal belongings were in storage too so it felt all the more important to me. DH loved it and kept saying what a good job I’d done, but I know that there’s no way on earth that left to his own devices he would have put up pictures and thought about a colour scheme to tie together the open plan space. But it would still have felt like home to him. As long as he has a comfortable bed to sleep in and nice sofa to sit on and so long as there’s a good shower and I live there too he’s perfectly happy! He couldn’t give two hoots whether we have nice cushions but he feels completely at home. There’s also the fact of course that he just can’t visualise a space looking different to the way it does now so he tends to play it very safe when expressing his choices. He tends to leave a lot of it to me now because he’s come to realise that he always likes the final effect but couldn’t imagine it himself.

Making my house nice is not about nurturing. It's about wanting it to look nice for me, so that I can relax. I don't really care if anyone else in the house likes it.
Dh cooks for us and stops the house from falling down. That's more nurturing than me buying more candles to mask the smell of teenage boy.

Neither do I. They just get in the way and need to be removed when sleeping and put back in the morning.

Yup

If it is social conditioning, it seems that comes almost entirely from women. Keeping a clean tidy functional home is one thing, but I would be very surprised to hear of a man bemoan why his friends house doesn't have scatter cushions or buying a smelly candle so his friends house would be more welcoming.

I think it always depends on the individual and also what's in fashion. My Dad ans his mates really went to town on their flats in the 60s with lots of Mid Century Modern cool stuff - my Dad even made his own lamps out of industrial glass jars!

He had a lot of input in the 70s in our family home with that same aesthetic - egg chairs, textured wallpaper, bark cloth curtains etc.

I think that was because the interior trends were very unisex

He lost interest in the 80s when it divided into colour block pop and Laura Ashley Chinz.

Fast forward to today, my brother is much more interested than his wife, in how the house looks and has taken inspiration from the Japanese trends.

At least next time I buy a new cushion from Dunelm, I can do so with the full knowledge that's it's due to social conditioning and the patriarchy, and not because I like it!

Of course they exist. But from reading MN you'd think they were immutable facts of biology.

Of course they exist. But from reading MN you'd think they were immutable facts of biology.

I would be surprised to hear any woman I know say these things as well.

What do you class as ‘finishing touches’? What makes a home to you?

Lol....at times he's not wrong!! I do manage to pull myself together more often than not, I like to think

It's going way off topic, but do people put it down to innate sex differences? It's surely down to social conditioning just as much as 'women like cushions' is. Boys will be boys, boys being given trucks and guns when girls are given dolls, teenage girls learning things like the keys between the fingers trick while teenage boys are blissfully unaware. Testosterone is obviously a huge factor but it's nurture as much as nature.