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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to take the mick out of male colleagues who bring in shared food that their WIVES have made

719 replies

morningpaper · 14/12/2008 22:34

this makes me both scornful and slightly depressed and I resort to extreme sarcasm

Only last week I was nibbling lemon cake from a colleagues WIFE.

What IS that ABOUT?

AIBU?

OP posts:
Original poster
morningpaper · 15/12/2008 15:50

CoV I think it is different if you are a professional and are using them as testers

OP posts:
georgimama · 15/12/2008 15:50

The work colleagues are people the DH knows. Sometimes (quite often) they are people the DW knows too.

Sometimes it is nice to exercise a skill you have, to help your partner do something kind for other people about whom he or she cares, just because you love your partner and want to make them feel good and help them make other people feel good.

I really don't get where the comparisons with darning, and the risk of professional suicide, come from. Some of you must have DHs with very very odd work colleagues (or very strange jobs).

pagwatch · 15/12/2008 15:51

@ MP
( who could actually be telling the truth such is Pags grasp on her own household)

ComeOVeneer · 15/12/2008 15:51

Good job I haven't poisoned any of them, that certainly won't improve dh's promotional chances

ComeOVeneer · 15/12/2008 15:53

TBH I did it before I went pro, simply because I enjoyed baking, sugar craft etc but really not a sweet tooth person, so I wouldn't have been able to partake in that passtime if I didn't have somewhere to fob the cakes off to.

cory · 15/12/2008 15:53

Morningpaper, I know a lot of dh's colleagues. Not that unusual, surely?

notwavingjustironing · 15/12/2008 15:54

So next time the PTA want me to bake a cake for the cake stall, would it be appropriate for me to offer to take in washing instead?.... I would hate to get the protocol wrong

Libraloveschristmas1975 · 15/12/2008 15:55

Being the nosy cow i am I want to know what all your terribly important husbands do that they would be embaressed to share home-baked cake around.

Habbibu · 15/12/2008 15:56

"I think that baking is quite an intimate gesture suggestive of dependency and nurturing", Oh, pox to that, mp. It's an excuse to make a heeyuuge mess (that DH merrily clears up), eat some, but not all the cake - I love baking, but don't want to eat that much cake, so any excuse to bake is good for me. AND I like to show off the fact that I am, on a good day, a fucking good baker. Any excuse.

DH's colleagues know I work, they know and respect the kind of job I do, and treat me, when I meet them, absolutely as a friend and an equal. So ner, frankly.

(I'd be ruder, but you put me in the round-up, so you have some credit)

chaufleur · 15/12/2008 16:08

Nowt wrong wi it!

I LIKE baking. Possibly I make too much to consume all by myself (even with DH helping AND I can eat A LOT of cake AND I am pg )

Therefore tis handy to occasionally send DH into work with the extra overs.

Would be different if DH insisted I baked and I hated it and didn't want to. The action (ie baking or ironing or whatever) is not the point. It's the attitude and "WespecK" between the partners that's the point, if there is some sort of element of exploitation.

Habbibu · 15/12/2008 16:09

Actually, MP, have thought about this more. My extremely successful male boss is also a very good baker, and I suspect that any contributions to, say, a bring a dish lunch thing in his (also v successful) wife's place of employment would come from him. Is that also to be ridiculed, and dismissed as "WifeWork"?

Lulumama · 15/12/2008 16:11

i think that over analyzing something as simple as taking cake to an office is indicative of deeper issues.

why does there have to be such a strident kick back against making cake?

what is wrong with having the ability to cook/bake and share that with people?

surely feminism was about choice? about women being able to choose to do what they wanted, and being perceived as equals... if a woman chooses to do something that is perceived as a feminine skill.. i.e baking, why is she derided? so many famous chefs and cooks are male anyway, so we should be applauding those women for entering a male dominated field

knitting is ok,if done in a quirky, slightly knowing , retro ironic fashion.. why can;t baking be the same?

or why can;t it just be somethbing that people like to do with no complex social issues behind it

pagwatch · 15/12/2008 16:15

it is pretty rubbish actually.
the notion that a woman who cooks is per se subservient.

Are we in a Terry and June episode?

AtheneNoctua · 15/12/2008 16:16

I am quite active on the PTA. But, I do not bake cakes. When I found out men were excused from face painting just because they are men, I said chucked that one in too. I hate baking and I hate face painting (more than I hate baking). I do think it's a bit sexist that all the women are expected to bake cakes. I have told my nanny she can oblige if she wants to but by all means it will never be a required part of the job.

So, MP, I share your on the subject. I went on a business trip with a guy a couple years ago who moaned while we were in the air about how his wife folded his shirts when she packed for him. I replied "She packs for you?!?!" I'd put itching powder in his shorts, personally, just for moaning about it.

cory · 15/12/2008 16:19

Ok, I am moving this thread straight into the Relationships section! There I was, thinking that dh was just showing basic hospitality when he made drinks for my students, but now it seems he was getting intimate with them . Perhaps even dependent on them . And nurturing them . This will not do! In future, he will bring in an intimate cup of tea for me, and the rest of them can just watch. So there!

shitehawk · 15/12/2008 16:21

I don't see baking cakes as something I do for people I'm fond of, MP.

I see it as something I do for people who like cake. And something I do to stop me eating all the cake myself and getting fat(ter).

I think you are over-analysing something which is harmless and inoffensive. If it's not your bag then that's fine - but don't patronise or aim scorn at those of us who do it.

tiredsville · 15/12/2008 16:24

Gosh, I would just be chuffed all these cakes are available. Who cares who makes em? If you feel so strongly MP, don't eat them and pass my way

sicksantadenier · 15/12/2008 16:25

I'm amazed people have the time and energy to bake

bloss · 15/12/2008 16:25

Message withdrawn

unknownrebelbang · 15/12/2008 16:27

This is all bolleaux really though, isn't it?

In my place of work, and DH's, if there's free food on the go, we don't give a toss where it came from/who made it, we just eat, especially if it's home-made.

We have never baked for each other for work, he has however bought a pack of donuts or similar into the office for me / my colleagues (yes, he actually bought them in and sat and had a cuppa with us on more than one occasion, too.)

Did my colleagues give a damn about where they came from? Nah, they were too busy stuffing their faces....

Hulababy · 15/12/2008 16:27

I don't really bake but I would cook on behalf of DH. DH doesn't cook; he can knock together snacky type food but he doesn't do big dinners, etc. That is my area.

We kind of having divsiions of labour and specialism here at the hula household.

DH = ironing
Me = cooking

etc.

pagwatch · 15/12/2008 16:28

sick

I started because DS2 is allergic to gluten dairy etc. So if I hadn't beked for him he wouldn't have eaten much.
And then his sibs got jealous and i found I could bake well.

the more you bake the easier it gets until it just becomes something I can do now without really thinking about it.

And I never really get the time and effort thing. If you want to do something you fit it in . If you don't then you don't

Libraloveschristmas1975 · 15/12/2008 16:29

Athenenoctua, perhaps he hates packing, perhaps in trade for her packing for him he checks the oil and water in her car.
(to be fair I would have had the same reaction as you at the time)
My DH (almost) never cleans the bathroom but I never mow the lawn.

*tries to imagine men getting worked up about the fact one of their work collegues checks his wifes oil and water in her car.

pagwatch · 15/12/2008 16:30

at bloss.

yes.
and yet....

[page 11]

cory · 15/12/2008 16:31

There wouldn't be a spare cake going, anyone?