How do mums cope as the only female in the family?

[Heidielf]

I feel like the topic should be parenting and relationships 🤪.
I’m 44, been married 24 years, 2 x boys age 16 & 8, had brain cancer in between which is why such big age gap to avoid any awk questions….
How do you all of you gorgeous ladies handle being the only female in the family, with little to no help from family members, coping with hormones and work/life dynamics??

"How do you all of you gorgeous ladies handle being the only female in the family, with little to no help from family members"

Why is there "little to no help from family members" ?

"coping with hormones and work/life dynamics??"

I mean, aren't we all coping with work / life dynamics ?

What does it have to do with being the only female in the house ?

Best to see your family as a team in a mixed sex sport like Frisbee tbh. Everyone plays a part.

I don’t handle it because that’s not my situation. Being the only woman in my family doesn’t mean that I do all of the housework, kids stuff and so on. It’s equally shared between me and my partner. I have shared interests with my children, the fact that they are boys doesn’t mean that I have a lesser relationship with them.

I have a DH and 5 sons, I've always coped fine! Not sure what you mean?

I've a DH and three sons. DH has always pulled his weight and we've taught the boys to do so as well as they've grown up. I've lots in common with my boys and we adore each other. So I've coped just fine being the only female in my family.

That’s quite a weird set of assumptions. Are you one of those people who thinks men and boys can’t do housework because their penises get in the way?

What don’t people get? Perimenopause/ periods only effect women and boy houses don’t have to deal with them bar the mother who has nobody in the house who can empathise with it! My kids got a land when sip and her ds stayed a few weeks and they were properly launched into the world of numerous people having pms and needing hot water bottles and paracetamol! I realised then I’d shielded them a bit much and explained about how crap it is at times!

On the housework front I definitely do way more than anyone else but am working at getting them all doing more of their share (again thanks to cool sil!!) Having them help with clothes now, they already do dishwasher, some tidying but definitely not enough. It’s tough op x

Great to hear you’re doing well
Ive 3 sons 30-23
plus a useless 17 year old daughter.

Whatever you’re looking for doesn’t automatically come wrapped in pink!

I don't have useless men around me and don't assume I am perfect I may be biologically different that is where it ends

Boys have hormones too! DS, 14, is considerably more hormonal than I am in menopause. I don’t think I’ve ever had a period that required paracetamol and hot water bottles to the extent that the household was agog about it, and DH does all the cooking and grocery shopping, and the cleaner (also male) does the rest.

KissKissByeBye

we’ve been lucky with teenage hormones!!! I do think boys should know the crap women go through for when they’re older with female friendships/ work colleagues/ relationships. Dh does a lot of cooking and all shopping here too but everything else is me, they’re all helping and learning a lot more about equal shares in the house now though

I am the only female in my family. I don't have little to no help. I set the expectation that we are a family and we all pitch in to make family and home life work. Exactly the same as I would if I had daughters.

Respectfully, I think that giving the impression women’s lives are dominated by hormonal fluctuations and difficult periods is pretty reactionary.

KissKissByeBye

It’s only once a month and rarely bad so I barely mention it but I think they should know it can be shit!! There’s two ladies in work with horrific periods and one or two of the managers have pretty much nearly rolled their eyes at them barely functioning. When the lads asked why dn was so pale and in such a heap I just told them periods can do that to people and realised even my worst periods I’d never mentioned them at home and hadn’t said actually I’ve pretty bad cramps and headaches.

Perhaps the OP is thinking more about the female camaraderie that comes with having other female family members

A daughter to go clothes shopping with, try out make up, etc

Excuse me cos I could be talking shite , but since reconnecting with my sister after 30 years, I realise how much I missed having a female in my life

When I was a teen my dad and I were visiting our v elderly next door neighbour, just for a chat. At one point she said something to him like “ooh, poor you, the only man in the house with all those women” (me, my sister and my mum).

My dad is v quiet and polite, but he just drew himself up a little and said “that’s my daughters and wife you’re talking about”. I never forgot it. He meant that we are his family, his people, and just as connected to him regardless of sex.

These days I’m the only woman in the house with two older teen boys and DH, and honestly, our sex is the least important dynamic in the house. We’re all just different / similar people with our own personalities that don’t relate to being male or female. My DH does more of the housework than I do and just as much of the “mental load”. There’s maybe more sport on the telly than there was in my house growing up but none of us, including my dad, were that interested. And loads of the girl cousins in my family are far more into sport etc. than I am.

I am lucky that I never had period pains. Also lucky I never had asthma unlike two of the men in the house. I do put on weight a lot more easily than they all do, so that’s a bit annoying.

Treat your family as people and expect them to treat you as people back and it’s all a lot better.

I have a girl and a boy, both mid teens, both hormonal, I’m very close to both of them. From experience, I now understand boys can be more sensitive than girls, and while of course we are all gendered, a lot of things come down to individual personalities. That said I think I know what the OP means about being the only woman in a house full of men and others are probably just refusing to admit to it. When I was a teen my (lovely) boyfriend was one of 3 boys and I could tell his mum loved having us girlfriends in the house even though they were a really close family. It’s about female solidarity and mutual understanding and I can imagine you might feel a bit alone sometimes in a house of men even if your boys are wonderful.

And male entitlement and gendered divisions of housework are still very much alive - all the evidence shows that mothers do the lions share no matter what people claim. (I don’t know about evidence on daughters vs sons on housework and imagine this does boil down to family rules and expectations as well as what dads model at home).

On coping, it’s probably about connection and feeling understood- talking to your family about what you’re going through with perimenopause for example, but also just talking about feelings more generally. If you don’t feel understood at home you’d need to find this support with friends. I’d also get a female cat 😁

Got a DH and 4 DS. Being the only female has it's advantages. They often like playing games together so I sneak away to read a book on my own❤️ we do play card games and board games too at times.

‘Gorgeous ladies’ 🤢

I’m female in an all male family. I don’t know what you mean by ‘little to no help from family members’? Are you implying that the domestic side of things falls only to me because I don’t have a family of little women? Because it doesn’t. Far from it. My husband does all of the cooking and has taught our sons to be equally excellent cooks and bakers. They were both pulling their weight around the house from around 11 - laundry, ironing, cleaning, lawn mowing, decorating. They’re very capable young adults now.

And ‘coping with hormones’? Mine? Theirs? We ‘cope’ just the same as any household and we’re lucky we had drama-free teenagers.

I hate going clothes shopping and trying out make up - I don't ever wear make up and have zero interest in it. I would find that sort of "camaraderie" incredibly tedious. Great if it's your cup of tea, but being a woman doesn't mean having a predefined set of interests that only match with other women.

Same and I equally loathe the ''girls'' collective, now I have no issues having friends who happen to be female and we do things together but this ''girlie'' day or 'girls night out' is tiresome

not all females are the same in one homogenised group

I’ve never done things like shopping with my mum, or pamper days. If you raise your children properly, then I don’t know why it would be expected that men don’t do any housework.

I’m not sure what you are actually asking OP? Is there a problem being the only female?

At home it’s me and my husband and our two sons. The only family support we have is my dad and my
father-in-law as I’m no contact with my mum and sadly my mother-in-law passed away 10 years ago.

So it’s 5 males and me.

This dynamic has no detrimental effect on how I manage my hormones or my daily life.

I've never known a teenage girl (including me) be particularly empathetic or clued in to her mother's perimenopause!

Females and males are fundamentally the same except for sexual biology.

and upbringing

If you haven’t brought them up to be fully functioning humans capable of taking on their share of household responsibilities - because you have been seriously ill - it’s a DH issue - except surely he did stuff when you were ill?

Have you walked blindfold into gender roles that you now realise ( hormones ) are a load of crap ?

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