Sons whose lives are facilitated by their mothers - how to prevent it?

[fluffyhamster]

I don't want to derail the other thread, so thought I'd start a different one...
I can't help feeling that the problem with men who expect to have their lives 'facilitated' by women starts at an early age, and as a direct result of the way in which their mothers bring them up, and what is expected from them as they grow up.

I have to hang my head in complete shame here as I have come to the horrifying realisation that I AM GUILTY of this!

Not sure where it all went wrong, but it's a familiar tale - I used to have a high-powered job/ earn the same or more than DH, but then had to scale back when the kids were young to fit in with school responsibilities. Never got 'back into' work as I was then called upon to look after an elderly parent. I therefore fell into the trap I had always told myself to avoid, and made full-time parenting my 'life's work.'

I have two teenage sons, and I am embarrassed to admit that I let them get away without doing cooking/washing/cleaning around the house.
I completely 'facilitate' their lives, by making sure sports kits are clean and lifts are given, food is provided etc.

I am totally and utterly taken for granted .

But I don't know how to change it - I've left it too late for a complete regime change - and they have GCSEs/A levels this year anyway, so now is not the right time to start demanding they do all their own washing, for example.

I have failed utterly. And here's me thinking I was a feminist!

The easiest thing would be for them to start Saturday. Have them do the same chore daily for a month and then swap. So one child clears the table and washes up. The other dries and outs away. At weekends everyone can take part in a tidying half hour which will involve random chores.

lol @ him picking through the basket and only hanging his own things up

I know, Vertical*! To be fair, we each have clothes horses in our bedrooms for our own clothes, to facilitate the putting-away-of-clothes once they are dry, so it's not quite^ as ridiculous as it sounds!

Wow - format fail, there!

It's only 'a boy thing' if you let them get off scot-free! And to the mums of teenagers, start now! Stop being a doormat.

Watching with interest as I've come to the same conclusion recently about my DS. He is happy to live in a hovel, wear dirty, scrumpled clothes and never tidy up. So if I don't do the chores myself, I have to stand over him to make him do it - and then I resent him for turning my into a nag

What is realistic for a 12yo to do? (I know that technically 6yo can do the dusting and by 12yo they can cook a cordon bleu meal for 10 , but what do others actually expect of their near teens?)

don't want to disrupt their A-levels

Okaaay, you could position it as helping them to keep a good life - work balance. Seriously, there will never be a good time, or rather now is as good a time as any. I know, I sloped of doing any chores I could, just by getting out books to do homework...

Yes, whoever pointed out that I was wrong saying it's
"a direct result of the way in which their mothers bring them up" is spot on.
See, I'm even conditioned into accepting the responsibility/guilt thing!

I observe an interesting dynamic in our house sometimes - it goes like this:
Me to DH: Could you empty the waste paper bins as the bin men come tomorrow.
DH: Why do I always have to empty the waste paper bins?
Me: Well, you can take over from me on this ironing if you want, and I'll do it...
DH : Why aren't the boys helping out?!

DH : (Shouts, angrily) DS1/DS2 - get yourself down here and empty the bins...

So if I ask for something to be done DH will deflect it on the kids, but he wouldn't ever spontaneously notice what needed to be done or remind them.

Bah. It's all shitty isn't it?

My sister used to live with a guy whose mum took her to one side to plead with her to iron his shirts... DSis said she would as long as he was doing other housework at the same time and not just sat watching football they both worked full time!
She ended up leaving him, and one of the reasons was that he’d only wash up one plate when he wanted to eat and leave the sink full.
Wonder if they might have had more of a shot if his parents hadn’t enabled him.

Not sure if my experience is relevant as I am not a parent, but the question of men being culturally facilitated is very interesting (and very true).

My mom used to run the house just like her business. Pretty weird but it did work on me and DB. Having a clean/organized house/garden, admin and food prepared was everyone's responsibility and sitting on the couch was not an option for anyone until the last of the chores were done. Before ten years old we would help out according to what we could do (hanging washing, changing bed linens, dusting..) but after that we were solely responsible for our own bedrooms and laundry. Cooking and food shopping were down to my dad and I and Garden/outside stuff to my mom and brother. The general tidying was done on a "first to come across the mess, first to clean it" basis, no way around it sadly.

Mom's nickname is "The Komandantur"

Unicorn - before I had kids I always assumed this is what would happen! And then when I ended up at home it all went horribly wrong.

I think I need to begin to foster a more 'benign neglect' style - it's amazing what kids are capable of when they have to!

I have 2 boys aged 6 and 3 and as a working mother in a well paid job, I decided that I am not going to bring them up to think of household duties as just "a woman's job" be it mine or the helper's.

Starting a few months back, I instigated rules that are now second nature. When they finish their plate, they take it to the dishwasher and stack it, they know to tidy away after themselves, clothes go in hamper etc. they also help both myself and DH with cleaning, they do the bathroom sinks etc, so they know it's a group effort to keep a tidy home.
As they get bigger, they'll be expected to gradually take on more automatic responsibility in the running of the home, cooking for each other/us as a family etc.

I want it to become second nature to them to tidy away after themselves, cook a variety of meals and generally be the type of man I can be proud of!

Not men facilitated by their mother!

While I absolutely agree with the gist of this thread (i.e. that it's a good idea to at least try and prevent this behaviour), somewhat ironically I also think it's a tad symptomatic of the phenomenon as a whole that mothers feel it's their duty to try and make sure their sons don't turn into lazy, entitled men.

FWIW, and while the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data': my friend whose SAHM did absolutely everything for all her kids (including my female friend, who first learned to boil an egg while we were at uni) is a well-adjusted together adult these days whereas her two brothers are the embodiment of this phenomenon. I guess what I'm tryibg to say is: parenting is only a small part of the situation. Women learn to stand on their own two feet because, the upper classes possibly excluded, it's not socially acceptable for us to be useless. It is for men.

Neglect didn't really work on mine - they're quite happy to live in a mess/wear stinky clothes.

We make rotas. We all sign up to an equal amount of things. Everyone plans a meal of their choosing on their meal day. They can ask for help while cooking but they have to think of the meal and add things to the list because this is the mental load related to cooking.

They all have to empty their pockets before putting things in the laundry. They have to sort their own things out of the laundry. They can put washes on but as you say, it's often easier to wash it all at once.

Chores happen on a rota. I don't think anyone should get stuck on the same chore over and over again.

As long as we all do the same amount, and it's equal, there's not too much griping. The checklists mean they can choose when in the week to do things.

They have to tidy up after themselves and if they spill and don't clean it up, they're asked to do so.

I don't live with a man though - I think that would probably be a bit crap if he wasn't on board with the rota/equality vibe.

Fluffy, your dh is a big part of the problem. Why is it that everyone in the house has to be helping before it is his turn to pitch in? He is teaching your kids that it's okay to offload the work onto someone else.

Yeah - it kind of works best for us like I'd hold a team meeting at work - ensuring there's buy-in etc and that it's not a power thing. just that everyone has to pitch in.

I think it's more a case of parents facilitating their children rather than any gender bias. IME for every teenage boy who never unloads the dishwasher there are at least as many girls who can't change a car battery/tyre or wire a plug.

UnicornInTraining that's great, I wish I was your mum!

OP I am not sure I will manage to replicate this system either when I have children.. but I think other posters are doing similar with talking about treating the family as a team, no matter the genders and whether it is parents or children. Maybe that is the key? For instance, the cleaning up after dinner was systematically done by everyone all together, one clearing the table, one loading the dishwasher/sweeping the floors, one doing the washing up and one drying dishes. Took about 5 min top.

I've got that trouble that there's a brilliant cartoon about.

DH will do anything and everything as long as I ask him, or give him a list. I manage everything. Weekly shop, buying uniforms / shoes, checking PE kits, making sure there are enough socks, noticing shirts are grown-out-of and replacing, doing the rota for who is doing the kids when as we both work FT different work patterns, gas/leccy/bank acs/mortgage/remortgage/getting help in to fix stuff etc etc

To be fair he is good at remembering family birthdays and buying presents (his side - and there are lots of them).

With work + all this + primary school kids I just feel like my brain is full. Sometimes my mum rings and asks me a favour and I say fine but put it in an email or text if it's not written down I'll forget!

So even the good ones who do all the stuff - and he is a good one - he takes very little responsibility. He just needs to go to work and come back, and do the things I ask him to do. He even asks every day, is there anything you want me to do today, or if he's popping out, do we need anything, but all the lists, all the keeping an eye and ontop of it is in my head and my lists and it's wearing.

Sorry that got a bit long!

My kids are the same - they will do stuff if asked but not off their own bat and I need to work on that. They are 8 and 10 so probably time to start...

So the burden of responsibility of keeping it all going is on the women.

And yet we are told time and time again, that it is the men who shoulder all the responsibility for the family

As a PP said, it's not just family, there are loads of outside social influences impacting on all of this.

[https://fierce.wearemitu.com/no-pos-wow/michelle-obama-just-told-women-to-stop-babying-their-sons/ just saw this on Facebook seemed relevant!]

better clicky

What is realistic for a 12yo to do?

OleannasWimple it helps if there's a regular day to do certain things - like, say, on Saturday, after they've had a lie-in, when they do eventually get up, it's their regular job to strip their bed and put the sheets and duvet cover and pillowcases in the washing machine.

When he has a bath at the weekend, after the bath he has to properly clean it, scrub the big black ring off and all the rest of it. (He doesn't have to properly full-on clean it each time he uses it during the weekdays, just rinse it around.)

He can take the recycling out when I ask him - this isn't a regular thing, just when the bag is full.

Etc etc. Small things, that don't take very long, but getting him into the habit was really useful. One of my bugbears with his dad, my ex, is that he never noticed that I was constantly cleaning and tidying, and he would complain that the place was a mess, occasionally did a massive cleaning blitz that took a few hours, and thought I was lazy for not doing the same. He's missed the bazillion plates of his that I'd taken out and washed every day, the bazillion socks picked up from the floors, the bazillion times I'd put all his shoes back on the shoe rack after he left them in the middle of the hall, etc etc. Telling him made no difference, so I was in the seriously annoying position of doing most of the housework AND being treated like the lazy one. (It's not a coincidence that he's my ex, though apparently he's improved a bit.)

Michelle Obama hasn't got sons though, so it would be interesting to see if she would have parented them the same as her dds. Am wondering now whether Barack puts the bins out without being told...

Have been thinking a lot about this since yesterday and I don't think I am different with my sons.

Having a teen dd and ds, I feel that boys are getting a bit of a bad rap here. Imo girls can be equally lazy/entitled as boys, if not more so. In fact bil's dds are the most hopeless 20-somethings I have ever seen. Not only can they not take out a plate, they look positively aggrieved if asked to do so.

I also think there is in some households a mismatch of "standards" if you like. I am a bit of a messy person - clean, but not bothered about tidiness that much. And I can't say I have ever asked the dcs to tidy their rooms/books/shoes. Don't care! Now, if I lived with some people I think they would kill me. Ds's friend is very domesticated and will make the perfect dh, I'm sure, as his mother is fanatical about the house being pristine and all family members have been trained up.