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freedomdwarf1 -> RE: Well I could've told you that! (2/2/2013 5:06:11 AM)
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When I lived in the US for 8 months, I was very surprised at how few "men" were into sharing chores and looking after their kids etc.
Just about everyone I met were of the opinion that it was womens work to do all of that.
The friend I was living with did his bit to earn some money but his wife still worked full-time as well.
When he come home it was 'her job' to make the food, bring his beer, clean up, do the laundry etc while he lounged in the pool or watched a game on TV.
All his friends and neighbours were the same.
When they got together at the weekend they all sat on their bums and chatted and laughed and joked about while the wives did the food and generally waited on them hand and foot - and that's how they expected life to be.
The only thing that any of the men ever did was their manly bit with the BBQ.
I found the whole environment very chauvanistic and wondered why their wives put up with it.
I was brought up very differently.
I was born in the 50's where this was normal in the UK too but I had very radical parents (for those days) who both worked and both shared the chores.
Mum saved up and bought her own car too!! That was almost unheard of in those days.
They didn't have gender-role jobs either. Mum did the planting and organising in the garden whereas dad did the digging and mowed the grass and built the greenhouse and all those heavy jobs. Mum did the decorating with dad's help and mum did most of the cooking. Everything else was shared between them as and when it was needed - including looking after us kids.
When I was growing up, mum taught me all the things that were typically girl's role stuff - cooking, cleaning, ironing, needlecraft, making clothes, decorating, gardening etc while dad taught me car maintenance, building fences, house maintenance, building & general construction/fixing.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have such radical and caring parents.
My best friend (who was trained at a chef college and whose parents owned an English take-away shop) could spout the fancy names but couldn't cook beans on toast or boil an egg to save his life let alone cook a decent meal or do anything else. He can't even sew a button on his shirt!
When my kids were born (both by emergency caesarean section), I looked after the babies and did most of the housework until she was well enough. I did the night feeds and the nappy changing so she could rest.
I taught my wife how to cook stuff from scratch instead of meals made with tinned and packet stuff.
I helped bring up my kids as well as passing on the knowledge I'd learned in my lifetime.
Although she does most of the cooking and housework, I do lots of other things she can't do and I do chip in when she has a lot to do or is tired.
Even now, both my son and daughter come to me asking for advice on lots of things including clothes, sex and other stuff!
I consider myself to be a lucky man and is also educated enough to be able to live on my own if I had to.
And when my kids have their own, I will be proud to push them in their strollers or look after them when needed - I am not sooo 'manly' as to leave that just to the wife (even though I'm no fan of babies at all).
I have never really understood (and still don't) why all those I met and lived with in the US and some of my friends here still cling on to that ancient victorian ideology of the sexist role models of bygone years. I actually find it quite nauseating that they are too 'manly' or chauvanistic to cook the dinner or look after their kids or help to clean the house etc.
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