Those were the days......

My boyfriends mom waits on her husband hand and foot and it drives me mad!! I feel like if we are both owrking then you can pitch in and help me out. If I cook you clena up hte kitchen after (that doesn't happen) if I do the laundery you put it away. 50/50. Lee knows not to expect me to cater to him in anyways. Sometimes I will bring him his plate or drink or whatever but not on a regular basis! That is crazy!

My hubby is disabled (he's an incomplete paraplegic), and I'm the one working at this time...I'm a special education teacher. He's good about keeping up with the laundry (as I really don't like doing it or putting it away), I do the dishes, I cook, and we are both 50/50 with our sons. As far as any deep cleaning or scouring that needs to be done, I WON'T LET HIM. No one showed him how to clean properly, and I just don't feel like something is clean unless it's cleaned by me.

Now, as far as dinner on the table waiting for ME, NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!! EVER!!! I'm the chef around here...

This article cracked me up! How times have changed? Who knew that in 2006, the wife could be the breadwinner and the hubby the "house-husband?"

Oh. My. God.



If my husband came home and found me doing any of these things, he'd probably have me committed.

Originally Posted by mamacat

Oh. My. God.

If my husband came home and found me doing any of these things, he'd probably have me committed.

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Mine would keep asking me if I was okay, then he'd get mad and say I was stealing all the chores. He likes to clean things, honest.

Originally Posted by lookingglass

Mine would keep asking me if I was okay, then he'd get mad and say I was stealing all the chores. He likes to clean things, honest.

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Actually, I am rarely allowed in the kitchen. He likes to cook and honestly he's way better at it than me.

I wish my husband likes to cook. He says the only thing he can cook is cheesecake...well I'm a little tired of cheesecake. If you can follow instructions you can cook! Well I can't complain completely. He does all the laundry. He learned to fold from his father who was in the military and he can't stand my non-chalant view to folding.

ok this might sound dumb but since i am still a kid. what was your child hood like?

Originally Posted by mamacat

Oh. My. God.

If my husband came home and found me doing any of these things, he'd probably have me committed.

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I agree. My husband would sneak away to the other room and call my mom or sister and be like, "Okay...so I came home from work and Emily is acting WEIRD. I think she may have ingested something toxic. Have you guys noticed anything strange?"

I honestly forwarded the link to this article on to every woman I know, and printed one to insert in with my best friend's wedding present as a joke. (She's getting married next week.)

Originally Posted by lookingglass

Mine would keep asking me if I was okay, then he'd get mad and say I was stealing all the chores. He likes to clean things, honest.

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Wow. That one's a keeper.

Stealing the chores, huh? Brilliant.

Originally Posted by SolarityBengals

he can't stand my non-chalant view to folding.

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Priceless!

Originally Posted by emily_325

and printed one to insert in with my best friend's wedding present as a joke. (She's getting married next week.)

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Good one!

I'll have to remember that idea for the future...

Originally Posted by wookie130

This article cracked me up! How times have changed? Who knew that in 2006, the wife could be the breadwinner and the hubby the "house-husband?"

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So true. So....now that hubby is retired and I'm the breadwinner, should I expect him to put a ribbon in his hair and touch up his make up before I return from work

Originally Posted by flisssweetpea

So....now that hubby is retired and I'm the breadwinner, should I expect him to put a ribbon in his hair and touch up his make up before I return from work

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steve woul rush me to the ER and ask i be comitted if i did stuff like that, LOL. i may be home most of the day but i work from home.

Originally Posted by Cat_eyes

ok this might sound dumb but since i am still a kid. what was your child hood like?

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I'm not sure for whom this was intended, but since I started the thread I will reply.

I had a very happy childhood, moving around all the time, very seldom in any one place for long. My father was a career military officer, and my mother was a housewife, and perfectly happy to be one. Dad was away an awful lot at sea, both before and after WWII. In fact, he was away at sea in the Pacific theater for the whole war. My mom, my brother and I took the first military dependents' ship back to Pearl Harbor when the war ended.

I guess I was so happy as a "service brat" that I married a career military officer myself. I, too, have always been very happy with my life as a housewife, raising three fine sons, and I always found that to be challenge enough. Like my life before my marriage, after Jim and I were married he, like my father, was away from home so very much. He was home for all of eight weeks during the first two years of our marriage, and that was just for starters. His eldest son was six months old when they first met. You might say that I did not have to "put a ribbon in my hair" very often during that first two years.

We moved around before Jim's retirement so much that that by the time that eldest son graduated high school he had attended more schools than he had grades. But the moving was another whole education for our sons -- one which many young people never have the chance to be exposed to. Our sons were always close, perhaps out of necessity, and to this day they are their own best friends. Their children's cousins are like sisters and brothers.

I shall never forget my late mother getting Jim and me aside privately just before our marriage and telling Jim that if I ever complained about his being away so much, as she knew he would be, to let her know and she would be on the next plane and put me over her knee and paddle me good. She really didn't have to say that, because I knew full well what my life would be like, and it was.

I never found it to be demeaning to be a housewife. I thought that was one of the most important and sometimes difficult jobs one could have. Of course I am dating myself, but I still feel that way. When Jim and I were younger there were not so many families with both the husband and wife working, and we know that things are different now. We have three lovely DIL's, all of whom are professionals and who are happy in their professions. The world changes.

Jim and I and our lovely Turkish Vans have lived on our beach now for five years since his retirement. This is the longest we have ever lived in the same town in our 47 years of marriage.

I wouldn't trade my life for any other. It was not right for everyone, but it was right for me.

All the best to you all,

Ann

All I have to say about that is,

Ann, thank you for sharing that. While not 'a kid' I am far to young to recongnise the time you describe except from history books - and it is so much more rewarding to hear someone's flesh and blood experience.

It's also nice to have a gentle reminder that while the advice in magazines may have been demeaning in 1955 (and in different, more insidious ways, remains today), the lifestyle it espoused is not.