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| Could he really live without me? |
Do you ever wonder if your family could live without you? I
mean function as a unit through the mundane tasks of the daily grind? Do they
know how to switch on the washing machine, work the dishwasher and more importantly
know where to put the crockery afterwards?
I don’t think mine can, but it’s not as if I am one for
doing everything for them.
Quite the reverse. Get ‘em cooking, cleaning and doing the
housework as soon as possible is my motto. Every opportunity I have them hoovering
and dusting and helping me out but it obviously fails to sink in.
And as for my other half – don’t make me laugh.
He’s just come in complaining he can’t find any socks. What
DOES he do to them? He is always losing them.
I thought I had a fail safe system. I launder everything from
Sunday to Tuesday and dry it all ready for ironing on Wednesday. On Thursday
everything that isn’t being ironed is brought upstairs to be sorted. All odd
socks go to an odd-sock drawer which EVERYONE knows about. This means that
perfectly good socks are not thrown out when their pair goes missing for a
couple of months weeks. Once sorted all clothing is put on the beds of
each individual for them to put away in their chest of drawers and cupboards. So
if socks or indeed any other undergarment goes missing it has to be the
individual’s fault, for once it is in their room I take no responsibility for
it at all.
Still doesn’t seem to stop them all from yelling at me to
find everything for them. I wonder if they need their eyesight checked? Invariably
the thing that they are searching for so assiduously I find immediately.
Are males hardwired to be helpless? I always thought that
was what females were meant to be, or certainly that is the way it seemed in
the all the fairy tales that I read as a child, where princesses had to be
rescued from fire breathing dragons by knights in shining armour.
Or is it that males see the ‘whole picture, as my other half
so predictably says, that it is difficult for them to concentrate on the
details? Personally I’d have thought being able to feed oneself is a little bit
more than just a detail in one’s life.
I do know of females who make their menfolk totally dependent.
I find them weird and slightly creepy in a 'Stepford Wives' way.
It’s done so subtlety that the menfolk have no idea it is
happening at all. They don’t understand that their independence and free will
is quietly being sapped from them as they are offered slippers and ironed
newspapers, along with an evening whisky on their return from a hard day at the office
before a three course cordon bleu dinner by candlelight after which she asks
for NOTHING at all but to sit at his feet and listen in rapt wonder to his pronouncements
about the ‘State Of The World Today’.
Sort of Night of the Vampire Mummys…with Cath Kidson.
Scary.
No, I won’t let that happen to my boys, I’ll get them to see
that that sort of thing is just a honey trap to make their brains turn
to mush so that they can be manipulated by alien blond fluffy floozies whose
sole purpose is to take over the world for their own nefarious purposes – such
as making every girl in the world wear pink…
Not sure that any of that is clear but it makes up for the fact
that I was the ditzy brunette that drove the car into a puddle and wrote it off….
9 comments:
Hey - I resemble that remark!
No seriously - I have been trying to wean my men into independence for years and boy, it's hard work. The Ball & Chain does quite a bit around the house (mostly at the weekends when he doesn't have to multi-task) but I"m still the one who knows what's going on day-to-day and week-to-week. I need a wife!
When God made men She was only joking.
Expat Mum - What Stepford???!!!! Never! I think we all need wives....
Cait - SHE has a wicked sense of humour!
I am determined my boys are going to be doers. But as of yet they are not at the stage of putting their laundry away. However, they do sort the socks and sort the whites are darks too. Oh and they both cook with me at least once a week.
I want them to be competent. My otherhalf is great although god knows how he got so good as his mother was one of those, who did everything. He would take off his shirt and it would be laundered, ironed and hung on his door by the following morning!
I leave their piles of laundry on the stairs every day. As they arrive home they have to carry their possessions upstairs! I used to put it all away for them until I saw the way they searched for favourite items - husband included. Everything thrown out of the drawer, subsequent heap not replaced but slung into the laundry baskets to be rewashed. I rebelled as soon as I realised what they all did. I have a large basket for odd socks. Some of them are years old. Where do they go? And why are none of them mine?
It's in reverse in our household. My wife can leave stuff lting around for months. I've seen her step over stuff rather than pick it up and put it away. Don't get me started about Jr. He is his Mom's boy in many ways.
Too funny!! I have a step-son and I must be seen as the wicked witch because I am forever trying to get him to be more independant, while his mum panders to him--DESTROYING al my good work! One day he might see I was doing him a favour... or his future wife might. Or perhaps not, if my efforts are in vain!
Good post!
I thought at 17 my son would know how to do everything around the house but, I'm ashamed to say, the years have gone by and I still seem to be the only one who can work things. With our new boiler and kitchen 18 months ago, I learned how to work them, adjust timers etc but husband and son seem to think the new gadgets are alien to them. I think it's because I'm the one who's at home so i've drifted into housewife mode. Damn.
Very interesting blog. A lot of blogs I see these days don't really provide anything that attract others, but I'm most definitely interested in this one. Just thought that I would post and let you know.
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