Ask a straight white female anything.

Men are by nature, natural cooks.

Guys love to build things up such as turning battered jalopies into 1960s style hot rods. They like to build up dog houses for the family pet, or doll houses for their daughters.

Well, foods need to be built up as well. A large casserole dish, a birthday cake, a well roasted turkey with all the trimmings - all need to ''built up'' just like a doll house. This is why when guys take up cooking they generally excel in doing so.


This is why moms/grandmas need to teach their sons/grandsons to cook!



Now my question to Pipette: how do we get more women to realize this and to go about teaching their kids like Hummingbird and others did?

 

Sorry to hear about your friend. Yes, Animal Planet is another one. I love nature shows too.

 

Yup! And I learned the trick to that is to clean up as you're cooking so at the end there's not much to clean up....but then, I also had 2 daughters to do that chore. If they wanted my manicotti, they had to earn it - lol.

 

My son flirted with the idea of going to chef school. He opted for heavy construction instead.
I used to cook baked goods for a farmer's market in my home town. I would start baking on Thursday night, and baked all day Friday. Come Saturday, I would have pies, cookies, zucchinni bread, banana nut bread, cinnamon rolls and cheese rolls. I would sell out every Saturday. I made some good money doing that. I have always loved to bake.

 

The one thing I hate is cooking with dough. I always cheat and by the already made frozen pie crusts that you just thaw and unroll into the pie pan! Those are great! Lol. Anyway I can get around having to work with dough!

 

Same with me. I am a good cook but I dread the clean-up. I have this thing about emptying the dishwasher. I simply hate it.

 

The picture is kind of cute. Buy I wonder how "cute" the girls would be if they couldn't use their little phones for days--like after a major mass coronal ejection, or something? I think they would go through withdrawals.

 

I generally leave the table with a full tummy and am just too tired to wash my dishes after a meal. So what I do is, put the plates and cookware in my sink, douse them with dish soap and some water, and just leave them in the sink while I sleep off my fatigue and enjoy the food that's in my tummy.

A couple of hours later, I'll finally get to washing the dishes/cookware.

 

hahahahaahahahaha...what a joke.

I'm a feminist. To me that means, that I have been given the opportunity from generations of women that have come before me to have the right to not be nothing more than chattel to a man and can earn a living to support myself. It means, I can use my talents and my intellect in the manner that most fits my skills and not have to fit into only one particular role which may or may not work for me.

I was taught by my mother that there is pride in work ethic and self-reliance. I don't need to leech off of a man because I can't take care of myself. More importantly, when I had children, I knew it was my DUTY to ensure that I could financially take care of those children in the event of death or divorce of my spouse. There's a reason why there are massive amounts of women and children living in poverty.

My husband loves that I work. He doesn't want to have the financial burden solely on his shoulders. That's not fair to him and wouldn't allow him to spend as much time with our girls. He wanted to be a father...not a work slave. And my kids need both of us. They need our time and attention and they need to know they can rely on us if the other one isn't around.

That being said, cleaning my home...cooking healthy meals for my family...ensuring that our home is organized and well-run....gardening...knitting....these are all very important things to me but they're things that don't require any higher level thinking. They are far more mundane, fun tasks than working and earning a living is. I literally clean my house while listening to music with ankle weights on. Sometimes I have a glass of wine when I do it. Its easy and I don't have to think. To equate this with working from a mental challenge standpoint is absolutely ridiculous. That isn't to say its not valuable...particularly for working women...having a well-run house is important. But it is not an intellectual challenge and doesn't enrich your long-term intelligence and skill set. In fact, when I do volunteer work at my daughter's school and meet women that stay at home all day, I admit that I find it challenging to find things to even talk to them about.

I also find your stance about dumping kids off simply insulting and ridiculous. Most women (and men) in the working world that I know do a lot of things to ensure the maximum amount of time spent with their kids. My company allowed me flex hours with my first child...my husband did the same thing... and since I was higher up in the company when I had my second, I was actually able to take her into work with me for half a day and worked the remaining half day at home. When travelling for work, grandparents would help out but I never once dropped my kids off at a daycare...and many working women use daycare only as they have to. They flex their time, they work later hours, they work part-time....but what they don't do is say its ok for them to not be educated and have up-to-date employment skills. For most working women I know, being financially self-sufficient is about responsible parenting and responsible adulthood. There are a lot of women that find that being an adult financial dependent shameful.

And by the way, a lot of men happen to like women that earn a living. They contribute to the finances in the household. It gives both spouses more common ground and understanding of roles when they're sharing them. I've heard sooo many stories of women who stay at home all day and their husbands literally complain that they don't really do anything. And that's because...lets be honest...cleaning a home and watching children (unless you have a lot of kids or kids with challenges) simply doesn't take a whole day. My home is spotless and I've raised one daughter and have another teenager and there's no way that I could spend my entire day managing a house. It just doesn't take that amount of time. And I have zero interest in watching TV half the day, or gossiping, or spending someone else's money shopping, or letting my intelligence and skills atrophy just because I can't be bothered to get off my arse and be a real partner to my spouse and a responsible mother to my children.

So my idea of "wifely duties" are definitely more expansive and less stereotypical of yours....but that's because I think better of women than you do. I think women are amazing and have the ability to be more and live up to ALL of their capabilities.

 

As I mentioned before, my youngest son flirted with the idea of being a chef. He experimented with a few things, but that was he own idea. If I would have asked him to cook something he would have run away. Girls are really the same way, they have to want to learn it. It is kind of like sewing. I wanted to learn, and have never regretted it. I am quite proud of some of the things I have made. I used to make my kids shirts and pj's and such, but most girls today would not be caught dead sewing. They don't have the time anyway. They are on facebook, (the spell checker insists I should capitalize "facebook", but I refuse) and their cell phones every spare minute. Sigh. What is the world coming to?

 

lol, I don't know any women that do this. But I also wouldn't tolerate this kind of nastiness from anyone I know.

I have a high standard of quality for my friends and family. I have no issue with not associating with people that engage in this type of behavior. Loyalty and kindness is important to me.

I would also never tolerate my kids treating anyone this way. I was taught at a young age not be gossipy and mean.

 

My mom was a working mom of 5 kids, we all learned to cook, sew and knit. That includes both of my very manly brothers.

I'm a career mom with two girls. They can cook, garden, can, and one can knit...I'm still teaching the youngest. They also know know to change the oil in a car, ceramic tile, paint and figure out what to do under circumstances around the house (ie, power failure, burst pipe, etc). If I had boys, I'd ensure they knew the same life skills. They also know how to manage money...we started that lesson very early.

Teaching self-sufficiently to children has zero to do with staying-at-home all day long.

 

You really hate cellphones, huh?

 

I was briefly acquainted with a lady who had the exact opposite experience. She and her husband were hard core workaholics and spent much time away from home. Because of this they decided to have only one child. When her son was about 10 she encouraged him to learn how to cook. A few years later when he was about 13 or 14, the kid asked, "Mom, what's for dinner?". She had come home from work exhausted and said she would prepare dinner after taking a nap (her husband was very busy at work and would not come home for a few hours more). The lady took a nap and, when she awoke, found that her son had prepared a fabulous meal and that the table was all set for her.

Needless to say she was quite happy to have encouraged her son to learn how to cook.

 

When I was married, I went back to school, got a degree and went back to work. Staying at home was getting boring and 'housewife' is the least appreciated job there is. I worked in a medical lab where everything had to be extremely precise, and you had to be good at what you did. I loved the work; and for me, it was easier than staying home.

My children were still really young when I went back to school and work. After a bad experience with one day care (my youngest contracted TB--true story), I shopped around and made sure their daycare was safe and challenging for them, as opposed to the ones where the kids just sit and watch TV all day. Some paydays I would end up with a paltry $400 after paying my daycare tab. Then I had to spend money commuting, and had to buy clothes, and all the other expenses involved in working. By the time I had everything paid for, I probably had a few hundred left out of my paycheck. In the meantime, I didn't get to see my children all that much, and my house went to hell. For me, working wasn't worth it.

There are a lot of woman who have college degrees, and who are intelligent with intelligent, interesting things to say who decide to stay home instead of joining the rat race, and "dumping" their kids off at daycare. It is ridiculous, and insulting for you to insinuate that stay-at-home moms are stupid and boring.

Of course, there will always be those super-duper feminist, super moms like you who can balance a full-time job, and be successful in the working world too. As for myself, two small children, 17 months apart was a lot of work. Then when they got older, they played every sport there was. I was busy with that seven days a week. They got to do this because I was not working and had the time to run them to practice, games, music lessons, etc.

- - - Updated - - -

Good story.

 

I hate phones period. I have what could be called phonophobia. Even as a teenager, the only time I talked on the phone was to make arrangements and stuff like that. No small talk. I have probably not answered the phone when it rang more than I have answered it.

I still have my same old dumb phone, and it works just fine for me. I probably spend about 20 minutes a month on it. LOL

 

I would have thought the additional income was more decisive than how easy it is to work vs being a homemaker..

 

I was pretty lucky. When my son was young, I was able to work at home and set my own hours so I had the best of both worlds.

 

same here, Born heterosexual, no choice in that matter

 

That would have been the best of both worlds; but only after they started school. They were a handful when they were young.

 

Again, I don't know many working women that "dump" their kids anywhere. They work to support their husband and their families because they consider it their parental and spousal duty to be able to financially contribute to the household.

I didn't say stay-at-home moms were stupid or boring. What I DID say is that the duties generally required in staying at home all day aren't mentally enriching and doesn't increase one's skill set....because they don't. And they also generally aren't a full-days work. Your presumption that working women don't value their children, their homes, and their kids developmental health is outrageous.

And the idea that working women don't run their kids to lessons and extra-curricular activities is total nonsense. Both of my kids are bi-lingual thanks to language lessons, my youngest plays piano, and does ballet...my oldest is a black belt, thanks to years of Karate lessons. And I have volunteered at my kids' schools for years. I also can afford to donate to the school...so I do that too...thanks to the fact that I actually work for a living.

Like I said, I think more of women than you do. I believe they're capable of being more than just one limited thing in life and I think that they have the right to reach for those goals and challenges wonderful. I know a lot of working women that are amazing mothers and wives and who's husbands and children value them for ALL the contributions they make. And they also take great pride in their careers and their financial contributions and not being a financial dependent.

 

As more and more women enter the workforce, companies are changing their policies for both genders to make it easier to work and raise kids. Technology makes it pretty easy to work remotely.

Last year, one of my male employees ended up getting a work-at-home deal that I helped him work out. His wife had just gotten out of medical school and couldn't stay home...so he did. He just came back to work full-time with split hours and he's a great dad. The two women in my group both work adjusted hours so they be home for bus time.

Most working people I know simply adjust and once kids are in-school, most women I know don't want to sit around all day.

 

Geez, sit around all day? I can barely find the time between work, sleep and cleaning to get everything done. I would love to have a vacation from my daily grind.

Right now, I'm doing the dishes and the laundry. Thanks be for dishwashers.

 

You more or less just said it again. I read more books at home while my kids were napping, or at school than I did while I was in school. I am probably more well read than you. Do you think stay at home moms just sit there drooling all day? In fact, they have more opportunity to enrich their lives than someone who does the grind all day at work.