Why, why, WHY do we mother them?

Sage_Planter · 2020-11-28T16:05:42+00:00

This is such a complex question, but if I were to take a guess, it's a combination of:

Traditional gender roles being forced on us since birth
Societal expectations that women are the more clean and organized partner so men feel like they can take a laid back approach, making women the household project manager
Emotional labor being seen as "women's work"
The state of the household, its décor and cleanliness, is seen as a reflection of the woman of the house, not the man of the house
The notion that we are taught doing these tasks (cooking, cleaning, errands) demonstrates both our love and our ability to be a good wife/mother one day
We take over because we want it done right (like you said)
Women hold ourselves to high standards

In these situations, it's always best to ask yourself "What happens if I don't do X?" We stress ourselves out trying to be the perfect partners who shop, cook, clean... but aside from the bare minimums, what happens if you let some of the other stuff slide?

LevelTurbulent · 2020-11-28T16:14:35+00:00

For me, the shit needed to get done. My husband was actually good in the beginning, that's how he got me. I didn't see the first red flag until we were married and I had our son. And even then, he got up in the night with the baby, he was helpful, he did things around the house. It was a very slow descent.

And it was things like, missing his mom's birthday. And then his mom was hurt and I felt bad so I started making sure "we" remembered it. And it just built from there.

They can do it themselves. When they're single, they don't get their electricity turned off and die in their dark apartments of starvation because they can't go to the grocery store and buy food. They CHOOSE to take their responsibilities and load them onto the back of a woman.

With my ex husband (married 20 years) I got sick and started having neurological difficulties. I would forget my own name at times. I was still the one who had to keep track of the bills and everything else. I started thinking he was the dumbest human being alive. I genuinely asked him a few times if he could have brain damage or mental retardation. Because how could he struggle more than someone having serious cognitive issues and being treated by doctors for it?

The answer is laziness. They are just that lazy. That's all it is. They are lazy children and if they can load all the parts of their lives they don't like onto a woman's back, they will do it. And if it breaks or kills the woman, they don't care, they'll just find another one.

Samvanderkamp123 · 2020-11-28T16:56:52+00:00

I think it is because the person who cares the most inevitably takes over.

If you read breaking mommy or the justnoso subs, the men will live in filth. There are women who literally can’t get men to take trash cans to the curb. These guys live on junk food. When they are tasked to look after their own children, they don’t change diapers or feed the children. They sit there gaming or staring at their phone.

So the woman is pretty much forced to take over. Many of them don’t want to mother these men but they are forced into that role.

wrice05 · 2020-11-28T17:01:28+00:00

Being trapped in the same boat as them will leave you with no other choice but to do things for them.

Make sure you’re in your own boat.

Never mother them. Apply awareness to every action you take. Is it mothering? Resist. Will they fail? That’s how they learn. Is it your problem? Make sure it’s not.

MelatoninNightmares · 2020-11-28T17:39:06+00:00

I agree with the stuff already stated here, but I think there's also an aspect of "the Golden Rule" taken way too far.

We would want our partners to remind us of stuff we forgot, to help us if we don't know how to do something, to handle stuff for us when we're busy, etc. So we do this one thing, and then this other thing, and then this other thing, and somehow those things become our responsibility and the man doesn't even try anymore.

It's kind of like "job creep." In the workplace, you agree to do something outside of your job description. Just this once, as an exception, because you're caught up and other people are behind, or because it's an emergency, or because you're going that way anyway. It's not a huge inconvenience for you, so you offer to be helpful and do your coworkers a favor. You'd want them to do the same, if the circumstances were reversed. But then it becomes part of your expected duties. Instead of being seen as you going above and beyond for doing it, now you're seen as slacking if you don't do it. (And of course, it never comes with extra pay.)

This happens in our relationships, too. You're at the store and see something his mom would love. Her birthday is coming up, and you're already here, so you buy it. In your mind, you were just being kind and helpful - you weren't going out of your way, it wasn't a major inconvenience, so why not? You'd want him to do the same. But now, in his mind, you've accepted responsibility for handling his mom's birthday. So he checks out. Next year comes around and you notice he still hasn't bought his mom a gift. You remind him, thinking maybe it slipped his mind. He says, "Oh yeah, she loved what you got her last year. You're so much better at this than me, will you handle it?" Now you're in a double-bind. If you say no, that's not your job, he'll point out that you did it last year, why won't you do it this year? If you say yes, you'll be handling his mom's birthday forever.

And he does this with everything. You pack him a lunch because you're already making yours and it's no extra work to make a second one - you'd want him to do the same for you, right? Now he knows you'll make his lunch for him, and he stops making his own lunch. His clean laundry is in a basket that you need. You could just dump the clothes out, but you fold them and put them away, because that's what you'd want him to do for you. Now he knows you'll put his laundry away for him if he leaves it long enough, and he stops putting his own laundry away.

Why do men act this way? Because they are lazy, and because they've been taught all their lives to expect this kind of treatment from a woman. Women don't expect this treatment from men - we fall all over ourselves when a man doesn't make extra work for us, much less helps us with our workload. We treat men the way we want them to treat us, but they don't treat us that way. By the time we realize they're never going to reciprocate that effort, we're in deep and it seems shallow to break up/divorce over "petty" things like the fact that he never irons his own clothes, or he won't do the dishes without being asked. And even HVM will do this, if you let them.

There are two ways to avoid this problem with a man:

First, just don't do it. Ever. Don't match his socks, don't pack his lunch, don't remind him of his mom's birthday, don't ever do it. (This is ideal for dating, but may be impractical once you're married or have children - sometimes it's more efficient to split domestic labor by type.)

Or, keep a careful ledger in your head, and never agree to a responsibility for him unless he's handling an equal one for you - and get his first. He does dishes? Okay, you'll iron his work shirts. He wants you to be "household manager" and keep track of what everyone needs and when all the appointments and birthdays and holidays are and when all the bills are due? He better be handling the routine daily tasks. And be willing to stop doing your tasks if he stops doing his. This is a very transactional approach to take, but it's the only way to keep a mostly equitable division of labor.

heythere360 · 2020-11-28T16:54:41+00:00

They need mothering if they’re still boys. But I will say that oldest siblings (especially women and girls) are usually very responsible and nurturing. Tbh y’all usually can’t help but to be that way based on your up bringing so I’d advise you to reflect on how you choose partners and how you treat them at the beginning. It will probably take conscious effort to scale back your natural mothering tendencies. The earlier you display them the more entitled to it they get. Choose a man who can prove he can take care of you and himself.

That means not cleaning for him and cooking for him in the beginning of the relationship or even before marriage. If you both are working then you both need to take care of your own responsibilities. Back in the day if you wanted a woman to cook and clean for you you married her, went off to war and died. Now these scrotes expect the work of a stay at home mother to be done by working women while the men do nothing. Nope.

As the youngest child, I’ve never felt the need to go above and beyond for a man, but I’ve always had the longest and healthiest relationships of any of my siblings.

I’ve also noticed women who are oldest children have a harder time accepting men paying for all the dates and courting them. I really admire you a independence and overall baddassery cause you all keep the world spinning. But keep in mind that being in control of everything has a down side. You’ll be exhausted quickly and then turn around and get frustrated when those around you don’t feel the same urgency that you do to take care of themselves. Leave them to do it in the first place, and leave them all together if they can’t.

elvn-elvn · 2020-11-28T16:40:51+00:00

An offshoot of this that I’ve been curious about—I noticed in my last relationship, and probably with lots of men before him, I found certain childish behaviors cute and endearing. Things like little incompetences or being scared easily and stuff like that? I don’t know what it was that socialized me to think that being childish or lazy was cute, they got us bad lol

failuretolaunchbf · 2020-11-28T17:10:42+00:00

[deleted]

Dontstopmenow2021 · 2020-11-28T17:26:47+00:00

I think the root of it is your familial upbringing. You mentioned you had to mother your siblings, I did not and as a result I have never mothered a guy. In fact I was oblivious of the male bumbler until I met one of those whom I liked a lot, but his lack of basic skills was a huge turn off. All of my exes cooked for me, knew how to clean and were very tidy. They also had no pb planning things and I was usually in the passenger seat.

DelicateDream · 2020-11-28T20:02:49+00:00

I think it’s because girls are raised to please people and be cooperative and consider feelings - aka sacrifice ourselves for the greater good. We’re shamed if we don’t.

We’re also more likely to be shamed for not being domestic. We’re even told this is what we’re naturally good at. Hence women taking care of the daily drudgery while men get to explore, create, compete, etc (well, the top men... LVM just, er, relax).

I disagree that women naturally do domestic things better, just as men aren’t naturally better at math, science or innovation. LVM want you to think that. It’s learned helplessness or deliberate strategy to get out of boring responsibility. Many men want power but not responsibility. If they do stuff wrong that they don’t want to do, then they count on a woman taking it over. Some article I read cited a study showing men DO see clutter or dirt as much as women. But they don’t care because they aren’t shamed for it.

Pickmeishas also deep down like helpless men they can feel superior to. It feeds their ego. It makes their ability to do laundry correctly seem like an achievement because silly boys can’t do it. Notice how often dads are presented as the fun but incompetent parent? Whereas mom is the no-fun hardass tasked with all the caretaking and disciplining. Coincidence? Nope. Men set it up to look like they’re good at the fun stuff and helpless with the boring tasks. They’re eternal boys exploring life and we’re supposed to be amused and support their ideas in the background.

Women are sold the idea they’re the noble ones who can actually do these tasks right and who are willing to self sacrifice. And there you have “martyr mom”.

Hold men to higher standards and firmly believe if they don’t do it, it’s because they don’t want to, not because they can’t. And if they don’t want to, then they have no reason to be in your life.

pacificat · 2020-11-28T16:48:11+00:00

I don't know. But I feeling particularly positive today and think I can channel some of that energy into "mothering" myself. My phone therapy appointment was cancelled this week. Maybe it's easier to do things for others than myself

level_up_always · 2020-11-28T18:41:07+00:00

its literally brainwashed from birth via the media, societal expectations etc. whatever mothering instinct we may have naturally is twisted to cater to men instead of our children like it's supposed to be. and the opposite is true for men they are socialized to expect this from us.

thinktwiceorelse · 2020-11-28T17:45:27+00:00

I think it's also because women are hard working. We love improving things. I don't know if it comes natural to us, or if we're conditioned by society, but I feel restless if I just chill on a couch while everything around me is falling apart. Men feel perfectly okay doing nothing, but we have to force ourselves to sit down sometimes. When I put my energy into something else, like work, projects, hobbies etc., I completely stopped mothering my ex partners. Which they obviously didn't like at all.

yesmme · 2020-11-28T17:04:52+00:00

I’m not entirely sure either. It could be the whole bullshit Ladies Home Journal nonsense that had been indoctrinated into women for decades, centuries. It could be PickMeism (but that pretty much goes hand in hand with insisting that women should not work outside the kitchen)

But I’m also a messy person because of being disabled so where I fail in the domestic sphere, a man makes up for it. (I do keep things tidy enough to avoid turning plates into petri dishes and avoid turning my living space into a home for various other creatures)There’s no room in my life for a man to be lazy as fuck but I know that some men are LV or NV enough to allow themselves to live in a festering hole. Thankfully I haven’t come across men like this.

I also don’t come from a culture that emphasizes gender roles and I also somehow meet men in North America who pull their weight. My father also pulls his weight so any lazy fucking manchildren stick out like a sore thumb to me. As dates/relationships, none last for me. I’ve had misogynistic roommates from all over Europe who expected the female housemates to clean for them and to pick up after them and us women were like “fuck no. You’re a grown ass man.”

I also don’t have the instinct to mother them. It is literally foreign to me and is cringe and uncomfortable for me to do.

annrike1 · 2020-11-28T17:28:07+00:00

Today I was talking to a male friend (20 yo) about his mother entering the work place again, 40 hours a week. He said he did not want her to get back to work.

At first I thaught it was cute, I asked if he would miss her. He said no and I quote "She won't cook anymore."

This woman gave up her career in biochemie (or how it is called) . Bha.

I think the social programming starts young.

Wkndwhorechata · 2020-11-28T17:30:56+00:00

Just like men, we like to feel needed. It makes us feel like we're in a more secure relationship.

Title	Why, why, WHY do we mother them?
Author	wrice05
Upvotes	190
Comments	42
Date	November 28, 2020 3:53 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/k2pxad/why_why_why_do_we_mother_them/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/why-why-why-do-we-mother-them.732659 https://theredarchive.com/post/732659

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