Things women help men with

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You know, now that I re-read that post…I see what you mean.

I could have written it a while ago which is probably why I didn’t recognize the bitter quality. I don’t feel that way any more, because I am not a victim.
I’ve reread it and still have no clue as to what he is talking about. Of course me being a stay at home dad could mean I have a better understanding then he does.
 
We do all kinds of hidden chores that never get seen, but would be noticed if they were NOT done.

We cook and do dishes on Sundays so that the rest of the family still has their day of rest while we rarely get one. Same with holidays: we cook the big Christmas dinner, the big Easter dinner, buy and wrap most of the gifts, while the rest of the family enjoys their holiday.

There are no definite hours to our jobs; we are the go-to person for kids who are sick or have bad dreams, and if we work outside the home we are likely to be the ones to stay home if there is a sick child. We clean up the vomit, change more diapers, bandage more cuts. If we have a career, it is generally the one that is the first to go if family needs require it. Or we take dull, underpaid part-time jobs that are an insult to our intelligence and skills, to help the family finances. A lot of Moms end up working at McDonalds or convenience stores or cleaning offices because they abandoned their careers to have children, then the family needed more money; or because they are caring for kids all day and must go off at night to work, already exhausted.

We do the school fundraisers, the craft fairs, the bake sales, the carpooling. We cook for the potlucks **so the men can enjoy them. When company comes, we cook it, we serve it, we decorate for it, so you can sit at the table and enjoy it. **

If we are at-home Moms, we may also be homeschooling our kids, which means we do TWO unpaid jobs simultaneously. Vacations are usually “on the job.” We usually do the homework help.

(It’s not that men do none of these things; but we do them far more often.)

We bear children and have to watch our bodies change in order to give life to, and nurture, other living beings. Then we worry about whether we are still attractive to our husbands in nursing clothes, clothes with spit-up, new bulges that come from giving birth, no time or freedom to fix our hair or put on make-up, sleep deprivation, self-immolation. Our sacrifices multiply and our lives change radically with each new child, the demands upon us increase, while the husband goes to the same job each day and for those 8 hours his life is pretty much as it’s always been.

Those are a few just off the top of my head.
I’ve highlighted all the phrases that seem to be somewhat bitter or grudging in nature. It’s possible the poster didn’t even realize that attitude crept in, but if you look at the post, it’s pretty negative about what the wife does v. what the husband does. I am NOT saying she’s wrong - on the contrary, she’s probably dead right about most of it.

One reason I am very grateful that I have been able to be home with my kids and mostly not work outside of the home. I would not deal very well with having to work in a paying job and then come home to all the work at home on top of it. Some women can handle it; I know my own limitations.
 
Sure, it doesn’t sound bitter at all.:rolleyes:

Yeah, there is no chip on her shoulder. You’re right. As a matter of fact, it sounds like she thinks men are really great beings who do a lot to contribute to families and society and she certainly harbors no resent for them. [/sarcasm]
With the exception of the line about work that “jobs that are an insult to our intelligence and skills”, a lot of grateful husbands could have written that, no sarcasm intended…and they usually add, in amazement, that their wife is somehow cheerful through all of it.

That old saw about a woman’s work never being done is simply the way it is in a lot of households.

Having said that, most of those are the things a mother does. The other thread was about what college age men do. No comparison!!

If the two threads compared mothers and fathers, there would be more parity, because fathers definitely go out and take whatever work is need to put food on the table, sometimes two jobs so that their wives can be with their young children. They might work all day and then come home and work more around the house, they spend holidays hanging lights that they don’t think need to be there and summers painting rooms that they think look fine, they spend Christmas Eve assembling toys that come with faulty instructions, they make sure that the oil in the cars actually gets changed and the headlights and taillights are fixed when necessary, because their wives don’t do anything other than put in gasoline and drive, they teach their sons to play football and trade shifts so they can go to every game only to see their son wave “Hi, Mom!” from the end zone…both would say it is all worth it, but marriage and family really does require a willingness to sacrifice.
 
Hey 28562! How about adding something nice to the thread as well. I didn’t think this was a debate. Go on, say something nice about women, you can do it. 👍
 
I’d like to meet some of these hard working women. Ought to put one in a museum so everyone can have the pleasure of seeing one once in their life.
 
I’ve highlighted all the phrases that seem to be somewhat bitter or grudging in nature. It’s possible the poster didn’t even realize that attitude crept in, but if you look at the post, it’s pretty negative about what the wife does v. what the husband does. I am NOT saying she’s wrong - on the contrary, she’s probably dead right about most of it.

One reason I am very grateful that I have been able to be home with my kids and mostly not work outside of the home. I would not deal very well with having to work in a paying job and then come home to all the work at home on top of it. Some women can handle it; I know my own limitations.
Sounds like some combination of:

A. is venting
B. feels underappreciated
C. hasn’t yet accepted that life is hard, get over it, and own it
D. has a geniunely lazy man
 
Hey 28562! How about adding something nice to the thread as well. I didn’t think this was a debate. Go on, say something nice about women, you can do it. 👍
I have no issue with saying nice things about women! I’m no card carrying member of the He Man Woman Haters Club.😃

Ok, so…things women help men do…
  1. Having kids
  2. Raising kids
  3. Budgeting
  4. Cooking
  5. Home decorating
  6. Orgasms
  7. Being the ‘heart’ of the household
  8. Picking out curtains
  9. Making sure we have things to do on Saturday afternoon
  10. Going Gray
  11. Losing hair
  12. Being [overall] better men
  13. Spending money
  14. Filling the shoe closet
  15. Migrating our clothes to the hall closet
  16. Filling the shower drain with hair
  17. Make us feel special
  18. Wash our trucks in bikinis
  19. Giving us something nice looking to come home to after work
  20. Staying cold in bed (sheet thieves!:mad:)
:tiphat::whistle::coolinoff:

hehehehe…😃
 
I’d like to meet some of these hard working women. Ought to put one in a museum so everyone can have the pleasure of seeing one once in their life.
Do you realize how offensive this post is? Especially considering the thread it is on? Please do not make such derogatory comments about women. It is neither true nor charitable.
 
I’d like to meet some of these hard working women. Ought to put one in a museum so everyone can have the pleasure of seeing one once in their life.
Things women help men with- putting up with lame jokes and some men’s need to be [censored].
 
Inspired by THIS THREAD.

What do women help men with, that we men should appreciate?
To get back to your question based on college age men and women and not wives and mothers…:rolleyes:

Women will tell you when the shirt you are wearing is okay but that you looked much better in x when you wore it. Helping your fashion sense without hurting your feelings.

They bake you cookies for helping them by killing spiders, moving heavy furniture or walking you home from night classes.

They will help you go shopping for gifts for your family when you have no idea what to get.

Tell guys to knock it off when they carry a joke against other guys too far. Or are just being jerks to each other.

They will go get you food when you are too sick to get it for yourself.

They will sit through a guy movie, or a sporting event they don’t really like, because they just like being with you and spending time with you.
 
It is great that women want to empower themselves and they should. I do think post #3 expressed many of women’s hardships but made it appear as if men have some kind of care free life. The only one thing that can be attested to as unique to women is giving birth, otherwise some generalizations have been made. I appreciate women and thank God they provide the balance (in most cases) that makes life beautiful.
 
Two days ago I was Sidewalk Counseling at the local Planned Parenthood. One of the Coalition for Life workers was there, and is very pregnant. This is summertime, and it is in southeast Texas, so if you don’t already know, it was probably around 100 degrees with high humidity (no exaggeration). This woman turned to me and said, “If you are ever a father, be really, really nice to the woman who bears your children.”

I think, after that, nothing more needed to be said.
 
To get back to your question based on college age men and women and not wives and mothers…:rolleyes:

Women will tell you when the shirt you are wearing is okay but that you looked much better in x when you wore it. Helping your fashion sense without hurting your feelings.

They bake you cookies for helping them by killing spiders, moving heavy furniture or walking you home from night classes.

They will help you go shopping for gifts for your family when you have no idea what to get.

Tell guys to knock it off when they carry a joke against other guys too far. Or are just being jerks to each other.

They will go get you food when you are too sick to get it for yourself.

They will sit through a guy movie, or a sporting event they don’t really like, because they just like being with you and spending time with you.
Some of them will go along with your fart jokes and pranks. :rolleyes: Mostly, the ones who had brothers, because they already know your mental age is stuck at 6. LOL

They will fuss over you and recommend that you get galoshes because some of the campus floods when it rains. You will of course, ignore that recommendation because…guys don’t wear rain boots!
 
I’d like to meet some of these hard working women. Ought to put one in a museum so everyone can have the pleasure of seeing one once in their life.
Hmmm…don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you’ve put enough attitude on display that the feeling isn’t mutual? :rolleyes:
 
Dear 28562,
There was no bitterness in my post. I did not say my children were not WORTH the sacrifice of being a mother. Nor did I say my husband was not worth the sacrifices I make for him. But it does not mean they are not sacrifices. Of course they are. I think what you find so shocking in my post is that I am actually naming real-life sacrifices a great many women make but no one mentions because no one notices or values them. So to actually hold them up to the spotlight seems like bitterness when it’s really just shedding light on reality. Actually, what we are called to in Christian marriage IS sacrificial love. If we only gave to each other what was easy or pleasant or didn’t require much effort, it wouldn’t be much of a gift, would it?
 
Dear Post #32,
I recognize that I made some generalizations, but as I said in my post, I think most of the things I mentioned are done by women. It is a rare man who bakes for the bake sale, cooks on the holidays, or is the primary person a child in need comes to at all hours. Not unheard of, but come on, you can’t deny it is not the norm. I think it is more generally true that men’s “job descriptions” are more narrowly defined than women’s. Especially these days when many women work AND are the primary homemaker and/or parent. Or when they care for kids, are the primary homemaker, AND homeschool-- especially homeschooling multiple kids of varying ages. I think it is very rare for a man to take on that role.

And-- do not underestimate childbearing. You sort of pushed that off as an isolated example of something women do but men don’t. Childbearing is an enormous, all-encompassing task that affects every area of our lives, again without “limits.” Nine months of morning sickness, exhaustion, wearing maternity clothes, often while struggling to keep up all our other duties, followed by the pain of childbirth, then either nursing for a few months to a couple of years which means being with the infant 24/7 or pumping breastmilk, and usually being the primary parent…caregiver…housekeeper…cook…and so forth…The point is, we pretty much have no limits on what we are called upon to do.

Women’s lives change much more than men’s when a child enters the picture. I have three kids. My husband has been working at the same job for the 12 years during which our kids have been born. He goes to the same office and sits at the same desk for the same 8 hours. That is not a criticism or complaint; it is a simple reality. His life for most of the day is exactly as it was before we had children. In that same time, my duties have increased in virtually every area. On virtually the same income he had 12 years ago (despite tiny raises, it has not increased commensurately with our growing family; he gets “cost of living” increases but not “you have three more children now” increases), I have to feed and clothe three more children, cook three times the food, do three times the laundry, pick up three times the mess, wash three times more dishes, teach three different grades, and have three times less free time. Again lest another writer accuse me of bitterness, I am not bitter, I am just stating the facts.
 
Then you should talk to your husband about picking up some of the slack around the house to help you out a little bit.

A father and husband’s life isn’t as carefree as you make it out to be.😉
 
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