Monday, April 21, 2008

Man of the House

I am not sexist. What I mean is that I don't believe that men and women have defined roles in a relationship. It was wonderful last week to come home each day after a hard days work to a home cooked meal prepared by my adoring husband during his vacation, but I did not expect him to cook a meal every night, nor do I expect him to do the laundry or mop the floors because he's home during the day. Now, if he feels moved to do so, I'm very much appreciative, but it's not something I expect him to do, nor do I expect him to take care of the yard. I know of a lot of couples where the female takes care of the "inside" of the house, while their husbands take care of the "outside". I feel that a relationship is give/take, an equal partnership. I may mow the yard, you can dust my piano, as long as the jobs get done, it's irrelevant who does them. There are no "male" jobs or "female" jobs. That being said, I do believe that there are certain things that men should do within the home. In specifics, two things. One, they should kill any and all sorts of insects and rodents, disposing of their remains. And secondly, they should empty the garbage. Now, honestly, I could do both of those things, if I absolutely had to, but I don't, so I won't. I can proudly report that tonight, my son, became the man of the house. Some sort of red waspy thing got into our home, no doubt because the boy left the stinking door open, but I digress. Anyhoo, as I am short of stature, it's hard for me to reach up to the ceiling to kill the nasty things, but tonight I managed to put the thing out of my misery. It fell to the countertops, and I covered it with a folded paper towel. I called the boy, he came, smashed his hand down on top of the paper towel making sure it was really dead, and he faithfully obeyed as I told him to dispose of the waspy thing. He complied so nonchalantly as if it was expected of him. And it's to the point where I don't even have to tell him to empty the garbage, it gets full, he empties it. Ahhh, he's been taught well. (By me of course :), only kidding, I know full well, his Dad has taught him, and very well I must add!)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice! I agree with you that the men should kill and dispose of the creepy-crawlies and flying things (especially those that sting or bite or have long tails), although I am capable of doing it myself...but I can't look at it while I'm squashing it...yuk.

Anyway, I think you and your hubby have trained your son well. Let's hope these lessons stay with him all his life.

Art said...

He did that only because he didn't want to get on your bad side;)

Stace said...

vicki- yeah, now if only he'd keep the laundry out from underneath his bed!

art- you're just saying that cuz as you like to say, "If Mama ain't happy, nobody's happy"... ;)

Anonymous said...

Hey, Stacie - "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" holds true in many households...including this one! ;)

Laundry under the bed...I solved that by putting a laundry basket in Ryan's room. Now it goes in the basket and never comes out. It's piled high and sitting in the laundry room when I go back to the house on weekends...very soon, it's just not gonna get done. I have to break that habit of washing every piece of dirty clothing I find...especially if it's Ryan's!

TJ said...

Too funny! Common argument in our house. I would like a bit more help, hubby says he'll help, but typically this means me leaving step by step instructions to make dinner, which may or may not actually get made. Or other times in his cleaning frenzy important things get tossed because they were just paper on the counter.

I was surprised to find the house cleaned before my vegas trip and for that I was thankful.

j said...

It is with much shame that I admit that I have undermined Hubby's attempts at a neat and orderly house hold. I am a messy and I can't seem to un messy. And the man has tried, I promise you. He really got gyped.

Bugs I can kill. Mice, um, not so much. And garbage being a man's job? I agree and Hubby doesn't.

Be blessed Stace.

Jennifer

Unknown said...

I couldn't agree more with this post! LOL

Thanks for stopping by my post. We had a really long talk last night, and while I still don't know where he is coming from or what he is worried about, at least we both got to talk, without hostility about what we are BOTH feeling.