#Mike and Molly

One of the funny shows we are watching these days on TV is Mike and Molly. The last episode wasn’t funny at all. I found it annoying and disconcerting.

Anyone who hasn’t watched the show, here is a short blurb: Molly, who was supposed to be writing on her next book (she is a writer), hasn’t written anything for a couple of weeks. Instead she spent her days and evenings out on the town with her mother and sister. Consequently, she doesn’t do any housework, especially not cooking.

Mike gets upsets when he comes home after a day of work and finds nothing to eat.  When he confronts Molly, saying that since she hasn’t done any productive work she should at least be cooking for him.

Here is where the funny part stops. Molly mocks him, saying it is not a woman’s job to cook for her husband. In one scene she gets dressed up like a maid and serves him breakfast in bed, saying things like, “Is my husband happy with his wife who just exists to serve him,” and stuff like that.

She even gets Mike’s mother involved. When he visits his mother, she brings him a beer, asks if she should make him something to eat and draw him a bath, saying she just does her job as a mother, making sure her son is happy. Of course, he figures out that it was Molly’s idea to have his mother act that way.

That episode surely conveyed a wrong picture of how a marriage works, and writing about it got me thinking.

It just so happens that men are the physically stronger gender (usually) and the women are weaker. Men are good at certain jobs and women can do some jobs better. For thousands of years it has been that the men do the physically demanding work, the early men went on hunts, more modern men worked on jobs like plowing the fields with primitive tools, cutting down trees, building homes and jobs like that. Backbreaking work. Women took care of the household and the children. Equally hard work but not requiring too much physical strength.

These days, of course, most jobs are not as demanding when it comes to physical strength. Some jobs have disappeared, others were created. Anyone can sit behind a computer or a desk, be it a man or a woman. More women are now in the workforce than ever before. Responsibilities have shifted. Roles have changed. If a woman makes more money she may become the breadwinner and the man stays home to raise the children and do the housework. Nothing wrong with that.

What is wrong is when one partner stays at home and does nothing and still expects the working partner to pitch in with the housework, like cooking, cleaning up and doing the laundry. There usually is still plenty of work to be done in the yard, the garage, or there are other chores, anyway. Chores the man, if he is the breadwinner, does most of time without question.

No woman should be slave to a man and neither should a man be slave to a woman. Marriage is a partnership where both partners are equal and they both to their part. Each partner should want to do things for the other one not out of duty but out of love and respect. There should be no such thing as ‘This is not my job’. TV shows like the episode of Mike and Molly don’t help. The put the wrong thoughts into a woman’s head.

I am aware my views are considered old-fashioned. I still think a man should be out there working, while a woman stays home with the children. Women are better suited to take care of the children, because of the biological connection they have. A man can never have that. This also means she does the cooking and the housework. It seems to go hand-in-hand. Many so-called modern and enlightened women seem to think differently. I’m not talking about lesbians who are probably man-haters and can never see that a woman does something for man out of love and because she wants to please him. I’m talking about a normal woman.

Unfortunately, the old ways don’t work anymore. It is almost imperative that both parents work do bring in enough money to make it possible to live a comfortable life, unless a man has such a good-paying job that he earns enough funds.

There are many underlying problems that brought this about. People are too demanding. They want new cars, bigger houses, all the modern gadgets like cell phones, big screen TVs, the movie channels, going on trips, a cottage etc. The children are involved in all kinds of activities that cost a lot of money.

The result is family life suffers.

When both partners work and there are children, the children end up in daycare.

In my humble opinion that is so wrong. Children need the love of their mother and not a care worker—a stranger. When children come home from school, the mother should be there. They should not come to an empty house.

My thinking is this: If a woman wants to have a career, she shouldn’t have children, because there is no room in her life for a child. If a child is raised by a stranger how can a mother ever hope to bond with her child? The children grow up so fast and before parents realize it the children are teenagers who will go their own way. The parents completely miss out on the joy of having little children around them all day long, teach them and watch them grow up. There is not much of a connection between them.

Oh, I know, many people will not agree with me. Just as they won’t agree with me when I say a woman should cook a meal for her husband if she is staying at home.

My wife does, even though I am retired and at home now, also. There is still plenty of work for me to do around the house and in the yard, but I do help with the dishes and other things. Not because I have to but because I want to. I even cook the occasional soup ☺. I love making and eating soups. (Many times I still ask her for advice, because she is the better cook. She is a woman, that’s why).