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).
