True. True. Fresh, hot fried chicken served by pretty, fresh smelling women is part of what made America great!
There’s an episode of MST3k that includes a short (I know I watched this on DVD, but damned if I can recall what the main movie was) entitled A Date With Your Family that gives advice not unlike this at all.
I took an anthropology course in college on Born Again Christians. The reader included a modern set of guidelines for good Christian boys and girls that were completely baffling to myself and the people in my section. We spent some amount of time trying to decide whether or not it was a joke our professor was playing on us. I remember that there were lists of acceptable and unacceptable jobs for both boys and girls. The only things I remember are that it was unacceptable for boys to be secretaries or nurses (cause it’ll make you gay, I guess), and that it was unacceptable for girls to be…pretty much anything, really, but the best thing on the list? Zookeepers. Zookeeping is apparently an unfeminine occupation. Okay, then.
My parent’s have a copy of “Every Woman’s Enquire Within” from, I would think the 1940s or so as it was my grandmother’s. It has that whole spiel about preparing your house to welcome your husband home.
Some of its more out-there stuff has been burned indelibly into my brain:
The book suggests that you should wear a nice supportive girdle while you’re pregnant, and tells you that you’ll know you’re “expecting a blessing” by “those little feminine signs” and that childbirth might be “slightly uncomfortable and a little tiring”.
Og help you if you entered marriage with little knowledge about sex or reproduction and all you had to help was that book!
I could imagine the above text in a modern day Japanese school. More likely in the 80s, but still you could probably find it somewhere about.
The list definitely had a sexist tone to it, but I don’t find the basic principle behind it all that outrageous as long as it’s applied to both spouses equally. Don’t ever take the other for granted. When you’re a stay-at-home spouse, a messy house, no dinner plans, still being in sweats and the children are all dirty and unkempt is not a lifting sight for the working spouse when he/she comes home.
I don’t think it’s OTT at all; there are plenty of public information movies from that era at the Prelinger Archive (site appears unresponsive at the time of posting), espousing exactly the same lofty ideals for perfect wifely subservience.
Oh God no, if you are talking about Irish Girl’s quote! My kid has done something about sex every year of his three elementary years, and the first year was pretty graphic, with the teacher (young, male, poor man!!) waxing lyrical about chin-chins (penises) and chon-chons (which I had never heard before but it means “dip, dip” O.M.G!)
Last year in second grade they did about how the sperm meets the egg, and big kid came home and regaled little kid (then four) with all the details in the bath. Little one came out of the bath dripping wet and came to look for me, holding his balls. “Big kid says there’s seeds in there that will make a baby.” Yes, I agreed, there were. “Will the dentist cut them open and take the seeds out?” I hastened to reassure him (while thinking, - why the dentist?? -); “No, they’ll come out of there” pointing at the end of his willy. Four year old gets a look of absolute horror on his face and gasps, “They’ll never get out of THERE!!!” Turns out that he thought his entire ball was the seed. Oops. Scarred before he was five.
But that’s OK because last month at Kindergarten (He’s five now), they did about Mummies and Daddies cuddling up and making babies, and he brought home a most graphic picture book. He also woke up my husband (who had been away all week and had come home very late on Friday night) at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning with “Hello Daddy, have you been making babies?” Husband, with commendable politeness, said, “Good morning Little Kid” and then turned to me with a kind of “Unghh?” look on his face, but Little Kid saved me the trouble of explaining by saying, “Well, you ARE in the bed with Mummy so did you make a baby then?”
So I’d say that the future population of Japan is assured in my two, at least…
Yeah, I can attest to that. I went to a fundamentalist Christian school for five years. Their strategy was dual-- tell girls that the only suitable occupations are “mom” or “preacher’s wife” and give an education so poor in quality that it leaves little choice.
Distressingly, some of us girls indicated a desire to go to college, so they took us on a tour of a local Christian “college.” I kid you not that the only courses available to females were music, a diploma program for “Sunday School Teacher” and accounting. (To take care of your preacher-husband’s books, I assume.) Males had a wider range of courses available.
That fucking place stalked me for two years-- they were as pushy as bill collectors! Constant phone calls and letters . . . . one of them actually came to my house wishing to discuss my “academic goals.”
You might see the animals behaving in unChristian ways, my dear. Your lusts could be stirred by seeing a elephant’s willy. Really, the only poop you should be cleaning up is that of your own offspring.
Now, now, hush with that silliness about wanting to be independant and have a fulfilling career. You’ve been brainwashed by the Liberal Media, whose sole purpose is to serve Satan by encouraging the breakup of the Traditonal Family. Without proper guidance, you could go out to live on your own and before you know it, you’re a bra-burning lesbian.
The only way a woman can be truly fulfilled (though many poor souls fool themselves into thinking otherwise) is to keep a neat, decent Christian home for her husband and children. On occasion, should you wish to be more active, you can bake something for the church supper or witness to the neighbors.
Should you need any further advice, dear, feel free to ask.
Lissa, (who works, yet whose bra remains unburnt.)
Why should it be more difficult for a man to teach sex ed than for a woman?
Cite?
Have you ever seen a Promise Keepers pamphlet, or any kind of publication from Promise Keepers? Have you attended one of their events? Do you have any evidence that they are in any way pushing the kind of outdated, sexist agenda that you imply by this comment?
Because, I have - and they don’t.
Nothing personal, Miller, I just found your comment unnecessarily bigoted and condescending.
This may make me sound like a complete jerk but by the end of that list I was ready to marry whatever woman has those qualities. Imagine, you come home from a long day and get a nice hello, cool drink, and a little peace and quiet. I’m not saying someone should mistreat his wife but there’s nothing wrong with a little special lovin’ from your signifigant other. Come to think of it you could reverse the roles if mom works and dad does not.
It’s not. But this was a very young man, nervous all the time about everything, surrounded by 40 little children, and he was discussing male and female anatomy in some detail. And to make it worse, one of the lessons was on an observation day so he had the joy of 30 or so parents, mostly mothers, watching him squirm.
Well, now at least I am confident that my professor wasn’t playing a joke on us.
(Yikes!)
Okay then!
If I came home every day (hell, even most days) to a fresh-cooked meal, a clean house, and a cheerful, well-groomed husband, I’d be in heaven. Since my husband and I both work, it doesn’t happen quite like that, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all for the spouse who stays at home to be repsonsible for the cooking and cleaning. It’s the tone more than anything else (“Be glad you’ve got a man! Never complain!”) that bugs me.
Ah, no. I meant the OP text. :smack: Poor wording on my part.
Things like having dinner ready before he gets home, not complaining about anything when you great him at the door, etc. Certainly I’ve seen wisps of such ideas about in manga and anime and such, but it does seem to be mostly out of there by now.
Y’know, the funny thing is my wife does a lot of those things, and otherwise acts pretty old fashioned about roles. She cleans up and makes the kids look nice, and caters to me when I walk in the door.
At first, I was a little bit uncomfortable by it, and I suppose it can be demeaning. On the other hand, I don’t think many of you are grasping the other side of it.
There is a tremendous power in what she does.
We both know who wears the pants, and it ain’t me.
I’ll give you an example:
If I come home, and I am not greeted with a kiss, a clean house, and the kids waiting for me, I am in deep deep shit, not her.
I’d rather not hijack astro’s thread, if it’s all the same to you. If you feel strongly enough about the issue, feel free to start another thread to discuss it.
Ah well, that was a nice little hijack on my part then!..
Huh. I’ve got no problem with the “be considerate” portion of this message, but the whole “the person who stays at home doesn’t work” mentality is BS. Major BS-no matter who is doing the staying at home.
And this seems to me to be very idealized. Family dinners pretty much went the way of the dinosaur when the kids got into sports–and I (then a SAHM) got involved in committee work etc. Now I work PT and am looking at grad school, so everyone pitches into help. Teaches the kids responsiblity and courtesy etc as well.
Boys had to take Home Ec when I went thru and they learned alot. But there was an emphasis from the teacher on “gals, you show the guys how to preheat the oven” etc. It was assumed that the guys would be clueless and the girls up to speed–and teacher was pretty much accurate in that assumption.
Another girl and I were the first girls allowed to take shop in 8th in my middle school in 1975-76.
I dont’ see the “Rules” as over the top at all.