It's kind of like the way that my brother gets pissed off when someone says that he's "babysitting" his daughter. He says "I'm not "babysitting", I'm parenting my child!"

This terminology - fathers "babysitting" their own children - makes me see red.

I think everyone would appreciate coming home to a meal already prepared and waiting, but that doesn't mean it's some sort of entitlement for omnivorous husbands :)

Totally this. On the rare occasions when DH is home early and I'm working late, I love coming home to an already prepared dinner. But it's not a situation either of us is allowed to take for granted.

(And in practice, since DH is skittish about cooking anything other than the five or six dishes he knows really well, I'm much more likely to come home to a clean house and some nummy takeout, which is JUST FINE TOO.)

What I really need is a full time housekeeper who can also go shopping for me when I realize I've forgotten to buy milk or garlic or (like today) flank steak. (We're having flank steak sandwiches tonight. I bought everything I need for the sauce and the marinade. I bought pita bread. Guess what I didn't buy?) So I think the sensible solution is for me to become fabulously wealthy overnight.

I think everyone would appreciate coming home to a meal already prepared and waiting, but that doesn't mean it's some sort of entitlement for omnivorous husbands :)

Yep. What grates is when it's a gendered entitlement -- the ready meal is all good.

I got lucky. My MIL, who is in almost every way a very traditional gender roles type, married a man who couldn't and WOULD not cook, clean, or do anything else to help around the house. So, since FIL turned out to be unteachable, she decided that her son wasn't ever going to pull that crap on the woman he grew up to marry and taught him to be a little more self-sufficient.

(And I was raised by a single dad. No room there for wacky ideas that it's mom's job to do all that housekeeping stuff.)

I like my life.

Awwww. Congrats on the graduate school! We have an actuary friend who went back and got his MSF--he seemed to enjoy the program.

She is getting heaps of rest, which is just as well, because the schedule of providing milk for the little bub looks pretty brutal to me.

It really is. I'm glad she has such strong support. I'm so thrilled for you guys. I hope Ryan can avoid the ick. It sucks when they get ill that small and congestion just messes with their ability to nurse. Plus you have to use the dreaded Nose Sucker of Doom.

Miracleman, congrats on college! It's like riding a bike!

Although both my parents are competent in the kitchen, they are far from adventurous--they were both raised in near poverty so by habit only cook very basic foods. I've had to teach myself how to use spices and fresh ingredients with a little more flair.

Hil, my partner and I eat very different diets, as she's pre-diabetic and eats a lot of meat and vegetables, whereas I live on pasta and other crap. We manage just fine. I'm sure today's men can not only fend for themselves, but also won't be basing their decision to marry you on whether your diets are similar or not.

OMG, people, I'm having such attendant drama right now.

Attendants as in personal care attendants? Their drama always sucks. I hope yours get their drama resolved. I currently hate all three of mine (it comes and goes - sometimes I love them - mostly they're just annoying). They do marvellously clever things like failing to inform me that I'm running out of something essential in the kitchen, or using my housemates' laundry powder (when they know better), and so on. Little things, but highly irritating. I like being in total control of everything (and it's not like they weren't warned of this before taking the job with me). They do not help with that. OK, rant done.

We trade off on the cooking and often we cook together. If neither one of us feels like cooking, we'll get takeout or eat cereal.

I would not do well in a relationship that was based on me working full time and being the primary cooking entity.

You are a fucking adult. Either you learn to fend for yourself or you find a way to get what you want by yourself.

So much this. My husband may play videogames and wear weird Woot T-shirts every day, but he is one of the most adult-minded people I know. (I know this isn't a contradiction here, but it can be in other situations, especially family ones.) Also refreshingly free of gender role bullshit.

I would actually have no problem with doing most of the cooking, as long as I was not the person doing most of the cleaning. I like cooking, and I'm pretty good at it. I hate cleaning, and I'm horrible at it.

Doing the majority of the cooking and not having to clean up the mess is definitely a good deal imho.

I like cooking, and I'm pretty good at it. I hate cleaning, and I'm horrible at it.

That was the situation when I first met my partner - she'd cook and I'd clean. I still do a more cleaning than she does (although I get outside help with it these days), so we feel like we split the work pretty well.

We are far too lazy for deals or assignments, we've actually been lucky that we tend to trade off fairly evenly. Sometimes one cooks and the other cleans, sometimes one cooks and cleans, sometimes we both cook and someone cleans, sometimes we both cook and both clean.

Sometimes we let the dishes sit there for a while. It's all good.

It just depends on our energy levels.

Joe and I make deals. Mostly because something needs to be done and one of us (to be honest, usually me) doesn't want to do it. So we barter. Which can sometimes be fun.

It's interesting right now because with Joe in school, I'm taking over a lot of "his" chores and stuff that he did while I was in school. Laundry, cooking, Em. And it's kind of nice. I like doing the house stuff, I just never had the time or energy to do it. But quite often, we have catch as catch can night or take out.