Also, the fact that I do the grilling and all the driving when we go anywhere together seems to bug people.

That's me too, it's very stereotypical and naturally doesn't bug anyone. On the rare occasions I don't drive, it is awesome. I'm going someplace and I don't have to do anything.

I love to cook, which means I'm usually the one who cooks in the family, but DH can certainly feed the whole family. He just finds the cooking a lot more stressful than I do. My mom was an amazing cook, really amazing. Not like having a chef in the house, just good home cooking. I learned so much from her.

I can't tell you how many problems I've had with female partners of male friends because I like nerdstuff. Also, the fact that I do the grilling and all the driving when we go anywhere together seems to bug people.

You're making the other women look bad. Or you're being too manly. Or both.

Or you're being too manly.

Not the word I would use to describe Raq who has both the Va and the Voom.

My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and cooked meals from scratch every blessed night for decades. Pretty much still does. My dad cooks once in a while, and does handle the grill. My mom did most of the indoor cleaning when we were young - my sis does it now, and does the dishes after dinner. My dad does some indoor stuff, and he and Mama also share the outside duties (she likes gardening more than he does).

It's POURING outside. A real gully-washer.

I just ate tiny ravioli from a coffee mug with chopsticks, to avoid doing my work dishes.

Also, a coworker just informed me that I have a parking ticket. Grr...

My mom was a very good cook, but she considered it work. After she retired they hired out the lawn mowing (formerly a Dad chore) and either ate out or ate frozen dinners for most meals. When Mom retired she really retired.

My family was totally traditional roles, down to mom being a teacher and dad an engineer and when sis was born, mom quit. She says her only real options were teaching & nursing and she didn't like blood, so. However, mom was good at math and has always handled all the finances in addition to the cooking & cleaning stuff. Dad did the outside stuff (a lot of work, on twenty acres with orchard & garden & horse barn & woods & pond & stream) when I was growing up in Ohio.

But they always encouraged me to be independent, and Dad taught me as much stuff that stuck as Mom, like programming and nature stuff. I still use the oak bookshelves we built together. So I ended up all gender roles equality by the time I ended up with D.

We were always both working, and more often than not, working together at the same place. So there was no coming home to a hot meal for either of us. We did a lot of eating out until we lived in New Mexico an hour away from restaurants or grocery for that matter, where I learned to cook. And then when we moved into this house, with its lovely kitchen, he became enamored of it and does pretty much all the cooking now. I am complaining not one bit, because it's pretty excellent.

He cooks like you, Barb, and wants everything clean in the process. I am the opposite. I enter the kitchen, there's a cloud of ingredients and a flurry of pans, and food comes out when the dust settles. It drives him crazy, so we don't cook together often! Hee. Anyway, we share most roles, except, for some reason, the laundry.

Back to my parents: when they moved to Hawaii, they were farming Kona coffee, working the land, so mom became interested in agriculture. And now that they're back in Indiana with just a small lot, she's become the main one tending to the yard. She's also been the consummate caregiver, first us kids, then my grandmother, and now my dad. I have a lot of respect for her and the work she does, although she's always said that she wishes we got to see her as a working woman when we were kids, so that we had a different view of her. But I think they're both pretty spectacular.

Hee, Calli. My folks "retired" but it was to work the coffee fields. We tried to explain to them they didn't really get the concept of "retire" but they were having fun. Now they are really retired, but mom still does the mom stuff.

My parents were very traditional roles, as well. Still are for the most part. My dad helps out a lot more now, mostly because Mom went on strike for a bit. But his default is to order out if my mom is out of town or something.

Then, when I married Joe, who does a lot, A LOT, of cooking and cleaning and parenting, this sent him soaring to the top of my mom's alltime great guy list, which now means whenever he and I have an argument and I try to talkto my mom about it, she says, "Hey - you've got a guy that cleans and cooks and takes care of his kid. Shut it and be happy." Which makes me grumble.

Or you're being too manly.

Not the word I would use to describe Raq who has both the Va and the Voom.

Nor would I, silly.