The Lessons You Don't Think To Teach

I don't remember making much hash out of "equality between the sexes" when the squirts were growing up.  In fact, TFL will sometimes get cranky about knee-jerk feminism, as he calls it.  I just laugh at him when he gets cranky, though, because it's all an act.  When it comes down to real life cases, it just never crosses his mind that maybe a woman shouldn't (or should) do something because she's a woman.  Pretty much his only question is going to be if she's competent and the best-suited person to do whatever.

This is why I'm not allowed to make coffee in our house.  I'm incompetent.

Today I got the following email from Boy:

Apparently, [girl 1] and [girl 2] think it is absolutely bizarre that dad does his own ironing or laundry when he has "the resource of a woman to do them for him."

...

I thought that was hilarious.

I don't recall ever having a conversation about ironing, although I suppose TFL was probably the one to show Boy how to iron his shirts.  But Boy obviously picked up on the bigger point.  That's my Boy!

Comments

[True]

::snicker::

The best person for the job is the best person for the job. My father has never, ever let my mother iron for him-- he's just plain better at it than she is. :) (On the other hand, the man has no idea what to do with a washing machine, so he handles folding the clean laundry!)

[Boy]

Haha. Yeah. They thought that you should still be doing the laundry despite the fact that you are, probably, busier than TFL.

[Denise]

When we were first married, I would only iron the cuffs and collar of a shirt I was going to wear under a sweater. (What? It didn't show!) My hubby has never asked me to iron for him, imagine that.

[Pat]

I was so happy when I married a man who had been single for several years after college. He was in the habit of taking all his dress shirts to the cleaners - something we managed to continue even when finances were tight. But I do manage to iron our summer cottons. Otherwise he would just walk around all wrinkled!

[Chris]

What makes ironing more enjoyable is setting up the ironing board in front of Monday Night Football. Then I look for other people's clothes to iron. I'm not a football freak, but apparently interested enough to keep at the manual labor while engaging the eyes. Probably doesn't do wonders for the creases being put where they belong, but hey, the Pareto Principle applies here.

[kady]

Ok. I love the fact that the previous commenter was able to mix ironing, MNF and pareto optimality into one comment.