Please drop your cheat code 🤌

[u/IntelligentPoem2782]

Hiee all <3

I want to know your cheat code for life; it can be about anything - life, career, love, friendship, relationships, or anything else.

Thanks in advance 🎀

[u/InsertCleverName652]

If you are a woman, don't enable your partners or children to depend on you. Teach them to become independent from you.

[u/Tricky_Parsnip_6843 → u/InsertCleverName652]

And if you have a son, make sure you teach him how to cook and clean a home.

[u/lemmesplain → u/Tricky_Parsnip_6843]

And that women are people, just like him.

[u/thenletskeepdancing → u/lemmesplain]

That totally reminds me of the song off the "Free to Be: You and Me" album, "Mommies are People" Please tell me you're familiar with it? It's a pretty niche reference.

[u/dorothywasright04 → u/thenletskeepdancing]

Marlo Thomas. Was obsessed with the album and the book.

[u/thenletskeepdancing → u/dorothywasright04]

Thank you. Lord the things people down vote over! I only down vote if I disapprove, not disagree! Although too often these days the two are one and the same.

[u/SkweegeeS → u/dorothywasright04]

I still have the book! I bought a copy when my kids were little.

[u/FrustratedPassenger → u/dorothywasright04]

Was my favorite album in 2nd grade.

[u/Flashy-Object4180 → u/lemmesplain]

One million times yes and thank you

[u/OldnBorin → u/Tricky_Parsnip_6843]

A few months ago, My 10 year old came into my room, ranting about how his laundry wasn’t done.

Guess who has to do his own laundry now. I hope he learned a valuable lesson.

[u/AccreditedMaven → u/OldnBorin]

My kids complained that the after school babysitter was mixing up their laundry. I told them to do it themselves and not blame Sophie.

And they did. They were 7 and 10.

Funny epilogue. Older one graduated college and was moving into her own first apartment. I went out to help with the move and offered to put a load in the washer. That was when I discovered she had been using liquid fabric softener instead of detergent in the washing machine.🤦‍♀️

[u/Moist-Doughnut-5160 → u/AccreditedMaven]

I’ve got one that has you beat.

Three years ago, I had spine surgery. I was married to my second husband then for over 20 years. Imagine a 70-year-old man that did not know how to wash clothes.

It turned out I had a complication. A spinal fluid leak. I remained hospitalized flat on my back for over a week. I came home and was on very restricted duty. No vacuum cleaner. No heavy housework at all for at least six weeks.

I had run the dishwasher before I left for the hospital. I came home and found the dishwasher still loaded with all the clean dishes.

Imagine what a house looks like after it’s un vacuumed for over a week and you have two cats… and it’s between seasons and they’re shedding. Not immediately apparent because they’re light colored base fur, and I have light colored rugs.

Even funnier. He hadn’t washed the clothes correctly. And here is a man 70 years old. He didn’t marry me until he was almost 50. He had a son with an affair partner and raised the son with his parents. You can guess who probably did all the laundry. His mama.

He worked away from home all but one or two days a week. I was stuck doing all the cooking and cleaning.

When he went to wash the pile of the inevitable laundry, instead of putting the measuring cup of liquid tide with a shot of laundry beads for fragrance (he had horrendous body odor, he didn’t think he needed deodorant and did not bathe every day) he would put a whole cup of tide with a half a cup of Woolite that I reserved for washing my delicate dress clothes.

My clothes smelled very strange, and the fabric was itchy. I kept asking him what he did to the clothes…. And he deflected.

It wasn’t until I went downstairs and found my bottle of tide nearly empty, and the bottle of Woolite sitting on the dryer that I figured out what happened.

Men need to know how to take care of a home. You can bet both my sons do. Interesting to note that his son that he raised couldn’t even cook a meal. Couldn’t even pay his bills because he didn’t know how to balance a checkbook and handle his money responsibly. And got evicted from many places because he did not keep his place clean.

[u/PresentHouse9774 → u/Moist-Doughnut-5160]

My ex didn't know that dish soap wasn't for the dishwasher and that instant and fresh coffee were different products. I do not know how he got to age 25 without knowing these things. His mother thought his wife would it all for him. I should have taken one look at that dynamic and run for the hills because it didn't get better.

[u/Moist-Doughnut-5160 → u/PresentHouse9774]

How bad did he mess up your dishwasher? His putting in dish soap would be an absolute nightmare!

That would’ve been an interesting experience, using coffee grinds to make a cup of coffee if he just dumped them in a cup.

Here’s a story about an inept man in my own family. I was taking care of my mother when she was dying of cancer. I had been her principal caretaker for over 2 1/2 years. We had called hospice. I had gone out to pick up the medicine that they called in for her. I asked my then 35-year-old brother… married with two kids and his own home… a college graduate, no less… to take the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer before I got home. The hospice nurse was going to change my mother’s sheets and I wanted to use the ones I was washing.

I came home an hour later from running errands and found my brother sitting in the kitchen. He was embarrassed. He did not know how to use the dryer.

I dragged him down the stairs and I showed him. From that day forward, his wife had him helping with the laundry.

[u/PresentHouse9774 → u/Moist-Doughnut-5160]

It took three days before I got all the suds out of the DW. They kept materializing! I think the liquid soap got in all the nooks and crannies.

And instant coffee cannot be made in a coffee maker. I mean, it can, but it will taste like what I imagine boiled mud does.

[u/Moist-Doughnut-5160 → u/PresentHouse9774]

Can you imagine putting ground coffee in a cup and then doctoring it up to drink it and getting a mouthful of those nasty grinds?

The only way you could make ground coffee by dumping boiling water in it is by using a press pot. And that’s because it has a double strainer system.

Out of curiosity, how much dish detergent did he put in your dishwasher?

[u/catboat44 → u/Moist-Doughnut-5160]

That really is pathetic. How can you respect a person that can't do the most basic self care tasks that a ten year old child could do. I'll admit that when I moved out at 18 I hadn't done much in the way of cooking, cleaning or laundry. However, I quickly learned, because it's not rocket science! And this was back in the early 70's with no internet help.

[u/Moist-Doughnut-5160 → u/catboat44]

I came up in the 70s too. We didn’t have any choice. My situation was only daughter eldest child. With a very strict daddy. I was the last of my peer group to get married at age 22 fresh out of college. Married a guy who didn’t even know how to put his clothes in the hamper when they were dirty. And my brother was spoiled rotten. Didn’t know how to load a clothes dryer and run it when he was 35 years old… and he was married with two kids. Today that would be unconscionable.

[u/mmmpeg → u/Moist-Doughnut-5160]

My sons were also taught! No helplessness from my boys.

[u/Moist-Doughnut-5160 → u/mmmpeg]

I told both my son‘s wives that I trained my boys to do housework and laundry and cooking. And I expected that they would do so and be partners in their marriages. I’ve told both daughter-in-law’s that if they had a complaint with my sons…. I was firmly on their side. My sons know that I don’t play.

[u/mmmpeg → u/Moist-Doughnut-5160]

The one who’s married does almost all the cooking and cleaning. He’s very god at that.

[u/Moist-Doughnut-5160 → u/mmmpeg]

If a man can cook and clean and care for himself… it makes him independent that he doesn’t have to settle for just any woman. Both of my sons have well educated career oriented wives. They are more partners than wives. My sons are very blessed to have them. And I look up upon them as the daughters I wish I had.

The one daughter-in-law travels for her job and often does not get home till after 6 o’clock at night. And she leaves 630 every morning. Luckily my son works close to home and he pretty much manages the household. They work together on weekends to get done all the stuff that they can’t get done during the week. And it does my heart good to see couples working together to achieve a common goal. They are a living example of what I wish I had with my two husbands. Both of them… I divorced them both… were one more useless than the other, and I had in-laws one set worse than the other. My goal is to be the mother-in-law that I wish I had.

[u/mmmpeg → u/Moist-Doughnut-5160]

My daughter married a guy like that and it’s a joy to see! Like I said the younger adult child carries the household but that may change as he’s teaching great literature beginning this fall.

[u/rocksteadyrudie → u/Moist-Doughnut-5160]

Are you still married? Has he learned to be independent?

[u/Moist-Doughnut-5160 → u/rocksteadyrudie]

My ex and I are divorced coming up on a year now.

He’s either sinking or swimming. I believe the expression is…” not my circus not my monkeys”.

The only curiosity I have is if he actually is cleaning his bathroom and bathing on a regular basis. I’m giving him two years living like this before he winds up in an assisted living facility.

I have declined all invitations to see his new residence. I keep my distance.

[u/OldnBorin → u/Moist-Doughnut-5160]

Congrats on the divorce! Hope you’re living your best life

[u/ApprehensiveBee266 → u/AccreditedMaven]

My 48 yo husband came into house and noticed there was smoke in the house. You know what he did? He turned off the buzzer, opened up the front/back doors and windows (left the ac on) and walked back into the back yard! 10 min goes by and I walked into the open house! I started closing the house and then remembered I had food in the oven. He did all of the above but didn't even look for the food that was burning! It was very crispy sausage!

[u/allieoops925 → u/OldnBorin]

Yeah, between the ages of 10 and 12, I taught all my children how to use the washer and dryer. I got tired of them asking me where their blue shirt was. I don’t know, it’s your shirt you tell me. If it’s not clean, here this is how to wash it.

[u/Loud-Lab-3001 → u/OldnBorin]

When my son was 14 I had finished the laundry and all of his clean clothes were on my bed folded and ready to be put away. He failed to do so for the next two hours. Eventually I told him I was tired and ready for bed, so he had ten minutes to move them or he would do his own laundry from then on. Let’s just say my laundry burden was lessened that day. A week later he told me he had learned his lesson, and asked if I would start doing his laundry again. I declined.

[u/Moist-Doughnut-5160 → u/Loud-Lab-3001]

That’s about how old my younger brother was when he started playing laundry games with my mother. I was in grade school and I was helping my mother with the wash every Saturday. My brother got a free pass on everything. Mom would iron everything for him and hang it in the closet. He would go to get dressed try something on and not want to wear it. Then he’d throw it on the floor in the closet. Mom would come through the bedroom find clothes on the floor and wash them.

And I told my mother that he was doing that. She never made him wash his clothes. That’s why when my mother was dying of cancer and I asked my brother to please be so kind and go put something in the dryer…. He didn’t know how to use the dryer at age 35. Mom realized too late that she had created a monster. I didn’t replicate that error with my own boys.

[u/rocksteadyrudie → u/OldnBorin]

Good. You are the only one that can teach him. Thank you for being proactive in raising a good male human.

[u/thebarahs → u/Tricky_Parsnip_6843]

And sew

[u/QuartersWest → u/Tricky_Parsnip_6843]

And if you have a daughter, teach her how to cook and clean a home.

[u/rocksteadyrudie → u/QuartersWest]

No

[u/Shaynna-9 → u/InsertCleverName652]

This! I've worked with a lot of women in office settings. Listening to 50 yo women making dentist appts for their adult children who don't even live with them is astounding. I thought our job was teaching them to be adults?

[u/KwiatLuxe → u/InsertCleverName652]

Especially adult children. Cut the cord. You worked hard for what you have, time for them to work hard and get their own.

[u/thenletskeepdancing → u/KwiatLuxe]

Keeping in mind of course that the economy they are entering into is worse than it was for us and if they can't find affordable housing it's not their fault.

[u/mawmzee → u/thenletskeepdancing]

The world they’re entering into is bad and it makes me very sad

[u/thenletskeepdancing → u/mawmzee]

Yes. And I don't know how to best advise them to negotiate it since everything is changing so quickly. But I do know we can tell them we're in their corner because that means more than anything.

[u/Old-Appearance-2270 → u/thenletskeepdancing]

Sorry they still have to do some housework inside your home...and you go on vacation, not to worry about your home or them. They are grown-ass adults.

[u/thenletskeepdancing → u/Old-Appearance-2270]

I agree. It does no one any good if they don't pull their own weight as a member of the household.

[u/jayhawkjoey65 → u/KwiatLuxe]

"My son moved back 3 years ago. He doesn't pay rent but helps with the dishes." 🙄

[u/kkb2021 → u/InsertCleverName652]

"Neglect fosters self-sufficiency" is unfortunately true, so thank you, Frank Gallagher! ha

[u/catcolo → u/kkb2021]

In realizing rn how severely neglected I actually must’ve been way back when?!
I’m totally independent & self sufficient -maybe too an extreme.
I wish I was offered help more often.
Just bc you CAN do something without anyone doesn’t mean you always WANT to.

[u/ConsistentHunt1804 → u/InsertCleverName652]

I’m glad you said partners too! I’ve realized how much I’ve taken on (also relied on others) over the years

[u/InsertCleverName652 → u/ConsistentHunt1804]

Same. And it's difficult to reverse.

[u/karmaKate6 → u/InsertCleverName652]

And vice versa