Hi crazyheart,

By the description you give I would have to say that it doesn't sound much like a modern woman to me.  In all honesty I should point out that it doesn't sound much like a woman from any age, it reads more like the description of a child, and a spoiled one at that.

I'm hoping, that there is stuff about this individual that you are missing as this is not a very flattering portrait of anyone.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Nope, she just sounds like an awful, spoiled, selfish woman. Modernity has nothing to do with it.

I think that from the beginning of time there have been some go-getters and some lazy people.  My cousin was just saying the other day about how much time her mother sat in the rocking chair in the kitchen while the children cleaned the house, made the beds, did the dishes, ran the errands (in an age before telephones, and when groceries were carried home from the local store in brown paper bags), looked after the younger ones, and went to school when they had time.

And in many societies (I'm thinking rural Canada) men didn't do housework or childcare  - and still today do very little.

But I'm wondering in this case if there may be more to the picture than you are aware of.  You say that this woman goes to bed at 8:00 pm.  Perhaps she is not well.  Perhaps they are very dependant on her salary, maybe she is the one with health benefits and a pension plan, but she doesn't have the energy after work to do much, and her husband takes over.    I'm surprised though that more isn't expected of the older child if this is the case.

Or perhaps she married a super-critical man.  Nothing she does is as good as he could do it himself, or his mother could do.  So rather than do something and get criticized, she just doesn't try any more.  But her resentment comes out when she criticizes her husband. 

There is so much more to this story but I think you have accurately described this woman as spoiled, selfish and self-centred.

Soooo, the dishes just pile up endlessly, neither the trash nor recycling ever goes out and the litter box stinks?  Something seems missing from this picture...  (Hubs actually does stuff?)

It depends-does she do the cooking, shopping, cleaning and laundry?

Is this the division of labour agreed to by the 2 adults in the house?

If she cooks-and grocery shops-why can't he do the dishes, garbage and cat litter?

I fit most of those details, except that we don't have a cat and I do expect our daughter to do some chores when she's older.  Am I a lazy, spoiled brat?  Hmmm...

I am a full time teacher.  I am also the sole wage-earner in the house.  I have a short commute (about half an hour each way) and I'm frustrated by my job lately because I'm teaching grade 8 and I am not thrilled with this particular group of kids.  (I'm hoping my switch to grade 4 will solve that problem).  In any case, I'm quite exhausted at the end of the day.  This is the rest of what I contribute to the house:

• I do all the banking, income tax, and money related planning
• I make all the medical appointments for our daughter and sometimes for my husband as well and I often take her as well
• I do the majority of grocery shopping (he picks up the staples when we're running out, but I'm the one who does the big orders)
• I get up with Rachel whenever she wakes up in the night because he just doesn't wake up when she yells or cries (not so much of an issue anymore now that she's 4, but when she was 1 it was a big deal).
• I do all the clothes/toys/books shopping for Rachel.
• I'm the one who researches extra-curricular activities like gymnastics and I'm the one who takes her there.
• I'm the one who takes her back to the optometrist every time her glasses break.
• I'm the one who takes her for haircuts.
• I'm the one who gives her baths and gets her ready for bed every night.
• I'm the one who takes her to the park or to play outside.

Jim is a stay-at-home-dad.  This is what he does:

• He takes Rachel to school 2 or 3 days a week and picks her up 6.5 hours later. 
• He does the garbage and recycling.
• He is the one who runs the dishwasher and puts the dishes away.
• He's the one who handwashes the stuff that can't go in to the dishwasher.
• He "cooks" dinner a few nights a week...usually chicken nuggets and fries.  He does occasionally make spaghetti or shepherd's pie or things like that.
• He is the one who does any fixing or renovating around the house.  He's actually quite good at it...he completely renovated our kitchen a couple of years ago.
• He takes care of most of the outdoor work like shovelling snow, raking leaves and mowing the lawn, although I like to get involved in planting flowers and stuff like that.
• He does all the laundry in the house.
• When my parents are coming to visit, he does a top-to-bottom cleaning of the house.

As for extra sleep, I do come home and nap once or twice a week after work, and on weekends he sleeps in until noon and then I go back for a nap.  Our house is incredibly messy, partly due to too much stuff, and partly because I think we each think that the other person should be doing more.  I think he gets annoyed that I come home from work and don't do any cleaning; I, on the other hand, get annoyed that he's got 12-18 kid free hours every week and I think he should spend more of it cleaning.  I'd say Jim and I are both a little on the lazy side, but I think you need a lot more information before you can say that a woman who won't do garbage, dishes or the litter box is spoiled.  She might be doing the majority of the child care, laundry, driving the kids to sports, etc.  We just don't know.

I've been thinking about this thread.  Another possibility occurred to me about this couple.  They remind me of a friend's daughter and her family.

Both husband and wife are clinically depressed and on medication for it.  Neither one seems capable of doing anything more than just the bare minimum. He lost his job a year or two ago - I don't know the details.   After several months of laying around the house playing video games, his wife nagged him into applying for other jobs and he is working again.  

Meals are haphazard - when they get hungry someone will heat up some Kraft dinner, or fry some eggs.  The kids (about 14 and 11) get themselves ready for school.  Dishes are done when they run out of clean ones.  Laundry piles up to the point that the little girl went to school one day with her t-shirt on backwards 'so no one would notice it was dirty'.   Husband can't understand what she does all day.  She shouts at him that he doesn't help her.   And the kids take care of themselves. 

People who know them wonder why they don't seem to put more effort into looking after their home and their family, and blame them for not trying harder - but people who haven't been there don't understand depression.  However living like they do probably makes it worse.  

 Okay, here is another example. When she left her first husband, she and her son moved in with her parents. She worked but took every day off she could until she was reprimanded about her work habits. The parents babysat for nothing, she paid no rent, and she brought special treats for herself that she put in the fridge with her name on it She did not contribute to the household expenses and found money to go out.    And,

she didn,t do laundry, help with housework or do DISHES..

OK Crazyheart - I'll admit that she was/is spoiled and that it is probably her parents fault.  (Is she by any chance your dil?  or someone married to someone close to you?)

My daughter did come home after a marriage break-up.  Granddaughter was born into our home.  But my daughter always did their laundry, looked after the baby when she wasn't taking classes or working, asked ahead of time if we could babysit if she went out, helped with the housework including dishes, and paid a monthly stripend for room, board, and childcare (much below the going rate but better than break-even for us).  She also ran her own car and saved towards a down-payment on a house.  (the house didn't happen - she married granddaughter's dad and he already owned a house)   We missed them when they moved out.   The only thing I took almost total responsibility for was the meals.  And she told me a few months after she moved out how much difference it made to come home from work to have a meal put in front of her, and now to come home and have to prepare a meal for three people.

No. seeler, not relation. NOT my DIL. This is just a situation in the neighbourhood that I have watched for a long time. The Mother is a friend of a friend.

CH, you are describing my DIL! There are days that I have fixated on "the mess" and often have to bite my tongue, BUT then I reconcile it with the fact that she is an amazing mother to the kids. Her priorities are to spend as much time with the children rather than the housework.

Soooooooooooo, even though when I was a young Mom, I managed to keep the house decent, have a garden, hold down a job and make the meals while raising three children,etc.......I have chosen to remain silent and leave it to my son and his wife to decide how to run their own home.

But sometimes, it's really, really hard!

It may seem as if she isn't contributing much but that may very well be the deal that is arranged between spouses.  i certainly wouldn't feel a right to criticise.

Mists, i wanted to make a comment on your lists.  As a stay at home mom since my youngest was about 2 I wanted to comment on you and your hubby.

The stay at home parent often feels unappreciated and hence wishes the parent getting paid would both help more and be thankful.  Both are tricky things.

I think it is complicated somewhat by the fact that as a teacher you finish work earlier than most jobs and so he may feel when you are home by 5 ( my hubby left at 6 and returned at 730ish) that there is lots of time for you to help.  There is some validity to that howere...

 as a stay at home mom,

i did all the shopping; food , clothing, gifts.......

I did all the cleaning and laundry, dishes,garbage, recycling till at one point we got a monthly cleaning person.  That was a real treat

I did all the arrangements and sign ups for activities and all the driving though as my kids got older sometimes it worked that dad could pick them up on the way home from work

I did all the cooking though hubby sometimes BBQ'd the food but I always prepared it.

We shared bedtime duties once the kids were old enough to stay up till he got home. 

For years I did the lawns till my kids were old enough

I did all the backyard maintenance

I mostly shoveled the snow, at least the stuff that came down during the day, otherwise it was a family thing

I did try to save fun things for dad to do with kids when he came home as his time with them was limited

he did banking, taxes, lightbulbs, repairs, assisted with anything needed.

but basically if it concerned the kids or house, i did it

I am not saying that your hubby could do more but some of the things do seem assigned to the wrong person, like groceries, meal prep, kids activities

I don't think it's modern, just childish. Modern would be finding a reasonable balance that works for everybody, as opposed to old-timey where the woman did everything except have a job outside the home.

How would we feel if someone posted details about our life/ relationships/ work history. family/ housekeeping..... and asked people to judge us?

No thanks.

Sounds like an XSTP to me.

I sure am glad, too, that no one in our close little neighbourhood is watching and commenting on our home and housekeeping. Seeler's cousin sounds like she was raised like my husband:

My sister-in-law is the eldest, and looked after her brothers, cleaned and cooked, and dad did the grocery shopping, because of his systematic and economical style. So I don't think that this woman is particularly modern, though not having the kids do any chores seems to be more common these days. Just working a full-time job and having enough time to spend with the kids; making sure everything is going OK at school can be an exhausting job. While this woman may be spoiled by her parents, there's no way to tell. I'm a rotten housekeeper; I'm also depressed, so don't judge me until you've walked a mile in my medications.

Crazyheart ... For some questions there is no right answer.  The question presented by your topic ranks right up there with ...  "Do you think my butt looks fat?"

 I didn't read the other posts, but after reading the original: no, this is not a modern woman. This woman is living in an imaginary world of ..? What, I can't imagine.

She sounds like an insufferable bitch, actually. (pardon the language: I don't use this term very frequently)

I'm not surprised she's divorced; I am surprised someone agreed to marry her. Twice!