Ideal Men

I'm gonna lighten up on this post (am I kidding myself?????). I was speaking to my younger sister last night (yes, I usually grade my sisters by age, believe me, its all relative when there are 6 of you...), she was talking about her latest boyfriend. They have been seeing each other for nearly a year. She is divorced, 39, stunning, intelligent, with two children (ginger is 4, blondie is 7) and a hefty mortgage. She works full time and is usually very tired from multi-tasking the hell out of every hour of the day.

Anyway, last week when he was down for the weekend they had had a row (thats an argument in kiwispeak, not row as in boat, rau as in argue). She had arrived home tired and grumpy because Ginger had had a tantrum all the way from daycare to home and was still going when they walked in the door. After 15 minutes of trying to reason with him (and with the boyfriend sitting on the couch watching) she put him in time out, and put him in time out and put him in time out.....

She starts to cook dinner and when he asked 'what are doing' and then 'was that the best way to do it', well, that wisdom just broke the camels back. I'd love to hear from a couple of guys about this. Because when she tells me about this little exchange I say...oh no, Danger Will Robinson....that type of question to a woman is gonna get you a rise, not a pay rise, a rise in the stoopidometer. What would make a man walk into an inferno? Do they not see the sirens, flashing lights, smoke, bubbling lava and shooting flames?

They end up having a huge argument about her parenting, her attitude and her 'mood swings'...I laughed. He is divorced with two kids as well, but rarely sees his kids cos they live in another country (yes, this came up in the argument as a counter argument). I asked her, did he think to cook dinner since he'd been at home all day, did he try and distract Ginger, anything, anywhere? No.

She tells me she's not sure if they will last because they are quite different (thank god, I say, I would hate to be with myself every day, I have enough of that now) and he is very introverted when they go out. He doesn't make easy conversation socially and my sister is very outgoing.
And just when I think - oh no, its doomed she says 'but its so nice to come home to small things when he's down for the weekend. Like last weekend he put up my curtain rail that has been sitting there for a year, hung the curtains, fixed the leaking tap, fixed the hoses on my washing machine, scrubbed the toilet floor by hand, cleaned my oven, even wiped the kettle down, put my dvd into the cabinet and put all my dvds away....' I told her to fuck off and asked if she was kidding. She wasn't. I told her to stop whingeing about the non-communicado in social settings and be happy. He also happens to be great in a number of other places too......he just needs to learn how to participate within the family setting. All of the things he does are when no one is home, he does not interact with the kids and he does not participate in their routine. So just nip that BS in the bud, tell him to get his hands dirty and involved in the family stuff and move on....if he can't do that, well, thats another story.....

So when I get a full picture of what is going on, well, its not bad. We say dumb stuff all the time and get into all sorts of situations. Just a bad day at home. The trouble for men and women is that women have learned to be capable too, as well as emotional, as well as communicators. We have taken over that corner of the field. Our skill base is getting bigger and bigger and our beloved men sometimes haven't learned to multi task and build their baskets of knowledge so well. I know if I walk into a friends house and she's frazzled, kids are screaming and there's stuff to do, I just do it. My friends are the same - distract the kids, feed them, take them out to play, take them to their room to play, just seperate the energies so that everyone has 15 minutes space and the world becomes a nice place again. We know instinctively what to do.

If I came home to a man that did those sort of things around the house, that would difinitely put a tint in my rose glasses for the first year. I value capable men and I'd commit to teaching him the communication development programme (I just made that up, but it sounds good eh? my personal programme of saying what you feel and asking for what you need, effectively).

I know so many women that are single, beautiful, intelligent, capable and got it together. The brotherhood needs to have a revolution for themselves, I'd support them! Shit, I might even sponsor one :)

Be good to ourselves and each other.

h2