What a flimsy excuse for being a lazy ass.

In the past, it was said that women were hardwired to better tolerate boring, repetitive jobs, which justified keeping them in low-level positions while men were promoted to the good jobs.

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My Dad raised me as a single parent, then turned around and raised my little brother as a single parent after a nasty divorce. He's never received child support from my mother or my brother's mom, did all the housework/cleaning while running his own business, was involved in our extracurriculars and raised me to be the feminist I am today...

He would be incredibly offended and appalled by this book. He's always complaining that single fathers don't get a fair shake or their just due because there are so many deadbeat dads and uninvolved fathers out there giving the rest of them a bad name. I think he's right.

As far as the housework/chores go, he's been amazing in helping to 'train' my husband's line of thinking. My husband was raised by a Mom who refused to let him do any housework or cleaning because 'you'd screw it up'. When we first got together I did all the cleaning, cooking and all the stuff in between simply because hubs had no idea that I expected/wanted him to. It only took a few dinners at my Dads where my dad COOKED and then turned around and CLEANED for him to realize that all those old, tired gender roles his Mom taught him are ridiculous. He still won't do laundry, though. I think he's afraid of detergent. I let him off the hook cause he mows the grass (I'm allergic).

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And I'm sure his kids will love reading about how he didn't love them for two years!

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My mom had some severe health problems when I was about 10 years old, which put her in the hospital for months and prevented her from being able to take care of us kids or look after the house for about a year. During that time, did my dad bitch and moan about how horrible it was that no one did his laundry?

No, the man came home after working a 12-hour day, and then he patiently, carefully, and with good humor, picked up the house and made us dinner. While he worked around the house, he showed us kids how to do laundry, showed us how to cook some basics, showed us how to pick out clothes, showed us how to do our homework, showed us how to load the dishwasher, showed us when things needed to be swept, mopped, laundered, folded, vacuumed, basically taught us how to run a house during the time our mom was hospitalized.

Granted, we were a little older at the time, but he didn't bitch and piss and moan that no one had made him a burger or washed his jeans. He did it all himself, thoughtfully and carefully, and then (with infinite patience) showed me and my brother how to take care of the house, too. He never complained once, even when we were stressed and acting like jerks because we were worried about mom.

Then, when Mom recovered (she's 100% fine now!) and was able to come home, she didn't bear the whole burden of household work, because we kids could do almost everything for her when she was too sick or tired.

My dad's hard work is, to me, the quintessence of what a parent should be. He was probably going crazy with worry himself, spending long hours out in the fields, and long hours at my mom's side in the hospital, and long hours showing us kids how to be decent, independent humans. He was probably as terrified as we were. But he stepped up to it, told us everything would be okay, and then did what he had to, to make sure we were fed, educated, dressed, and decent. He didn't pitch a fit or whine or even raise his voice. He just calmly stepped up and took care of everything he could.

My dad is a tough, grizzled, all-American, pickup-driving, cowboy-booted, meat-and-potatoes, wisecracking rancher. If he could calmly and gracefully face the challenge of "you are left with all the responsibility your father had - the business end of the household - plus you have all this other stuff", then you, Michael Lewis, have no excuse.

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Thank you. You kick ass, both of you, with your cheerful vacuuming, dishwashing, mopping and so forth.

I also happen to know for sure that none of this womanly activity has caused Mr.Pietra's balls to shrink, and I'm not gonna ask about my dad's.

Love,

la.donna.pietra

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ugh.

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My husband avoids housework like the plague, doesn't see anything wrong with spending an entire day playing computer games and can barely boil water - but he's still a good father. I think if it was possible he'd be a househusband in a second. Unfortunately, then we'd live in a pile of dirty dishes and unwashed laundry, choking on huge dog hair furballs before we slowly starved to death because he can't even FIND a grocery store. Ugh, this guy's stupid book just hits too close to home right now.

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Ok, so I refer to my father as "emotionally constipated" because, well, he is. He was terrible at raising a daughter, and not so good at sons either. That said, I know it was HIS problem. Not a problem indicative of the male population. It was just HIM. So sorry Lewis, but this is YOUR problem. My maternal uncles are not like this, and I can already tell my older brother will be a wonderful, caring, hands-on father. So stop trying to pass off your issues onto all dads out there.

/rant.

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