transgender son - same chore expectations as any other son?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y'all? I think we've made the point that chores aren't gendered, etc. Let's stop hitting that particular note.

Anyone got a PLAN that is better than the one I proposed, which is to sit down, as a family, write down all the daily/weekly/monthly/special-occasion chores, and map out a general idea of who does what, when?

If anyone else has a PLAN that OP can use to move forward in a positive way, lay it out.

Given this person is apparently an adult in 2020 and saw absolutely nothing wrong with enforcing harmful performative gender roles in his family, I'm not sure it's possible to hit that particular note too much.

Gender roles are harmful. They are misogynistic. They lead to abuse and death of women. They're also harmful to men, but maybe it'd be a good exercise for this guy to sit down with himself and consider how performative gender role expectations have led to problems in his life and extrapolate from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gender based chores are not all that uncommon still. I know lots of teen girls and women who can't:
use a drill,
add oil / windshield washer fluid to their cars
set or empty a mouse trap
use a weed wacker
do basic household repairs
shovel snow etc

No different from teen boys or men who can't
operate a dishwasher
do their own laundry
cook a meal
change a diaper etc

Lots of people have been raised with very gendered household tasks and some definitely still perpetuate those. I used to work at a college - there were a lot of helpless young men and women who didn't know how to do basic tasks that they should have learned a long time ago. Young women who didn't know how to unscrew a light fixture and change a light bulb and young men who had never made a bed and didn't know about top and bottom sheets. Some just didn't know how to do any chores regardless of gender but many others had been raised to only do more traditional gender chores (and this was a very liberal college).

"Can't" is the wrong word. They can, they just haven't done it yet. I'm a divorced female in my 60s and I have done all those things. I never set or emptied a mouse trap until recently but here I am by myself with no boy or man to do it for me so guess what, I just did it. I have to admit, though, I threw away the whole mouse trap, do guys actually take the dead mouse out of the trap and use the same trap over again?

[Anonymous]

There is very little I (woman) can't or won't do - I make more money than my DH, do yard work, can handle a lot of repairs and painting. DH has a bad back so I actually have to do most of the heavy lifting (carrying heavy luggage, carting bags of mulch around, moving furniture, etc.). DH does all the cooking because he is better at that. I expect my kids to do chores and we don't divide them up by gender.

OP as others have said you need to break out of your gender biases. But some of what you describe is also generational. I was expected to do more work around the house than my kids are simply because we have more professional help (cleaning, mowing, etc.) and because they have way more outside activities than I did as a kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y'all? I think we've made the point that chores aren't gendered, etc. Let's stop hitting that particular note.

Anyone got a PLAN that is better than the one I proposed, which is to sit down, as a family, write down all the daily/weekly/monthly/special-occasion chores, and map out a general idea of who does what, when?

If anyone else has a PLAN that OP can use to move forward in a positive way, lay it out.

Given this person is apparently an adult in 2020 and saw absolutely nothing wrong with enforcing harmful performative gender roles in his family, I'm not sure it's possible to hit that particular note too much.

Gender roles are harmful. They are misogynistic. They lead to abuse and death of women. They're also harmful to men, but maybe it'd be a good exercise for this guy to sit down with himself and consider how performative gender role expectations have led to problems in his life and extrapolate from there.

Are the OP's premise and approach flawed? Yes.

Is he here, trying to do the right thing by his child? Yes.

Is he here, trying to work through some pretty complex dynamics--even though some are of his own making? Yes.

So let's help him.

Interesting how all of you are laying the household and parenting dynamics squarely at his feet; no one seems to be assigning any responsibility to the mother. How interesting, what with parenting being the responsibility of both the mother and the father, yes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y'all? I think we've made the point that chores aren't gendered, etc. Let's stop hitting that particular note.

Anyone got a PLAN that is better than the one I proposed, which is to sit down, as a family, write down all the daily/weekly/monthly/special-occasion chores, and map out a general idea of who does what, when?

If anyone else has a PLAN that OP can use to move forward in a positive way, lay it out.

Given this person is apparently an adult in 2020 and saw absolutely nothing wrong with enforcing harmful performative gender roles in his family, I'm not sure it's possible to hit that particular note too much.

Gender roles are harmful. They are misogynistic. They lead to abuse and death of women. They're also harmful to men, but maybe it'd be a good exercise for this guy to sit down with himself and consider how performative gender role expectations have led to problems in his life and extrapolate from there.

Are the OP's premise and approach flawed? Yes.

Is he here, trying to do the right thing by his child? Yes.

Is he here, trying to work through some pretty complex dynamics--even though some are of his own making? Yes.

So let's help him.

Interesting how all of you are laying the household and parenting dynamics squarely at his feet; no one seems to be assigning any responsibility to the mother. How interesting, what with parenting being the responsibility of both the mother and the father, yes?

Well he is the OP so that's why posters are responding to him. Maybe the OP is a single parent. Maybe the OP has a husband.

[Anonymous]

Transgender children should not have to do chores because their life is hard enough. Cisgender children come from a point of privilege and should take up extra chores for their transgender sibling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter came out last year as transgender, changed her name and uses "him, his" type pronouns... so I stopped using the dead name etc.

When I was growing up on Saturdays my dad would always wake me up and say "Son! Time to get to work!"
Then we would spend half the day cutting grass or doing some sort of maintenance/repair around the house.

While previously I was always happy for my transgender son (before he was a son) to do stuff with me (auto repair/maintenance, yard work, house repairs/maintenance) but it was always when and if he wanted to and the level of involvement wasn't necessarily a concern. That is not the conditions I experienced as a boy growing up because gutting grass or digging post holes, for example, was not optional.

My transgender son is spending a lot of time focusing on his transgenderism and not doing anything else. I've started to see him as effectively avoiding "girl"-type issues through being transgender but simultaneously avoiding the boy's plight which includes expectations of physical labor and performance. Its like he has found a way to spend all his time on social media and chatting on the phone with his friends by saying things like "I don't have the upper body strength for that..." when asked to participate in a male activity or "that triggers me" when asked to participate in things which might be considered a female activity.

I want to say "I don't care if you are transgender but you can't have it both ways!"

I know I'm likely to get slammed and someone is going to misunderstand the above statements and frame it like I'm some sort of overbearing football dad but that isn't want I'm talking about.

I grew up with a trans parent and, as a result, have naturally had many close personal and family friends who are trans. I've known many trans people, especially who recently came out, to become very self-involved. I do think it's appropriate for you, as a parent, to pull your child out of this navel gazing and make reasonable demands of him.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry, but in my house, until you are 18 you are the gender that matches your sex. Lay down some rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter came out last year as transgender, changed her name and uses "him, his" type pronouns... so I stopped using the dead name etc.

When I was growing up on Saturdays my dad would always wake me up and say "Son! Time to get to work!"
Then we would spend half the day cutting grass or doing some sort of maintenance/repair around the house.

While previously I was always happy for my transgender son (before he was a son) to do stuff with me (auto repair/maintenance, yard work, house repairs/maintenance) but it was always when and if he wanted to and the level of involvement wasn't necessarily a concern. That is not the conditions I experienced as a boy growing up because gutting grass or digging post holes, for example, was not optional.

My transgender son is spending a lot of time focusing on his transgenderism and not doing anything else. I've started to see him as effectively avoiding "girl"-type issues through being transgender but simultaneously avoiding the boy's plight which includes expectations of physical labor and performance. Its like he has found a way to spend all his time on social media and chatting on the phone with his friends by saying things like "I don't have the upper body strength for that..." when asked to participate in a male activity or "that triggers me" when asked to participate in things which might be considered a female activity.

I want to say "I don't care if you are transgender but you can't have it both ways!"

I know I'm likely to get slammed and someone is going to misunderstand the above statements and frame it like I'm some sort of overbearing football dad but that isn't want I'm talking about.

I don't think there are "boy" tasks or "girl" tasks. Give your child an option: Do you want to cut the grass or work on laundry or help me trim bushes. He gets to pick, but he DOES have to participate. He's playing you

[Anonymous]

I'm a woman and my dad made me get up early on the weekends to do his chores with him. I hated doing it at the time but now I am eternally grateful for all the things he taught me to do by myself.
Now that I have a teenage son myself, I try to do same thing. I've found that chore time (not mowing-too loud) is a great time to get him to talk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter came out last year as transgender, changed her name and uses "him, his" type pronouns... so I stopped using the dead name etc.

When I was growing up on Saturdays my dad would always wake me up and say "Son! Time to get to work!"
Then we would spend half the day cutting grass or doing some sort of maintenance/repair around the house.

While previously I was always happy for my transgender son (before he was a son) to do stuff with me (auto repair/maintenance, yard work, house repairs/maintenance) but it was always when and if he wanted to and the level of involvement wasn't necessarily a concern. That is not the conditions I experienced as a boy growing up because gutting grass or digging post holes, for example, was not optional.

My transgender son is spending a lot of time focusing on his transgenderism and not doing anything else. I've started to see him as effectively avoiding "girl"-type issues through being transgender but simultaneously avoiding the boy's plight which includes expectations of physical labor and performance. Its like he has found a way to spend all his time on social media and chatting on the phone with his friends by saying things like "I don't have the upper body strength for that..." when asked to participate in a male activity or "that triggers me" when asked to participate in things which might be considered a female activity.

I want to say "I don't care if you are transgender but you can't have it both ways!"

I know I'm likely to get slammed and someone is going to misunderstand the above statements and frame it like I'm some sort of overbearing football dad but that isn't want I'm talking about.

I’m the mom of a trans son also.

Everyone is right about chores not having a gender.

Also noting that you should stop referring to him as “my transgender son” and make the switch to “my son.”

It’s fine to encourage him to step out of his bubble and contribute to the family. But remember, this actually is hard for him and parts of the process actually are traumatic for him. Kids aren’t great at sharing their feelings, so he might not lay it all out for you, but he might associate some activities with being female in the past and legitimately need to avoid them for his mental health. And some activities that are more masculine might be intimidating to him, because if he does something traditionally male centric, and he fails or does poorly, he might feel like he’s not being accepted as male. Again, teens aren’t great at sharing their true feelings, so rather than have another trans discussion with his main male role model about his fears that he’s not manly enough, he might just brush it off with a lame excuse. Then what’s he going to do? Social media or spend time with friends, where he can be accepted and with people who seem to be more relatable. He might not be intentionally slacking off to that level, even though that’s what he winds up doing.

What works for us was me making a list of the chores I decided my kids would do, along with how often I needed them done in a week. I made a page with 2 columns (one for dd, one for DS) for each day of the week. I let them pick the ones they wanted, and anything leftover I assigned so the total chore time was pretty even. They got to assign which day to do the weekly tasks, taking their schedules into account. Everyone agreed it was fair, and for the most part, they abide by it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given this person is apparently an adult in 2020 and saw absolutely nothing wrong with enforcing harmful performative gender roles in his family, I'm not sure it's possible to hit that particular note too much.

Surprising that he was able to so smoothly accept his child as trans, given that outdated mindset. Doesn't really ring true to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the previous posters, this is largely a problem of your own creation because you gendered chores all along and now anything you do with respect to chores comes across as a commentary on your child being trans. You need to course-correct on that, but then address the general unwillingness to do chores separately. So first, anything you would consider a "girl" chore, you need to start doing as well to model for your son that everyone does all the chores, regardless of gender. Second, you need to stop accepting excuses for helping with chores. If you've asked your son to do X and he says he can't because they don't have the upper body strength, assess whether that's a valid concern or not. He may need more upper body strength for heavy lifting, but not for mowing the lawn. For things that he may not be strong enough for yet, you offer to help him but tell him that actually doing those tasks is how he'll build the strength to do them on his own.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sons and daughters are required to do chores around the house. There are no “boy” chores or “girl” chores. There is no upper body strength required to push a lawnmower. Your kid is just being lazy.

+1

[Anonymous]

Female here. When I was a teen my dad wanted me to learn how to swap out an engine. I refused--it was cold (winter) in the garage, dark, and greasy, and I preferred to stay inside, wash dishes, dust shelves, bake pie, sew, and read. As a young adult I felt pretty incompetent mechanically but the time I needed a guy to jump start my car at a hotel I was staying at (work travel) I became alarmed that he really didn't know what he was doing. When I waited at the side of the road with a flat tire for a nice man to rescue me (they don't do that so much anymore!) I wished I could accomplish changing the tire myself. I learned that stuff and felt good about it.

Chores are not just about contributing, they are about learning skills. Keep that in mind.