I’m glad I listened to my adoptive mom and not the luxury belief class (2022)
This is an interesting anecdote, but I think the author is talking somewhat cross-purposes with the original tweet. The tweet seems to be talking about the idea that every house needs to have a man in charge, so that when the man of the house leaves, he must delegate his work of &quot;protecting the womenfolk&quot; to his son. This idea that women always need to be looked after, even by children, is absolutely worth criticising - it&#x27;s a vague and mostly meaningless sentiment that doesn&#x27;t serve the household at all, but simply reinforces masculine and feminine roles.<p>But in the author&#x27;s case, the women are already the major breadwinners and protectors of the home. And they do not seem to be delegating the protection of house at all. Instead, this is a question of responsibility and chores. If you live in a community - male or female - you have a responsibility to help support it. This particular responsibility is couched in terms of masculinity, but it doesn&#x27;t really have to be - imagining the author as a teenage girl doesn&#x27;t change the story.<p>Yes, you could interpret the original tweet as making a point about responsibilities in the household, but I think there are two key differences between the two cases that show that that&#x27;s not true.<p>Firstly, the author received a specific task which was meaningful to supporting the household and was valuable. In the tweet, the son is given a vague instruction with no support, and no real value to the household. When we give jobs to children, it&#x27;s important for them to understand why they&#x27;re doing that job, and see that it matters. But &quot;take care of your mother&quot; is a nothing task that only serves to reinforce a particular idea of gender essentialism in the home.<p>Secondly, the author&#x27;s task was delegated to him by both parents together (and I assume they discussed it beforehand). In the tweet, the task is given solely by the father regarding the mother. Did she want to be &quot;taken care of&quot;? Or does she rather have practical needs like hoovering or cleaning dishes that would be more useful to solve? This sort of task is simply about telling a child that men are in charge, without dealing with any of the actual responsibility of being in charge.<p>I think the author sees the tweet as the tweeter saying that children, or boys specifically, shouldn&#x27;t be involved in the household, and - rightly - criticises that idea. But I think the tweet is more about the idea that men have some sort of secret duty of protection towards women that needs to handed down, father to son, above and beyond a child&#x27;s regular work in the household. That second idea is absolutely worth criticising (although a tweet might not be the best way of doing it).