Men at Work

My children and I made some Almond Crisp cookies last night. They were actually quite tasty. What little of them that were left today I brought to work to give to my co-workers. The interesting this is that when I offered them, each asked me, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìDid you make this or did your wife?¢‚Ǩ¬ù. If my wife was in my place, it is highly likely she would not have been asked the same question.

Have we become so wrapped up in having stay-at-home mums that we think fathers are incapable of doing homey things like making cookies? Do we still, in 2004, have this Molly Mormon ideal where the wife/mother?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùas part of her routine?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùregularly bakes cookies for the sole purpose of treating the guys at work?

9 thoughts on “Men at Work

  1. I think it’s interesting that a woman who makes cookies at home and sends them to work with her husband must be derided and ridiculed as a “Molly Mormon.” I’m sorry you seem to have such a low opinion of the women who do this.

  2. No, I didn’t miss the point. I just chose to comment on a subsidiary topic, which was your choice of pejorative language to describe women who—like my wife—bake things for their husbands to share at work.

  3. It’s too bad then that you consider me to having a low opinion of women and that my post was both deriding and ridiculing women who bake cookies for their husband to take to work. All of which are untrue.

  4. Then I think it would be better for you not to refer to such practices and such women as “Molly Mormon,” which lampoons them in a most undignified way.

  5. After further reflection, I do think I was unfair. You may not be using the term “Molly Mormon” to mean what I take it to mean, and I shouldn’t focus unduly on your use of one or two words without considering the context of your other beliefs and comments about women of all kinds. As you can tell, I get pretty ruffled about the things that are often said about women who devote themselves to that kind of service. Too often they are portrayed as anachronistic, oppressed, and so forth.

  6. Sure, you can take it as an apology. Mostly a mild self-rebuke, but apology is in there somewhere, too, I think. ;)

  7. …Of course, you’re still going to raise my hackles very high if you call anybody a “Molly Mormon.”

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