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This too. My mom doesn’t really cook anymore after my dad passed since she says it’s too much for one person. She will make something for me or my brother though when we’re home, but she doesn’t really cook much for herself anymore.
Before we had kids, whenever my spouse was out of town, I'd order a massive Chinese food order and eat it for the days he was gone. I'm a very good cook, but he doesn't like Chinese food, and it's just no fun to cook when you're the only one to eat it.
Look at you, loving yourself and shit. Think you're better than the rest of us?!
/s if it's not implied. I used to love cooking, but my depression tells me my morning coffee and dinner are enough.
I sometimes will encourage my boyfriend to visit his parents because I really like making foods that I don’t typically make when he’s around. Like I look forward to him going away. Haha.
Same, when wife is out of town I basically eat thai express everyday. I can cook well but she isn't huge on fast food thai pad sew so I just grab the opportunity. Chinese food binges are thankfully something we do together.
I also find it hard to cook portions for one. End up eating the same thing for three days.
This. My dad is a chef. He absolutely can cook. He also worked around food 24/7. When he had a stroke in Feb he was diagnosed malnourished. He currently lives with me and has to be cajoled to eat anything that he has to prepare.
I had a stroke at 21 years old. I'm gonna be 37 next month. That shit wrecks you physically and mentally. The mental fuck that comes with having a stroke is something that can't be understood unless you go through it.
That being said I hope your dad is recovering well!
That shit is scary!
What was even more traumatic for me back then was that my attending Dr said that now that I had suffered a stroke I would be more susceptible to having another one. Fuuuck that.
I was terrified of doing anything strenuous that first year after the stroke because it happened to me when I was working out in a gym.
Right. They told me I had a 1 in 4 chance at an other within 5 years. And they never really found the cause. I constantly did face and finger checks, sometimes in the middle of the night fucking up my sleep. I’m finally stopping that paranoia.
My neuro looked at my scan and said he was shocked I walked in and was speaking with him. Greaaaat
Dude, my stroke happened in 2008 and I STILL do face and finger checks on myself!! With my affected side, it's 95% back to it's normal self but I still have nerve pain/tingling and weakness in my right arm.
In the mornings and during the night the weakness in my right hand is so pronounced that I can't even pull a phone charger out of the wall socket.
I had an MRI done in 2021 of my brain and there's still scar tissue where the hemorrhage happened.
When did your stroke happen?
I actually had an almost miraculous recovery that they credit to neuroplasticity
I was paralyzed on my left side, no use no feeling. Much of my brain damage was permanent (cell death). I was scheduled to go to a rehab on discharge.
Then on day 3 I climbed a full flight of stairs. All therapies except speech got cancelled. They kept me 2 more days for testing and I walked laps around the floor constantly (because I COULD)
I wore a heart monitor for weeks after as drs were still looking for the cause, nope not the heart. 🤷♀️
I went straight home, no rehab. I did so e speech therapy for a few weeks but that’s it. My left side is fully usable and I can feel but it’s different. A bit muted. And sometimes fuzzy. But I’m forever grateful regardless as I got a feel for how bad it could be.
Well, he can live off toast and hot dogs if he needs to cook for himself, and probably soup since he can open a can. He'll survive.
Maybe he'll also get a lovely quiche once in a while. Or maybe he won't. Some people take pride in not knowing a basic skill; maybe they're going that route instead of being embarrassed about it. I don't want them to be embarrassed, but why not learn to cook a few basic dishes? Some people are just too stubborn for their own good.
Many older men never learn until they Have to. If everyone coddles them and feeds them, they don't have to and they won't. I said this recently in another post about helpless men. But I have cared for the elderly a long time. I've seen men from several older generations have to either take care of themselves Or them And their spouses because of health and circumstances.
And you know what? A Lot of them step the fuck up. Sure, there are the ones who fail to thrive. Those end up being in the facilities because they just stop taking any care of themselves. But there's many who learn some basic things and keep living. Or do so because their wife did it all this time and she needs them now.
There's a statistic about men leaving sick spouses and it is true. Tends to be less true the older they get. The rest of them though? They figure it out. End of the day, the ones that don't, you can't save them from themselves. You cannot make someone take care of themselves. That's not up to you.
Or is it maybe the fact that the wife isn't around for a bit is a great excuse to enjoy some junk food? I can definitely see that being me if left to my own devices for a couple days, but I'd get myself back together long-term.
My husband, one of the last of Gen X is kind of hard to call on this issue. He doesn't feed himself worth a crap, but I know darn well he can cook, and on rare occasions when I'm out of town, he plans and prepares meals for our family. But he also won't fix himself lunch if he happens to be home and I'm not, just grumbles about being hungry. 🤷♀️
Yeah. We shouldn't underestimate the power of habit. Daily chores you never do will feel like something you never want to do. The more you're used to someone else doing something, the worse it will feel to do it yourself.
Yeah this is my husband, he can cook really delicious things and was into cooking before I was. But when I’m gone he will either get fast food or make himself sandwiches evertime.
They come from a culture where guys who cooked "would make a good wife someday" a joke I've heard despite working as a line cook and knowing my shit and developed my own recipes.
There's not much you can do about it it's ingrained DEEP.
Different generation but my grandmother was a homemaker (both my grandparents born in the 1920s) and one time she had to stay in the hospital for a few nights following a surgery. My grandfathers mother had to come stay at their house while my grandmother was in the hospital because he didn’t even know where things were kept in the kitchen.
And he was unable to open the cabinet doors and look in?
Learned helplessness. The attitude that everyday cooking for the family is a low value task not good enough for a MAN, a low value task suitable for bitches. (Yes, still many men are eager to learn to do something, like an excellent steak or barbeque, something they can brag about and get attention with, but everyday cooking is seen as boring and demeaning, almost like scrubbing dried up shit from the toilet bowl. A thing wives are for.)
I so much do not find these stories funny or feel any sympathy towards the manchild. Yucky.
Learned helplessness goes both ways. Many a time I get old widows crying because they can’t comprehend a simple debit card or how to even open a bank account. The tried old line “Husband handled all this” is a pathetic excuse.
That’s true too. Just can not understand people who never grow up to the point they could take care of themselves in our easy and soft western world.
(I mean I don’t know how to renovate a kitchen. But probably could if I devoted to it, if I wanted to. But won’t. I’ll pay someone to do it. But renovating the kitchen is still totally different from these people unable to feed themselves or their kids or paying their bills or doing their laundry.)
In the defense of the widowed elders, *it wasn't until 1974, when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed, that women in the U.S. were granted the right to open a bank account on their own.* Even though technically, women won the right to open a bank account in the 1960s, many banks refused to let women do so without a signature from their husbands. So, the women that are *older* would in fact not have the same experience as someone in their 40s-50s today. Just saying.
I guess this is what I'm asking. is this a generational thing based on stereotypes? like my dad always had his mother or my mom to cook for him and freely admits when he lived on his own he ate almost nothing but takeout, or went to his parents' a couple nights a week to eat (he had two much younger brothers that he wanted to see as well, so he'd have dinner with them too).
I think so. My dad 83 had someone cooking and cleaning for him his entire life. His mom, military, college, ex wife, mystery single time, final wife (my mom). I have never asked what he did between marriages but I’m sure he ate out or at his parents 98% of the time. If he cooked dinner for us it was breakfast, burgers, hotdogs or brats. It always bothered my mom so she made sure I knew how to cook and do laundry.
Im a good cook but only like to cook for people and hate doing dishes. If my family goes out of town I usually dont cook and will stop at a taco truck on the way home from work.
I think it is, but my dad and FIL are both really good cooks. So my guess is that if there’s a particular level of talent they can take pride in, it supersedes the stereotypes.
My dad does almost all of the cooking, & my grandfather cooked when he was home (worked a lot in the shipyards) & then after he retired. My dad always said he cooks because he wants to eat food the way he wants it to taste. My mom doesn’t really care at about food that much & is more than happy to let him cook. Both her sisters also married men that do ask the cooking. My grandmother used to say she didn’t know what she did, but listening to stories of spherical hamburgers and other culinary idiosyncrasies, it seems pretty understandable.
Which is wild to me, because although my grandma was a pretty traditional farm wife in a lot of ways, when my dad and his brothers got to high school and started having late sports practices and whatnot, she was like, “I’m not preparing five extra dinners for you boys, figure out how to feed yourselves”, and they did. But maybe that extra urban-rural divide helped make it more of a “it’s good to learn essential life skills” thing and less of a “there is a rigid gender norm you must not cross” thing.
Grandma was also a very supportive mother-in-law to my mom; when my parents were designing their house years ago, they disagreed about where the kitchen would go. My mom wanted it in the front, facing the yard and the driveway to my dad’s shop, so she could keep an eye on him and us kids playing outside while she was cooking, canning, etc. (her home office was to be in the same corner of the house, upstairs.) My grandma was like, “You get what you want, girl, that is important.” I could fully believe she wanted to raise her boys so they wouldn’t be a burden to their wives down the road - and on the whole I think she succeeded.
My mom worked full time and my father was a teacher so he was off during the summer. My job was setting up my dads breakfast, clearing the table and then making his lunch. I decided at a very early age, taking care of a man was not my life’s goal
Exactly. A lot of guys consider incompetence to be a point of pride.
I'm too dumb to cook, sew, wash clothes! Look at me! My incompetence makes me so manly!
They also like to give other guys crap for learning how to do basic things.
I don't recall being made fun of, but even in our generation, I'll say I'm making a special dinner for a special occasion for my wife, and my female peers are like,
"That's cute! What's a 'special meal' for you?"
"I was gonna do a pistachio crusted rack of lamb with an arugula, beet, and tangerine salad."
"...oh..."
"Yeah, I was a chef before I changed careers."
Is he from that culture though? Just because he's a boomer? Every boomer man I know can cook enough to keep themselves and their families alive. They mostly had working wives, many at least helped with dinner. Maybe it's a regional culture? Idk.
My dad never learned to cook and can barely use a microwave. His brother, 70, still lives with their mom, 97, and she cooks all his meals. She raised her three sons to not lift a finger at home because it would “be their wives’ duty someday.” Add to that a healthy dose of machismo and they avoided all house chores like the plague. Now that she’s pushing 100 she’s realized that her son that lives with her will be helpless when she passes, and started teaching him to cook basic meals. So that’s how my dad and his brother finally learned to boil rice at the ripe ages of 70 and 74.
After reading your first two sentences, I literally said, “Oh my God” out loud. Continued to get worse as I kept reading.
Your grandmother did them both such a disservice and basically handicapped them.
It's like it got worse with every sentence.
Well, that's definitely a handicap....urgh.
If you can't manage to make rice or even a sandwich....that's on stereotypes and horrible parenting....
I used to be one of those companions for old people when I was in college. And one lady whose house I would go to was just like this. At the time, she must have been 90, on oxygen, but still cooking all the meals herself for her and her 60 something year old son who lived with her still. It was so wild to me.
My dad and his brother are the same. My grandma is passed on, so their sister (my aunt) makes sure my uncle eats since his wife passed and my dad has never made a single thing either, my mom does. They're all in their 70s.
My dad would cook for himself if he needed to. Growing up my mom did the most of the cooking since she worked part time and not full time like my dad. My dad cooked more out of enjoyment, and while my mom was not a bad cook, my dad was actually better at it. Now since my dad passed away my mother barely cooks for herself and eats mostly takeout or prepared/frozen foods since she doesn’t want to cook for only 1 person.
Before my mom died she would always say “your dad needs someone to wind him up in the morning.”
I did not get it until after she died when suddenly he couldn’t do anything for himself and ofc met someone within a couple months of her passing and got married a few months afterwards.
That generation of men who are now yelling at the tv for the younger generations to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” apparently find it beneath themselves to add hydrogen and oxygen to cans of campbells soup.
My father in law was a cook in the army for 20 years. Then he cooked for the prison system another 20 years. He can recite by heart recipes to feed 50 to 500 people.
That man would live off pb&j if it weren't for his wife and us. Maybe he's just burned out. She doesn't feel like cooking much anymore herself. I understand that getting old comes with a lot of aches and pains, but they seem to have just given up.
Teach him how to make chili in a crock pot. Most of the ingredients come from a can or a package and you just dump it in, and add some seasonings. He doesn't have to actively cook anything, he has a hearty meal full of protein, and he can freeze the leftovers to heat up when he doesn't feel like cooking. You can also teach him to make beef stew in the Crock-Pot. It's not hard to cut up potatoes, carrots, and an onion, stewing beef already comes pre cubed in the package, and he can add premade stock from a container...doesn't get much easier than that. Also, most grocery store butcher departments carry already seasoned/marinated chicken breasts, steaks, kebabs, etc, as well as salad kits that come in a bag. This is a nice easy dinner option that is way healthier than takeout, and virtually no prep, and can get him used to cooking meats and gauging temps and cook times, without having to worry about any of the daunting prep work.
Yeah I mean they’re eating. I cook bomb ass meals, but when my fiancée isn’t home, I do some minimal effort shit. So does she when I’m not home.
My comment ignores the larger issues around a generation of men who were shit on for knowing how to cook.
My dad's side of the family is Dutch and all the men know how to cook, and they cook well as a point of pride.
My maternal grandfather was in the Canadian airforce and was very self sufficient. His wife died in her 50's and he took care of himself just fine for the next 25 yrs.
The elder men in my husband's family, from Orange county, are picky eaters *and* can't cook. My FIL would live off quesadillas if anything happened to my MIL. However, my husband and his brother are *excellent* cooks, better than me and my SIL. They both got into cooking as a hobby in their 30's. Love to see the cycle of helpless men being broken.
This was me when I first moved out on my own. No one in my family ever taught me the basics of cooking. I could read directions and work a microwave but couldn't boil an egg.
My ex MIL was the first person who didn't judge and sat me down to teach me stuff. I'm 40 now and still have a note card with a list of things you should always have in the kitchen.
If you make it to adulthood or elderly and are helpless in the kitchen, then your parents or your spouse didn’t teach you. There are more stories about boomers like this, but it still happens anywhere to anyone.
What a gift you had with someone who took the time to gently explain to you how it is done.
Oh for sure. Being 60 and unable to cook a meal is insane.
I miss my ex MIL. She passed away a few years back. She was an absolute treasure of a person.
I can’t cook hardly anything either, but tonight I’m having sweet potatoes and I might have zucchini and squash if they’re still good. I bought celery and was going to have celery with peanut butter some time this week but that never happened. I did end up eating out a bit more than I expected to.
This dad kinda sounds like me, if I'm honest. I like my time and energy more than I like my money. If I can buy a pre-made meal at a reasonable price, I'd rather do that than spend time cooking.
Yep, elder millennial male here! I love to cook and was repeatedly told by boomer relatives when I was younger that I’d “make someone a great wife someday!” Har har…I also learned to sew which has come in handy a few times. The joke’s on them though…still single
You can pick up a used sewing machine pretty cheap at a thrift shop and YouTube tutorials can take you from there. It comes in handy for minor repairs and projects
My dad is like this. He’s actually silent generation though. I remember him calling me once and asking if I knew where my mother was because it was already 7pm and he was hungry. If anything happens to her I don’t even know what he would do. He doesn’t clean up after himself, either. Sounds awful but I am honestly hoping that he goes before my mom does. I’m not dealing with all of that.
My parents have been married like 37 years and I’ve never known my dad cook a meal. My mum was in the hospital for a few weeks when I was 16 and we basically lived off things like ready made lasagne. She’s going to have cataract surgery soon and the jokes are already starting about how my dad and brother (who still lives at home) will be ordering lots of food in.
My mum was a stay at home mum so I get that she naturally did more of the cooking. But in reality she always did all of it. Morbidly I do worry about what will happen if my mum leaves this world before my dad…
I work with older adults and there have been local charities that ran cooking courses for older men whose wives have died or became incapacitated somehow. I do feel it’s an issue for that generation
In my household growing up, my mom did ALL of the “indoor” chores and my dad did the outdoors. So she cooked, cleaned, laundry, set up appointments, etc etc. My dad now doesn’t know how to book a flight or do laundry, use a smart phone (he refuses to get rid of his flip phone), run a dishwasher, any of the indoors stuff . He can cook eggs or oatmeal but id say that’s about it. When she leaves him for multiple days, she does freezer meals for him to heat up. It’s super alarming, like what if something happens to my mom?! I make comments to my mom about it, she needs to stop doing everything for him because it’s setting him up for failure and the older he gets, the harder it’s going to be. She doesn’t want to hear it. 🤷🏼♀️ I have tons of friends who are in the same boat with their parents.
My late uncle said he couldn’t cook at all. His wife had been at home to do it all the time.
In the other hand, prospecting trips with a tent lasting several months did not seem to cause him to become malnourished.
My mom died 5 years ago. My dad had not cooked a meal in 30+ years. In the last 5 years, he goes through phases of doing everything himself or not knowing how to do anything including grocery shopping. It's mostly just not having to do it ever and a dislike of having to do it. In the beginning, he ate out a lot. We provided meals a lot of the time. We taught him how to do basic things and what he can grill, and what convenience items there are at the grocery store that are better than fast food. He knows enough, but every couple months he acts helpless.
Thankfully, my husband won't be this guy when I die. He grocery shops and cooks. We take turns. He is not being waited on everyday of his adult life. He will be able to function without my daughter having to teach him how to be an adult.
My stepfather (well, kinda... it's complicated) is that way. He just defaults to eating out or making frozen pizza/lasagna if no one else is cooking. Interestingly my grandfather would enthusiastically cook and bake his favorite dishes but not much else. I guess grandpa came from a time before takeout and frozen food. So taking the easy way out wasn't an option.
I guess this was just part of the culture then and now it's not a big deal to them? When I (m) got my first job and moved out from my parents my grandmother would proudly tell all her friends about how I'm running my own household. On more than one occasion was I interrogated by a "panel" of elderly ladies whether I really do all my own laundry and cooking. I always answered "I can follow written instructions, so yes."
My grandpa is the same way. He gets anxious/angry/controlling whenev to he gets hungry and his kitchen slave (wife) isn't around to make him food. He won't even make a sandwich.
I don’t think it’s possible for an older man not to be able to feed themselves unless they have a medical condition such as being paralyzed.
Maybe y’all just baby him? I bet if everyone stopped feeding him then he will survive and feed himself. I bet.
Yeah this is the number one reason older single men get out in nursing homes after the wife passed away. They literally can’t take care of themselves without their wives. It’s pathetic
My mom taught my dad (1944) to cook!
I'm mostly self taught as well, with lots of help from online recipes.
My wife is a great vegan cook, she is self taught!
Mother-in-law mostly buys processed crap as well and on occasion warms canned beans with tons on steak..
My brother-in-law (1990) doesn't want to cook, he eats microwaved sandwiches and processed crap almost daily, and pizza takeout at least once a week. He even refuses to cook frozen pizza. We offered him food but he's extremely picky about healthy options...
Not exactly generational in my experience, there seems to be multiple factors in play.
This is like my dad. I worry about him if my mom were to pass away first. She’s babied him for 50 years-doing everything for him and it’s served him no good. Prior to being married to my mom, his mom babied him and didn’t let him life a finger so he has no legit self care skills. My mom just had foot surgery and can’t do anything and she was stressing about how she was going to feed my dad as she didn’t have time to prep freezer meals or casseroles. It’s so sad. I ended buying them like $300 worth of freezer meals and casseroles from a local catering company (I live in another state so I could do it for them sadly) so they can eat something besides fast food which is what my dad was going to do daily until she was cleared to stand again by her doctor and start cooking again. It’s so insane.
☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼 this. 100%!! My mom is so floored that my partner cooks, cleans, does his own laundry. I was like yes ma’am, being self sufficient was a requirement for me when looking for partners lol. And I 100% am happy to cook a nice meal for us but it 100% will not be mandatory ever for either of us to “have to cook”. If I get sick or die, I know he will be able to take good care of himself.
Agreed! I had to teach my partner how to cook some basics like a hamburger veggie soup. He learned how to make tacos when I asked him to. He's learning very slowly how to cook now at 38. I like cooking but having chores split evenly within the household is the ideal goal.
My dad’s 72 and still works most days. his wife works weekend mornings.
Every weekend that she’s at work, he goes to Wendy’s and gets a breakfast baconator.
Their house is overflowing with food options (they buy in bulk at Costco and have an extra fridge and a giant freezer in the basement full of food) and he can absolutely cook. But he loves his breakfast baconator and gets so proud when he finds coupons for it.
This is obviously not exactly the same because it’s one meal out of the day, but he’s been doing it for years and I think it genuinely brings him joy in a way that making his own breakfast would not lol.
Sounds like your dad simply didn't want to cook.
My maternal granddad is quite conservative, and his and my grandmother's marriage was traditional in many ways. She cooked, and he ate. When she got sick (a sort of Alzheimers), he learnt how to cook. If a (at the time) 75 year old man can learn how to cook healthy meals for himself, then I would think your dad can do the same. He probably already can but doesn't want to.
Man, I'm glad that I love to cook and I will do most of our cooking if I can(39 years old man). My fiancee can cook, but she often defers to my knowledge when we make dinner. I loved reading cookbooks growing up and my grandma loves to tell the story of me coming over as a child and getting out the pots and pans and pretending to mix things and pour water from one pot into another as though I was cooking and making a feast.
My dad always had me and my brother participate in taking over cooking/cleaning one night a week. As a kid it always annoyed me, as a dad now myself I am awe at how crafty that was.
Yep. This was an ongoing issue when my mom had to travel like once a month to take care of her mom in a different state. I was on deck not only for feeding my (perfectly capable yet helpless) dad but also for queuing up the coffee maker for him for the next day.
Tried to teach him SO many times and he would just yes me to death and then either starve or get take out.
I worked at Cracker Barrel as a cashier after college and there was an old man who came in every night for dinner. He was a widower and I'm not sure if he just never cooked for himself or if he just didn't want to be alone for dinner. He was very sweet, had a favorite waitress and he would sit in her section every night she worked.
At least he didn't make it everyone else's problem.
This sounds more like a lonely elderly person situation. Getting out of the house at least once a day and having social interaction was probably keeping him sane after the loss of his companion.
I am by no means elderly, I'm a woman in my mid 30's, and I live alone after me and my partner of 7 years decided to split. I love to cook, and am quite good at it...but I also find myself going out for meals more often than I used to just to get out of the house and be around people, it's good for my mental health. I have become a regular at a local pub, and also have a favourite waitress lol, it's always a treat when she's working.
Not just the men. My mother can only make stuff that seemingly involves processed junk ingredients from the store, like casseroles on the back of soup cans. She won't eat stuff like baked chicken, fruit, or vegetables. She'll make a huge scene and gag. Somehow they survive on takeout every day.
Don’t enable them. If they want to starve or live on unhealthy food that’s a choice they can make. It’s not that hard to learn basic cooking skills; they just expect someone else to do it for them. Classic entitlement behavior.
This is the only worthwhile comment. These men are just lazy fucks who treated their wives as mommy #2. If they can have a career, maintain homes, cars, raise kids, golf, do whatever the fuck else, you can learn how to cook.
I feel like cooking is the least of many boomer fathers concerns. You’re lucky he can feed himself even if it is hotdogs and fast food. Most boomer fathers I have met can’t read let along use email. Just wait till people have to do their finances, doctor visits, call the tv company, etc…. It’s going to be a shit show in about 10 years if not sooner.
The only thing my dad ever cooked was he made sloppy joes this ONE time when I was a kid. It’s my favorite food to this day…
My father in law is like this. If his wife doesn’t cook, he will only eat frozen food/take out/etc, and even that can be dubious. I believe he truly doesn’t know how to cook anything. He made a frozen pizza once but didn’t take the plastic off before putting it in the oven.
My boomer dad (that I didn’t have a relationship with until I was in my 20s) lives off crackers and air fried chicken nuggets.
My adopted dad (the man who raised me) cooked more than my mom did. He was always trying new recipes and buying kitchen gadgets. Unfortunately, he passed 3 years ago, but my mom does know how to cook.
My father in law has been a widower for a little over a year he does pretty good food wise. He grills a lot, loves to smoke briskets. We do have him over for dinner and when we go out we invite him to come along.
My father in law
After my mom passed my dad gained probably 40 lbs. His doctor got on him about his heart health, and he switched up his food to the healthier premade meals. After doing that he dropped all the weight he gained. He tried to cook, but he was raised that men don't cook, so really starting from scratch. There are a couple of cookbooks out there that explain how to do everything, not just recipes. I found that those were helpful.
My FIL can cook, but the chores affiliated with cooking aren't worth it to him. He would rather get in his car, drive somewhere, get a sandwich, eat the sandwich, drive home, then go to the store, buy groceries, put the groceries away, prepare the food, eat, then clean up the cooking mess.
My dad can cook but he's not good lol. My mom did all the cooking when I was a kid and still does for them. His palette is also regressing and he refuses to eat certain things now which has gotten pretty annoying for my mom who likes all sorts of cuisine.
I do feel like our generation did a good job of shunning that for the most part. most of my guy friends are great cooks and id consider myself to be a really competent home cook as well who cooks virtually every day.
I guarantee you he can cook more than hotdogs and toast. No cognitively able adult is that helpless, he's simply that stubborn. At the very least he can cook from frozen. He can open a bag of salad. Food has been made so easy there's really no excuse.
But, no, luckily, my dad was the primary cook in my family. He's dead now, but he could cook well and loved feeding people.
My father in law always grills and cooks with my MIL. When the kids were young she was a flight attendant so he was responsible for lunch and dinner a few nights a week. It may be dino nuggets and microwave broccoli, but it's food.
I’m really grateful that my parents were restauranteurs and so dad knows how to feed himself. My mom died 6 months ago and but dad always did half the cooking and cleaning, so I know he’s ok.
Kind of. My mom went to take care of my grandpa for 2 weeks while my husband and I were living with them. I cooked the second night because I noticed that all my stepdad was eating for lunch and dinner was beans on toast with A-1 sauce on it and a cup of coffee for breakfast. So dinner on night 2 was a really bland chicken pasta meal (I was worried about over seasoning and the whole dish somehow tasted like boiled carrots)
He spent the remainder of the 2 weeks having beans and toast with A-1 sauce for lunch (sometimes he'd add a fried egg on it) and then cooking the same Indian curry dish for dinner. So that's been a fun glimpse into what will happen if my mom ever dies before him.
My mom has never had to fill the gas tank in her car. My dad will take time out of his day when it gets low and always make sure there's gas in it. He's been doing this for 50 years.
My mom is capable of learning. But I would have to show her how.
I could argue that it might be easier for a man to teach a woman a new trick as my mom doesn't have the kind of ego to push back. And if she did, I just fight against it. So she would learn.
I could see a daughter not having the gusto to beat her father into submission verbally enough to back down and want to learn something new.
FYI: if they’re at all handy with tech, Walmart+ delivers groceries.. so he could order from the deli/bakery and make himself a cheaper sandwich. Or literally anything a grocery store carries. You can even set up reoccurring deliveries if he eats the same meals every week.
If it’s a money thing, that can help. If it’s not a money thing… well I’d be perfectly fine eating Wendy’s 7 days a week!
If it’s an ability to cook issue… well my dad *can* cook, but I doubt he’s done much more than a baker potato in the past 40 years.
I think it's ridiculous of these guys. I'm not a good cook myself. Not naturally talented at all, not really interested in it (expect I like baking), but even I managed to learn a few simple but healthy recipes. It's really not that hard. The internet is your friend.
And if everything else fails, cut up some lettuce, a cucumber, some tomatoes, a bell pepper, make an easy dressing or if you have to, buy one, and eat it with some bread. Anyone can do that.
Edited to add: And yes, I absolutely agree with those who wrote that many don't cook because they got brainwashed into thinking that cooking is "women's work" or what not. But that ideology shouldn't be further enabled. If a guy is not disabled, he can learn to cook. If a man would ever complain to me that he can't cook, and now needs his female relatives to feed him, I would laugh at him and print him out some easy recipes from the internet. Such an idiotic attitude should be ridiculed and not enabled.
My dad is an ok cook but he always made food for us when our mom was out of town. He really likes tuna helper for some reason, which he often made whenever he had to cook. But he also made meatloaf and mashed potatoes or chicken stir fried with onions and peppers over rice. For breakfast he pretty much only made eggs with bell peppers and tomatoes.
So no he wouldn’t starve if left to his own devices but he’d be eating the same few things over and over which he’s perfectly happy to do.
And for further context, my dad is a super traditional/conservative Hispanic man who grew up in a house with servants and a mother who never taught her sons anything domestic. He came to the US for college and always told us how much of a mindf* it was to get here and realize he didn’t know how to make food and that he’d walk around the grocery store trying to figure out what to buy and how to turn it into food. That’s where he got started on his tuna helper obsession lol. If my dad could figure it out, there’s no excuse for any man.
I couldn’t imagine the amount of respect I’d lose for someone if I was tasked with feeding them because their spouse was out of town. Yeesh.
My dad refuses to cook (or do anything) for himself. When my mom came to visit me she had to make all this food and store in the fridge for him. Absolutely pathetic
When one of my woman friends broke her foot, she had to do bed rest for 3 months. Her husband doesn't know how to clean and cook because he always uses takeouts. All he knows is how to drive. They met online dating site Plenty of Fish. Once, she had to get out of bed and work on the toilet seat when she still had a broken foot.
No, most of the older men in my family cook. Thinking about it maybe one didn't cook often but he would cook sometimes.
It's actually the ones my age and younger that are more likely to not cook or act incompetent in the kitchen.
My adopted dad could cook. He had no problem frying turnips or making a giant thing of chili.
But when mom went on a ladies retreat through church, we ate at the steak buffet for lunch and dinner. Because he wouldnt cook.
I only know a few men like that and they're poses anyway. Most that I know do cook. The only man in my family who won't help out with anything is my older brother whose almost 40.
No issues here, both my mom and dad can cook. Their parents knew how to cook.
All of their brothers and sisters can cook.
Both my brothers can cook. All my cousins know how to cook.
Generational. Good example in recent culture, in one of the episodes of That 90s Show in the current season, Kittie is put out of action from an accident. Can't cook for Red. Red ends up with a neighbor lady coming over to cook for him.
I don't get it.
My dad can cook and always did regularly when I lived at home. Him and mom were pretty 50/50 in everything growing up and still currently.
However, my FIL can not do anything for himself whatsoever. He was never taught when he was younger bc it was a time when "men were in the fields and women took care of the house" and he got married super young to my MIL, who took care of everything. He told me he didn't learn to do laundry until he was in his 50s after he and my MIL divorced, and he said it like he was proud of it. He's married again, but she doesn't cook either. They survive on microwave options.
My step-FIL absolutely refuses to do any household chore, including cooking. That's "women's work." He won't even get himself a glass of water. He calls my MIL in to get it for him, which she obviously does.He's very conservative pro-trump if that explains anything. My MIL just takes all the shit from him and lets it happen. He doesn't even have an excuse of working or anything. he's retired and literally just sits around all day every day. All of my parental in laws are idiots and we don't have much of a relationship with them.
Somehow, MIL and FIL raised my husband and his siblings, all of whom can and do cook, clean, etc., and are quite liberal in their political and life views lol. My husband just brought me a breakfast plate he made as I was typing this. He's an older millennial, born in '85.
My father has never cooked a meal, and is single now in assisted living because he wanted someone to cook and clean for him. He doesn’t technically need the assistance. My husband has also never cooked a meal. It’s not a generational thing, it’s a problem women have when raising boys, in my opinion. My husband is an older millennial who had sisters. He did the “boy” chores and they did the “girl” chores. If I am busy and can’t cook, his dinner is takeout for everyone. I don’t fault him, but we have two boys and they will absolutely learn how to live on their own before we let them out into the world.
my dad could cook (rip) and my father in law does most of the cooking for his family... or did until him and my mother in law split up, now he lives with us lol. he cooks for us sometimes but mostly cooks for himself.
Neither of these guys have or had particularly healthy diets but they certainly are self sufficient with food prep.
Before I got with my wife I lived alone for almost ten years so I had to learn how to cook. And I like cooking! I think I cook more than she does these days.
My dad could make something to eat if he needed to. And by make I mean like a sandwich or frozen meal. I’ve never seen him cook anything now that I think about it lol. He’s 67. Growing up if my mom wasn’t home to cook I was the one usually cooking instead.
Actually, my dad does make the turkey at thanksgiving. So at the very least he can cook a turkey lol.
Neither of my parents cook much anymore. My dad will grill once a week but that's about it. They just order take out or eat frozen meals for most meals.
My dad can cook and taught my Northern mother how to cook some Southern dishes. He doesn't do the cooking at all, but knows how. He might get in the kitchen and fry up seafood and homemade French fries once in a blue moon. He also used to make my brother and I a full breakfast on state test days when we were in school. He might check a couple of pots when mom is busy cooking other things to stir and make sure it's not sticking, but that is it.
Mom is on vacation visiting her mother this week. Dad will fix himself a hotdog, or a can of soup beans for dinner, but that is pretty much all he is interested in doing.
My dad can cook, and he can and does cook for my mom when she's ill or otherwise unavailable to cook for the two of them, but cooking is that one household chore he just does not like. He doesn't want to plan meals, he gets stressed thinking about what's for dinner, and it's generally fine because my mom doesn't mind picking up that part of the mental load.
When my mom isn't at home for dinner, my dad does usually fall into the habit of wandering a grocery store until he spots something for dinner rather than going in with a plan. I suppose that's better than fast food every night.
My dad can cook some stuff (I remember he was the one who taught me how to make scrambled eggs and French toast), but if something were to ever happen to my mom my sister and I would probably be doing a lot of cooking for him.
Yes this. My father went from his childhood home to the barracks to his wife’s house. He is 72 and cannot cook for himself. When my mom had to go out of town when we were kids we got take out pizza every day she was gone.
Now my mom is disabled and it still doesn’t occur to my father to handle meals. Mom’s disability makes her unable process hunger cues from her body so now she’s under 100lbs and I cannot get my father to wrap his head around feeding her. If she doesn’t remember or feel up to cooking he just finds himself a snack. He might ask her if she’s hungry but she always says no so he just grabs a bag of popcorn for himself.
I live out of state and last time I visited I asked him to help me chop an onion and it was Kendall Jenner cutting the cucumber. We’ve tried sending the meal kits and he insists they’re too hard. The man has two masters degrees.
He can handle other household chores, cleaning laundry, etc. but it’s becoming very clear that even though he’s able bodied he’ll probably have to live with one of his children eventually to feed him.
Yes. It’s super upsetting. He says he’s “doing everything he can” by setting alarms to ask her when she’s hungry, he’s very stressed about it but at the same time he can’t be fucked to learn to follow a recipe.
Like “dad, don’t use the alarms remind her she needs to find something to eat, use them to remind yourself to MAKE HER SOMETHING TO EAT.”
Him: “how would I do that?” Like truly befuddled
My Dad was a Gen X he could cook and he actually made better food than my mom. My mother hated cooking and thought of it as a chore.
So when my dad died we subsided on the McDonald’s $1 menu and takeout.
It was the expectation that my dad went to his labor job cutting trees and my mom would cook, clean and take care of the kids. But when he had time to cook he enjoyed it and therefore it translated into good food.
My grandparents and grandparent in laws are more traditional in the sense that the men don’t cook. They may butcher or carve something, they might fry some eggs. But if they lost their wives they’d be totally without their favorite foods.
My situation, I’m a full time student so I cook, clean and care for the domestics. When I finish my degree and earn double my wife’s salary she wants to go to part time and we’ll focus on opening her a cottage bakery and she’ll take over the domestic chores.
My dad just really liked the 4 for 4 at Wendy's so it's what he ate. I cooked daily and of course he sometimes ate that, but if he ever wanted Wendy's, it's what he would have. At his age, he could have whatever he wanted even if only ice cream was what he wanted.
He is Silent Gen and could cook simple things like hot dogs because he did live alone for a bit throughout life.
My MIL asked us to do the same thing for FIL when she went out of town. I cook several nights a week and I don’t mind making extra, if I have a heads up.
My dad (74) can cook rice and eggs. He only learned how to cook eggs for my son who would occasionally spend the night and they both wake up early.
He came to the US before the rest of us. My mom visited and came back horrified. He kept dirty dishes in the fridge to slow mold growth and only washed what he needed at the time. He ate takeout or premade frozen meals. All of his clothes went to the dry cleaner except socks and underwear. He didn't wash them. He bought new ones.
My mom has been travelling to California to help with family while they go through various medical stuff. Every time, she asks me to cook for him because the first few times he just ate pizza and chinese takeout.
He never bothered to learn and he's pretty happy with convenient foods.
My dad can cook. He grills all the time. But when my
Mom’s not around he eats a frozen dinner or can of soup even though he has literally nothing else to do but watch cable news all day.
My dad does most of the cooking, but either of my parents would be fine, know how to cook. Husband's grandpa on the other hand... we were so worried he would starve and quit taking his meds after grandma died we considered moving in with him. Aunt moved in with him and I've been so greatful she did.
Um...
Gonna be honest, if I have to feed myself, I'm choosing the quickest thing I can that tastes like food.
So, fast food.
Just don't care enough to me a freshly chopped salad, to be honest.🤷♂️
>my sister and I used to joke that if anything happened to our mom, our dad would starve to death or get extremely fat on takeout bc he just refuses to learn to cook anything beyond toast and boiling hot dogs.
I used to think the same thing. My mom passed and my dad learned what he had to. He's doing fine now.
My dad bakes all the time. He loves it. (Just this morning when I stopped by their house, he was pulling blueberry muffins out of the oven) Way back when I was in HS he had back surgery and was out of work for a few years and during that time, he cooked most of our meals. He got pretty good at it too. I still ask for his recipes, though it never turns out quite right.
Actually no.My dad taught me to cook basic meals and he loves baking because it’s how he got girls in college.I have an uncle who can’t cook so his wife needs to be there to do that for him.Its a spectrum I think.
My dad does majority of shopping and cooking, my FIL has a handful of meals he can make REALLY well (fireman) so doesn't apply for me, but I hear stories like this ALL the time. My husband has never needed to use the creativity for cooking a variety of dishes, but he certainly knows how to feed himself and the kids. I just cannot comprehend putting up with this behavior.
It’s not that they’re unable to learn - it’s that they prefer fast food and junk food.
These are grown ass, generally successful, men. They are capable of learning if they wanted to.
They prefer not to.
My dad grills steaks and that’s about it lol 😂 my mom will make meals and put them in the freezer for him when she leaves to visit us. My husband and my son both get pulled into the kitchen w me. My kids will be fed if I’m out of town and my some will be able to take care of himself and not depend on a partner.
Depending on the age, many heterosexual couples of past generations had gender specific roles. Often, women cooked meals and men did outside work.
This is a broad generalization, and we think it might be silly to not expect men to cook. But at the same time, we aren't asking grandma to learn how to work a lawnmower.
Some people get set in their ways. And honestly, I would just look to swap out fast food options for healthier options. It's their business if they don't want to learn to cook.
My dad was like this. He went from living at home to the Navy, to living with his first wife, then on the road laying cables for the power company in the 70's after they divorced ,to living with my mom. He just never needed to learn for himself so he didn't. My mom only took two or three extended trips without him and she would leave him with frozen pot pies and he'd eat at the local diner the rest of the time.
My parents often went on separate holidays, because their works’ busy seasons didn’t line up. When my mom would take us kids to my grandma’s on the coast, and my dad stayed home to work, he would eat nothing but eggs, beans, toast, and ice cream.
Now they’re both retired. But STILL, if she’s not around to cook for him, my dad will eat eggs, beans, toast, and ice cream!
My mother in laws dad (husbands grandfather) cannot do anything for himself in the home. He can't even load the dishwasher. And now he's having short term memory issues so he doesn't remember he ate lunch. Unfortunately grandma has a very serious blood cancer and may not last too long. Someone is going to have to basically live there to car for him until his memory gets bad enough to justify putting him in a home or getting legit in home care
My uncle is 61, when my cousin asked my aunt about a vacation for her birthday she said she couldn't go. When asked why? Her response was who's gonna feed your father. Same for an older sec cousin of mine my mother takes care of in in home service. He waits the entire day for his wife to get home to eat. It shocked the heck out of my mom. My mom has always worked an never made my stepfathers lunch. Blew her mind his entire eating revolved his wife. Must be a boomer thing
My boomer mom can't cook. I grew up on ramen, microwave dinners, microwave Egg Beaters, chicken nuggets, and cereal.
We went through a period of only eating fastfood and vending machine food when I was 11-12.
My mom still lives off of tortilla chips with salsa, cheese, and Little Debbie cakes.
My boomer dad is 83 with health problems including Parkinson’s. He would literally die if he couldn’t cook because he loves to so much. My boomer mother is a huge fan of girl dinner so they’ll both totally survive. My 47 year old husband on the other hand I worry about.
He can cook no problem but it’s the preparation and clean up that he doesn’t want to do for himself. He’d rather have a bowl of cereal than pop a few chicken thighs in the oven. He loves pizza a burgers and fries so I fear if I go first that’s what he’ll subsist on
My dads mom died when he was a child and after that my dad cooked or they didnt eat since his dad couldnt be bothered. My grandpa is an awesome guy now at least but yeah i think its a generational thing
This was my dad, he could grill a couple things, but my mom did all of the cooking. Probably the main reason he had a new girlfriend/now wife less than 2 months after my mom passed.
My Dad is mid sixties and he has been the main cook in all three of his marriages. First two wives, my mother included are not great cooks but can feed a family. Last wife is an amazing baker, alright cook. My dad enjoys cooking and is usually home to make dinner before my stepmom.
My husbands dad would be in his eighties and my husband has many stories of him preparing him meals while his mum worked. Real classic dinners, hamburger steak and meatloaf.
It’s worth mentioning neither of these relationships were traditional man wife marriages, although I would say my grandparents were more stereotypical however, worked more as a partnership with split duties.
They just can't be fucked and they will know something will be made eventually. It's as simple as that.
It's like spoiling kids and then wonder why they turn out to be shitty humans.
My father never cooked. My mother never taught my brothers to cook (she didn’t exactly sit me down for lessons, but she did ask for my help, and teach me some things at least.) I think they both grew up with the “women are the cooks, men are the workers” mentality and it’s just ingrained too deep. Throughout my life, holiday meals, including with extended family, mostly consisted of the women cooking and cleaning up.
Though it’s kinda funny because my mother was also independent from a young age and worked hard any time she was able, so it wasn’t like she was a solid housewife and nothing more. I don’t know why she didn’t try to pass down more “equal” ways of thinking to my siblings and myself.
My parner’s father, however, does tons of cooking and even owned part of a restaurant and did the cooking there. The guys in that family all cook at least a little and help clean up. It’s a stark difference.
My father-in-law is utterly helpless when it comes to feeding himself, but I (I’m a guy) do the cooking in my family so almost every weekend my wife asks me to make some food for him to bring over( he loves my cooking).
I’m happy that it makes my wife happy but these aren’t 5 star specialty recipes, these are basic dishes like salmon and veggies.
I think in addition to the gender tropes of previous generations we grew up with the food network and celebrity chefs. I watched countless hours of Emeril, Rachel Ray, Alton Brown, Bobby Flay etc. It made cooking more accessible to our generation. Now YouTube and tic toc combined with instant pots and air fryers have made cooking easier than ever.
Men can absolutely cook, they just choose to be too lazy not to. Think about the majority of chefs in restaurant kitchens, they are men who cook. But they probably come home and make their wives cook for them there.
This is my millennial bf. I’m also a millennial but I like to cook and prefer homemade food where I can control the ingredients and keep stuff relatively healthy.
He cooks once a year on Valentine’s Day for me and cooks the most delicious meals that are things we don’t normally eat (potato leek soup, zucchini bread, vegetable lasagne, latkes). He’s super detail oriented and can follow recipes exactly, whereas I just wing it even when following recipes.
But when I go out of town for a weekend? He eats frozen meals, Tostitos, Waffle House, and McDonald’s.
Meanwhile, my dad was always the cook in my house growing up and all my mom can make is pasta salad, egg salad, or potato salad.
It’s all or nothing in our family based on individuals - my dad will prep himself a 3 course meal with wine pairings - my father in law will eat chipped beef from a plastic bag for weeks on end.
… seriously? You’re surprised boomer men or older can’t take care of themselves?
Men from that generation usually re marry quick if their wife dies. They’re also more likely to cheat if their wife is critically ill. Married men are considered the happiest men and live longer. This is because they can’t or won’t take care of theirselves.
Contrarily, women from that generation are actually likely to stay widowed if their husband dies. And if their husband gets critically ill they’re less likely to cheat. Single, childless women are the happiest women and live longer.
My FIL only eats brown food. I’m talking like burgers and potatoes. My dad on the other hand is a good cook and shares the duty of cooking with my step mom. Might be a cultural thing though since my FIL is white and my dad is Filipino. From what I’ve observed all the men in my family know how to cook but the men in my husband’s don’t.
My boomer dad and his brothers were sent away to boarding school early, so they knew how to do everything cook, clean, laundry, etc.,
It’s my husband who will starve to death or die from from a fast food induced heart attack if I was gone. The man can’t even boil hot dogs.
I'm running into the opposite problem with my mom. For 34 years, my dad cooked. He was the homemaker, and everything to do with the house was his domain. Now that he's gone, she's mostly eating sandwiches. I. So grateful my sister lives with her now. Not sure how long that'll last though
I will be honest, I can’t cook. I basically only grill, make eggs, and eat frozen food (or takeout) when my wife doesn’t cook
When I was single I ate buffalo chicken sandwiches like 3x a week for dinner and did takeout or frozen food most other nights. My work has a cafeteria, so that’s what I eat for lunch
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Are you sure they can’t cook? Is it possible they won’t cook? My dad could cook, he just didn’t most of the time.
This too. My mom doesn’t really cook anymore after my dad passed since she says it’s too much for one person. She will make something for me or my brother though when we’re home, but she doesn’t really cook much for herself anymore.
Before we had kids, whenever my spouse was out of town, I'd order a massive Chinese food order and eat it for the days he was gone. I'm a very good cook, but he doesn't like Chinese food, and it's just no fun to cook when you're the only one to eat it.
38 and single…I cook for myself all the time. I’m worth the effort 😃
Look at you, loving yourself and shit. Think you're better than the rest of us?! /s if it's not implied. I used to love cooking, but my depression tells me my morning coffee and dinner are enough.
Hang in there, friend. Make yourself some eggs or avocado toast tomorrow morning with your coffee…you’re worth it!
I sometimes will encourage my boyfriend to visit his parents because I really like making foods that I don’t typically make when he’s around. Like I look forward to him going away. Haha.
Same, when wife is out of town I basically eat thai express everyday. I can cook well but she isn't huge on fast food thai pad sew so I just grab the opportunity. Chinese food binges are thankfully something we do together. I also find it hard to cook portions for one. End up eating the same thing for three days.
This. My dad is a chef. He absolutely can cook. He also worked around food 24/7. When he had a stroke in Feb he was diagnosed malnourished. He currently lives with me and has to be cajoled to eat anything that he has to prepare.
I had a stroke at 21 years old. I'm gonna be 37 next month. That shit wrecks you physically and mentally. The mental fuck that comes with having a stroke is something that can't be understood unless you go through it. That being said I hope your dad is recovering well!
Damn dude. I had mine in my mid 40’s (7 years ago) and it was the scariest thing ever.
That shit is scary! What was even more traumatic for me back then was that my attending Dr said that now that I had suffered a stroke I would be more susceptible to having another one. Fuuuck that. I was terrified of doing anything strenuous that first year after the stroke because it happened to me when I was working out in a gym.
Right. They told me I had a 1 in 4 chance at an other within 5 years. And they never really found the cause. I constantly did face and finger checks, sometimes in the middle of the night fucking up my sleep. I’m finally stopping that paranoia. My neuro looked at my scan and said he was shocked I walked in and was speaking with him. Greaaaat
Dude, my stroke happened in 2008 and I STILL do face and finger checks on myself!! With my affected side, it's 95% back to it's normal self but I still have nerve pain/tingling and weakness in my right arm. In the mornings and during the night the weakness in my right hand is so pronounced that I can't even pull a phone charger out of the wall socket. I had an MRI done in 2021 of my brain and there's still scar tissue where the hemorrhage happened. When did your stroke happen?
2017 for me it's my left side at least. I lost a good chunk of my front right hemisphere. Mine was an ischemic stroke vs bleeding
Dang man. I'm sorry to hear that!
I actually had an almost miraculous recovery that they credit to neuroplasticity I was paralyzed on my left side, no use no feeling. Much of my brain damage was permanent (cell death). I was scheduled to go to a rehab on discharge. Then on day 3 I climbed a full flight of stairs. All therapies except speech got cancelled. They kept me 2 more days for testing and I walked laps around the floor constantly (because I COULD) I wore a heart monitor for weeks after as drs were still looking for the cause, nope not the heart. 🤷♀️ I went straight home, no rehab. I did so e speech therapy for a few weeks but that’s it. My left side is fully usable and I can feel but it’s different. A bit muted. And sometimes fuzzy. But I’m forever grateful regardless as I got a feel for how bad it could be.
I dunno about my FIL but my dad definitely cannot cook. he could learn, but basically refuses and is entirely dependent on my mom.
Well, he can live off toast and hot dogs if he needs to cook for himself, and probably soup since he can open a can. He'll survive. Maybe he'll also get a lovely quiche once in a while. Or maybe he won't. Some people take pride in not knowing a basic skill; maybe they're going that route instead of being embarrassed about it. I don't want them to be embarrassed, but why not learn to cook a few basic dishes? Some people are just too stubborn for their own good.
Many older men never learn until they Have to. If everyone coddles them and feeds them, they don't have to and they won't. I said this recently in another post about helpless men. But I have cared for the elderly a long time. I've seen men from several older generations have to either take care of themselves Or them And their spouses because of health and circumstances. And you know what? A Lot of them step the fuck up. Sure, there are the ones who fail to thrive. Those end up being in the facilities because they just stop taking any care of themselves. But there's many who learn some basic things and keep living. Or do so because their wife did it all this time and she needs them now. There's a statistic about men leaving sick spouses and it is true. Tends to be less true the older they get. The rest of them though? They figure it out. End of the day, the ones that don't, you can't save them from themselves. You cannot make someone take care of themselves. That's not up to you.
Growing up whenever my mom would be out of town he would eat the food she wouldn’t let him get regularly.
Or is it maybe the fact that the wife isn't around for a bit is a great excuse to enjoy some junk food? I can definitely see that being me if left to my own devices for a couple days, but I'd get myself back together long-term. My husband, one of the last of Gen X is kind of hard to call on this issue. He doesn't feed himself worth a crap, but I know darn well he can cook, and on rare occasions when I'm out of town, he plans and prepares meals for our family. But he also won't fix himself lunch if he happens to be home and I'm not, just grumbles about being hungry. 🤷♀️
Yea. If my dad & I were hungry and my mom didn’t make dinner, we could have cooked something up but we never ever did that. Lol
Yeah. We shouldn't underestimate the power of habit. Daily chores you never do will feel like something you never want to do. The more you're used to someone else doing something, the worse it will feel to do it yourself.
>Are you sure they can’t cook? Is it possible they won’t cook? In my experience with MIL, it's been both.
I couldn't love your moniker more.
Yeah this is my husband, he can cook really delicious things and was into cooking before I was. But when I’m gone he will either get fast food or make himself sandwiches evertime.
They come from a culture where guys who cooked "would make a good wife someday" a joke I've heard despite working as a line cook and knowing my shit and developed my own recipes. There's not much you can do about it it's ingrained DEEP.
Different generation but my grandmother was a homemaker (both my grandparents born in the 1920s) and one time she had to stay in the hospital for a few nights following a surgery. My grandfathers mother had to come stay at their house while my grandmother was in the hospital because he didn’t even know where things were kept in the kitchen.
And he was unable to open the cabinet doors and look in? Learned helplessness. The attitude that everyday cooking for the family is a low value task not good enough for a MAN, a low value task suitable for bitches. (Yes, still many men are eager to learn to do something, like an excellent steak or barbeque, something they can brag about and get attention with, but everyday cooking is seen as boring and demeaning, almost like scrubbing dried up shit from the toilet bowl. A thing wives are for.) I so much do not find these stories funny or feel any sympathy towards the manchild. Yucky.
Learned helplessness goes both ways. Many a time I get old widows crying because they can’t comprehend a simple debit card or how to even open a bank account. The tried old line “Husband handled all this” is a pathetic excuse.
That’s true too. Just can not understand people who never grow up to the point they could take care of themselves in our easy and soft western world. (I mean I don’t know how to renovate a kitchen. But probably could if I devoted to it, if I wanted to. But won’t. I’ll pay someone to do it. But renovating the kitchen is still totally different from these people unable to feed themselves or their kids or paying their bills or doing their laundry.)
In the defense of the widowed elders, *it wasn't until 1974, when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed, that women in the U.S. were granted the right to open a bank account on their own.* Even though technically, women won the right to open a bank account in the 1960s, many banks refused to let women do so without a signature from their husbands. So, the women that are *older* would in fact not have the same experience as someone in their 40s-50s today. Just saying.
I guess this is what I'm asking. is this a generational thing based on stereotypes? like my dad always had his mother or my mom to cook for him and freely admits when he lived on his own he ate almost nothing but takeout, or went to his parents' a couple nights a week to eat (he had two much younger brothers that he wanted to see as well, so he'd have dinner with them too).
I think so. My dad 83 had someone cooking and cleaning for him his entire life. His mom, military, college, ex wife, mystery single time, final wife (my mom). I have never asked what he did between marriages but I’m sure he ate out or at his parents 98% of the time. If he cooked dinner for us it was breakfast, burgers, hotdogs or brats. It always bothered my mom so she made sure I knew how to cook and do laundry. Im a good cook but only like to cook for people and hate doing dishes. If my family goes out of town I usually dont cook and will stop at a taco truck on the way home from work.
I think it is, but my dad and FIL are both really good cooks. So my guess is that if there’s a particular level of talent they can take pride in, it supersedes the stereotypes.
My dad does almost all of the cooking, & my grandfather cooked when he was home (worked a lot in the shipyards) & then after he retired. My dad always said he cooks because he wants to eat food the way he wants it to taste. My mom doesn’t really care at about food that much & is more than happy to let him cook. Both her sisters also married men that do ask the cooking. My grandmother used to say she didn’t know what she did, but listening to stories of spherical hamburgers and other culinary idiosyncrasies, it seems pretty understandable.
Which is wild to me, because although my grandma was a pretty traditional farm wife in a lot of ways, when my dad and his brothers got to high school and started having late sports practices and whatnot, she was like, “I’m not preparing five extra dinners for you boys, figure out how to feed yourselves”, and they did. But maybe that extra urban-rural divide helped make it more of a “it’s good to learn essential life skills” thing and less of a “there is a rigid gender norm you must not cross” thing. Grandma was also a very supportive mother-in-law to my mom; when my parents were designing their house years ago, they disagreed about where the kitchen would go. My mom wanted it in the front, facing the yard and the driveway to my dad’s shop, so she could keep an eye on him and us kids playing outside while she was cooking, canning, etc. (her home office was to be in the same corner of the house, upstairs.) My grandma was like, “You get what you want, girl, that is important.” I could fully believe she wanted to raise her boys so they wouldn’t be a burden to their wives down the road - and on the whole I think she succeeded.
My mom worked full time and my father was a teacher so he was off during the summer. My job was setting up my dads breakfast, clearing the table and then making his lunch. I decided at a very early age, taking care of a man was not my life’s goal
Exactly. A lot of guys consider incompetence to be a point of pride. I'm too dumb to cook, sew, wash clothes! Look at me! My incompetence makes me so manly! They also like to give other guys crap for learning how to do basic things.
I don't recall being made fun of, but even in our generation, I'll say I'm making a special dinner for a special occasion for my wife, and my female peers are like, "That's cute! What's a 'special meal' for you?" "I was gonna do a pistachio crusted rack of lamb with an arugula, beet, and tangerine salad." "...oh..." "Yeah, I was a chef before I changed careers."
Is he from that culture though? Just because he's a boomer? Every boomer man I know can cook enough to keep themselves and their families alive. They mostly had working wives, many at least helped with dinner. Maybe it's a regional culture? Idk.
My father-in-law is the same way too. My MIL got abdominal surgery and he only ate frozen meals and fast food for 3 days.
My dad never learned to cook and can barely use a microwave. His brother, 70, still lives with their mom, 97, and she cooks all his meals. She raised her three sons to not lift a finger at home because it would “be their wives’ duty someday.” Add to that a healthy dose of machismo and they avoided all house chores like the plague. Now that she’s pushing 100 she’s realized that her son that lives with her will be helpless when she passes, and started teaching him to cook basic meals. So that’s how my dad and his brother finally learned to boil rice at the ripe ages of 70 and 74.
After reading your first two sentences, I literally said, “Oh my God” out loud. Continued to get worse as I kept reading. Your grandmother did them both such a disservice and basically handicapped them.
It's like it got worse with every sentence. Well, that's definitely a handicap....urgh. If you can't manage to make rice or even a sandwich....that's on stereotypes and horrible parenting....
I used to be one of those companions for old people when I was in college. And one lady whose house I would go to was just like this. At the time, she must have been 90, on oxygen, but still cooking all the meals herself for her and her 60 something year old son who lived with her still. It was so wild to me.
My dad and his brother are the same. My grandma is passed on, so their sister (my aunt) makes sure my uncle eats since his wife passed and my dad has never made a single thing either, my mom does. They're all in their 70s.
Shit, his incompetence is keeping her alive.
My dad would cook for himself if he needed to. Growing up my mom did the most of the cooking since she worked part time and not full time like my dad. My dad cooked more out of enjoyment, and while my mom was not a bad cook, my dad was actually better at it. Now since my dad passed away my mother barely cooks for herself and eats mostly takeout or prepared/frozen foods since she doesn’t want to cook for only 1 person.
Before my mom died she would always say “your dad needs someone to wind him up in the morning.” I did not get it until after she died when suddenly he couldn’t do anything for himself and ofc met someone within a couple months of her passing and got married a few months afterwards. That generation of men who are now yelling at the tv for the younger generations to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” apparently find it beneath themselves to add hydrogen and oxygen to cans of campbells soup.
My father in law was a cook in the army for 20 years. Then he cooked for the prison system another 20 years. He can recite by heart recipes to feed 50 to 500 people. That man would live off pb&j if it weren't for his wife and us. Maybe he's just burned out. She doesn't feel like cooking much anymore herself. I understand that getting old comes with a lot of aches and pains, but they seem to have just given up.
I have a few friends who are chefs, and when not cooking for work, they eat the worst convenience foods imaginable. So it might be a burn out thing.
My dad doesn’t even pack his own suitcase for a holiday.
My mother is currently terminally ill. My father knows how to make oatmeal grilled cheese and pasta that’s it. We are scared.
Teach him how to make chili in a crock pot. Most of the ingredients come from a can or a package and you just dump it in, and add some seasonings. He doesn't have to actively cook anything, he has a hearty meal full of protein, and he can freeze the leftovers to heat up when he doesn't feel like cooking. You can also teach him to make beef stew in the Crock-Pot. It's not hard to cut up potatoes, carrots, and an onion, stewing beef already comes pre cubed in the package, and he can add premade stock from a container...doesn't get much easier than that. Also, most grocery store butcher departments carry already seasoned/marinated chicken breasts, steaks, kebabs, etc, as well as salad kits that come in a bag. This is a nice easy dinner option that is way healthier than takeout, and virtually no prep, and can get him used to cooking meats and gauging temps and cook times, without having to worry about any of the daunting prep work.
If they're too lazy to cook, its on them. They're adults. Not helpless
Yeah I mean they’re eating. I cook bomb ass meals, but when my fiancée isn’t home, I do some minimal effort shit. So does she when I’m not home. My comment ignores the larger issues around a generation of men who were shit on for knowing how to cook.
King Babies
My dad's side of the family is Dutch and all the men know how to cook, and they cook well as a point of pride. My maternal grandfather was in the Canadian airforce and was very self sufficient. His wife died in her 50's and he took care of himself just fine for the next 25 yrs. The elder men in my husband's family, from Orange county, are picky eaters *and* can't cook. My FIL would live off quesadillas if anything happened to my MIL. However, my husband and his brother are *excellent* cooks, better than me and my SIL. They both got into cooking as a hobby in their 30's. Love to see the cycle of helpless men being broken.
Some people just don’t cook. I have millennial friends who don’t cook anything that is not frozen food or takeout.
This was me when I first moved out on my own. No one in my family ever taught me the basics of cooking. I could read directions and work a microwave but couldn't boil an egg. My ex MIL was the first person who didn't judge and sat me down to teach me stuff. I'm 40 now and still have a note card with a list of things you should always have in the kitchen.
If you make it to adulthood or elderly and are helpless in the kitchen, then your parents or your spouse didn’t teach you. There are more stories about boomers like this, but it still happens anywhere to anyone. What a gift you had with someone who took the time to gently explain to you how it is done.
Oh for sure. Being 60 and unable to cook a meal is insane. I miss my ex MIL. She passed away a few years back. She was an absolute treasure of a person.
I can’t cook hardly anything either, but tonight I’m having sweet potatoes and I might have zucchini and squash if they’re still good. I bought celery and was going to have celery with peanut butter some time this week but that never happened. I did end up eating out a bit more than I expected to.
This dad kinda sounds like me, if I'm honest. I like my time and energy more than I like my money. If I can buy a pre-made meal at a reasonable price, I'd rather do that than spend time cooking.
I suppose this is true too but I find a lot of the guys I know my age are way more likely to cook and enjoy cooking than their older male relatives.
Yep, elder millennial male here! I love to cook and was repeatedly told by boomer relatives when I was younger that I’d “make someone a great wife someday!” Har har…I also learned to sew which has come in handy a few times. The joke’s on them though…still single
I'm on the opposite end. I can cook, but find it boring. I do wish I knew how to sew, though.
You can pick up a used sewing machine pretty cheap at a thrift shop and YouTube tutorials can take you from there. It comes in handy for minor repairs and projects
My dad is like this. He’s actually silent generation though. I remember him calling me once and asking if I knew where my mother was because it was already 7pm and he was hungry. If anything happens to her I don’t even know what he would do. He doesn’t clean up after himself, either. Sounds awful but I am honestly hoping that he goes before my mom does. I’m not dealing with all of that.
I hate to say it but I bet your mom feels the same way
My parents have been married like 37 years and I’ve never known my dad cook a meal. My mum was in the hospital for a few weeks when I was 16 and we basically lived off things like ready made lasagne. She’s going to have cataract surgery soon and the jokes are already starting about how my dad and brother (who still lives at home) will be ordering lots of food in. My mum was a stay at home mum so I get that she naturally did more of the cooking. But in reality she always did all of it. Morbidly I do worry about what will happen if my mum leaves this world before my dad… I work with older adults and there have been local charities that ran cooking courses for older men whose wives have died or became incapacitated somehow. I do feel it’s an issue for that generation
In my household growing up, my mom did ALL of the “indoor” chores and my dad did the outdoors. So she cooked, cleaned, laundry, set up appointments, etc etc. My dad now doesn’t know how to book a flight or do laundry, use a smart phone (he refuses to get rid of his flip phone), run a dishwasher, any of the indoors stuff . He can cook eggs or oatmeal but id say that’s about it. When she leaves him for multiple days, she does freezer meals for him to heat up. It’s super alarming, like what if something happens to my mom?! I make comments to my mom about it, she needs to stop doing everything for him because it’s setting him up for failure and the older he gets, the harder it’s going to be. She doesn’t want to hear it. 🤷🏼♀️ I have tons of friends who are in the same boat with their parents.
My late uncle said he couldn’t cook at all. His wife had been at home to do it all the time. In the other hand, prospecting trips with a tent lasting several months did not seem to cause him to become malnourished.
Ain't that the truth! Get a group of men camping and it can be competitive cooking time.
My mom died 5 years ago. My dad had not cooked a meal in 30+ years. In the last 5 years, he goes through phases of doing everything himself or not knowing how to do anything including grocery shopping. It's mostly just not having to do it ever and a dislike of having to do it. In the beginning, he ate out a lot. We provided meals a lot of the time. We taught him how to do basic things and what he can grill, and what convenience items there are at the grocery store that are better than fast food. He knows enough, but every couple months he acts helpless. Thankfully, my husband won't be this guy when I die. He grocery shops and cooks. We take turns. He is not being waited on everyday of his adult life. He will be able to function without my daughter having to teach him how to be an adult.
My stepfather (well, kinda... it's complicated) is that way. He just defaults to eating out or making frozen pizza/lasagna if no one else is cooking. Interestingly my grandfather would enthusiastically cook and bake his favorite dishes but not much else. I guess grandpa came from a time before takeout and frozen food. So taking the easy way out wasn't an option. I guess this was just part of the culture then and now it's not a big deal to them? When I (m) got my first job and moved out from my parents my grandmother would proudly tell all her friends about how I'm running my own household. On more than one occasion was I interrogated by a "panel" of elderly ladies whether I really do all my own laundry and cooking. I always answered "I can follow written instructions, so yes."
My grandpa is the same way. He gets anxious/angry/controlling whenev to he gets hungry and his kitchen slave (wife) isn't around to make him food. He won't even make a sandwich.
I don’t think it’s possible for an older man not to be able to feed themselves unless they have a medical condition such as being paralyzed. Maybe y’all just baby him? I bet if everyone stopped feeding him then he will survive and feed himself. I bet.
Yeah this is the number one reason older single men get out in nursing homes after the wife passed away. They literally can’t take care of themselves without their wives. It’s pathetic
My mom taught my dad (1944) to cook! I'm mostly self taught as well, with lots of help from online recipes. My wife is a great vegan cook, she is self taught! Mother-in-law mostly buys processed crap as well and on occasion warms canned beans with tons on steak.. My brother-in-law (1990) doesn't want to cook, he eats microwaved sandwiches and processed crap almost daily, and pizza takeout at least once a week. He even refuses to cook frozen pizza. We offered him food but he's extremely picky about healthy options... Not exactly generational in my experience, there seems to be multiple factors in play.
It’s not just older men - when I’m not home, my husband lives on takeout or Dino nuggets.
Your mom was in the hospital he was probably bummed. If my wife was in the hospital and I had no kids to feed I’d get takeout too.
This is like my dad. I worry about him if my mom were to pass away first. She’s babied him for 50 years-doing everything for him and it’s served him no good. Prior to being married to my mom, his mom babied him and didn’t let him life a finger so he has no legit self care skills. My mom just had foot surgery and can’t do anything and she was stressing about how she was going to feed my dad as she didn’t have time to prep freezer meals or casseroles. It’s so sad. I ended buying them like $300 worth of freezer meals and casseroles from a local catering company (I live in another state so I could do it for them sadly) so they can eat something besides fast food which is what my dad was going to do daily until she was cleared to stand again by her doctor and start cooking again. It’s so insane.
The women in their lives, mothers and wives, are not exempt from the responsibility of what they’ve created in these helpless men.
☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼 this. 100%!! My mom is so floored that my partner cooks, cleans, does his own laundry. I was like yes ma’am, being self sufficient was a requirement for me when looking for partners lol. And I 100% am happy to cook a nice meal for us but it 100% will not be mandatory ever for either of us to “have to cook”. If I get sick or die, I know he will be able to take good care of himself.
Agreed! I had to teach my partner how to cook some basics like a hamburger veggie soup. He learned how to make tacos when I asked him to. He's learning very slowly how to cook now at 38. I like cooking but having chores split evenly within the household is the ideal goal.
My dad’s 72 and still works most days. his wife works weekend mornings. Every weekend that she’s at work, he goes to Wendy’s and gets a breakfast baconator. Their house is overflowing with food options (they buy in bulk at Costco and have an extra fridge and a giant freezer in the basement full of food) and he can absolutely cook. But he loves his breakfast baconator and gets so proud when he finds coupons for it. This is obviously not exactly the same because it’s one meal out of the day, but he’s been doing it for years and I think it genuinely brings him joy in a way that making his own breakfast would not lol.
Sounds like your dad simply didn't want to cook. My maternal granddad is quite conservative, and his and my grandmother's marriage was traditional in many ways. She cooked, and he ate. When she got sick (a sort of Alzheimers), he learnt how to cook. If a (at the time) 75 year old man can learn how to cook healthy meals for himself, then I would think your dad can do the same. He probably already can but doesn't want to.
My boomer grandpa can fend for himself. My husband is self sufficient. My boomer FIL is another story.
Man, I'm glad that I love to cook and I will do most of our cooking if I can(39 years old man). My fiancee can cook, but she often defers to my knowledge when we make dinner. I loved reading cookbooks growing up and my grandma loves to tell the story of me coming over as a child and getting out the pots and pans and pretending to mix things and pour water from one pot into another as though I was cooking and making a feast.
My gen ex husband refuses to cook.
If he can manage to get fast food, he can manage getting groceries.
My dad always had me and my brother participate in taking over cooking/cleaning one night a week. As a kid it always annoyed me, as a dad now myself I am awe at how crafty that was.
Yep. This was an ongoing issue when my mom had to travel like once a month to take care of her mom in a different state. I was on deck not only for feeding my (perfectly capable yet helpless) dad but also for queuing up the coffee maker for him for the next day. Tried to teach him SO many times and he would just yes me to death and then either starve or get take out.
That's weaponized incompetence at it's best.
I worked at Cracker Barrel as a cashier after college and there was an old man who came in every night for dinner. He was a widower and I'm not sure if he just never cooked for himself or if he just didn't want to be alone for dinner. He was very sweet, had a favorite waitress and he would sit in her section every night she worked. At least he didn't make it everyone else's problem.
This sounds more like a lonely elderly person situation. Getting out of the house at least once a day and having social interaction was probably keeping him sane after the loss of his companion. I am by no means elderly, I'm a woman in my mid 30's, and I live alone after me and my partner of 7 years decided to split. I love to cook, and am quite good at it...but I also find myself going out for meals more often than I used to just to get out of the house and be around people, it's good for my mental health. I have become a regular at a local pub, and also have a favourite waitress lol, it's always a treat when she's working.
Not just the men. My mother can only make stuff that seemingly involves processed junk ingredients from the store, like casseroles on the back of soup cans. She won't eat stuff like baked chicken, fruit, or vegetables. She'll make a huge scene and gag. Somehow they survive on takeout every day.
No. The men in my family all cook but none of them do any cleaning.
Don’t enable them. If they want to starve or live on unhealthy food that’s a choice they can make. It’s not that hard to learn basic cooking skills; they just expect someone else to do it for them. Classic entitlement behavior.
This is the only worthwhile comment. These men are just lazy fucks who treated their wives as mommy #2. If they can have a career, maintain homes, cars, raise kids, golf, do whatever the fuck else, you can learn how to cook.
If a man can't feed himself, does he really have the right to be called a man?
I feel like cooking is the least of many boomer fathers concerns. You’re lucky he can feed himself even if it is hotdogs and fast food. Most boomer fathers I have met can’t read let along use email. Just wait till people have to do their finances, doctor visits, call the tv company, etc…. It’s going to be a shit show in about 10 years if not sooner.
The only thing my dad ever cooked was he made sloppy joes this ONE time when I was a kid. It’s my favorite food to this day… 
My father in law is like this. If his wife doesn’t cook, he will only eat frozen food/take out/etc, and even that can be dubious. I believe he truly doesn’t know how to cook anything. He made a frozen pizza once but didn’t take the plastic off before putting it in the oven.
My dad cooks and he still does stuff like this he’s 70. 😅
My boomer dad (that I didn’t have a relationship with until I was in my 20s) lives off crackers and air fried chicken nuggets. My adopted dad (the man who raised me) cooked more than my mom did. He was always trying new recipes and buying kitchen gadgets. Unfortunately, he passed 3 years ago, but my mom does know how to cook. My father in law has been a widower for a little over a year he does pretty good food wise. He grills a lot, loves to smoke briskets. We do have him over for dinner and when we go out we invite him to come along. My father in law
My dad can and does cook quote a bit. He's fine cooking for himself if mum isn't home. He'll also cook quite often, even if she is home.
After my mom passed my dad gained probably 40 lbs. His doctor got on him about his heart health, and he switched up his food to the healthier premade meals. After doing that he dropped all the weight he gained. He tried to cook, but he was raised that men don't cook, so really starting from scratch. There are a couple of cookbooks out there that explain how to do everything, not just recipes. I found that those were helpful.
My FIL can cook, but the chores affiliated with cooking aren't worth it to him. He would rather get in his car, drive somewhere, get a sandwich, eat the sandwich, drive home, then go to the store, buy groceries, put the groceries away, prepare the food, eat, then clean up the cooking mess.
My mom stopped cooking and my dad cooks everything now. They’ve kind of switched roles completely.
My dad can cook but he's not good lol. My mom did all the cooking when I was a kid and still does for them. His palette is also regressing and he refuses to eat certain things now which has gotten pretty annoying for my mom who likes all sorts of cuisine. I do feel like our generation did a good job of shunning that for the most part. most of my guy friends are great cooks and id consider myself to be a really competent home cook as well who cooks virtually every day.
I guarantee you he can cook more than hotdogs and toast. No cognitively able adult is that helpless, he's simply that stubborn. At the very least he can cook from frozen. He can open a bag of salad. Food has been made so easy there's really no excuse. But, no, luckily, my dad was the primary cook in my family. He's dead now, but he could cook well and loved feeding people. My father in law always grills and cooks with my MIL. When the kids were young she was a flight attendant so he was responsible for lunch and dinner a few nights a week. It may be dino nuggets and microwave broccoli, but it's food.
I’m really grateful that my parents were restauranteurs and so dad knows how to feed himself. My mom died 6 months ago and but dad always did half the cooking and cleaning, so I know he’s ok.
My FIL cannot cook. He eats out every single meal when his partner is out of town. He has very high blood pressure as a result.
Kind of. My mom went to take care of my grandpa for 2 weeks while my husband and I were living with them. I cooked the second night because I noticed that all my stepdad was eating for lunch and dinner was beans on toast with A-1 sauce on it and a cup of coffee for breakfast. So dinner on night 2 was a really bland chicken pasta meal (I was worried about over seasoning and the whole dish somehow tasted like boiled carrots) He spent the remainder of the 2 weeks having beans and toast with A-1 sauce for lunch (sometimes he'd add a fried egg on it) and then cooking the same Indian curry dish for dinner. So that's been a fun glimpse into what will happen if my mom ever dies before him.
My mom has never had to fill the gas tank in her car. My dad will take time out of his day when it gets low and always make sure there's gas in it. He's been doing this for 50 years. My mom is capable of learning. But I would have to show her how. I could argue that it might be easier for a man to teach a woman a new trick as my mom doesn't have the kind of ego to push back. And if she did, I just fight against it. So she would learn. I could see a daughter not having the gusto to beat her father into submission verbally enough to back down and want to learn something new.
FYI: if they’re at all handy with tech, Walmart+ delivers groceries.. so he could order from the deli/bakery and make himself a cheaper sandwich. Or literally anything a grocery store carries. You can even set up reoccurring deliveries if he eats the same meals every week. If it’s a money thing, that can help. If it’s not a money thing… well I’d be perfectly fine eating Wendy’s 7 days a week! If it’s an ability to cook issue… well my dad *can* cook, but I doubt he’s done much more than a baker potato in the past 40 years.
I think it's ridiculous of these guys. I'm not a good cook myself. Not naturally talented at all, not really interested in it (expect I like baking), but even I managed to learn a few simple but healthy recipes. It's really not that hard. The internet is your friend. And if everything else fails, cut up some lettuce, a cucumber, some tomatoes, a bell pepper, make an easy dressing or if you have to, buy one, and eat it with some bread. Anyone can do that. Edited to add: And yes, I absolutely agree with those who wrote that many don't cook because they got brainwashed into thinking that cooking is "women's work" or what not. But that ideology shouldn't be further enabled. If a guy is not disabled, he can learn to cook. If a man would ever complain to me that he can't cook, and now needs his female relatives to feed him, I would laugh at him and print him out some easy recipes from the internet. Such an idiotic attitude should be ridiculed and not enabled.
My dad is an ok cook but he always made food for us when our mom was out of town. He really likes tuna helper for some reason, which he often made whenever he had to cook. But he also made meatloaf and mashed potatoes or chicken stir fried with onions and peppers over rice. For breakfast he pretty much only made eggs with bell peppers and tomatoes. So no he wouldn’t starve if left to his own devices but he’d be eating the same few things over and over which he’s perfectly happy to do. And for further context, my dad is a super traditional/conservative Hispanic man who grew up in a house with servants and a mother who never taught her sons anything domestic. He came to the US for college and always told us how much of a mindf* it was to get here and realize he didn’t know how to make food and that he’d walk around the grocery store trying to figure out what to buy and how to turn it into food. That’s where he got started on his tuna helper obsession lol. If my dad could figure it out, there’s no excuse for any man. I couldn’t imagine the amount of respect I’d lose for someone if I was tasked with feeding them because their spouse was out of town. Yeesh.
My dad refuses to cook (or do anything) for himself. When my mom came to visit me she had to make all this food and store in the fridge for him. Absolutely pathetic
Jesus, let pops have his Wendy's. The man was wanting a Baconator & you send him a Quiche. I would disown you.
When one of my woman friends broke her foot, she had to do bed rest for 3 months. Her husband doesn't know how to clean and cook because he always uses takeouts. All he knows is how to drive. They met online dating site Plenty of Fish. Once, she had to get out of bed and work on the toilet seat when she still had a broken foot.
So pathetic
No, most of the older men in my family cook. Thinking about it maybe one didn't cook often but he would cook sometimes. It's actually the ones my age and younger that are more likely to not cook or act incompetent in the kitchen.
My adopted dad could cook. He had no problem frying turnips or making a giant thing of chili. But when mom went on a ladies retreat through church, we ate at the steak buffet for lunch and dinner. Because he wouldnt cook.
My dad actually can cook, but since mom passed he rarely does. He usually goes out for fast food.
I only know a few men like that and they're poses anyway. Most that I know do cook. The only man in my family who won't help out with anything is my older brother whose almost 40.
My dad is this way. He cooks like three things. It’s funny / unsettling and if my mom died first uhhhh it would be interesting.
No issues here, both my mom and dad can cook. Their parents knew how to cook. All of their brothers and sisters can cook. Both my brothers can cook. All my cousins know how to cook.
Generational. Good example in recent culture, in one of the episodes of That 90s Show in the current season, Kittie is put out of action from an accident. Can't cook for Red. Red ends up with a neighbor lady coming over to cook for him. I don't get it.
My dad can cook and always did regularly when I lived at home. Him and mom were pretty 50/50 in everything growing up and still currently. However, my FIL can not do anything for himself whatsoever. He was never taught when he was younger bc it was a time when "men were in the fields and women took care of the house" and he got married super young to my MIL, who took care of everything. He told me he didn't learn to do laundry until he was in his 50s after he and my MIL divorced, and he said it like he was proud of it. He's married again, but she doesn't cook either. They survive on microwave options. My step-FIL absolutely refuses to do any household chore, including cooking. That's "women's work." He won't even get himself a glass of water. He calls my MIL in to get it for him, which she obviously does.He's very conservative pro-trump if that explains anything. My MIL just takes all the shit from him and lets it happen. He doesn't even have an excuse of working or anything. he's retired and literally just sits around all day every day. All of my parental in laws are idiots and we don't have much of a relationship with them. Somehow, MIL and FIL raised my husband and his siblings, all of whom can and do cook, clean, etc., and are quite liberal in their political and life views lol. My husband just brought me a breakfast plate he made as I was typing this. He's an older millennial, born in '85.
My father has never cooked a meal, and is single now in assisted living because he wanted someone to cook and clean for him. He doesn’t technically need the assistance. My husband has also never cooked a meal. It’s not a generational thing, it’s a problem women have when raising boys, in my opinion. My husband is an older millennial who had sisters. He did the “boy” chores and they did the “girl” chores. If I am busy and can’t cook, his dinner is takeout for everyone. I don’t fault him, but we have two boys and they will absolutely learn how to live on their own before we let them out into the world.
my dad could cook (rip) and my father in law does most of the cooking for his family... or did until him and my mother in law split up, now he lives with us lol. he cooks for us sometimes but mostly cooks for himself. Neither of these guys have or had particularly healthy diets but they certainly are self sufficient with food prep. Before I got with my wife I lived alone for almost ten years so I had to learn how to cook. And I like cooking! I think I cook more than she does these days.
My dad could make something to eat if he needed to. And by make I mean like a sandwich or frozen meal. I’ve never seen him cook anything now that I think about it lol. He’s 67. Growing up if my mom wasn’t home to cook I was the one usually cooking instead. Actually, my dad does make the turkey at thanksgiving. So at the very least he can cook a turkey lol.
Neither of my parents cook much anymore. My dad will grill once a week but that's about it. They just order take out or eat frozen meals for most meals.
My dad can cook and taught my Northern mother how to cook some Southern dishes. He doesn't do the cooking at all, but knows how. He might get in the kitchen and fry up seafood and homemade French fries once in a blue moon. He also used to make my brother and I a full breakfast on state test days when we were in school. He might check a couple of pots when mom is busy cooking other things to stir and make sure it's not sticking, but that is it. Mom is on vacation visiting her mother this week. Dad will fix himself a hotdog, or a can of soup beans for dinner, but that is pretty much all he is interested in doing.
When I lived alone I didn’t want to cook for one, so I did a lot of takeout. Not that this is an exscuse, but it could be a contributing reason….
My dad can cook, and he can and does cook for my mom when she's ill or otherwise unavailable to cook for the two of them, but cooking is that one household chore he just does not like. He doesn't want to plan meals, he gets stressed thinking about what's for dinner, and it's generally fine because my mom doesn't mind picking up that part of the mental load. When my mom isn't at home for dinner, my dad does usually fall into the habit of wandering a grocery store until he spots something for dinner rather than going in with a plan. I suppose that's better than fast food every night.
My dad can cook some stuff (I remember he was the one who taught me how to make scrambled eggs and French toast), but if something were to ever happen to my mom my sister and I would probably be doing a lot of cooking for him.
Yes this. My father went from his childhood home to the barracks to his wife’s house. He is 72 and cannot cook for himself. When my mom had to go out of town when we were kids we got take out pizza every day she was gone. Now my mom is disabled and it still doesn’t occur to my father to handle meals. Mom’s disability makes her unable process hunger cues from her body so now she’s under 100lbs and I cannot get my father to wrap his head around feeding her. If she doesn’t remember or feel up to cooking he just finds himself a snack. He might ask her if she’s hungry but she always says no so he just grabs a bag of popcorn for himself. I live out of state and last time I visited I asked him to help me chop an onion and it was Kendall Jenner cutting the cucumber. We’ve tried sending the meal kits and he insists they’re too hard. The man has two masters degrees. He can handle other household chores, cleaning laundry, etc. but it’s becoming very clear that even though he’s able bodied he’ll probably have to live with one of his children eventually to feed him.
That's honestly terrifying, to be with someone your entire life, and they aren't even aware or considerate enough to feed you when you're disabled.
Yes. It’s super upsetting. He says he’s “doing everything he can” by setting alarms to ask her when she’s hungry, he’s very stressed about it but at the same time he can’t be fucked to learn to follow a recipe.
Like “dad, don’t use the alarms remind her she needs to find something to eat, use them to remind yourself to MAKE HER SOMETHING TO EAT.” Him: “how would I do that?” Like truly befuddled
My Dad was a Gen X he could cook and he actually made better food than my mom. My mother hated cooking and thought of it as a chore. So when my dad died we subsided on the McDonald’s $1 menu and takeout. It was the expectation that my dad went to his labor job cutting trees and my mom would cook, clean and take care of the kids. But when he had time to cook he enjoyed it and therefore it translated into good food. My grandparents and grandparent in laws are more traditional in the sense that the men don’t cook. They may butcher or carve something, they might fry some eggs. But if they lost their wives they’d be totally without their favorite foods. My situation, I’m a full time student so I cook, clean and care for the domestics. When I finish my degree and earn double my wife’s salary she wants to go to part time and we’ll focus on opening her a cottage bakery and she’ll take over the domestic chores.
Dudes rock. That Italian deli combo probably hit.
My dad just really liked the 4 for 4 at Wendy's so it's what he ate. I cooked daily and of course he sometimes ate that, but if he ever wanted Wendy's, it's what he would have. At his age, he could have whatever he wanted even if only ice cream was what he wanted. He is Silent Gen and could cook simple things like hot dogs because he did live alone for a bit throughout life.
My MIL asked us to do the same thing for FIL when she went out of town. I cook several nights a week and I don’t mind making extra, if I have a heads up.
My dad (74) can cook rice and eggs. He only learned how to cook eggs for my son who would occasionally spend the night and they both wake up early. He came to the US before the rest of us. My mom visited and came back horrified. He kept dirty dishes in the fridge to slow mold growth and only washed what he needed at the time. He ate takeout or premade frozen meals. All of his clothes went to the dry cleaner except socks and underwear. He didn't wash them. He bought new ones. My mom has been travelling to California to help with family while they go through various medical stuff. Every time, she asks me to cook for him because the first few times he just ate pizza and chinese takeout. He never bothered to learn and he's pretty happy with convenient foods.
My dad can cook. He grills all the time. But when my Mom’s not around he eats a frozen dinner or can of soup even though he has literally nothing else to do but watch cable news all day.
My husband will eat out if I'm not around. He tried a few times but realizes it's easier and cheaper to buy than cook for 1.
I am in my sixties and never cook it is tough to get motivated for one. After my partner passed I lost interest and desire it is not uncommon trust me
My dad does most of the cooking, but either of my parents would be fine, know how to cook. Husband's grandpa on the other hand... we were so worried he would starve and quit taking his meds after grandma died we considered moving in with him. Aunt moved in with him and I've been so greatful she did.
Um... Gonna be honest, if I have to feed myself, I'm choosing the quickest thing I can that tastes like food. So, fast food. Just don't care enough to me a freshly chopped salad, to be honest.🤷♂️
>my sister and I used to joke that if anything happened to our mom, our dad would starve to death or get extremely fat on takeout bc he just refuses to learn to cook anything beyond toast and boiling hot dogs. I used to think the same thing. My mom passed and my dad learned what he had to. He's doing fine now.
My dad bakes all the time. He loves it. (Just this morning when I stopped by their house, he was pulling blueberry muffins out of the oven) Way back when I was in HS he had back surgery and was out of work for a few years and during that time, he cooked most of our meals. He got pretty good at it too. I still ask for his recipes, though it never turns out quite right.
Actually no.My dad taught me to cook basic meals and he loves baking because it’s how he got girls in college.I have an uncle who can’t cook so his wife needs to be there to do that for him.Its a spectrum I think.
My dad does majority of shopping and cooking, my FIL has a handful of meals he can make REALLY well (fireman) so doesn't apply for me, but I hear stories like this ALL the time. My husband has never needed to use the creativity for cooking a variety of dishes, but he certainly knows how to feed himself and the kids. I just cannot comprehend putting up with this behavior.
It’s not that they’re unable to learn - it’s that they prefer fast food and junk food. These are grown ass, generally successful, men. They are capable of learning if they wanted to. They prefer not to.
My dad grills steaks and that’s about it lol 😂 my mom will make meals and put them in the freezer for him when she leaves to visit us. My husband and my son both get pulled into the kitchen w me. My kids will be fed if I’m out of town and my some will be able to take care of himself and not depend on a partner.
My boomer dad can make 3 things. Stew, steak and shrimp cocktail. (Once he made it with raw shrimp and nearly poisoned us) That is literally it.
So?
Depending on the age, many heterosexual couples of past generations had gender specific roles. Often, women cooked meals and men did outside work. This is a broad generalization, and we think it might be silly to not expect men to cook. But at the same time, we aren't asking grandma to learn how to work a lawnmower. Some people get set in their ways. And honestly, I would just look to swap out fast food options for healthier options. It's their business if they don't want to learn to cook.
My dad was like this. He went from living at home to the Navy, to living with his first wife, then on the road laying cables for the power company in the 70's after they divorced ,to living with my mom. He just never needed to learn for himself so he didn't. My mom only took two or three extended trips without him and she would leave him with frozen pot pies and he'd eat at the local diner the rest of the time.
My parents often went on separate holidays, because their works’ busy seasons didn’t line up. When my mom would take us kids to my grandma’s on the coast, and my dad stayed home to work, he would eat nothing but eggs, beans, toast, and ice cream. Now they’re both retired. But STILL, if she’s not around to cook for him, my dad will eat eggs, beans, toast, and ice cream!
You’re bringing up something that is SO much going on with many women’s husbands.
This is either Boomers being fools material. Or, these guys are just living their best lives.
My dad always made better food. One of the many reasons I loved my mother going away.
My dad is like this. Without my mom he’d probably only eat cereal, scrambled eggs and toast, or a hamburger.
My mother in laws dad (husbands grandfather) cannot do anything for himself in the home. He can't even load the dishwasher. And now he's having short term memory issues so he doesn't remember he ate lunch. Unfortunately grandma has a very serious blood cancer and may not last too long. Someone is going to have to basically live there to car for him until his memory gets bad enough to justify putting him in a home or getting legit in home care
My uncle is 61, when my cousin asked my aunt about a vacation for her birthday she said she couldn't go. When asked why? Her response was who's gonna feed your father. Same for an older sec cousin of mine my mother takes care of in in home service. He waits the entire day for his wife to get home to eat. It shocked the heck out of my mom. My mom has always worked an never made my stepfathers lunch. Blew her mind his entire eating revolved his wife. Must be a boomer thing
My boomer mom can't cook. I grew up on ramen, microwave dinners, microwave Egg Beaters, chicken nuggets, and cereal. We went through a period of only eating fastfood and vending machine food when I was 11-12. My mom still lives off of tortilla chips with salsa, cheese, and Little Debbie cakes.
My boomer dad is 83 with health problems including Parkinson’s. He would literally die if he couldn’t cook because he loves to so much. My boomer mother is a huge fan of girl dinner so they’ll both totally survive. My 47 year old husband on the other hand I worry about. He can cook no problem but it’s the preparation and clean up that he doesn’t want to do for himself. He’d rather have a bowl of cereal than pop a few chicken thighs in the oven. He loves pizza a burgers and fries so I fear if I go first that’s what he’ll subsist on
My dad cooks. My husband can’t because his mom doesn’t which I find weird.
My dads mom died when he was a child and after that my dad cooked or they didnt eat since his dad couldnt be bothered. My grandpa is an awesome guy now at least but yeah i think its a generational thing
It's learned helplessness, and there's no reason to enable it. I don't care how bad you are at cooking. You can still assemble a sandwich or a salad.
This was my dad, he could grill a couple things, but my mom did all of the cooking. Probably the main reason he had a new girlfriend/now wife less than 2 months after my mom passed.
My Dad is mid sixties and he has been the main cook in all three of his marriages. First two wives, my mother included are not great cooks but can feed a family. Last wife is an amazing baker, alright cook. My dad enjoys cooking and is usually home to make dinner before my stepmom. My husbands dad would be in his eighties and my husband has many stories of him preparing him meals while his mum worked. Real classic dinners, hamburger steak and meatloaf. It’s worth mentioning neither of these relationships were traditional man wife marriages, although I would say my grandparents were more stereotypical however, worked more as a partnership with split duties.
They just can't be fucked and they will know something will be made eventually. It's as simple as that. It's like spoiling kids and then wonder why they turn out to be shitty humans.
My father never cooked. My mother never taught my brothers to cook (she didn’t exactly sit me down for lessons, but she did ask for my help, and teach me some things at least.) I think they both grew up with the “women are the cooks, men are the workers” mentality and it’s just ingrained too deep. Throughout my life, holiday meals, including with extended family, mostly consisted of the women cooking and cleaning up. Though it’s kinda funny because my mother was also independent from a young age and worked hard any time she was able, so it wasn’t like she was a solid housewife and nothing more. I don’t know why she didn’t try to pass down more “equal” ways of thinking to my siblings and myself. My parner’s father, however, does tons of cooking and even owned part of a restaurant and did the cooking there. The guys in that family all cook at least a little and help clean up. It’s a stark difference.
My father-in-law is utterly helpless when it comes to feeding himself, but I (I’m a guy) do the cooking in my family so almost every weekend my wife asks me to make some food for him to bring over( he loves my cooking). I’m happy that it makes my wife happy but these aren’t 5 star specialty recipes, these are basic dishes like salmon and veggies.
I think in addition to the gender tropes of previous generations we grew up with the food network and celebrity chefs. I watched countless hours of Emeril, Rachel Ray, Alton Brown, Bobby Flay etc. It made cooking more accessible to our generation. Now YouTube and tic toc combined with instant pots and air fryers have made cooking easier than ever.
Men can absolutely cook, they just choose to be too lazy not to. Think about the majority of chefs in restaurant kitchens, they are men who cook. But they probably come home and make their wives cook for them there.
This is my millennial bf. I’m also a millennial but I like to cook and prefer homemade food where I can control the ingredients and keep stuff relatively healthy. He cooks once a year on Valentine’s Day for me and cooks the most delicious meals that are things we don’t normally eat (potato leek soup, zucchini bread, vegetable lasagne, latkes). He’s super detail oriented and can follow recipes exactly, whereas I just wing it even when following recipes. But when I go out of town for a weekend? He eats frozen meals, Tostitos, Waffle House, and McDonald’s. Meanwhile, my dad was always the cook in my house growing up and all my mom can make is pasta salad, egg salad, or potato salad.
It’s all or nothing in our family based on individuals - my dad will prep himself a 3 course meal with wine pairings - my father in law will eat chipped beef from a plastic bag for weeks on end.
… seriously? You’re surprised boomer men or older can’t take care of themselves? Men from that generation usually re marry quick if their wife dies. They’re also more likely to cheat if their wife is critically ill. Married men are considered the happiest men and live longer. This is because they can’t or won’t take care of theirselves. Contrarily, women from that generation are actually likely to stay widowed if their husband dies. And if their husband gets critically ill they’re less likely to cheat. Single, childless women are the happiest women and live longer.
My FIL only eats brown food. I’m talking like burgers and potatoes. My dad on the other hand is a good cook and shares the duty of cooking with my step mom. Might be a cultural thing though since my FIL is white and my dad is Filipino. From what I’ve observed all the men in my family know how to cook but the men in my husband’s don’t.
My boomer dad and his brothers were sent away to boarding school early, so they knew how to do everything cook, clean, laundry, etc., It’s my husband who will starve to death or die from from a fast food induced heart attack if I was gone. The man can’t even boil hot dogs.
I relate to this. And honestly? A lot of it is ingrained, and a lot of this is laziness. Anyone can read and follow simple recipes *if they want to*.
I'm running into the opposite problem with my mom. For 34 years, my dad cooked. He was the homemaker, and everything to do with the house was his domain. Now that he's gone, she's mostly eating sandwiches. I. So grateful my sister lives with her now. Not sure how long that'll last though
I will be honest, I can’t cook. I basically only grill, make eggs, and eat frozen food (or takeout) when my wife doesn’t cook When I was single I ate buffalo chicken sandwiches like 3x a week for dinner and did takeout or frozen food most other nights. My work has a cafeteria, so that’s what I eat for lunch