Do your friends who have adult sons living with them tend to do more for the sons' housekeeping needs?

My son moved home during the pandemic after graduating from college and with Law School closed for in person classes. He did his own laundry; I have enough on my plate to do his too.

Even now that he is “launched” he still comes home to do his laundry here instead of going to a laundromat. But it is all his chore.

Every child is different. Does not matter what gender either.
Laziness nor coddling is not gender based.

My uncles son lives at home and works FT, 21 years old. He is required to do specific chores in lieu of rent. Its non-negotiable. So no, his parents do not coddle him.

@Forever_Free It is not innately gender-based, but it is cultural, and there are many cultures where men are always “taken care of” by the women in their lives re. domestic needs. It’s expected that a wife, mom, or even a sister will cook, clean, and do laundry for the men in their lives, and men are not expected to know these skills.

So that may be why you are seeing it more often with adult sons rather than adult daughters living at home. As for me, despite being raised in a privileged environment, I was taught to do things for myself. I have a friend who doesn’t have to lift a finger when he visits home (and he can’t cook for shit), but that is not really me. However, if my parents offer to cook for me or do more stuff for me, I’m not going to say no. :) Convenience is convenience and I know they’re doing it out of love. I certainly am capable of doing it all for myself, though, because they taught me.

I hope I never find out.

ZOMG, are there sons living with their parents and not being required to do their own laundry! Coddling coddling spoiling OMG! What if they’re NOT PAYING RENT! The horror! The scandal! The laziness! What about CHORES?!?! Is an adult being taken care of? Phone the Tough Love hotline! /s

@Zaku You jest but here in the middle, the men are very coddled. I am guilty of it, too.

I have one 30+ son living with me. (He bounced back a few years ago.) I told him when he was 15 that I didn’t feel like doing his laundry any more. He said “Okay.” I showed him how to work the washer and dryer, and that was that.

I think most of them would actually rather have the power of knowing how (doing laundry or whatever) than persist in dependency. And any of them who go away to school are going to have to figure it out.

Afterthought: I wonder how many of the let-Mom-do-it young folk have actually been shown how to do their own laundry and other things. If no one taught them, that’s a missed step. They may feel foolish to ask now. Especially with those airplane-cockpit dashboards, washing machine operation is not necessarily intuitive.

I could cook at 8 or 9, I knew how the run the washer and when got one; the dryer. Ran the mangle iron https://www.ebay.com/itm/222746074581, when I was 10.

My husband’s mom did all of our laundry when we lived with them the first time. It was three months in-between our first and second house. She ironed all of my husband’s shirts too. It actually was a gift to me. I had a back injury that wasn’t healing, and living there where I did nothing domestic finally let me back heal.

In my marriage my husband did the laundry when we both worked full time.

My adult son moved back in with his then-five-year-old son. They’ve both been responsible for their own laundry, especially since my wife has become bedridden.

And now my adult daughter has also moved in with us. Full multi-generational inter-racial limited-spatial home!

@Strauss, almost like the old-time model of the multigenerational household. For different reasons now, though.

In the 1920s-1940s, my grandfather’s house was home to his wife, his three daughters, and the two grandmothers. He supported them all. You bet he was coddled. My mother, the youngest, was still coddling him 20+ years later.

@Jeruba Reminds me of a story I heard from my uncle.

It seems that my grandfather and two of his sons (my uncles) were living in a similar situation in that era. Jobs were scarce, and food insecurities were real. One morning the (adult) boys spotted a cotton tail in the yard, and doing their best “Elmer Fudd” decided to try to put some rabbit stew on the menu.
Well, if you’ve ever watched the old “Looney Tunes ” or “Merrie Melodies” shorts, you know how that went. After chasing the little critter around the neighborhood, rhe “boys”, out of breath, spied the bunny, also winded, sitting on the back porch next to the door. The guys started conspiring how to trap their prey, when suddenly, the back door opened and there was Grampa! He saw the rabbit, effortlessly stooped down and captured it, and called out “Hey, boys! We’ll be having some rabbit stew for dinner tonight!”

For each of my kid’s 13th birthday I gave them the gift of showing them how to work the washer and dryer.
They were tickled for about a week.
Never did their laundry again.
1 son, 2 daughters.

We started our girls on laundry early on. When the older one was around 8 she bitterly complained that WE hadn’t washed her favorite pants. The clean ones in her dresser didn’t count. So we introduced her to the washer/dryer.