Girls vs. Boys

When O and I were down south looking after my niece and nephew we played a girls vs. boys game. In teams you are asked to name 10 stereotypical things about the other sex while an egg timer runs. For example, name 10 things that a woman might carry in her hand-bag. Name 10 male film villains. Name 10 household chores. Name 10 things men do at the weekend.

The boys picked a card so my niece and I needed to answer: Name 10 jobs for men. I start rattling through all the careers I can think of:

Doctor; Accountant; Builder; paramedic etc. etc.

Then coincidentally the boys had to answer basically the same question: Name 10 jobs for women. So O basically repeats the list I have rattled off. He got to Doctor when my 11 year old niece pipes up with, don’t be silly girls can’t be doctors they’re nurses, doctor is a boys job. O and I looked at each other in horror (we were already not impressed with the game). We declared the game over and had a sit down with my wonderful niece informing her that girls can do anything they put their mind to; they can be doctors or astronauts etc. And vice versa boys can be nurses or stay at home parents etc.

This incident and other posts that have been flying around recently about the concept of wife (here, here) have got me thinking about the idea of female vs. male roles. Or in other words how spoilt I am. O works fewer hours per week than I do and as a result he is in the house more than me and so ends up doing more housework. He refuses to clean the bathroom but apart from that I’m spoilt rotten. He is also a much better cook than me and so does all the cooking. Which is why he continued to make the food while I took photos of potatoes. I do the admin for the house; I phone plumbers, get insurance quotes and make sure the bills are paid on time and I clean the bathroom.

(we've pretty much reversed the stereotypical gender roles)

Last Week

So O and I spent last week in London at #1’s house looking after my niece (E) and nephew (B). We had a great time – I just hope the kids did too. What we got up to:


Chessington World of Adventures: This was O’s first visit to a theme-park and his first ever trip on a roller coaster (seriously). He loved it, although he was slightly bemused by the ratio of queuing for 40 mins to a ride that lasted for 30 seconds (hmm welcome to the joy of theme-parks). We were lucky that the weather was bright, clear and warm (having got used to Scotland’s autumn temperatures the warmth was quite a shock to the system). The warmth was especially appreciated after we got soaked on the water flume – had to be done though!


We went to the cinema, trying to please an 11 year old girl and a 12 year old boy turned out to be too much of a diplomatic struggle for me to deal with (I can negotiate a senior management meetings but these two are scary). So we saw two films practically back to back Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus and Up. Both films were really good although different to say the least. Spending the day in the dark eating sweets isn’t the best way to spend time with kids so we didn’t feel like very good baby sitters after this!


Science Museum: It was half term holidays for the schools so the place was packed out! O and I could have spent all day here wandering around the different exhibits, however the kids got bored after a few hours. It was interesting to see the differences in kids today and when we were young (how old does that make us sound). They were fascinated by all the interactive screens and things to play with whereas we found the interactive screens a bit dull and preferred to read the signs and actually look at the stuff in the glass boxes!


I tried on my first wedding dress!!! Argh, went with #1 and E to look in the department store bridal sections, we had assumed that department stores have bridal sections – turns out they don’t. We found a very busy packed shop in Kingston where we tried on three dresses, the first one was ok the other two were hideous on me. (Promise to post my thoughts on dresses later).