Grandma [F80s] keeps pushing her antique values on me [F20s] I love her but need her to drop this, if only for my daughter's sake.

Holly molly this is so long… if anyone reads this you're my hero.

TL;DR Me (20s female) and my grandma (80 female) have been fighting over her antiquated view of gender roles. I snapped. How do I proceed?

This has a long backstory, please bear with me.

To preface, me (late 20s female) and my grandma (early 80s female) have always been close. My father has been mostly absent and a jerk, so my immediately family consisted of my mother and my grandma. My grandma is a wonderful old lady, she has many interests, since she stopped being fully mobile she's online all the time, following her family and many friends. She is very progressive, for example she's a huge ally for LGBTQ. She has one big flaw (IMO) and that is how rigid her view is on gender roles.

She loves to tell how at her wedding her mother asked her new husband to feel free to physically punish her (my grandma) if she ever failed to do chores. She thinks it was cute. She also keeps on talking about how a woman has to have her house in order before she can do anything else (meaning unless your windows are cleaned once a month, all laundry done, floor spotless, white-glove inspection ready, NO friends, NO hobbies, NO rest!). And if your man helps you, you're not a woman and will burn I hell basically. It really is such a strange point of her personality and we keep butting heads over this (I'm told I'm stubborn after her).

She's been trying to push this on me and my mom since I could remember. I used to brush her off, but now I've got a daughter and I REALLY don't want her to be fed this once she understands more, so it is kore and more of a topic because I now stand up to her whenever she's muttering it under her breath at family lunches etc. We see each other almost daily as she and my mother live 10 minutes away (something we decided to do very intentionally, the mutual agreement is that we support them as much as possible, ie car-rides, groceries, house maintenance etc., and they help with childcare). Also grandma visits regularly and knows that my place is OK, is might not be spotless but it is clean and about as organised as a home can be with a very mobile toddler reigning supreme. I cook every meal for my baby and most of the "adult" meals. I'm on top of the laundry and have a huge jungle if we'll kept houseplants, in other words I'm a normal capable adult.

I'm a pretty busy person, I'm a mom of a toddler, also a post-grad student, and a business owner. I do my share of the chores (which is now hugger than my husband's due to circumstances), but keeping the house spotless is not and never will be my number one priority. I'm also a strong believer in gender equality as is my husband. Grandma is going crazy over all this. She always believed that motherhood will "make me into a proper housewife", which honestly LOL. I have huge respect SAH mom's, what they do is very hard, but I also know I'd go crazy. If I abandoned my business, which I've been building for a decade, I'd become resentful and would be deeply unhappy.

So for the past couple of months the relationship between me and granny has been on the rocks because of this. She keeps calling me to ask things like "what will you be serving your husband for dinner once he gets home?" And I say "he ends way before I do, I don't know if he plans on cooking." She's livid. She keeps telling me about how her husband (grandpa died when I was a baby so I've never met him) never helped her, how she could never leave the kids with him because the one time she did my uncles poop was all over the wall and my mom had fallen of a shelf. How he never did groceries or anything, just came home after work, at 4pm and just relaxed by the TV while she worked and did everything, and she thinks every woman should. 

I've recently realised how deeply her words had gotten to me without realising it. My husband proposed getting a cleaning lady a couple of times a month because we're both very busy. I broke down crying because I thought he wants to tell me I'm a useless wife... then I realise how ridiculous I was, but I needed to be ensured like a 100x that he doesn't see my value as a woman in how polished our floors are. After realising this I'm doubly decided that I don't want this fir my daughter.

So last week I was talking about a new project we have in my company, and it came to light that because of the extra workload last weekend, my husband was doing the childcare and chores and I was working on the big project. For one whole afternoon. Oh the horror. Grandma scoffed as usual and announced "I would have never let that happen, I'd feel so ashamed. I can't even sleep thinking about how terribly we've raised you!"

I couldn't anymore and I just told her. "I'm sorry for how much your life sucked, but stop trying to push it on others. It makes me so sad to think how much further our society could have been if women were not forced to waste all their time on useless chores. You are a very smart woman, the fact that you've spent all your time cleaning stuff over and over again even though it is clean already just means you've wasted that time, others won't make that mistake if I have a say in it."

Grandma got terribly offended. I know I was being harsh, but I was so so fed up of trying to stop her from seeing my point of view. If she could only just "live and let live", but she just has to push my buttons. Just yesterday I've shared a picture of my daughter getting into my laundry basket with warm clothes from the drier. She does that because it's nice, they're warm and smell nice. But grandma went "At least she will be a proper woman!"

My mom's pissed at me, saying grandma is "an old lady" and that I can't talk to her like that. I know she's old but she's sharp and witty, and I see no reason to not be direct with her. We've had our quarrels before, because we're the two most ram-headed people you'll meet, but we always come on top of it. I love my grandma, but this is really getting on my nerves. Also I know taht she's been terrorising mum with the same stuff since she moved in with her (grandma's health means she can't live alone anymore). She's always on my mum's back about absolutely excessive useless chores and is using them as a reason why she should not see her friends. I know my mum is frustrated about this but she won't day anything because "old lady".

My grandma is otherwise genuinely a nice person. She's funny, smart, she's amazing with my daughter and my daughter loves her. Grandma is genuinely one of her favourite people (like 1. Mum, 2. Dad, 3. Great-grandma), you can just see her light up when we meet and she's don't this since she was a couple weeks old. I don't plan on separating them in any way, but I need my grandma to realise her views are dated and harmful.

Submitted December 18, 2021 at 04:13AM by KnittingforHouselves https://ift.tt/3p6lHkB