Are you training your daughter to be a wife?

Question

This was a question posed by a women's magazine in the 1950's. What do you suppose it would entail today? Is this what you are teaching your daughter?

Answer 1

I don't know if it possible to teach somebody how to be a wife or a husband. All a parent can do is teach honesty, respect, loyalty, hardwork, self confidence, self control, and ambition.

Answer 2

Nothing wrong with a woman having a few wifely skills underneath her belt; things don't always stay the same; life flip flops; when we least expect it; a man should also know who to be a good husband; these days men and women are so danged mixed up they have no idea which way is north and which way is south.  They have themselves to blame for not making up their own minds.

Answer 3

i don't think that it would have any relevance today, society accepts and promotes the fact the women can do whatever they want.

i think that we are being groomed to be single wage slaves, consumers, a good wife is x10 more valuable than a wage slave IMO but a single wage slave is X10 more valuable to our governments.

we have to compete with the east.

Answer 4

Honestly, I am happy that most mothers are not teaching their daughters how to cook.  Seriously my cooking is probably half the reason some of the hottest women put up with me.  A little shrimp, pasta over homemade alfredo sauce.  Champagne and sorbet for dessert.  Most of the women I date eat out of a box, someone who can cook is like a wizard to them.  Yay, feminism has succeeded in exchanging one form of ignorance for another.

Answer 5

With 50%+ divorce rate, maybe girls SHOULD be taught how to be good wifes, AND boys taught how to be good husbands.

Answer 6

yea capri pretty much got it. i think back then maybe it was about being a wife and catering to your husband but not anymore now its about being independent. i want my daughter to have an education and have a good career and have money to do what she wants not what her husband allows....

Answer 7

No, because they should be able to do what they want with their lives and it that doesn't include becoming a wife, then I have no problem with it. People should not be "trained" to live their lives a certain way, regardless of their talents, interests, and personalities.

Answer 8

Well, I don't have any kids (though I'd like to have a daughter one day), but if I did, I'd raise her to be a good, solid, independent young lady.  I would teach my daughter that being a wife (and/or mother) isn't the only thing in life.  There are so many things to do and see and that she shouldn't look to a man or kids to complete her.

EDIT: El Beisbol: That is awesome.

Answer 9

I don't intend to marry or have kids buuuuuuutttt if I did do that *yikes* I would train her to be a good person, not a wife. When a person is born I do not believe there is a card that comes with them telling them exactly what to do every second of heir life until they die and if they don't follow it they are executed for extreme disobedience. I hate the whole (family is great BS) it's a crock of S**t. FAMILY SUCKS! Can't wait for humans to catch on dang it. All family does is control and abuse you, BREAK AWAY PEOPLE, BREAK AWAY!

Answer 10

A daughter is a beautiful child who doesn't need "training."  She needs the love of a loving family.  Some of us weren't as lucky to have a baby girl.  Some of us can't forgive ourselves for not having a baby girl to watch as she grows up to be a woman.

A son needs to be 6 foot tall and learn how to be a high-level Football Player so he doesn't spend his life being the laughing stock of his peers.

If a man can't hack it in the SEC, he prolly won't hack it elsewhere (unless he has mad money).

The author following me, clearly understands that being a female is not synonymous with being "submissive" or otherwise.  Perhaps we can all learn from such a human being, as she's obviously rather brilliant.

NB:  I conform to CG/TOS in everything I post.  Please do so as well.

Thank you.

Answer 11

Foremost, I hope I am teaching them to be decent people with a strong work ethic. I wish to raise daughters who are responsible, honest, practical, curious, and generous. I hope to instill in them a healthy dose of common sense.

I mean, what is a good wife? Someone who cleans house? Yes, I will also teach my girls how to cook and do housework cuz they have to know how to take care of themselves when they are adults. My maternal grandmother insisted her sons, including my father, learn to cook; when they were grown, she didn't want them eating in diners every night.

In general, if parents do a good job, their children should grow up to be good people who, in time, will make good spouses.

Answer 12

No, I'm training her to be the sort of person who is respectful to others, interested in life, capable of sharing and capable of seeing to her own needs. Hopefully those qualities are desirable to a good man for a life companion (or woman, if it turns out she is g*y).

Answer 13

I will TEACH her life skills.  She will learn the value of education, finance management, parenting skills, how to run a home and what she needs to know to be a kind and successful woman.  Being a wife entails more than ironing...I think that this is a common misconception.  I was taught how to be a good wife, and because of the skills I was taught I can be self sufficient, or a complement to a man.    The role  she chooses in her future relationships is up to her and these skills will come in handy whether she is married or single.

Answer 14

Well I wouldn't train my daughter like the article suggests because she's not a monkey but I would raise my daughter to be a respectful, appreciative, open minded, intelligent and loving young woman.

She would know that in my opinion a family is one of the biggest joys in life BUT if she chose to not go down that road I would respect her decision as an individual and I would love her all the same because HEY she is my daughter. If she did decide she'd like to be a wife and mother one day then hopefully, by my example and the example of her aunts, she'd know what being a good wife and mother entails.

I doubt an article like that would make it into many, if any magazines today.

edit:

Well said Molly B!

We still need to get together to make the trade off of Rebel Man for your ex husband.  

; ]

lol I'll whip him into shape and he'll be a perfect cabana boy in no time.

Answer 15

I don't have a daughter, but if I did have one I wouldn't be training her to do anything particular, I'd let her make up her own mind about what she wanted to do.  However, I would probably hope that she would get married one day, just as I hope my sons, do, because I don't like to think of them being alone when I am gone.

Being a wife does not require the multitude of highly specialist skills that it did in the pre-industrial era, but if she wanted to learn to cook I would be quite pleased as I have always regretted my own lack of interest and ability in cooking, it would be nice to be able to put together amazing meals like the Tv cooks do.  My oldest son enjoys Ready Steady Cook, which he says is the only cookery programme where they cook the sort of food he can afford, and in the timespan he wants to spend cooking (i.e. 20 minutes).

I suppose if I did have a daughter she might be planning to carry on working if she had children and shoving them into daycare, which seems to be the norm nowadays, though I wouldn't particularly care for the idea, I wouldn't say anything about it, as i wouldn't regard it as my business to say anything.  combining work with raising children always used to be the norm, and it is the norm again today, though the seperation of home and workplace makes it more difficult. You can't really influence your children to do things they don't want to, you just have to let them go their own way.

Answer 16

Well, I don't have a daughter yet, but hopefully I will someday and, yes, I will teach her to be a good wife(and mother). That is the most important job you can ever have because you have to live with your spouse your entire life and from the time you are just a little girl until your wedding day, you need to learn how to treat your husband with respect and grace. He is the one man in this world that you have chosen to love until death do you part. If my daughter wanted to be a singer as she grew up, I would encourage it too, but being a wife is a very high calling in life. One of the highest there is!

Answer 17

Mary Wollstonecraft described best that difference between "domestic training" and a rational education.  The first approach teaches a woman how to make excellent duplicates of a violin, so to say.  The second teaches a woman how to compose and create violin music.  My husband and I tried very hard to raise rational people who could compose their own vision, their own "music" rather than just merely politically correctly follow the directions for how to construct a "proper" violin.  So, when my daughter married, we had no doubt whatsoever that she had her own vision and after that it doesn't matter if she was like oblivious to things like why we have to bleach down the cutting board after raw chicken is on it and how so easily one can be sickened by salmonella and end up in an ICU . . .twice.  I do not begrudge her "lack of proper domestic protocols" in those incidences but rather for not paying attention in biology class which she refused to do when she was growing up as an act of contriteness, I believe, to annoy me because biology and microbiology were my area of interest.