She says, he says

As girls grow up, their moms pass along a lot of advice on being a good wife someday. Too bad they don't check with their daughters' future husbands on this advice.

"Spend 8 hours making a wonderful meal," we daughters are told. "Your husband will worship you."

My husband wants to know why there are so many dishes and pots and pans for him to clean up after a meal. "I just spent 8 hours cooking this for you," I explain.

"I do appreciate it," he says earnestly. "But could you do it with a few less pans?"

Moms say, "Always make sure your house is picked up. Your husband will appreciate a clean house."

But husbands complain that they can't find anything after you pick up. "I left that hammer right here, in the middle of the bathroom floor. Why do you always have to put everything away?"

We daughters learn how to make a tight corner with the bedsheet, only to be faced with husbands who wonder why the sheets are so tight at the bottom. "I feel like I'm being strangled," they complain.

Moms teach us how to make the perfect pie crust. "And keep the cookie jar full! After all, the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

But my husband once asked me, respectfully, if I could please not make so much dessert, as he was having a hard time resisting it and didn't want it to go to his waist.

We daughters take care to set a nice, inviting table, arranging the food into lovely serving dishes, because that's what our moms told us to do.

Husbands grab a plate and head to the stove to dish their dinner out of the pan. Or just eat out of the pan.

I think mothers and future sons-in-law need some sort of focus group where they could all get together on the same page about these things. Or, better yet, these situations could be avoided if, instead of mothers advising their daughters on the finer points of being a wife, mothers-in-law did the advising. Since boys basically don't change much after about age 4, their mothers could just take their behaviors when they're young and pretty much predict what they'll be like as husbands. This would allow them to advise potential future daughters-in-law more accurately.

For instance, the mother of a young son could advise a potential daughter-in-law, "His sheets and blankets always end up on the other side of the room during the night, so don't bother making the bed. In fact, he won't even need a bed. Just make a little pallet on the floor for him and he'll be perfectly happy."

Or, "He never sits down to eat, so don't bother setting the table. Just put a spoon by the sink and he'll stand up and eat over it."

This would save both husbands and wives a lot of trouble. Wives would be spared time doing things they don't want to do anyway, and also spared guilt over not doing them. Husbands could happily follow their primal instincts.

At least until their wives step on the hammer in the middle of the bathroom floor.