I'd let her make me a sandwich.

Great article, DM. Hopefully, you can do a part two on "woman goes back to caveman times, finds that chasing wooly mammoths and running from sabre-tooth tigers really keeps that body ready for swimsuit season."

First rule of keeping a skinny wife, only buy enough lunch meat for your sandwich. That way she gets all the work with none of calories.

WTF Indeed: First rule of keeping a skinny wife, only buy enough lunch meat for your sandwich. That way she gets all the work with none of calories.

You're nothing if not thoughtful.

I'm getting laid off for a few months and mulling the idea of being a housewife until at least the end of the year. I'm not going all manual labor or anything, but I have a TON of house and yard work to get done.

I want to paint all the rooms in the house, shampoo all the carpets, paint the kitchen cabinets, clean out the garage, etc.

It'll be....laborious.

You mean not sitting around watching soap operas and eating bon bons all day long might keep you from getting fat?

Hey, uh, anyway we can see her in a bullet bra and a girdle?

Seriously, I've been pretty naughty mommy.

Smeggy Smurf: You mean not sitting around watching soap operas and eating bon bons all day long might keep you from getting fat?

No, they mean not sitting in front of Fark all day eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew might keep you from getting fat.

I don't buy the whole "we consume less calories" thing for a second. People are either being dishonest, or making poor estimates. Not saying the housework didn't burn a lot of calories, I'm sure it did. Last time I watched the Dick Van Dyke show, I was amazed at how small their drinking glasses were. We're just used to much larger portions all around.

Smeggy Smurf: You mean not sitting around watching soap operas and eating bon bons all day long might keep you from getting fat?

Doesn't look fat to me...

Don't Tongue the Reaper!: Smeggy Smurf: You mean not sitting around watching soap operas and eating bon bons all day long might keep you from getting fat?

No, they mean not sitting in front of Fark all day eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew might keep you from getting fat.

Too late. Anyway it's colby jack cheese, generic coke and Sinfire. Have some standards, sheesh.

Hairy, 1950's sex

Oh yeah...

Don't Tongue the Reaper!: Smeggy Smurf: You mean not sitting around watching soap operas and eating bon bons all day long might keep you from getting fat?

No, they mean not sitting in front of Fark all day eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew might keep you from getting fat.

Speak of the devil...

Smeggy Smurf: Don't Tongue the Reaper!: Smeggy Smurf: You mean not sitting around watching soap operas and eating bon bons all day long might keep you from getting fat?

No, they mean not sitting in front of Fark all day eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew might keep you from getting fat.

Too late. Anyway it's colby jack cheese, generic coke and Sinfire. Have some standards, sheesh.

Colby jack? Philistine. American processed cheese food product! Preferably in aerosolized form.

I think I want to shag Alice.

They had washing machines like this in the '50s.

Granted, it might have been the price of a car. But that setup in the article looks more like 1920.

OrcusFelinus

I think I want to shag Alice.


Careful - according to TFA, she's Smellie.

Brick-House: Don't Tongue the Reaper!: Smeggy Smurf: You mean not sitting around watching soap operas and eating bon bons all day long might keep you from getting fat?

No, they mean not sitting in front of Fark all day eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew might keep you from getting fat.

Speak of the devil...

[www.1eden.net image 600x448]

What's that lotion on his desk for?

roughridersfan: What's that lotion on his desk for?

That's to keep his fat-curtain down front there from getting scaly..

/puke

picturescrazy: I don't buy the whole "we consume less calories" thing for a second.

Yeah, my thought too. There's absolutely no way people in the 1950's (on average) consumed more calories than the average person does today.

A very small sub-section of our population exhibits calorie control. The sheer majority just eat whats put in front of them with no thought about it. And since the 1980's, marketing has shown us that more is better. The most successful marketing for chain restaurants has been "huge plate" and "endless this or that".

downstairs

picturescrazy: I don't buy the whole "we consume less calories" thing for a second.

Yeah, my thought too. There's absolutely no way people in the 1950's (on average) consumed more calories than the average person does today.


I'm not so sure: that was the era of real butter, whole milk, and frying in lard.

downstairs: picturescrazy: I don't buy the whole "we consume less calories" thing for a second.

Yeah, my thought too. There's absolutely no way people in the 1950's (on average) consumed more calories than the average person does today.

A very small sub-section of our population exhibits calorie control. The sheer majority just eat whats put in front of them with no thought about it. And since the 1980's, marketing has shown us that more is better. The most successful marketing for chain restaurants has been "huge plate" and "endless this or that".

Might depend on the family. My parents and grandparents always cooked too much food, very rich food, and it was a sin to tell gramps no to second or not finish a plate.

It has been mentioned that portions were smaller in the 1950s and I have to guess that is a notable factor.

On a related note, I read that the "Its a small world after all" ride at Disney recently had to undergo major renovations because americans were so freaking fat they were causing the boats to come to a halt on the tracks because of their weight. I think the article said the boats were capable of holding something like 500 pounds and so the people running the rides had to size up individuals and put them on the boats as best they could. Sometimes parties had to be split up such that there were only 2 people in a boat (sometimes just one) so that the boats could actually float the way they were supposed to.

Why is Fark all about The Daily Mail?

Who would have thought all those labour-saving devices would actually save us from doing labour?

Smackledorfer

Might depend on the family. My parents and grandparents always cooked too much food, very rich food, and it was a sin to tell gramps no to second or not finish a plate.


Coming out of WWII, most people did view wasting food as a sin (clean your plate!).

There also might have been a feeling in post-war (comparative) prosperity that people were going to enjoy seconds as often as possible. During the war there might not have been enough for firsts.

Would bet moms taking uppers more than the article lets on.

In 1966, when records of obesity began, only 1.2 per cent of men and 1.8 per cent of women had a BMI of more than 30

Statistics from the Department of Health show 62 per cent of adults are overweight - with a BMI of more than 25

Consistency, what does it mean?

First:
FTFA: Back to the future: Alice Smellie burned off 1,200 calories a day being a 1950s housewife

She needs to change her last name. I imagine the house next door loves their Smellie neighbors with all the Smellie kids running around.

Second:

Been done
Link to Sue Perkins and that Giles guy from their TV show

Remember, that in the 1950's, amphetamine use was legal, rampant, even reaching epidemic proportions. Heck, even Mickey Mouse was in on the speed game

Premise: women these days are so fat because they burn less calories doing housework than they did in 1952.

Actual fact: In earlier times the "middle class" was defined as those families that were rich enough to afford servants to do the physical housework. Agatha Christie once said "When I was young I never expected to be so poor that I could not afford a servant, or so rich that I could afford a motor car".

If one accepts the premise then why weren't all the old middle class women enormously fat?

Even in 1952 USA, servants for the middle class were fairly common as there were lots of black folks who couldn't find any other jobs in the white world. My relatives in the south during that period had servants to do all their cleaning, cooking, laundry, and yard work, yet were not known as blimps.

And here's a typical dad from the late 1950s working on The Hardiman Project at GE.



/Hardiman

Daily Mail story finally contains hottie; subby refers to her as "typical mum."Something's broken.

FTFA: "I am on my hands and knees...panting with exertion."

Then it went all downhill.

'Kids are different today', I hear ev'ry mother say

Damn these pictures gave me an idea for 1950's milf porn. If it doesn't already exist yet...

Uh, if it's 1952, Alice Smellie burns 0 calories while her negro houseslave maid does all the damn work.

Women shouldn't be going to work, or learning to read, or allowed to go outside anyway.

Yes, housewives of the 1950's did have a lot of physical activity. They also medicated themselves to deal with the stresses involved with never having downtime. This is how Valium gained the nickname "mother's little helper".

Personally, I'd rather have the modern conveniences, and just take the occasional jog.

1950's household is a BDSM fetish. Some enjoy it as role play, some try to live it 24/7. Whatever floats your boat, but it seems boring to me.

WTF Indeed: First rule of keeping a skinny wife, only buy enough lunch meat for your sandwich. That way she gets all the work with none of calories.

Y'know, I see that the deli counter every week.

Old boy with wifie beside him: "I'll have a quarter-pound of pastrami."

Wifie was pretty slim, too.

Three things I think contribute:
1) Starving children in Africa (has anyone who grew up in the U.S not heard this one?)
2) Quantity over quality (eat food in Europe; I found out I actually do like tomatoes)
3) Oversized serving dishes

CSS: When I moved up to Canada I brought a set of dishes to the apartment I moved into. My roommate helped me unpack, and when he got to the salad plates, he thought they were dinner plates. When he pulled out an actual dinner plate, he got confused when there were 4 of them, because he thought it was a serving tray.

How many calories do you burn keeping the Jews out of the country club?

Ghastly: How many calories do you burn keeping the Jews out of the country club?

Depends on if you have to chase them out, or just hold a vote.

WTF Indeed: First rule of keeping a skinny wife, only buy enough lunch meat for your sandwich. That way she gets all the work with none of calories.

I signed mine up for yoga and pole dancing classes and I don't let her have an atm or credit card, she has to get money from me, which she has to use for her miscellenous expenses as well as the family grocery/sundries.

I know it sounds pretty domineering, and it is, but it's consentual. I took my wife in hand about 5 years ago and she has since gone from 300 lbs to 128lbs. She's also undergone various cosmetic surgeries (laser eye, breasts implants + lift, arm lift, tummy tuck and she's getting 2 more procedures done this year as well as collegen implants in her lips.

I know people will get their ass in a tear about this, but frankly they can sod off. I'm happy and she's happy. I'm sure many of you are clever enough to figure out the subtext, but I'm not creepy enough to blab about it in every related thread I see.

Photographic proof:


Wife Before - 5'7, 300 lbs 50D-52-50


Wife After - 5'7, 128 lbs, 32H, 22, 30

AliceBToklasLives: Uh, if it's 1952, Alice Smellie burns 0 calories while her negro houseslave maid does all the damn work.

I was helping clean out my MIL's house and she had a 1950's home ec guide. They cover doing things with "old fashioned way" and the "modern way" so I think there was a lot of crossover depending on where you lived.

Not only did most people still do a lot of manual labor but also sewing, knitting and other type of kitchen work when sitting down. Being absolutely idle was a rare thing. My grandparents never "modernized" so when we stayed there as kids everything had to be done by hand. My dad remembers when the electricity was installed in in 1958- 1959. My grandparents weren't poor they just lived in a rural area. Gran did have a lot of manual kitchen and cleaning gadgets though that we used. She didn't care for cleaning so the kids(both the boys and girls) did it once they were old enough and then the grand kids helped, but she sure could knit, sew, garden and cook. They also had a piano that she taught music on.

My Mom said their lifestyle was really similar until the late 50's. When her parents "moved to town" her mom insisted on a modern new house with all the bells and whistles like a dishwasher, central vac and a washer and dryer. Her mom was more nutty and bought into the 1950's perfection housewife thing and worked outside the home too. My mom wishes her mom would have taken a valium and had cocktails everyday. My other grandma's idea of cooking was making jello and canned soup. She was not a good cook (her own admission) and worked outside the home most of her adult life, first as a secretary and then worked in administration at a prison.


Personally you'll have to pry the kitchenaid mixer and cuisinart away from me but I have some of the niftier manual kitchen things and gran's handwritten (in german) cookbooks.

HeartBurnKid: Yes, housewives of the 1950's did have a lot of physical activity. They also medicated themselves to deal with the stresses involved with never having downtime. This is how Valium gained the nickname "mother's little helper".

Another "internet expert" who should be ignored.

"mother's little helper" referred to barbiturates, specifically Nembutal (pentobarbitone). Valium, a benzodiazepine, was first marketed in 1963. Sure during the 60's Valium may have been a new connotation of "mother's little helper" as Valium was substituted for Nembutal, but Valium did not exist in the 1950s.