Some families have certain gender roles and expectations.

While these roles may be outdated, the older generation doesn’t always change with the times.

In today’s story, one son-in-law teaches his father-in-law a lesson in the kitchen.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

Generational family expectations

I was reminded of this incident of petty revenge by an AITA post today about friends calling out a friend on fatherly duties (or lack of).

My wife’s parents are Italian and if you don’t know, it is a particularly patriarchal society when it comes to duties in the kitchen.

The women are expected to cook, serve, and clean. The men just sit there and be served.

This is a massive generalisation, but it’s relevant to the story.

OP’s family is quite different.

I come from another country that has its own family expectations, but it isn’t anything like this and I’ve always been taught to be progressive.

Also important is that my Italian was pretty poor at the time, particularly with how fast Italians speak to each other.

OP’s father-in-law expected the women to make dinner on vacation.

Me and my wife moved to another country and invited my parents in law to do some traveling around the country.

We stayed at a hostel and brought food provisions.

After a pretty long day of sight seeing and moving around we were sitting at one of the communal areas just before dinner time.

My father in law said in Italian to my wife and MIL that he was hungry, which was basically not particularly veiled instructions for them to start making dinner.

OP’s wife was not about to cook just because she’s a woman.

Now, my wife doesn’t take that anymore and starts arguing with him.

If you’ve ever experienced a conversation between Italians, it is often not clear whether they are just being passionate or angry, so it wasn’t unusual for them to be going off at each other.

My wife’s comments were basically, if you are hungry, you go make the food.

And his response was, you are the women, go make the food.

OP offered to go cook dinner.

This is where the petty revenge comes in, as my wife knows me like a book. She turns to me and says something to the degree of I’m hungry are you?

I say yes, we have that pasta and sauce, I’ll go start making it, you stay and chat with your parents, and I start walking to the communal kitchen.

This causes absolute panic in my FIL because I’ve done something unexpected (I don’t know why, because I cooked regularly at home) and he gets up flustered trying somewhat successfully to help me in the kitchen.

OP’s father-in-law has changed his ways.

When we all sit down to eat, my wife just said in Italian, well I guess men do cook, and he just sat sulking.

(I still didn’t know wtf was going on between them at this point, my wife told me later).

He then made a point to carry and clean all the dishes and cutlery.

Interestingly, it was the last time he did something like that with my wife and in the last decade he has really improved with his responsibilities in the kitchen with my MIL.

That’s wonderful that the father-in-law changed his ways and tried to help!

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story…

This reader is surprised that the father-in-law changed his ways.

Here’s an example of another man who can cook…

This reader calls OP her “hero.”

Another reader thinks the father-in-law may have secretly wanted to help in the kitchen.

This reader shares how they divvy up kitchen chores at home.

It sounds like the son-in-law was a positive role model for his father-in-law!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.