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I came across this story today about a woman who, after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, set up a “motherhood masterclass” so that he would be able to handle raising their children without her. Reading the story, you get the sense that it was partly necessary — and partly because she apparently had no respect whatsoever for her husband.
When Jemma Oliver was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she set about preparing her family for her death. But rather than focusing on the funeral arrangements, the mother of two gave her husband, Jason, a detailed crash course in caring for the couple’s two children, son Keaton, 4, and daughter Codi, 2. Jemma, 29, walked her husband through every aspect of being a mom and left him plenty of instructions about what to do once she was gone.
“Jemma thought of everything and then organized me so that I would be able to cope,” says Jason, 32. He admits that when his wife fell ill, he had no idea how to manage most of her chores; he didn’t know how to turn on the dishwasher, for example. “The house was total chaos until she took me in hand. Then slowly and patiently, Jemma told me what to do. She taught me how to do everything for the children — and for my sake, too.”
Jemma covered every possible detail in her masterclass; she hired a hairdresser to come to the house and teach Jason to braid daughter Codi’s hair, telling Jason, “I can’t have my girl looking scruffy. No bumps in her hair please!” She also left instructions about what clothes Codi could and could not wear, and made Jason promise to take her sisters with him when he shops for Codi.
But Jemma’s masterclass didn’t just focus on chores and clothes; she also chose schools for the children, and left cards for their birthdays and written instructions about how she wants them to be raised. Jemma Oliver died at her home in Wales in February, with her husband and children by her side; now that she’s gone, Jason finds comfort in her notes.
“I constantly look at her plans and instructions to help me. I feel as though she’s there watching over us, guiding us along the way,” he says.
On the one hand, if this guy Jason didn’t even know how to run a dishwasher at 32, then clearly he needed some help. On the other hand, perhaps Jemma was a stay-at-home mom who did all the the housework while he paid the bills. Perhaps his family didn’t have a dishwasher growing up. Who knows? Regardless of the circumstances, does anyone really need a tutorial on how to get a dishwasher to work? It’s pretty self-explanatory.
However, even if the guy was so clueless that he couldn’t figure out how to run a dishwasher, was this entire “class” necessary? It seems to me that she took it way, way overboard. Hiring a hairdresser to make sure he braids his daughter’s hair correctly? Telling him what kind of clothes she could or couldn’t wear? Making him promise to let her sisters pick out her clothes and toys? She even went so far as to choose the schools they could go to? I mean, come on — did she tell him what time of day he was allowed to use the bathroom as well?
To an extent, I understand what she was trying to do. But this reeks of one of the major problem we see in family life today. Women look at their husbands as lazy, selfish idiots who can’t understand how to do even the simplest things, let alone handle something as complex as raising their precious children. Husbands, on the other hand, just take it. Rather than stepping up to the plate and establishing their authority as the man of the house, and refusing to let their wives demean them so, they just sit back and let it happen. Women have turned into controlling bitches, and men have turned into spineless wimps. This is just one more example. Why is it that she felt that her husband needed to have every detail of their children’s lives mapped out and planned for him? Is he not capable of choosing his daughter’s clothes for himself, or deciding which school they can go to? She clearly had no respect for him whatsoever. And while I think that leaving behind messages and notes for her family to read throughout the years was a lovely and touching idea, leaving step-by-step instructions of what her husband was or wasn’t allowed to do is taking it way too far.
I kind of agree with what you’re saying here, but I remember back when Dad retired from 40+ years at the Post Office. He literally had no clue how the house operated, since he’d never been involved with things like housekeeping, laundry, cooking, etc. So Mom, realizing he was in the same boat she would have been in had she been dropped into his old job, started a ‘training’ program of her own: They started sharing the housekeeping workload so he would learn where the dishes went in the cupboards, the ‘mix’ of laundry detergents and such for each load of clothes (and separating laundry), etc., etc.
In this case, it wasn’t a matter of her thinking he was lazy, stupid or anything like that – he was simply ignorant (in the original sense of the word) of how things were done.
But I do agree there are a lot of castrating b**ches out there who have such low opinions of men that it’s surprising they bother to get married in the first place.
carolinagirl says: You don’t have children do you?
Obviously this woman’s husband did not know the basics of household 101, whose fault that is is not the question. The mom in this story knew she would not be there to guide or help her family. She did what she thought best for her husband, her 4 year old and 2 year old children. It is obvious that the husband finds comfort in his wife’s notes and letters, for them that is what worked.
Was it overboard? To some probably. Would he have figured it out? Most likely.
In reading the story I don’t see that the husband took offense to his dying wife’s actions. I think he rather is seeing those notes and instructions as his wife still being part of their lives. In time, I am sure he will make his own decisions, and probably already has, but the comfort of his wife’s love for her family in the notes and instructions seem to be what is keeping him moving forward.
Imagine if he had nothing – if she truly ran their household to the point that he had no clue, or wanted to have no clue, a playbook would be one of the greatest gifts …
Not everyone is strong enough to stand alone, or I should say not everyone realizes their potential to be strong enough to stand alone. It seems that his wife knew this … we can only hope that in time, this man will learn that is exactly what he needs to do.
Maybe it was Jemma’s way to cope with her death. If she was not going to be there, she would — in some sense — create a clone of herself in her husband.
I do not know if he was playing along or just stunned into submission by the fact of his wife being about to die.
I think that he wanted to make her remaining time as good as possible so he played along.
And yes, not being able to run a dishwasher is unreal. And there are a lot of castrating b**ches out there — I married two of them. Divorced one and in a mutual state of détente with the other.
I think this is more of an example about how our media does its best to perpetuate and advance its agenda. Seldom do we get to hear stories of men being…well…men.
Most of our images of men in media are wimps and spineless losers, or pedophiles, rapists, terrorists etc. I haven’t seen a decent portrayal of a healthy father figure in our entertainment in a very, very long time.
Kinda sad, really.
I R A Darth Aggie says: Husbands, on the other hand, just take it. Rather than stepping up to the plate and establishing their authority as the man of the house, and refusing to let their wives demean them so, they just sit back and let it happen.
Of course. The modern husband has no leverage. If he “steps up to the plate”, she can bitch and moan about what a savage beast he is and have her friends nod in sympathy. Or simply call a lawyer, get a restraining order, toss him out of his house, and get a divorce and make him really pay.
From where I sit, there’s really no upside to marriage for men.
JerryT says: Too much cynicism. Too much reading in of motivations. Think we’re dealing with a good mom here.
I still tease my girlfriend about what she did right before I bought her her first Palm Pilot. She sent me to the store to pick up rice and pineapple juice, and had the nerve to put a post-it note in my hand to that effect. But wait, it gets much better; she suddenly thought of something, turned around, opened the refrigerator door, closed it again, took the post-it note away, drew a line through the juice, and handed it back to me.
“Rice.”
This is a smart, classy, respectful and enlightened woman just like yourself, Cassy.
It’s not the women. (Of course some of them are much more enthused about this mindset than others.) It’s society right now…we don’t honor resourcefulness, capability, wherewithal, trustworthiness, et al in our senior citizens, in our women, in our children, in anybody else. So why should we show any respect for it in our men?
Not sure what to make of the story, but the comments are insightful–maybe readers have made to big of a deal about this.
I have to agree that a lot of what she did could fall under the heading of trying to help him get up to speed on how to handle the house and children in a relatively quick manner, but making him promise to let her sisters pick out their clothes and toys? THAT is an example of going too far. It is also an example of her having no faith in her husband.
I can even see picking out schools, if she had already done the research on them, though I would have thought she would have had the discussion with her husband when she was looking them over, and had made the decision together.
On the other hand, there is the possibility that she was only going overboard because she was stressed out, trying to make sure they were all taken care of as much as possible. If that was the case, I think it could be forgiven, because a lot of people go further than they would if they were thinking clearly.
Chris M-G says: In this particular case, as long as the guy doesn’t feel he has to follow every little thing to the letter, there’s no harm- if he really had no clue, it probably did help him a lot.
J David says: If the control-freak wife was going to continue to be around(and the poor hen-pecked hubby was probably clueless BECAUSE she was freakin’ doing everything)I’d agree she was way overboard…BUT, since she is going into the worm-and-daisy farming business, he let her die happy by thinking she was going to keep right on control-freakin’ roght to the end: no harm done, and only cost a little pride for hubby.
RuthenianCowboy says: Being divorced and having recently broken up with a total control freak, I understand the “this woman is crazy” sentiment.
But she’s DYING. The guy should learn what he needs to know to run the house and do whatever else he can to make her happy in her last months.
He’s not going to do things “her way” for the rest of his life — work could take him away from the schools she picked out, and besides, he’s young. He WILL move on, and subsequent mates will not much appreciate being hamstrung by his late wife’s ghost.
She also left instructions about what clothes Codi could and could not wear, and made Jason promise to take her sisters with him when he shops for Codi.
Those of you defending this whacked-out practice as some kind of therapeutic balm, either for the dead woman, her henpecked-from-beyond-the-grave hubby, or the children, I would recommend you engage in a casual mental exercise that involves role reversal. Imagine a man, about to die or to go to jail for a long time, forcing his wife to promise not to make unilateral decisions about how to dress their children. To take his brothers with her when she shops. Or imagine he’s a fundamentalist Christian, the children are to keep going to his church, the girls are to always wear dresses never slacks…
This marriage went all the way to the promised conclusion — death of one of ’em. And throughout all of it, going clear back to the very beginning, this woman never learned how to look at her husband as a competent adult, let alone a trusted confidante.
How any of you can see that as something other than exceptionally sad, is quite beyond my reckoning. Seriously. Cassy has a great point here, and she stated it with all the diplomacy it requires and then some.
Paige says: In my opinion all of your crazy ridiculous internet fluzies saying this is overboard, crazy and controlling are the epitome of stupid. I’m not even an adult and I can see you’re all a bunch of ignorant self happy people. Oh, “This marriage went all the way to the promised conclusion — death of one of ‘em” Wow. Really WOW. You’re a pathetic human being. Really? Honestly, I wouldn’t wish cancer on anyone, but if I could switch it’s suitors from Jemma to you, it would be a no-thought-needed decision. She is dying from a disease she can’t control, and she wants to feel like she had some part in her toddlers lives, she didn’t even get to see them go off to school! She wanted closure before she left this earth leaving her most precious things behind. Grow the hell up, really. Wahh wahh femi-nazi bullcrap. I’m sorry she isn’t or wasn’t as high up on the pedastol as you set yourself? What would you have done? Kissed your kids good-bye and drank yourself into a stupor? Get a life.
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