I’m 62. Not generational from my perspective. Maybe regional? My southern mother, grand mothers, and their sisters drove their own cars, handled their own finances (whether or not employed) They all had housekeepers.
They weren’t all great drivers, especially in their 70s/80s, but neither were all their husbands or sons.
This makes me remember road trips during my teens with my great aunts (born before the turn of the 20th century). They married relatively late after finishing college, and then teaching a few years. I can’t remember anyone, including husbands, ever trying to tell them what to do.
Thanks for all the comments. I appreciate all the different points of view.
Maybe some of my frustrations are that even though I like many of my friends, I feel like sometimes we are in different universes. Not saying they aren’t very nice people. Just that I am so much more independent. And opinionated. Last night to the friend who isn’t fond of driving, I made a comment on the new tax law. Just that there was a new tax law and deductions have changed for this tax year. She had no idea of what I was even talking about. Just that they take everything to their accountant.
It was not political but I thought everyone knew that a new tax law had been passed. Her husband listens all the time to the news channel that I never ever listen to.
I think @abasket summed up things more succinctly than I ever could.
Sometimes it’s really hard to find your tribe.
@deb922 , you keep that fire to be independent and opinionated. That doesn’t’ mean you don’t listen to others, rely on others at all. IMO you set an excellent example for your kids male and female about being a capable, always-learning individual.
I think even here on CC - where education clearly plays a significant role in our lifestyle in some way - there are a mix of those who stand more on their own and those who are comfortable or culturally leaning towards letting a significant other stand for them - in some cases.
My mom is 85. My dad died 25 years ago when she was just 60. She relied on him SO much for everything - finances, political leanings, etc. While she still has “old fashioned” built into some of her thoughts culturally she at times surprises me and proudly, my kids with her independence and refusal to “age” and not be able to take care of things herself. As long as she is realistic (just renewed her drivers license, but only to drive very locally) I say “you go girl!”
Some of these are generational and some are geographical and some are class!
I’m in my very early 50s and am a truly terrible driver. I don’t really do highway driving because I rarely need to - I take public transportation to work for my 60-hour work week. I recently got my first new car that is actually mine and I am working toward driving more and getting more comfortable with highway driving. The car has all the bells and whistles to make that happen, but I’m definitely not there yet. Driving at very high speeds does require some skill and experience, neither of which I have.
My husband pays the bills because he has a much shorter work week, so it seems fair, but I am the big picture person with finances and the detail person with regard to voting. We agree on voting issues, so it’s never been a problem. I just report to him what I’ve learned in my research.
We are lower class people and even now that we are very financially secure, my husband would never, ever, ever allow us to have a cleaning person. His mother immigrated from Italy and had a 7th grade education. She worked as a cleaning person until the very end of her life. As a result, my husband feels it would disrespect her memory for her son to hire one. Since he does almost all of the cleaning and laundry, I don’t care at all. I would, however, like a lawn service since he is as terrible at that as I am at driving. I’ve finally put my foot down and told him that he will be getting a lawn service next spring. Period.
I (wife) love driving and get carsick easily while hubby can read unless it’s really windy, so I do more than half of the driving. In a new place I’ll make him navigate so I don’t have to deal with looking at maps in the car (or any more with gps on the phone, rummaging around for a cell phone charger or plugging new addresses in).
On the money front I need to step back up. For a long time (pre internet banking) we both equally kept up with (ignored, lol) the finances. Let’s just say he’s more detail-oriented than I am, and also he’s the one who has complicated international stock options and grants as part of his income, so over time he has become the only one of us who knows where everything is and what all of the passwords are. That said, we do have a ‘money guy’ who also has all of our details and could step in to help me out if ever needed.
On voting - we agree politically on the big stuff. On the smaller stuff (looking at you, endless CA ballot propositions) sometimes we’ll talk it over, sometimes we meet up with friends to discuss, sometimes we just do our own thing. We don’t always vote the same on everything but the ones we disagree on we generally don’t care that much about.
I’m the more engaged in voting partner. At 52, I am really beginning to dislike driving at night. The house thing…yeah I kinda do that…at least for the first visit super clean — then after that I relax. Financially, we are both on top of it.
I’m very independent.
Even so, H & I have divided up the adult life duties over the years, and each of us have become inadvertently ignorant about certain things in the other’s camp.
Don’t ask him about income tax, property tax, how much we pay for this or that or how we pay for it, how much college costs, or what is a plant vs. what is a weed.
Don’t ask me about Comcast, car buying, car repairs, car maintenance, plate sticker renewals, car insurance, or anything about cell phones or cell phone plans, or electrical work in the house. He is also a MUCH better cook than I am.
This week, I had to take care of securing a loan and purchasing a used car from a private seller, and I sheepishly thought, “Oh boy. I haven’t done this in like THIRTY YEARS. It’s H’s job!” I momentarily felt like a dope. But I got through it. 
My husband does nearly all the driving because he gets carsick (and sea sick, and train sick…) Thankfully the kids are like me - we can read even on washboard roads!
The one thing I wish I was better at, but just despise is solving computer issues.
At 56, I still love to drive. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made the 1900-mile round trip to pick up a puppy last month!
I think it’s a combo of personality and how folks were raised - with personality taking the lead because people can switch from how they were raised.
I’ve been pretty much independent since age 11 due to my parent’s divorce and living with my dad, but I’ve been independent since birth really if you ask my mom. My mom is similar.
In our marriage, I handle most of the long distance driving because H is usually working on his computer if we’re on an Interstate. He’s navigating no matter where we are because I get headaches reading in a vehicle. At home we share driving - even to church or a restaurant or wherever. Often I’ll drive there and he’ll drive home.
I handle all our finances except taxes. H does those. I’m afraid H would be a little lost if I suddenly couldn’t do it, but I try to keep him informed. If he couldn’t do taxes I’d hire an accountant.
For voting we discuss people together. I vote the way he likes locally because who’s in power affects his job and we earn our living off his job. He knows the local people personally. Since we share the same values and thoughts we sometimes diverge on state or federal offices, but only rarely. I look up more info on them. We each vote as we want, but we share our votes. Heck, we share pretty much everything. We’re best friends.
If anyone cares about housekeeping they’d best not visit us at home. I’m perfectly ok with that. We have better things to do with our lives than deeper cleaning. If anyone wants to judge, well, I want to align with folks who don’t give a hoot far more than trying to impress those judging. Same goes for fashion and what we wear.
My mom is incredibly similar so I doubt it’s generational.