Stayed at home ‘for cooking/to cook’

Question

Thank you guys, As a non-native speaker, I wondered which one sounds more naturally. (in academic writing)

Mothers, traditionally, stayed at home to cook and look after their children.
Mothers, traditionally, stayed at home for cooking and looking after their children.

Thank you very much

In academic writing, I’d prefer #1. But #2 is still grammatical. You could eliminate the for in #2 and use a comma instead: Mothers traditionally stayed at home, cooking and looking after their children. — J.R., May 26 '18 at 13:26
@MichaelHarvey pretty funny, like the joke about "Let's eat Grandma!" with the missing comma. — Andrew, May 26 '18 at 14:36
In 1990 when Britain was introducing a local tax (the "poll tax") based on the number of occupants in each house, the Daily Mail had an article about filling out the tax form headed "What to do about Granny? Put her down." Maybe you have to be a Brit to see why that is funny, I'm not sure. — Michael Harvey, May 26 '18 at 14:38
King Charles walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off. — Michael Harvey, May 26 '18 at 14:44

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 26 '18 at 14:48

It's more natural to say "(they) stayed home to ..."

However, as Michael Harvey points in his comment, the funny bit is the phrasing of the last part of the sentence which invites an unwanted parallel between "cook" and "look after". For example:

I stayed home from practice today to clean and polish my new car.

Here both actions are implicitly being done to the car. In the same way:

... to cook and look after their children

can be humorously misinterpreted as "to cook their children" and "to look after their children".

Of course, no one will think that is what you meant, but if you want to avoid any misunderstanding, simply include the preposition:

Mothers, traditionally, stayed at home to cook for and look after their children.

(Side note) Peter's suggestion to substitute "care for" in place of "look after" is fine, but in my opinion it doesn't really clarify the meaning. The combination of mothers with look after is common in English writing.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 26 '18 at 14:17

Your sentence might be better expressed as

Mothers, traditionally, stayed at home to cook and care for their children.

"Look after" can have more of a babysitting meaning of just "watching out for", and in this case the first sentence is the better choice.

Stayed at home ‘for cooking/to cook’

2 Answers2