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How do parents divide the work?
Having kids in the house creates a lot of work. All that cooking, cleaning, laundry and homework has to get done somehow. With many moms working, the idea that housework is women's work has gone by the wayside.
At a dinner party recently, the talk turned to how we divide up all the daily tasks with our partners. Agreeing upon who does what can be a challenge, and we all have worked it out in different ways. One friend created a spreadsheet where she weighted all the chores by their degree of difficulty and the time it took to complete them. She and her husband used that as a guide to divvy up the chores.
In my house, I had set a bad precedent early on by doing almost all the work myself. Having raised a child as a single parent, I was accustomed to that. But every day when I returned home from work to a sink full of dirty dishes, unmade beds and piles of laundry, I grew more resentful. I began to see his shoes in the living room and his socks on the bathroom floor as a personal affront. I felt like a maid.
Unlike my spreadsheet friend, I did not handle my frustration in a calm and adult manner. All that anger and resentment built up inside me and eventually exploded. It wasn't pretty, but it did start the dialogue. I realized I was doing this to myself by being unwilling to let any of it wait until he got home. I was mad about things he wasn't even aware of. It turns out that he is more than willing pitch in. And so I let him. Now, when I come home to a sink full of dirty dishes, I just walk on by. That's his job now. We don't have a spreadsheet, but our arrangement feels fair too us. How have you worked out the division of labor in your house?
At a dinner party recently, the talk turned to how we divide up all the daily tasks with our partners. Agreeing upon who does what can be a challenge, and we all have worked it out in different ways. One friend created a spreadsheet where she weighted all the chores by their degree of difficulty and the time it took to complete them. She and her husband used that as a guide to divvy up the chores.
In my house, I had set a bad precedent early on by doing almost all the work myself. Having raised a child as a single parent, I was accustomed to that. But every day when I returned home from work to a sink full of dirty dishes, unmade beds and piles of laundry, I grew more resentful. I began to see his shoes in the living room and his socks on the bathroom floor as a personal affront. I felt like a maid.
Unlike my spreadsheet friend, I did not handle my frustration in a calm and adult manner. All that anger and resentment built up inside me and eventually exploded. It wasn't pretty, but it did start the dialogue. I realized I was doing this to myself by being unwilling to let any of it wait until he got home. I was mad about things he wasn't even aware of. It turns out that he is more than willing pitch in. And so I let him. Now, when I come home to a sink full of dirty dishes, I just walk on by. That's his job now. We don't have a spreadsheet, but our arrangement feels fair too us. How have you worked out the division of labor in your house?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
3-09-2007 @ 4:57PM
Mammacheryl said...My husband almost never notices when the bathroom is dirty, when dishes are piling up in the sink, when the stove top needs to be cleaned. He was even a house husband for a while, but the stuff still didn't get done. Yes, he's a procrastinator. We don't have a chore list, but we have a few rules. We switch off who has to wash bottles everytime. I'll work on doing dishes throughout the week, but when I feel like I've had enough, hubby will be in charge of dishes for 24 hours. If there are dishes in the sink after that time period, the chore is still his until it gets done (that can be a week). I do the bathroom maintenance stuff, but he scrubs the tub out when I tell him it's time. He moves laundry and carries it upstairs, I do the folding, and he does the hanging up. When I'm ready to do the floors, he has to go around picking up stuff. The kitty litter box is his responsibility, but I usually have to prompt him to change it. He's in charge of snow shoveling, but I'll help every once in a while, especially if he's not feeling well or had to work late.
For the longest time, I would get very resentful that he needed to be prompted about chores. I wanted to be a "good" wife and not a nag. So I'd let him be. But eventually, we'd have a blowout, and finally, we came to an agreement that I would be a nag, but a gentle one. I ask him to do something on day one. I will remind him about it on day two (but only if I know he has time to finish it). If he has not completed the task by day three, I do the chore myself and he is reassigned one to two of my normal duties and he apologizes. We don't fight about chores anymore.
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3-09-2007 @ 5:01PM
Lisa J. said...Great post! It seems like this is such a huge issue for so many couples. My husband and I have a pretty 50/50 division, based on our schedules and what we like to do. For example, he's a better cook and enjoys it, so he does all the cooking, and since I oddly find washing dishes and doing laundry soothing, I handle those chores. If I'm having an extremely busy week at work, I can count on him to pick up the slack, and vice versa. While this laid back approach has worked for us, from talking to some of my friends, it seems like a lot of couples need a more structured approach or one person ends up doing all the work, though. So the spreadsheet might not be a bad idea!
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3-09-2007 @ 7:00PM
Ann Adams said...We're both home which makes a difference. We've never sat and said "I'll do this, you do that". We both do dishes, we both cook. I hate floors so much of the mopping falls to him.
I'd feel guilty about that but he doesn't drive so all the transportation chores fall to me.
I could use a spreadsheet for the girls though or at least a list posted to the refrigerator. They're not unwilling; just don't see what needs doing without a reminder.
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3-09-2007 @ 8:28PM
Jeff said...We both work, and we both try to give each other one night per week to do whatever we want.
In the meantime, I take putting our 12 month old son to bed, the laundry, grocery shopping and finances.
She takes getting up with our son, dishes, taking him to daycare and doctor's visits when they fall on a day off.
Other than that, we help each other out and do things together. Those are really the only things we've become creatures of habit on.
http://365parents.com
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3-09-2007 @ 10:01PM
barbara said...im a stay at home mom who is totally spoiled as far as the chores go
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3-09-2007 @ 9:51PM
Jerri Ann Reason said...This is funny, I didn't know anyone got to split the duties. Geez, some folks get all the breaks, hehehe. I'm kidding, my husband does take out the trash and he is in charge of baths at night for the kiddo's, but people that's it, no dishes, no laundry, no floors, no picking up his own clothes or socks and underwear even from the living room floor. Nope!
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3-10-2007 @ 4:14PM
Norma said...geez, some people have all the luck! i'm not one of them. i do 99% of everything including parent, discipline, homework, school, volunteer, ALL the household chores, and try to stay sane! bitter???? yep!
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3-10-2007 @ 10:52AM
lmt said...Jerri Ann - are we married to the same guy? :) My husband takes out the garbage, and recycling, and bathes the kids every night. That's it. If I *ask* him to do something else, he'll do it - but only if I ask. That used to bother me, but now I just ask. I mean if he thinks he can step over a pile of magazines that just fell off the counter without my saying anything, he's crazy! :)
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3-10-2007 @ 3:11PM
Stephanie said...My husband is great about helping put the kids to bed... we each take one kid each night, alternating who puts which of our two to bed. That way each of us gets some special time with each child before they go to sleep.
It doesn't work perfectly - my husband has a habit of ignoring which book the child wants read and picks what he wants to read, pretty much every time. Occasionally letting the child pick is nice in my opinion. But at least he does it.
He will also sometimes do dishes without my asking. All I have to do is let them pile up for at least a full day. Then odds are about 50-50 that he'll do them without prompting. Similar for trash and recycling - they have to be really, really full generally speaking.
However, if I ask he will often take care of things. Not immediately; he definitely makes it clear he's doing it at his own pace, which means maybe 10-30 minutes later he will actually get started.
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3-13-2007 @ 11:34PM
Megan said...I am obviously not the only one who is resentful and apparently the only one who can do any "womanly" chores around the house.
I ask and beg and scream all to no avail. I promise back rubs and foot rubs -- not that I get them in return for the stuff I do all day.
A few months ago I finally cracked and went totally berserk - I was throwing things for goodness sake. He promised to do better, and here I am still no help and he got a back rub tonight so he would help me take the kids grocery shopping!
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