Housework: What's Fair?

[Margy1948]

I would actually be no worse off not working at all because childcare fees are so high so I don’t see it that way.

I am married - I am not talking about being a single parent and frankly I don’t see that as much of a helpful or constructive response.

My point is that you don’t seem grateful for what he does but annoyed because he’s not following your orders about what needs to be done.
If you didn’t work he would be financing the entire household, no parent gets to stay home these days without an income producing spouse, or a rich family.
That’s how it seems, and that’s just me. He may find your treatment acceptable but yours does not sound like a happy home.

 

[28562]

Beautiful post. Made me a tad teary eyed…

My husband died when when we were both 28, my boys were 5 and 8.
Oh how I wish I had him back, to be able to wash his clothes, cook his meals and cuddle with him. I would be more than happy to do all the laundry, just to have him back to carry out the trash once a week when it’s cold out. Or to have him get up and see what went bump in the night. And to have him cut the grass on Saturdays or shovel the snow.
I’d love to vacuum the living room every night if he was here to take my car in every 4000 miles and get the oil changed. Or if he would go out and listen to that funny noise it’s making and tell me if it’s serious or not.
I’d iron his clothes every week if only he were here to call when the car breaks down and I need a ride home.
And I’d do it all cheerfully as well as my own job if only he had been there to help my son’s make their pinewood derby cars and to go on the father son camp outs. If he’d been there to help raise them and to have those “talks” with them that young boys need.

But he’s wasn’t there and I still had to do all the cooking and cleaning and vacuuming and laundry and get the oil changed and take out the garbage and get up and see what those strange noises were at 3am. And I raised my boys and I helped them make those derby cars (we never won!!) and I did all that I could do to make up for their dad being dead. And I worked full time, as a nurse, odd hours too.

So you know what? Be thankful that your kids have both a dad and a mom to love them and support them and that you have someone to hug and hold during the tough times and someone to celebrate with during the good times. Life is so much easier with a partner, someone you love and who loves you. Who cares if the chores are even, such is life. Some day when you’re both retired and maybe doing some traveling, it won’t matter one little bit who did more chores or who earned more money or who cooked more often, it matters that you loved and lived and you made it through life with each other to love and to lean on and help get though it all…together.

And that’s pretty much how I feel about that. Life isn’t always fair, but you can make it a good life. Just talk and work things out. TALK. It’s important.

 

[PolarGuy]

gh4, what you said was beautiful. You said it all.

 

[Margy1948]

My husband died when when we were both 28, my boys were 5 and 8.
Oh how I wish I had him back, to be able to wash his clothes, cook his meals and cuddle with him. I would be more than happy to do all the laundry, just to have him back to carry out the trash once a week when it’s cold out. Or to have him get up and see what went bump in the night. And to have him cut the grass on Saturdays or shovel the snow.
I’d love to vacuum the living room every night if he was here to take my car in every 4000 miles and get the oil changed. Or if he would go out and listen to that funny noise it’s making and tell me if it’s serious or not.
I’d iron his clothes every week if only he were here to call when the car breaks down and I need a ride home.
And I’d do it all cheerfully as well as my own job if only he had been there to help my son’s make their pinewood derby cars and to go on the father son camp outs. If he’d been there to help raise them and to have those “talks” with them that young boys need.

But he’s wasn’t there and I still had to do all the cooking and cleaning and vacuuming and laundry and get the oil changed and take out the garbage and get up and see what those strange noises were at 3am. And I raised my boys and I helped them make those derby cars (we never won!!) and I did all that I could do to make up for their dad being dead. And I worked full time, as a nurse, odd hours too.

So you know what? Be thankful that your kids have both a dad and a mom to love them and support them and that you have someone to hug and hold during the tough times and someone to celebrate with during the good times. Life is so much easier with a partner, someone you love and who loves you. Who cares if the chores are even, such is life. Some day when you’re both retired and maybe doing some traveling, it won’t matter one little bit who did more chores or who earned more money or who cooked more often, it matters that you loved and lived and you made it through life with each other to love and to lean on and help get though it all…together.

And that’s pretty much how I feel about that. Life isn’t always fair, but you can make it a good life. Just talk and work things out. TALK. It’s important.

oh my gosh! Widowed at 28 with two little kids!! People like you are heroes to me. Your point about having a person to call when your car breaks down, beyond car service, of course really got to my heart.

 

[Margy1948]

It’s beginning to be so clear now.

Do you realize you seem to really have an anti man chip on your shoulder? There is more to this story than you are letting on, I think…

Yes, my wife has had 4 kids. I would not call her body ‘wrecked’. I think it’s beautiful. She is a stay at home mom. Maybe a drudge to you, but she loves it. She does the majority of the household stuff, takes care of our money, cooks, and raises 4 awesome kids and flat out works her tail off. I help as much as I possibly can, between taking 16 hours this semester at college, working full time plus overtime, sleeping 4 hrs per night, taking care of the cars, yard, house, fixing things etc etc.

Neither one of us is unhappy or complaining about the other. Why? Because we are more concerned with doing what’s best for each other and the family rather than what is best for me, me, me. Attitude makes all the difference in the world.

Yours sounds like a happy home, besides, you’re financing the family’s lifestyle plus doing the traditional guy stuff.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

We don’t do housework.

Seriously.

The person who complains does it … or as much as they care to.

[We have a LARGE stockpile of underwear and socks and minimize laundry doing. EVERYTHING is wash & wear. Etc.]

We do not eat off the floor.

I monitor the cars and take care of checking the oil and other fluids and making appointments for maintenance and repairs. And when the heating system starts making “funny noises”, I change the air filter. [probably a guy thing]

DW LOVES to cut the grass; I do not argue with her. [she used to ask for help gassing it up, but now does that herself]. She actually “negotiated” with the store on what model lawnmower to buy … electric start … castering front wheels. She also enjoys masonry and doing brick laying and she’s very good at it! Go figure.

Whoever gets tired of tripping over the overflowing laundry basket drags it to the machine.

Meals? Microwave frozen. Neither of us likes to cook.

She loves to shop; so I leave all of that to her.

I get up earlier, so I drag the garbage can out to the curb; don’t want to miss the pickup. She generally drags the empty back to the house; if the wind catches the empty, it might end up in the next county.

I get up earlier, so I make the coffee. She gets up later and asks if I want breakfast. She likes breakfast; it’s her favorite meal of the day.

We both worked; I left the house at 5am, got back at 7pm. She worked closer to the house.

There are NO complaints about what’s fair.

[P.S. our children have adopted our system … peace reigns … ]

 

[Allegra]

I guarantee women lose out! Their bodies are wrecked by childbirth and are a drudge, more often than not.

This seems like a really poor attitude to me. A woman can have a husband or not have a husband. Either way, she has chores. Spending your life with no family to love or serve and dying completely alone sounds like a much bigger loss, if you ask me.

 

[Allegra]

We don’t do housework.

Seriously.

The person who complains does it … or as much as they care to.

[We have a LARGE stockpile of underwear and socks and minimize laundry doing. EVERYTHING is wash & wear. Etc.]

We do not eat off the floor.

I monitor the cars and take care of checking the oil and other fluids and making appointments for maintenance and repairs. And when the heating system starts making “funny noises”, I change the air filter.

DW LOVES to cut the grass; I do not argue with her. [she used to ask for help gassing it up, but now does that herself]. She actually “negotiated” with the store on what model lawnmower to buy … electric start … castering front wheels.

Whoever gets tired of tripping over the overflowing laundry basket drags it to the machine.

Meals? Microwave frozen. Neither of us likes to cook.

She loves to shop; so I leave all of that to her.

There are NO complaints about what’s fair.

I guess that also works. Do you have kids yet? I, personally, like a more clean house, but I agree with the sentiment that any family member who doesn’t like the way a chore is done is free to correct it himself.

 

[lovemyjob]

I take care of the inside of the house, he takes care of the outside and the cars.

We have friends who are almost the opposite (except for the car).

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I guess that also works. Do you have kids yet? I, personally, like a more clean house, but I agree with the sentiment that any family member who doesn’t like the way a chore is done is free to correct it himself.

Kids are grown up.

When they were with us, we bribed them to do chores. There NEVER were any arguments and since there was $$MONEY$$ involved, they always were begging for more jobs to do.

They were paid by the job. At the end of each week, they presented us with their invoices. Done in colored pencil, like a spread sheet.

P.S. Bribery works extremely well on getting homework done, memorizing multiplication tables, and etc. In summer, they got paid for reading library books and writing book reports. Amazing!!]

[PPS As soon as they got working papers, they got jobs and I hunted down a mutual fund with a low minimum and set them up with their own IRA’s. We bribed them to max out their contributions to their retirement programs. Now, they look at their balances and are shocked, shocked, I tell you at how much money they have saved and invested. Yes, it’s work, but work can be turned into fun.]

 

[LilyM]

Goodness lily m. You seem to be inferring that because I don’t get paid for looking after my children that I should do everything around the house. I have only very very recently taken on the part time hours so before this we both worked full time and the situation was the same. \QUOTE]

I’m inferring no such thing. I AM inferring that when one partner works harder outside the home - ie providing financially for the family - then they are indeed entitled to work less inside the home. I presume if you were the one working five days a week in a physical job and he the three days behind a desk then you would see this as well.

What do we say in church? There are three ways of contributing - time, talent and treasure. If he contributes more treasure then you contribute more time and vice versa.

We had soup for dinner, homemade. It was very easy. And with two young children, though I might love to, I don’t dust or vacuum every day. I asked him to do the chores before work, after he got up/breakfasted. I don’t stop once I get in from work if his shift is late, seeing to the children and doing dinner, bedtime routine, dishes, paperwork, laundry - I know it needs doing and I do it. Anyway this isn’t about how stupendous I am for being a mother and tending to the home - it is more about that he feels I’m there to look after everybody yet get little to no help in return. Let’s face it, women lose out in marriage.

What chores though? Why an hour and a half’s worth? Why did they have to all be done before work? Dishes and garbage should not be left to fester, sure, but they only take a short time to do. Having dinner ready, yes, maybe. Although as far as I am concerned workdays are really not the time for anyone to have to be cooking anything that takes longer than ten or fifteen minutes. 99.9% of everything else could likely have been done another time.

See, it’s the ‘I know it has to be done’ comment that has me puzzled. Dishes and garbage HAVE to be done so as not to attract vermin. Clothes HAVE to be washed so people have clean things to wear, but in winter at least that doesn’t mean that everything has to be washed after only one wearing - which people needlessly do. Clutter has to be cleared so as to avoid health hazards, but some folks are so obsessed with it that their houses look sterile and unlived in.

Beyond that - well, take cooking. Sandwiches and baked beans and sauces out of jars and packets and the like provide plenty of nutrition when combined with raw fresh fruit and vegetables. Save the real cooking (which includes some ‘simple soups’ btw - those suckers often still need tending while they simmer) for when you have plenty of time to do it. Cleaning floors? If your kids are still crawling or someone has asthma or allergies, sure. Otherwise - well, for reasons I won’t go into I have let my floors go for as long as two months at a time. Very little extra dirt or dust compared with when I did them every few days.

So how often do things really ‘HAVE’ to be done? The answer may well be less than you think.

Perhaps one solution that will help is to look at simplifying and speeding up your household routine with the help of things like the Flylady website.

Please don’t take this as criticism, I don’t pretend to know how much if any of this applies to you. Just food for thought.

 

[underacloud]

This seems like a really poor attitude to me. A woman can have a husband or not have a husband. Either way, she has chores. Spending your life with no family to love or serve and dying completely alone sounds like a much bigger loss, if you ask me.

Not to mention that for many parents the time spent caring for their children when they’re young is returned in kind when the parents are elderly. With four children, three being daughters, I hope I’m well looked after in my twilight years.

Sometimes I get home from work and the house looks like a bomb site. I could spend half an hour yelling at the children and wife to clean it up, or I can just do some cleaning up myself. Most days I choose the latter option, and hopefully I’ll get some help in doing so. The days I choose the former option, I typically regret it and the mess doesn’t get cleaned up anyway, dispite my bossing people around.

None of us like chores. Such is life.

 

[JackieMom]

Our rule is that there is no relaxation or fun until the house is all in order. That’s what works for us. Since we both work hard all day, him at a job and me with four kids, I’d say we usually do an equivalent amount of housework. His falls more on the weekend and mine during the week, although he still does at least one to two hours of housework every night. Now that I’m pregnant and sick I’d say he does 75% and I do 25% of the chores. We are both clean freaks and can only enjoy our home if things are orderly and there are no outstanding chores to be done. This is what works for us.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The very first appliance we bought was a dishwasher. It didn’t fit under the counter, so we had to improvise an installation. But it worked.

[After the washer and dryer.]

[Kids can be bribed at a very early age to dust and vacuum. They will do anything for money. We even got them to eat “yucky stuff” like yogurt and honey and vegetables … never did get daughter to outgrow keeping her foods separate on the plate].

 

[mdleagedguy]

My wife stays at home, and I go to work outside the home. Needless to say, that makes for a pretty natural division of labor. But I still do quite a bit of housework, usually in the kitchen. Is it somehow unfair? Well, my earning capacity is much greater than hers, and it’s still strained by having a large family. If she worked, child care would exceed her earnings. It’s a no brainer.

That said, it’s still incumbent upon me to help her when she needs it. I’m her “helpmate”. So I help. She’s my helpmate, and so she makes sure I have those things I need for work. It’s not a matter of dividing things up and making it territorial. It’s a matter of what makes sense for us, and helping each other through life. One year, she got very sick and was bedridden for about a month. I did all of the housework, in addition to my job. I didn’t need to be asked, and I pitched in because it was the right thing to do. Taking care of my family is my responsibility, whether that means doing housework or working outside the home to keep everyone fed, clothed, and housed.

 

[underacloud]

Our rule is that there is no relaxation or fun until the house is all in order. That’s what works for us. Since we both work hard all day, him at a job and me with four kids, I’d say we usually do an equivalent amount of housework. His falls more on the weekend and mine during the week, although he still does at least one to two hours of housework every night. Now that I’m pregnant and sick I’d say he does 75% and I do 25% of the chores. We are both clean freaks and can only enjoy our home if things are orderly and there are no outstanding chores to be done. This is what works for us.

Each family has to find what works for them. I’m glad that works for you. Unfortunately, in my family, if we applied this rule there would never be any relaxation or fun. NEVER!

 

[bumby]

Easy then…

Stop working and spend that time at home doing the chores. No financial loss and the problem with chores is solved.

Not so easy. If I want any sort of productive/enjoyable career these days, I have to work. Alas employers aren’t impressed that you’ve taken five years off to rear the next generation.

 

[bumby]

It’s beginning to be so clear now.

Do you realize you seem to really have an anti man chip on your shoulder? There is more to this story than you are letting on, I think…

Yes, my wife has had 4 kids. I would not call her body ‘wrecked’. I think it’s beautiful. She is a stay at home mom. Maybe a drudge to you, but she loves it. She does the majority of the household stuff, takes care of our money, cooks, and raises 4 awesome kids and flat out works her tail off. I help as much as I possibly can, between taking 16 hours this semester at college, working full time plus overtime, sleeping 4 hrs per night, taking care of the cars, yard, house, fixing things etc etc.

Neither one of us is unhappy or complaining about the other. Why? Because we are more concerned with doing what’s best for each other and the family rather than what is best for me, me, me. Attitude makes all the difference in the world.

I’m sorry I perhaps overstated the body being ‘wrecked’. I honestly do mourn sometimes for my figure pre-baby, but that is another story. I resent your sentiment that I am anti-man purely because I think generally women are worse off marrying. I only mean this in that they end up doing two shifts - as main caregiver and part breadwinner and housekeeper.

 

[bumby]

It’s beginning to be so clear now.

Neither one of us is unhappy or complaining about the other. Why? Because we are more concerned with doing what’s best for each other and the family rather than what is best for me, me, me. Attitude makes all the difference in the world.

I’m glad you’re happy.

Do you honestly believe I want him to hang up the nappies to dry for our son to wear the next day is me worrying about me, me, me? Clearly your message is, "Don’t ask him to do things, just do it yourself.’ And if he was concerned with doing what’s best for me we wouldn’t be having this conversation!

 

[bumby]

My husband died when when we were both 28, my boys were 5 and 8.
Oh how I wish I had him back, to be able to wash his clothes, cook his meals and cuddle with him. I would be more than happy to do all the laundry, just to have him back to carry out the trash once a week when it’s cold out. Or to have him get up and see what went bump in the night. And to have him cut the grass on Saturdays or shovel the snow.
I’d love to vacuum the living room every night if he was here to take my car in every 4000 miles and get the oil changed. Or if he would go out and listen to that funny noise it’s making and tell me if it’s serious or not.
I’d iron his clothes every week if only he were here to call when the car breaks down and I need a ride home.
And I’d do it all cheerfully as well as my own job if only he had been there to help my son’s make their pinewood derby cars and to go on the father son camp outs. If he’d been there to help raise them and to have those “talks” with them that young boys need.

But he’s wasn’t there and I still had to do all the cooking and cleaning and vacuuming and laundry and get the oil changed and take out the garbage and get up and see what those strange noises were at 3am. And I raised my boys and I helped them make those derby cars (we never won!!) and I did all that I could do to make up for their dad being dead. And I worked full time, as a nurse, odd hours too.

So you know what? Be thankful that your kids have both a dad and a mom to love them and support them and that you have someone to hug and hold during the tough times and someone to celebrate with during the good times. Life is so much easier with a partner, someone you love and who loves you. Who cares if the chores are even, such is life. Some day when you’re both retired and maybe doing some traveling, it won’t matter one little bit who did more chores or who earned more money or who cooked more often, it matters that you loved and lived and you made it through life with each other to love and to lean on and help get though it all…together.

And that’s pretty much how I feel about that. Life isn’t always fair, but you can make it a good life. Just talk and work things out. TALK. It’s important.

Thank you for that. Real food for thought.