Latter-Day Ozzie and Harriet

Leah blogged about the egalitarian division of labor in her household (the bottom line: it fell to Bob to remove the decomposing rodent from the weed-whacker blades), which got me thinking. My own marriage is pretty traditional during the week, mainly because I'm home most of the day and Andy's not. It makes sense that I do the bulk of the housework because I'm there to do it: laundry, cooking, dishes, shopping, errands, phone calls for appointments and playdates, chauffeuring the kids around, school-related stuff, and so on. When he's home in the evenings or on weekends, he does pretty much whatever needs to be done, regardless of whether it's something that normally falls within my bailiwick.  I'm usually grateful that he's willing to take the kids so I can catch up on household stuff. But there are a few things that he never does even when he's home, like clip the kids' nails and pay the bills and fill out the endless forms for school and various activities. He does nearly all of the household repairs because he's better at that sort of thing, although I'm better with electronics. One thing that he does that I never do is clean the cats' litterboxes—I excused myself from that duty when we first started trying to get pregnant 11 years ago and have never come back.

Comments

[scott]

Rise up against your oppressor, Karen!!!!1one

Kidding :)

[Margaret]

I do no home repair, and I haven't given back the grocery shopping since my husband started doing it after our first child was born. (20 years ago) Otherwise, pretty much everything falls to me, unless I ask him. Being self-employed, he spends a lot of time away from home.

[Susan Barr]

Sigh. What a difference ten years makes! I live in a household of adorable do-nothing males. As an example, the lawn is never watered in the summer because if it was watered it would need mowing. In twenty-five years my husband has done dishes perhaps twice and I remember one meal of canned pork and beans he made twenty-three years ago (when a new baby came home from the hospital). If I ever feel that I need a break he's always ready to prepare his specialty, though - tuna fish sandwiches. I can't hack many breaks.

[Karen]

I actually don't mind grocery shopping, and sometimes just getting out of the house alone is a godsend!

[scott]

I absolutely love grocery shopping. And I don't mind cooking, either, though I claim no special skill at it. Laundry is my least favorite chore. Even scrubbing bathrooms isn't as bad.

[Karen]

The thing I like about laundry is that once it's done, it's done. Same with emptying the dishwasher. Whereas with scrubbing the bathroom or dusting, you always feel like you could have done it better somehow. Well, I do anyhow!

[Leah]

My least favorite tasks are putting the laundry away, emptying the dishwasher and filing. I really hate filing. The other problem I have with laundry (and a lot of other cleaning tasks) is that I start to think about how many times I have washed the exact same shirt, wiped the same countertop, washed the same pot...methinks I should not think so much.

[Karen]

I said that to a friend recently, that my life sometimes seems to consist of "Do. Undo. Redo." Repeat ad nauseum.