Everybody Loves Raymond Question

Cafe Society
1

I watch this show mainly because of its ubiquity during evenings when I’m trying to veg out with reruns.

One of the main themes of the show is Debra complaining about how Ray doesn’t help her with the housework. Judging by Ray’s bumbling excuses and the reaction of the audience, this “laziness” on Ray’s part is seen as a big flaw of his.

And I would agree with that assessment but for one thing.

Debra Barone is a stay-at-home mom.

I think it’s true that couples should share house chores, if both of those people have jobs. But if one person is staying home to take care of the house and kids, be it the mom or the dad, that person is responsible for most of the housework. That is their job.

But every time Ray even hints at this idea, the audience breaks into groans, like “Oooh, he’s in trouble now!” And the tenor of the show seems to agree that Ray should be in trouble for thinking that way.

But am I wrong for thinking Ray’s right about this?

The weird part is Debra got more and more strident about Ray’s laziness in doing housework as the show went on and the kids were at school all day, which meant there was less work for her to do. In the early days of the show she seemed not to mind so much.

2

Housework is horrible drudgery and so is child-rearing. As I work part-time I currently do most of the housework and I will be taking on most of the child-rearing. I expect my husband to help more with the housework once we have children, and he agrees 100%. It seems very old-fashioned to me to expect the stay at home parent to take on a majority of housework in addition to the bulk of child-rearing. It is the kind of attitude that suggests raising children is really not all that hard so why not do a bunch of extra work on top of that? That attitude is basically why statistically, women end up with significantly less leisure time than men. Besides, my husband and I made a pact years ago that no matter who is working more, we’d divide the housework fairly. Why? Because housework absolutely blows. It is repetitive, endless, thankless, and lacks the emotional fulfillment that might come from a career or raising children.

I’m curious if you are married, have children, or have ever measured the time you spend on household tasks. During a period of time I briefly monitored the amount of hours dedicated to a task. Between two people, with two cats, I found I spent over ten hours a week, on average, on housework. That’s with my husband helping on weekends and having a housekeeper come in every two weeks to do the surfaces and bathrooms. When we have kids I’m sure that amount of time will increase. I guess my question is why someone should have the full time job of raising children and then the burden of 10+ hours of week of housework on top of that? How is that fair?

3

It’s been a while but I don’t think Debra ever expected Raymond to mop the floors or scrub the toilets.

I remember her bitching (and rightly so) about Ray not helping with the kids.
The thing is, Ray gets to punch the clock and come home and relax. When does Debra get to punch the clock?

4

I agree housework is no picnic, but ten hours is only a quarter of forty, which is standard for a full time job. It may be old fashioned, but thirty hours of childcare, interspersed with ten hours of housework sounds about right for a full time job. Your personal satisfaction means nothing, just like in working for a paycheck.

No, I’m not married, and I have no children. So yes, I’ve done plenty of housework.

But if I was married, and I stayed home to care for the kids and the house, I would not expect my husband to come home from his job and do housework. If he offered to help, fine.

Likewise, if he stayed home taking care of the kids and the house, I might bring groceries on the way home from work, but I would expect to do little beyond that.

Women’s Liberation was about making choices. And housework and kids are why I chose to stay single.

5

Yeah, Ray should’ve been more involved with his kids, but mostly Debra bitched about the laundry more than the kids.
It got to where I wondered why they didn’t use a drop-off service if she hated doing laundry so much.

6

Thirty hours of childcare? What about the rest of the time? I think this is Debra’s complaint. They both work all day, but Ray knocks off at 5:00 and she has to keep working. She and other SAHM work more like 16 hours a day, if not more, while Ray relaxes and whines. That’s Debra’s complaint.

7

WOW! I find neither to be so, it’s work, no doubt, but far from horrible.
So, why did you choose to start a household and have children if you think so unkindly about it all?

mc

8

I think the hours of housework for a married person with two kids would probably be closer to 20, especially without a housekeeper. I’m not sure where you’re getting 30 hours of childcare from. Childcare isn’t really a 9 to 5 job, it’s an ‘‘all day/all night/at any conceivable hour’’ kind of job. Based on the parents I know, you seem to be vastly underestimating the amount of time it takes to care for children. Hopefully some actual parents can chime in here.

[QUOTE=Two Many Cats]
Women’s Liberation was about making choices.
[/QUOTE]

And how! I chose to marry a person who respects my time as much as I respect his.

My personal satisfaction means a lot, actually. As does my husband’s. Some people have no choice but to just ‘‘work for a paycheck’’ but we’re lucky enough to have options.

The problem with Everybody Loves Raymond (which I didn’t watch much) wasn’t Ray’s expectations and it wasn’t Debra’s. It’s that their expectations were not matched. If someone wants to slave away on child-rearing and housework while the other slaves away as an office drone, that’s their business. But they’d benefit from a conversation or six before they hook up, one in which expectations are clearly outlined and potential conflicts are addressed so that nobody gets stuck feeling overworked and under-appreciated.

It also comes down to a willingness to change or compromise. Sr. Weasel had to study for close to a year for his licensure exam, and it became overwhelming for him on top of his regular work duties, so I agreed to take on the majority of his regular responsibilities and completely took over managing the finances to ease the psychological burden as well. This meant me doing grocery shopping, which is a chore I absolutely despise, as well as home maintenance, from deck-staining to replacement light bulbs. I even did his errands, like taking his car in for an oil change. Now he passed his exam and is back to grocery shopping, thank Og, but I am pretty much still running the household. It’s hard enough without kids to pick up the slack for two people, especially because I have some neurological issues that make it difficult to stay organized. I have ADHD, epilepsy, PTSD and recurrent major depressive disorder. It’s much easier for some people to do that kind of work than it is for others.

Bottom line is, we are a team. When we encounter mismatches in expectations or one of us gets stressed, we help the other out. Sometimes he needs me to do more work, and sometimes I need him to do more work. What’s fair, or best, or justified, is what leads to us both feeling supported and appreciated. It bears mentioning that research indicates that when men share in household and child-rearing responsibilities, everyone in the family, including the man, is happier and healthier. The evidence suggests that the key to health and satisfaction in a couple is balance of responsibilities.

I credit this flexible approach with the long-term sustainability of my marriage. I’ve been living with him for fifteen years and he hasn’t thrown me out yet, despite the fact that our individual circumstances have changed, we’ve moved states, jobs, switched up who was the main breadwinner, you know, just adapting as necessary to new circumstances. Sometimes the arrangements weren’t fair, and one of us would say, ‘‘This is not fair,’’ and then we’d rework a new plan. So for us the arrangements are all very context-based.

[QUOTE=mikecurtis]
WOW! I find neither to be so, it’s work, no doubt, but far from horrible.
So, why did you choose to start a household and have children if you think so unkindly about it all?
[/QUOTE]

Sorry. The takeaway from this shouldn’t be, ‘‘I hate children,’’ it should be, ‘‘I hate housework.’’ I hate housework.

Housework exists with or without kids. That’s not something you can really avoid. Child-rearing adds to the drudgery of housework, but it has the benefits of you getting to spend time with a child, love and support and grow a human being, and in my view, is worth the added drudgery of extra laundry/dishes/shitty diapers whatever. I don’t have children yet. My husband and I are on an adoption waiting list and I have wanted kids for freaking ever. We have the nursery room cleared out and painted and we’re going nuts with the waiting. I am friends with a lot of parents my age, some men who do full time caretaking and some women who do, and some who have jobs and everything in between. They all love their children like crazy, but they pretty much universally agree that having children is a lot of monotonous thankless back-breaking labor. But of course the unifying theme is, it’s all worth it. I can’t think of anything truly satisfying I’ve ever done that wasn’t also a shit ton of work. So, I’m jumping on the train.

9

That show sucks. Almost every episode is Ray getting in trouble for something his wife thinks he did wrong, even if it’s not wrong.

For instance, one episode was Ray annoyed that his wife took so long to get ready, even when she knew what time they were supposed to leave to go somewhere. So he said “Next time, when the time we have to leave gets here, I’m leaving, even if you are not ready” And sure enough, he did. And he got yelled at for leaving. That’s all that whole series is, a husband getting yelled at.

10

Yep, and how 'bout throwing Ray out of their bathroom, so she could change the bathroom into a spa for herself?

11

You’re missing a detail. She was late because the curling iron got tangled in her hair, and she needed help. He just looked at his watch, didn’t check in her, and left.

12

So what? She should have thought about it before. He told her WAY ahead of time that he was leaving at 7:30 (or whatever the time was). Why couldn’t she curl her hair 2 hours before? She knew what he said, accepted what he said, and yet he was still wrong. I can’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t tell him she needed help before the deadline.

13

Comes down to this- you have dinner after your busy day at work and her busy day of raising the kids/doing housework/volunteering in school etc. Who cleans up the kitchen, packs lunches for the next school day, helps with homework, does baths, tidies up the bathroom after, reads books, puts the kids to bed?

It’s a shared responsibility. The stay at home parent usually (and rightfully) will bear more of that housework but it can’t be all, since house work and kids have no end. Obviously dads should be engaged with the kids no matter what. But housework doesn’t end at 5, which is where that old saying “a man’s work is sun to sun but a women’s work is never done” comes from.

I watched the show quite a bit, and my recollection is she needed help with the kids (baths, take them to the park etc), not groceries and laundry.

14

That’s reasonable. If one partner is working a forty-hour-a-week job outside the home and the other partner is not, I feel the stay at home partner should do the first forty hours of housework. All work after the first forty hours should be split equally.

15

That post should be required reading for every teenager in the US.

16

Everything is about compromise. Even though my marriage didn’t work out in the long-run it didn’t have much to do with the domestic chores aspect. When I was in the Army I put in long days sometimes over 12 hours. My Ex didn’t have to ask me to help with the kids because getting home to see them was the highlight of my day, I wanted to spend time with with them, not shove them off on her. I think I changed more dirty diapers than most men ever did. The cool thing about kids though is once they start getting older they can actually help Mom and Dad out a lot and they enjoy it, helping their parents cook, throwing clothes in the washer and dryer, and maybe at least folding the easy stuff like towels, hanging their clothes up in their rooms.

During that period she did the majority of cooking and cleaning, but I did all the outside work like cutting and edging the grass, fixing things around the house, she did the shopping, but I handled all the monthly bill payments. But I would try to do some extra here and there when she got bogged down, cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming the floors.

I can totally understand some aspects though of how the person who goes to work, if they enjoy their jobs, get to be out of the house, socialize, and if the other spouse is not much of a homebody they may feel like they’re trapped in this place, and kids, especially when they’re young need a whole lot of attention. Things won’t always be perfect but I think some sort of happy medium can be achieved most of the time.

17

This show was repetitive and annoying, except for the episode about the cheese in the suitcase. That may be one of the top 20 TV comedy episodes ever.

18

Especially since Ray’s job enables him to goof off much of the time.

I LOVE this episode. “Don’t let a suitcase full of cheese become your big fork and spoon.”

19

But in practicality how would that work? Would the stay at home parent have to be on the clock continuously until they hit 40 hours and then the other parent kicks in? They’d have to do everything in the evenings even when the other spouse is home for the evening?

20

I was never a regular viewer, but my grandmother loved this show, so I’ve seen it. I agree that it was pretty much drivel: however, the one where Doris Roberts makes the big vagina statue is a great episode.

Anyway, I don’t really remember too much about specifics, except, I do remember that the wife complained that she had to pick up after her husband; he’d leave his dirty laundry on the floor, and make a sandwich in the kitchen and leave everything out. That is worth complaining about: picking up after yourself is not housework, if you are a full-grown adult.

I was a SAHM for about 4 years after our son was born. My husband still took care of him a lot, and did things around the house, especially on weekends. We had an old house, and it needed a lot of repairs that we saved money by doing ourselves, which meant that DH did A LOT of work. He also made dinner a couple of nights a week.

I made a lunch for him for work every night, but I usually did it in conjunction with putting away dinner, so it wasn’t hard, and I really did do the majority of the housework, but the stuff that needed doing on weekends, he did 50% of, like the dishes (we had a dishwasher, but loading and putting away is still work), and he’d always do a load of laundry on the weekends. I did things for him like iron his shirts, and I was also the one who fixed that cars, but he always took our son to the park or something for several hours on the weekend, and I could go to a movie, or more likely, take a nap. We both worked hard.

More importantly, he always puts his dishes in the sink, and his clothes in the hamper-- he never does anything that makes work for me. If fact, I’m more of a slob than he is.

IIRC the show, the wife’s main complaint was less that Raymond didn’t do his share, but that he was a slob, and made her job harder by making extra work.