I’m reading this book right now called Wifework , about the perception of what is expected of a woman in a mariage, how the work is divided up, etc.
I’m curious…how do dopers split up the housework? Does he do the cooking and she the dishes? Does he do the laundry and she the grocery shopping? Who takes care of the kids? Do you fall into the stereotypical “wife/husband” roles? Did you think you wouldn’t and then did? Or did you think you would and then didn’t?
For those of you who are married (or living long term with the SO), is the way that you split up the work effective (i.e. are you truly happy with it?), or is one or both of you fed up with the situation?
Let’s see…I’ve been living with the SO for about six months. And I’m the female.
I do all the grocery shopping - I’m a finicky eater, and my list is more complex than his. It’s easier for me to buy his loaf of bread and apples for lunch, than for him to try and figure out where in the store cilantro, fat-free cheese and tamari is.
We share laundry pretty equally - whoever is around when a load needs to be done does it.
He washes the cars - thankfully he likes it, because I’m too lazy.
He tends to clean the bathroom - which is nice, because I think it’s oogy.
When I cook, he cleans up. When he cooks, I clean up.
No kids, so that doesn’t apply.
It’s a pretty even schedule. I don’t care what stuff he does versus what stuff I do, as long as we’re pulling equal weight. Thankfully the stuff I hate to do so far has been things he’s willing to do.
You may be sorry you asked. This is what could probably be termed a Therapeutic Issue in my house, because it’s a MAJOR focus in marriage counseling.
1 year ago: He worked full-time and did ZERO around the house. I mean that literally…in our house, there was no such thing as “guy chores” because he did nothing. That was pretty much the pattern for years, even when I worked full-time as well.
Now: We’re making slow but steady progress. He is handling the laundry, for the most part. He does dishes a couple of times per week, occasionally cooks, and helps do pick-up type cleaning. He’s also responsible for the big trash takeout day, although I usually take several bags per week out as well.
My goal is for there to be a more fair distribution of responsibilities, and I think we’re getting there, although it’s not happening overnight. Unfortunately, he’s not to the point of doing anything spontaneously yet, and follow-through (“Tomorrow I’m gonna CLEAN!”) isn’t great.
Chores are a very big issue for us, because we have a family of 6 (two big kids, two babies), plus assorted pets…lots and LOTS of work to be done around here. And we’re all a bunch of slobs, so we’re working to overcome that as well.
It’s an issue that can cause enormous problems, believe me.
~karol
I do the laundry and cleaning and most of the grocery shopping. He takes care of the cars, takes out the trash, vacuum’s, and keep “his areas” clean (garage and music studio).
We both cook equally because of our schedules and we both share in doing the dishes.
I’m pretty happy with the situation. Sometimes I bitch at him when I see he’s left a huge mess somewhere but he usually keeps everything in order and still loves me after my bitching episodes and that’s a huge plus!
I moved in my my SO about three months ago. We pretty much split the housework, though I sometimes have a tendency to not pull my weight as much (partially because we have different priorites as to what needs to be done first)
I usually cook, just because I want it to taste how I want it to taste (though I do take his wants into consideration, I’m talking spices here, not major stuff). But sometimes he cooks, and then one person does dishes while the other cleans the stove and counters.
Laundry has been disputed a little, because he usually runs out of pajama bottoms before I run out of socks and underwear (I have so many socks specifically so I don’t have to do laundry much), and has had a problem with me not doing laundry half the time.
As for cleaning, we don’t do a hell of a lot of it, besides scooping the kitty box and taking out the trash (which I try to avoid like the plague). So all in all, it’s kinda equal, though he sometimes does more than I do (reversed gender roles?) and we both work full time. Hasn’t been too much of a problem recently.
I’ve heard that sometimes having kids can really exacerbate any problems over cleaning.
Dave is the main cook, I cook when the fancy strikes me. I do the dishes and I would say the majority of the cleaning. Dave cleans when it’s needed and I ask him to, or it strikes him that something needs doing.
I do the laundry and the ironing when required. Dave does all outside work, gardening, and takes the trash up to the street for garbage day.
He usually fills the car’s tank, but I rarely drive. He pays the bills.
We both do the grocery shopping. I prefer to do it, and if he goes he will bring me the receipt and ask if it’s okay or did he forget something.
The roomie and I have been roomies for about three months, and our so-far-so-good system:
I plan the meals and cook, because I want to develop the skill. I also do the cleaning, because I have the lower tolerance for letting those chores slide.
The laundry, grocery shopping and bill paying are split fairly evenly.
Our rooms are our own private domains.
He drives, carries all the heavy stuff out of the car, and helps out if I ask him to.
If it’s our own space (we each have our own bath, and our own offices, and he has a reading room and I have a studio) then we’re responsible for it from top to bottom with one exception: he dusts, because I’m allergic to dust and I’ll sneeze my head off for hours if I do it. As a tradeoff, I vacuum.
Common spaces, same thing, we share cleaning, he dusts, I vacuum. We alternate or split major cleaning (bathrooms, mopping, windows) and our only rule about cooking is that whoever cooks dinner gets to relax while the other cleans up afterward. Since Baby tlw was born, I haven’t had to do much after dinner cleaning, though, because she wants to nurse then. More fair division – he can’t do that, so he does what he can, which is put dishes in the dishwasher.
We both work from home, and we both love to entertain, so we’re conscientous of keeping things picked up and neat just for the sake of order, if not so that we can have friends drop by without problems. We’re both neat people in general, though, so that helps. As does this – before we were married, we decided that the first time we fought about housework, we’d sit down and draw up a chore sheet like in the military, and stick to it from there on out. We both hated the idea of being hemmed in by a schedule like that, so we’ve been on our best behavior about things all this time.
been living with my partner for a few years now. we dont really have ‘set chores’, this may be because we are complete slobs.
almost nothing gets done during the week. we dont have pets or kids so the home generally never gets that messy. the poor house sometimes gets a clean on the weekends. in that case he doesnt his spaces. ie. his bathroom and his study, and i do mine, ie my bathroom and my study.
theres a dishwasher, so no one does dishes and it gets emptied by whoever notices that we’ve run out of clean plates.
clothes washing is basically the same. whoever notices that they have to actually peel the socks off the floor puts a load on.
i do most of the cooking because i enjoy it, but that said we only cook maybe 3 times a week, food shopping is done together, generally at 11pm at night, when we feel nibbly.
not really traditional gender rolls, but then we dont have that traditional lifestyle.
Me (the guy): I cook, I do the laundry (not counting sheets and towels which are done by a laundry service), I take garbage and recycling out to the garbage chute / recycling bin. On the rare occasions when the floor gets mopped, I’m the mop-weilder.
She: loads and unloads dishwasher, washes pots & pans by hand. Makes bed. When we return from grocery shopping, is the one to take things from bag and put on shelves, also makes list of what we need from the store. Picks up clutter. Cleans bathroom.
Well, I’m a SAHM (only until the kids are old enough for school,) so I do the great majority of it. He does not cook, at all. If I’m not around he eats Taco Bell. He does not take care of the children, except to watch them when I’m shopping. I do all the grocery shopping. I do all of my and the kids’ laundry, he does his. I do most of the cleaning. He pitches in on the weekends, doing the dusting and the vacuuming, and he takes the trash out occasionally. We have an agreement that when I go back to work things will be split evenly.
The only part of the arrangement that bothers me is the fact that I have to make all the tea. I want someone else to make it once in a while, dammit.
I’m a SAHM, and my husband has more than enough work to do (full-time plus currently contracting on the side), so I do most of the housework, but he does some. He does a lot of dishes, most lawn/sprinkler work, some laundry. In theory, he gets the Kidlet up and dressed in the morning, but lately he’s staying up so late working that I do it. We share bathing and putting-to-bed. Since he rarely comes home from work before 6.30-7 pm, I usually cook dinner so it’s ready when he walks in, but sometimes he cooks. I do most of the shopping.
We’re both messy people, and we’re trying to be better, but we’re both so tired lately that it’s not going well at the moment.
All in all, I’m happy with the arrangement, esp. lately, since he’s been picking up a lot that I should be doing, but am too tired to do. However, I’m doing the potty-training by myself. I understand that he wants to start preserving modesty, and he has this idea that he’ll train any boys that come along, but I’m wondering how he thinks he’ll do that. We need to discuss that one.
I’m going through a divorce, in part, for that reason. Not that that’s a real reason to divorce but, that’s how it starts and moves into disrespect for the other.
Everything has to be split 50/50 or NG. Both work, I feel there’s no excuse. You’re both equally tired. It’s got to get done. If one person is doing it all, it’s just a matter of time.
As a male and, for my own disaster, I would work all day, pick up the kids from day care, cook dinner, start working on the house (roofing, new bathroom, deck) while laundery is going. I’d better not hear one peep about how tired you are to clean the bathroom once a week. But that’s me.
SAHM:
Semi-Autistic Heuristic Mediator?
Super Automated Homosexual Monkey?
Soap Allergic Half Macaw?
Serial Arsonist Hunted Maliciously?
I work full time. Mrs. Six was a full time housewife (her preferred terminology) until she got her work permit; she now works part time at the local McDonalds. She does all of the housework except for the cooking, which we share. I do all of the yard, vehicle, and machine maintenance. We have pretty much the traditional roles, and we’re both happy with them.
I’ve been married for 1 1/2 years, and we didn’t live together before marriage. My husband works long hours and I’m unemployed, so I do all the housework. All of it. I’m not loving it, but I think it’s fair, since I don’t have/get to go to work at this time. In a few months I’ll get a job, and at the same time he will leave his job, and at that point I expect him to start doing everything. hahaha fat chance. We’ll see, we’ll see… He knows how to do it, since he lived on his own for ten years.
One of the things that I was really looking forward to about marriage is NOT BEING THE ONLY ONE TO EVER GO TO THE GROCERY STORE. Unfortunately, so far my husband has never gone to the grocery store. It’s still always me. Grr.
Still, like I said, I’m the unemployed one. No kids. Plenty of free time. So it only makes sense for me to do the housework.
We’ve been married 12 years and both work outside the home. We do the housework together. All of it. When one of us is busy, the other picks up the slack. Works for us!
I tease my husband, though, that he’ll lose his “Guy Card” if he doesn’t stop doing all of this “skirtwork”!
It seems like most of us Dopers divide our chores up according to how much work each of us does OUTSIDE the home.
That’s how it works for us, too. Mr works 12 day fortnights, 10 hours (or more) per day, so I do most of the housework. But I DO work part-time, so the house is never perfect.
On his days off, he will offer to cook dinner, he will look after the kids and take them places, he will have a bath with them, he will do some general tidying up. This suits us fine. He will do more for the first couple of months after our baby is born.
When we eventually move back to Australia, he wants to be a house-husband, because my cooking sucks and his rocks.
Back in the Old Days,[sup]tm[/sup] Mr. Legend and I made a very conscious effort to divide the household chores evenly. We kind of split them up according to what each of us hated to do the least, so I ended up with laundry and litterboxes while he did dishes and vacuuming. I also have always seemed to have garbage duty, but I suspect that’s because I have a much lower tolerance for an overfilled trash can than he does. We split general cleaning chores like sweeping/mopping/bathrooms (and, to be honest, usually did those in a panic right before we expected guests - we’re slobs). I’ve always cooked, but that’s my choice, since I’m the picky eater and he’ll pretty much take what’s put in front of him. He did most of the car repairs, although I would occasionally take on the simpler tasks, like minor tuneups and oil changes. We usually did yardwork together. For the 9 years we had this system, each of us felt s/he was doing just a little more around the house than the other, which I suspect is a sign we were splitting things pretty evenly.
For the past 12 years, I’ve been a housewife, and I took over almost all of the household duties when I quit work. Mr. Legend was going to school part-time and working full-time when our first child was born, though, so it wasn’t like he was loafing around the house while I did all the chores. Even so, it’s not like the work was divided according to sex stereotypes - I took over all the outdoor work as well as the indoor stuff. During the past year or so, he’s been out of town more than in, so he certainly hasn’t taken on more housework. As a matter of fact, he now seems to have trouble even remembering to clear his own plate from the table or put his dirty clothes in the hamper instead of six inches away, on the floor. I’m so happy to have him home for the short time he’s here that I don’t even mind picking up that slack. When he starts staying home more, I’m sure there’ll be an adjustment.
I cook because I was brought up to cook; I do the dishes because he hates doing dishes. He does the laundry because I have a bad back and can’t lug the basket up and down stairs. He takes the garbage out for the same reason, but I do the kitty box.
We live in a residential hotel, so the maid comes in once a week to change the bed, change the towels and vacuum.
When the clutter gets to be too much, it’s about equal who gets around to clearing it up.
