2023, Family, home, Uncategorized

Division Of Labor

28 Comments

I have always considered myself fortunate to have a partner who believes that household chores and childcare are the responsibility of both adults in a relationship. I wash and dry the clothes. He folds it and puts it away. We both vacuum. I dust. He mows the lawn and runs the snow blower. I do household repairs. He walks the dog three times a day. I make the bed and change the sheets. We both cook and clean the kitchen. He unloads the dishwasher and I reload it. We do grocery shopping together. We both work in the garden and pull weeds. I clean up outside after the dog. He cleans the cat litter. We clean our own respective bathrooms.

I noticed just how much he does around the house since he had carpal tunnel surgery last Friday. He still has been able to walk the dog and unload the dishwasher, but he can only do most other things one handed until next week. He can do some kitchen tasks and cooking, but not as much as he wants. He feels as though he isn’t pulling his weight as he should. This makes him anxious and irritable. I try to reassure him that I don’t mind having to fold the laundry and clean the cat litter for a while. I sure don’t want him to do too much with his right hand until it is healed.

How did your parents divide up the labor at home? Have you had roommates or partners who didn’t do their fair share of tasks?

28 thoughts on “Division Of Labor”

  1. My folks had a pretty traditional division of chores – my mom did most of the indoor stuff and my dad covered the outdoors – car, mowing, shoveling… with exceptions – he’d help with dishes once in a while, she helped with the yard. But they veered into the alternate roles as they got older and society changed a bit. He learned to make more than a grilled cheese sandwich, and she started to do the flower gardens…

    Husband and I just had this discussion yesterday – he used to do a lot more before the stroke, and there are things he could help with now that I do, partly because it just goes faster. If I could slow down and remind him, he could do more.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  2. I forgot about the other member of our household, Kyrill the Cesky Terrier. His job is to protect us from all fiends, real and imagined. Of course, we are all really here to serve the cat.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    The division of labor here has fallen apart over the last 6 weeks while I was driving back and forth to Iowa. To top it off, the cleaning service did not come when it was scheduled and my house is really dirty. Puppy care is presently the most demanding task. I had to hire a dog walker because I have bursitis in my heel (I thought it was plantar fasciitis—the podiatrist says bursitis. Either way IT HURTS A LOT). This dog needs several walks a day, but the walking was inflaming the heel. Lou does not walk far anymore, so hiring a neighbor girl was the answer. Off to my day.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  4. I think the Baboons are all cleaning their houses!

    My dad didn’t do housework, and mom worked full time and also did the yard work. We had a cleaning lady as long as I could remember. My dad worked long hours at his gas station/coffeeshop/car wash/pub business.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    2. Sorry – was offline this morning. Took all my cards into the office, set up in the lunchroom and did a nice bit of business for 3 hours!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  5. This is a hot button for me, since it was the beginning of the end of my first marriage. The biggest issue surrounding housework was that it didn’t seem to bother him that I was doing 95% of the labor. He actually said to his therapist that he “could” change but wouldn’t be “happy about it” (he told me this himself after we’d divorced). I could go and on and on…..

    Growing up my mom did all the household labor (including mowing) and my dad “brought home the bacon”. This was all fine and good until my mom started working as the office manager at my dad’s law firm. She told him something had to give and suddenly they had a cleaning lady, someone who delivered the ironing weekly as well as a robust list of restaurants for dinners.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  6. My parents’ division of labor is really irrelevant. When I was very young, my father worked a physical job and my mother stayed home with me. We had one car, which my father took to work. Toward the end of his life, my father was physically disabled and could not do much around the home. In between those times their division of labor fell along fairly traditional lines. But we are not our parents.

    I remember, from contact I had with my father’s cronies, that some of them took pride in their inability or unwillingness to perform tasks of self-maintenance, such as cooking or laundry, as if their incompetence in those areas confirmed their masculinity. I thought it just underscored their infantility.

    Since the Trail is predominantly female, a subject like this tends toward either bragging about how much a male partner contributes to daily upkeep or complaints about his shortfalls. I don’t “help” with the domestic duties. That would imply they are Robin’s responsibility and that I sometimes assist. Housework is no more Robin’s job than it is mine.

    We have a home, with laundry, dirty dishes, dusty floors and shelves and the everyday requirements of upkeep. We keep our food supply stocked and meals planned for and prepared. We have a yard and garden that needs to be maintained.
    I think it’s fair to say there is no division of labor in the formal sense. We each have our abilities and affinities—I don’t expect Robin to fix the plumbing or replace a light fixture—but that doesn’t exempt me from washing the bathroom or cooking dinner. We both can see what needs doing and we do it.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  7. Pippin does absolutely nothing around here except to shove toys at me while growling and try to trip me. I ask him to help almost every day but he just stares at me. I think he’s telling me that he’s too short or has no thumbs. I asked him to go get me my phone a little while ago but he just looked at me and went to sleep.

    My parents had traditional roles. My dad went to work, took care of all the finances, did all the lawn and home maintenance, and took the vehicles in for service. On Saturdays he took the garbage to the dump. He also made all the decisions that were to be made, including where we would live and who would go to school. My mom stayed home, cooked, cleaned, did laundry, ironed dad’s dental smocks, vacuumed, and scrubbed. She taught me how to vacuum in rows (eight repetitions per row – she saw this on a daytime tv show that was geared toward making 1960s women permanent slaves). She hosted bridge club gatherings and taught me how to set the tables and where to put the little bowls of nuts and mint candies. She taught me how to dust, vacuum, scrub floors, do the dishes, and to pick, wash and trim green beans for freezing them. She taught me how to cook two things: a roast beef with carrots and onions and a black devils food cake. If we had company for dinner, I was expected to set the table with the correct number of place settings, using the china and the silver. I also had to fill the water pitchers and make sure there were multiple glasses and coffee cups at each place, as well as the correct placement for forks.

    My dad told me he would help me with college if I went to school to be a dental hygienist and worked in his office. So I applied for financial aid.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

      1. He was never very pleased about me so I didn’t worry about it anymore. He really wasn’t happy with me at all.

        Like

        Reply

  9. We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1!

    Kelly and I are pretty good at taking care of household chores and covering what’s needed. Other than bathrooms; I kinda have a blind eye to bathrooms… it’s gotta get pretty bad before I notice. 🙂
    She does hers, I do mine, and the one downstairs, she just doesn’t look at and it doesn’t bother me.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  11. When I was small my mother didn’t work outside the home, but my father’s health deteriorated, and by the time I was about ten, my mother became the breadwinner, primary caregiver for my sister and me, not to mention my father, and the person who basically did everything. She functioned as single parent, not having a choice about it.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to Linda Cancel reply