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New York, 5:38 AM
Wed Dec 2
68 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/29/09
10/28/09
We both compromised, but he really had to compromise the most because he standards were awful. It took a while to establish the new guidelines. Like, he thought it was silly to add "wipe down the doors and light switches every other week" to the list of what should be done in each room. So I told him he was completely in charge of the bathrooms for three months. At the end of that time the baseboards, light switches, and area around the door handles were filthy. So he saw why that part of the job was important. He never knew it could get that way!
We don't have a set thing of who does what chore because our schedules are unpredictable and we need flexibility. But if one person says, "I'll clean the bathroom," we both know exactly what that means. #housework
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This division is probably simplified by the fact that we have two separate closets and hampers, so our dirty laundry is naturally separate. #housework
10/28/09
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10/28/09
Even though I know it's so much bullshit, I still feel really guilty when she makes comments like that. #housework
10/28/09
I was and still am pissed about this, both because of the guilt he tried to lay on me and because of the expectation that a good wife must do laundry and other supposed "wifely duties." #housework
10/28/09
I hate always having to ask him to do his part because it makes me feel like a nag, and I hate always having to shoulder more of the burden, so basically it's an arms race to the squalid bottom which makes me annoyed and which he doesn't notice. #housework
10/28/09
The subtext to this, of course, is that I'm at home most of the time working on my PhD, while he goes to an office. So he comes home and doesn't want to clean, and I think on some level he resents that I'm home all day and he isn't, even though it's not as if I'm like, partying it up. I despise feeling like a nag, but I wind up nagging anyway. It sucks. #housework
10/29/09
10/28/09
But his room is an explosion of dirty clothes, I am constantly tripping over his huge shoes (big ass man feet).
What I'm saying here is that a man is capable of doing something right if he wants to. It's not about gender, it's about personality.
Lets be honest, the only reason my room is clean is because if it wasn't I'd have a stress attack falling all over my shit. #housework
10/28/09
10/28/09
bitch. #housework
10/28/09
But, related to the article as a whole, I am lucky that my husband is a good cook, but he also isn't as good at being flexible and cooking with local in-season ingredients, which is my thing. So, I mainly cook. He does the dishes.
I have noticed though that I like the house cleaner and I'm more apt to notice soap scum in the shower and when things are dusty. I'm not sure if he doesn't notice it because that's the way he is or if it has something to do with this gender and the gender roles that surround us. I am a woman and therefore I am aware of uncleanliness? I don't know.
And there's no way he'd spend an afternoon canning tomatoes that he grew from the garden. If I want that, I can't just delegate.
I think though, if we had children, I would want him to help more with stuff like that. For right now, I don't mind because a lot of those are just my things and he's busy building us kitchen cabinets and such. But, I don't want my kids to just see me doing domestic stuff and their dad manly stuff. For that reason, I want to learn how split firewood this winter. (that and stronger abs and killer arms!) I just don't want to perpetuate gender roles that I definitely can see have been passed along to me. #housework
10/29/09
10/28/09
I do think that because of society's heteronormative gender roles, there is a skewed weight placed on women in terms of domesticity and not on men. For example, a woman may care about how laundry is folded while a man just cares if the laundry is folded at all. Therefore, I think the main issue in terms of domestic roles is what is important to whom.
From my personal experience, I found that explaining to my boyfriend exactly how I wanted laundry to be folded and why my way is more efficient than his way helped a lot in terms of him understanding my prior frustration with his folding skills. #housework
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