According to marriage.about.com, wives say that one of their top stresses is the fact that their husbands don't want to do their share of work around the house. It also shares some stats: 74 percent of men said the chores were shared; 51 percent of women said chores were shared. Twenty-six percent of men said one person did the housework; 49 percent of the women said the same. Interesting.
I can only speak to what happens in my household, but I believe it's pretty standard. I do all cooking, cleaning (except for some shared dish-cleaning), grocery shopping, bill paying (that's another story though), and laundry. Now don't get me wrong, I have actually come to enjoy most of those chores. The problem is that I sometime spend hours doing them without even an offer to assist.
A few years ago I decided that, although I absolutely detested cleaning toilets, Paul did the worst job of it and I had to fire him. He was pretty happy about it, and I had to learn to love it. Now cleaning makes me quite happy, because like I always say, "a clean house is a happy house".
Why isn't my house happy unless it's clean? That probably has a lot to do with my personality type (another day, another blog), and that I just feel so satisfied when everything is clean and tidy, allowing me to spend time with my FAMILY and do other things I enjoy.
I've tried asking for help, but again as the website suggests, that's the biggest mistake I could make. Apparently asking for help implies that the responsibility for the chores belongs to just me. My issue with that theory is that they are my chores. If I didn't do them, who would? What would happen? I predict I would become completely crazed, depressed, and just plain bitchy. I've learned that the best way to keep my loving spouse happy is to not ask him to help out.
Pardon me, I don't let him off completely, but his "chores" are limited to: snow shoveling (although I enjoy the workout so pitch in sometimes); lawn mowing (same here, I don't mind it if it's not too hot); taking the garbage to the bin (it's hard to just get him to take the bag out of the can inside the house!); and taking Casey outside to play, etc. Once in a while, when I have errands to do and leave the house, I'll jot down a few things needing done and he's pretty good about doing them. We've decided he simply doesn't like me around when he does chores. Fine. So be it. :p I'm happy he did them and he likes the admiration I give when he does them. 'nough said.
So, what is right? I'm not sure there's an answer for that. It's one way in my house, but may be totally another in yours. Not all men are like mine, I realize that, but it seems to be (through online research and asking friends), that many are. What do us women do about it? Do we grin and bear the housework to appease the men? Do we fight over it until they eventually help out? I think that whatever works for you is the right answer here.
I think that there may be a time in my life when I simply can't keep up, but hopefully by then his eyes have opened and it isn't a big deal for him to help without me asking. Until then, God Bless the Domestic Goddess, because she's got a danged tough job to do!
My piece of pi today is: 3.1415.
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