BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Husbandry 101

The thread about parenting duties not being equal really bugs me. Sorry to be long winded.... We have been married 2 years, and will probably start trying to have a baby in the next year. I guess I'm not really one of you but I love your points of view and will never again speak to people in a casual way about their reproductive choices!

Anyway, so, if we have a baby and I quit my job then ok, I'd expect to take on more chores. But currently we both work and yet I'm still the one who maintains the house. Granted my husband likes to do laundry but he doesn't fold it, and he has made progress but it wasn't easy to get him to separate colors, towels, sheets, etc. He has ruined multiple things of mine, but yet I like having clean clothes and have gotten used to him doing it. He also will tidy up around the house and really compared to all the women I know, my husband is the most helpful with chores and will really do anything I ask him to do. So I shouldn't get to complain, but I still don't like the fact that I'm the director, like someone said, and he's the guest star. Why doesn't he have to remind me that it's garbage day? Or remember to give the dog heartworm pills? Or gather all the papers for our taxes, and pay the bills?

Why does this bother me so much? Really he's so much more helpful than my sister's husband.

Sometimes he tells me he lacks initiative because he doesn't want me to get mad if he does it wrong. But I think that's a cop-out.

I just realized that "not one of you" might not sounds very nice. I mean I am married-no-kids, and that's how I came across this site.

Hi Pink,

I didn't take your post in a bad way. Yeah, I guess most people start off their marriage without kids. So you are in our demographic group for the moment.

I think all women are really striving to be treated as equals in the home. I do think for some men not contributing or undercontributing around the house is probably a cop out. The gender stereotypes favor men, so I think they try to milk it as much as they can.

This kind of inequality really bothers me, too. It always has. In fact, it was one of the things that turned me off from wanting to be a Mom.

I think it can be hard to maintain your equality as a SAHM, because money is power, and I think that's part of the reason women get stuck doing most of the work. Men think, I worked all day. Not that the woman isn't working if she's home with the kid(s).

A couple of books have come out on this topic recently... I am attaching the links to them. They help women make informed decisions so that if the relationship falters, they still have options.

They encourage women NOT to give up their income to raise children. But to continue to work outside the home, and to insist their spouses meet them halfway with the housework.

If I were going to have children, this is how I would handle it. But it can be hard to enforce. Just because someone says they will meet you halfway doesn't mean they will, or that they will forever. Just something to think about...

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I have heard about that book recently- the Feminine Mistake. I wonder about that. I guess there's no way to know until I do it- I mean stay at home- at least for the first 3 months, but I can hardly make it to work and run the house and care for the dog. There is no way I could throw another ball in the air and still function. At least, I think. And I'm way too controlling to seriously consider letting anyone else raise the baby all day while I'm here at my job which I don't like that much anyway.

I do find the thought of staying at home potentially boring, but it is something that I want to do.

I hear you, pink. It sounds great in theory, but not so easy to pull off. It really is like having two full-time jobs.

One of my childhood friends has two boys, several animals, etc., a full-time job, and her boys are on a traveling hockey team. And I just learned she is taking ADD medication because shes' having trouble doing it all. She doesn't have ADD, she is doing too much.

I would talk it all out with your guy. You can't talk about it enough before making such a major life change.

Does he want children as much as you do? I could see that being another issue in housework distribution. If you want the kids, then you take care of them, kind of thing.

You could maybe put together a schedule, and decide who is going to do what. It will probably change, but at least you have something.

And work some time off in there for yourself, because you will need some down time.

LOL my DH does this! And pulls the Male Strategic Incompetence trick too... "I don't know how to..."

Sometimes I think it's also very much about who cares more. It bothers me more than it bothers him to have dishes in the sink, so I deal with it.

Anyway, I don't mean to man-bash (I really do love the guy) or get too far off topic- just wanted to let you know you're not alone.

My husband and I have a system that seems to work well. We split the house up based on floor surface. If the surface is hard (bathrooms, kitchen) he cleans it. If it is soft (carpeted bedrooms, office, living room), I clean it. He does all the cooking, I clean up after dinner. I do the laundry and the bill paying, and he takes out the recycling and garbage.

By some miracle of fate, I enjoy all the stuff he hates and he enjoys the stuff I hate.

And if one of us falls behind on our appointed rooms, we can make snarky comments (in good fun).

One of the benefits of marrying a man who was raised by a single mom - he had no expectations that I would do all the housework. Which is good, because I was raised by a single dad and really needed someone to cook for me.

Prof. Kim, that is the greatest division of labor. It sounds like you guys are a great match!

In a way, my husband and I are the same. He is responsible for all things food related-cleaning the kitchen, washing dishes, feeding the cats.

I handle bathrooms...ours and the cats'

I mentioned this on another thread, but this is a more topical location:

My fiance and I have always divided housework based on number of hours worked outside of the home. When we both worked forty hour weeks, the division was 50-50. When my work hours began to decrease and his began to increase, I took on more of the household duties. There are times, like now, when things are feeling a little out of balance, but I mention that I'm feeling overwhelmed and he's a good enough guy that he gets the hint and starts helping more.

With us, whoever cooks, the other cleans afterward. With the rabbits, I do "input" (food, meds) and he does "output" (litterboxes). I do pretty much everything else, mostly because I want it done a certain way. He pulls the "I can't do it right" malarky about making the bed and sorting/doing the laundry (although it escapes me how an educated man can't managed to put his socks into a bin labeled "whites"). Generally, I don't mind - at least I know it's clean.

He cracks me up with how proud he is of doing one task, though. Once, he announced he cleaned the kitchen (this was year ago). The sink was still full of dishes, the stove was obviously not clean, the floor wasn't mopped.... so what HAD he done? Scrubbed the refrigerator inside and out with a toothbrush until it sparkled! It was the most beautiful fridge in a dirty kitchen I've ever seen!