I read this article in the New York Times with great interest, as family and gender is an issue about which I am rather passionate.
Much of what the article touches on is the inequity in the amount of house work two fully employed partners do at home. The results discussed in the article suggest that when both a husband and a wife are employed full time, women still end up spending twice as much time as men on housework. (For same sex couples, this disparity does not exist). It then goes into some of the implications about why that is the case, and it really got me thinking.
Mr. Dahlia and I try and split things 50/50 as much as possible. But my job (full time grad student, part time instructor) is a lot more flexible than his job is (8-5 in IT). This is especially true in the summer, when I work as a research assistant and am working on my own research- I can pretty much work whenever I want to, so long as it all gets done.
As a result of this flexibility, I end up being the one who takes care of a lot of stuff around the house. Granted, when it is the last 6 weeks of a term, Mr. Dahlia pretty much takes over all of the household chores (cooking, cleaning and laundry), but that’s only 3 months out of the year. The rest of the time, I tend to do more of the cooking and the cleaning- because I’d rather do dishes when he’s at work and spend time with him when he’s at home than have him wash the dishes when he’s home.
Down the line, though, this set pattern could be problematic. We’ve talked about raising a family, and have decided that if we could afford to have one parent stay home, it would be Mr. Dahlia. But I’m not sure how well that would work out, since we sometimes have different views of what it means for a chore to be completed. (Case in point: laundry. Mr. Dahlia ”does laundry” and leaves it in the dryer downstairs. I “do laundry” and makes sure to bring it upstairs, and do my best to fold it and put it away in a timely manner.)
Both of us really want the division of labor to be equitable (and we are continually saying “thank you” when the other person takes care of one of the chores), but sometimes it doesn’t really feel that way. But I feel like I don’t have much of a right to complain about it, as I don’t really have any suggestions for how to make it “equal.”
How do you divide the labor in your household? If you could change it, how would you?
I have found my mother’s (hard-earned) advice to work for me and FI:
A marriage doesn’t work with each partner contributing 50/50. It requires both to give 100%.
FI and I have lived together in peace for two years. We don’t keep track of who did what. There’s no score card, physical or mental. For example, if I’m rushed for time, he cooks AND cleans up. He knows that I’ll do the same for him when he needs it. (Granted, our ability to make this system work is one of the reasons I am marrying him!)
When it comes to domestic chores, the Radishes switch gender roles.
Mr. Radish probably does about 80% of the housework and I do the other 20%.
He always cooks, washes the dishes, does the laundry, takes out the trash, cleans the cat box, cleans the toilet, makes the bed, etc.
I will sweep, vacuum, clean the bathroom (other than the toilet which I refuse to touch), dust, wipe down the counter tops, etc. Although, if I’m busy, Mr. Radish will do some of those things for me too.
I’m pretty awful, really. I probably should start helping him more but I just hate doing most house work. It’s like, physically impossible for me to cook and I will only do dishes if there is dishwasher, which we currently don’t have.
Before I met him, I pretty much lived on cereal, pizza, and frozen burritos.
Great post. We tend to think that because women have entered the workforce en masse, feminism has somehow “worked.” Discussions like these show that that’s not necessarily the case.
My house is similar to BRS’s and Ms. Dahila’s. I end up doing most of the cleaning, because he could live in a filth and be perfectly happy. He, however, does the majority of the cooking– an activity that he enjoys– and some laundry. Like BRS, we have a rule that whoever doesn’t make dinner does the dishes.
It’s also interesting to note that I’m generally the coordinator of household stuff. If I direct him to certain chores, they’ll get done, but this is a classic example of the “Master/Apprentice” model that the article pointed out. If I’m not in the mood to clean or am too tired from work to take an inventory of what needs to be done, nine times out of ten, the house will just stay dirty.
I’m e-mailing this article to my fiance. It’ll be a good way to re-open the subject and start paying attention to how things are around the house.
I read the same article! My FI and I have had several discussions about what we want to do in the future…. and we haven’t reached a conclusion yet. Great topic opener though!
Thanks for the post! Because I work from home, I usually end up doing 95% of the chores. He does do the dishes, but largely because I hate the dishwasher in our apartment:). We have arguments about this all the time-I don’t want it to feel like the Master/Apprentice senario-but when i have especially heavy workweeks, I don’t like to feel overwhelmed either. And I did work in a an office earlier in the relationship, and it wasn’t any different then.
This is something my FI and I struggle with a bit. We do a good job dividing the cooking responsibilities (we both like to cook) and we each do our own laundry, but when it comes to cleaning, I’m just a tiny bit neater than he is. I hate seeing crumbs and spots of old food on the kitchen counter, or trying to cook when the sink is filled with dirty dishes, but he thinks it’s more efficient to wait until everything in the kitchen is dirty and then clean it all at once. As a result, I usually hit my dirt tolerance level way before he does, and a lot of the time I’ll just do it myself because I don’t want to nag him. But my FI has tried to clean as he goes so I’m not always the one doing the dishes or wiping up spills on the stovetop, and I love him for making the effort!
My fiancee is vacuuming right now. I’m not kidding. Granted, I just finished doing some dishes and picking up the living room, but it’s kind of funny that I sat down for a quick wb-dose and the vacuum came on in the other room. 
This is a great post. We both work full time and we try to do the cleaning and picking up together on the weekends (and yeah, during the week, the house looks pretty bad)…I have a flex schedule and have bi-weekly fridays off, so on those days, I try to do a little extra, but I also have a longer commute so my fiancee gets home earlier and 99% of the time, he cooks. I feel like he does more, to be honest. And I think my appreciation is generally enough for him to feel okay with it. Whoever stays home with kids will do most of the chores, I think. And if we both work full time with a family, I have ZERO problem hiring a housekeeper for weekly or bi-weekly scrubbings. I’ve seen it practically save marriages to go that route!
i have trouble with this…like they mentioned in the article, my standards of clean are vastly different from my husband’s. he’s more organized than i am, but he doesn’t care if the kitchen floor is filthy or the dishes are stacked in the sink, so i usually end up cleaning everything, although if i ask him to do something, he usually will. we even put up a whiteboard with all the chores on it, but since my standards are way different than his, i find myself checking stuff off far more often than he does.
we eat out most nights because he’s flat out refused to cook and while i enjoy it, i’m usually too tired after 9 hours at the office to consider cooking. i do all the pet cleanup/feeding (i don’t think he has any idea how to clean up cat puke) and all the yardwork too. hrm, you know, for a self-proclaimed feminist, he’s not really carrying his weight! maybe i’ll send him the NYT article and see what his thoughts are. 
We divide everything. Actually, I think I’ve tricked him into most of the household chores… ha.
I also appreciate how you’re Ms. Dahlia, and not Mrs. Not to knock the other married bees, but I really appreciate that there is is Ms. bee!
ours is uneven, a lot like yours, dahlia. we both work 40 hours a week, but my job is a mile down the road, while his is an hour away… this means i have at least an hour after he leaves and an hour when i get home, all to myself. i like doing the cleaning/cooking then, cause i can do it my way, and then when he’s home, we don’t have to clean, we can just relax.
i refuse to touch the bathroom, however, and on the weekends we both clean. so i guess it’s not that uneven? i do all the little things, though, like remembering his sisters’ birthdays, making sure we have gifts/write thank yous, etc. but for my personality, that’s just second nature - i’m too organized to not pay attention!
interesting post, dahlia! i sometimes feel like i do the most work, but that’s usually because i’m the more anal of the two of us. like pp, my husband’s version of doing the dishes is to simply load the dishwasher, whereas when i do the dishes, that includes wiping down the counters, cleaning the sink, and making sure surfaces are dry. technically though, he really “does the dishes”. we both pitch in pretty evenly when it comes to housework: we regularly run the vaccuum and pick up clutter. he won’t dust, but that’s okay because i hate cleaning the cat’s litter box. so we swap. since i’m pregnant, getting down on the floor to scrub the bathtub is taxing so he’s graciously stepped up to the plate. although, to be honest, he doesn’t really see the value of doing it every week like i prefer it to be done. i usually win that discussion.
So funny that you posted this today… just this morning we were having a discussion on the very topic. I think it will be a struggle for us, like a lot of you, because I am so much more of a neat freak than he is. The advice about not keeping score is great– I think it will be hard not to, but if you find a system that works and it’s not exactly 50/50 then maybe 50/50 isn’t the best system for you — especially if it would take tons of nagging to get to that point.
BTW, I’m glad to see that Ms. is an option for Bees to have as their display name.
I am so glad you posted this, this is a topic I have been thinking about A LOT lately. Why is the home generally a reflection of the female and not the male, even though I work full time and my FI is not currently working I still feel like the house is a reflection of me and what kind of ‘wife’ I am or will be. I totally hear you on the laundry thing though, my idea of ‘doing laundry’ means: washed, dried, folded and put away, his is washed, dried and folded.
Being a newlywed I can relate to this issue! My husband is the cook and I’m usually the cleaner (he won’t touch a dirty dish). We keep his/her bathrooms, but I’m ashamed to say his is cleaner than mine (I’ve been busy this month!!!). We’re really good at picking up the slack when the other is busy, though my laundry pile is suspiciously larger than his. Hmmmm….
I didn’t even notice that you’re Ms. Dahlia instead of Mrs. I didn’t know we had that option.
Maybe I should have gone that route since I kept my last name. Oh well, no big.
We have a rule (taught to me by my parents) that whoever cooks doesn’t need to do the post-meal cleanup. I end up doing some of it anyway (perhaps out of guilt for being a messy cook!), but it works pretty well. So far we’ve lived together for a year and I’ve done most of the weekly housecleaning, but since he’ll be paying for a cleaning lady when we move to our new place, I don’t mind continuing to do the touch ups. And I do all the laundry, since I don’t want to risk him ruining my clothes! Overall, though I will always do more, I feel like it works out pretty fairly. And when I ask him to, or when I don’t have time, he can clean as well as anyone.
Thank you for the post, in the end you brought up that you always make sure to say Thank you, and I just wanted to add, that we do the same thing I think it is important and just wanted to point that out.
Since I’m in a same-sex couple *that sounds weird* I love the fact that our roles are not predefined. I hate bugs and Natalie kills them but I do all the DIY woodwork projects. She does the dishes and cooks but I decorate the house and love the color pink. It does cause some tension in that we have to duke anything out as to who does what but it always ends up better.
Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland
Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator
Engagement Date: December 31, 2006
Wedding Date: May 2008
Blogging Since: September 19, 2007
Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland
About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
I could have written this post.
I’m more flexible with time right now, but I worry a lot about setting bad patterns for later. It’s really important to us both that we share the housework equally, but if I’m being honest, I still probably do 65% of the house stuff, especially the “hidden chores”- like buying cards and presents for people, sending thank-you notes etc.
It’s hard because I really am cleaner and pickier then he is- but I also know that is totally gendered. He never grew up being expected to be neat (because, even though his family is relatively modern, there’s still an expectation that his wife will do that) and never “sees the dirt”. Of course, if the house is a wreck, I’m the one who’s judged, so I “see dirt” a lot more.
The way we’re best at getting toward equality is by having set responsibilities. Whoever doesn’t cook- cleans up. I clean the bathroom when I have time- he vacuums Sunday mornings.
But we have a long way to go.