Wedding Blog
I never really considered gender roles in my first marriage. Okay, that’s a lie. I did, but only briefly as I patted myself on the back for escaping the limits of traditional roles. My ex-husband cooked, cleaned, and took care of the pets. He made sure that our house was stocked with the necessities, that the lawn was presentable, and that our guests didn’t die of starvation. We had a rolling pin, a fancy schmancy silicone one in a masculine blue that he picked out and used.
I supervised (and paid the bills). I secretly believed that I was incapable of doing what he did, so I didn’t even try, but it didn’t matter. In this day and age, it was something to be proud of, that my husband was such a fabulous “wife.”*
Fast forward.
In the past few years, I have learned to cook out of necessity. (I like to eat, so it follows that I’d like to cook.) I am stunned to find myself as “the clean one” in our relationship, always picking up and straightening up and complaining about the rubble. And the pets? Let’s just say that even though we try to share responsibility, the buck has to stop somewhere, and that’s generally with me. When the puppy’s nipping and needs some extra training, when the cat’s coughing and needs a medication adjustment, when somecat pukes and somedog tries to eat it… yup, those all land in my lap.
And my favorite man? He’s the designated plumbing-fixer, trash-thrower, and chainsaw-wielder. He mows the lawns (two houses, remember?), deals with clogged drains and does, um, something with the fallen trees that litter our property. Need something done with heavy machinery? He’s your man! Build a fire in the fireplace when all of our wood is wet? He figures it out! Starving and in need of a home-cooked meal? Not so much.
All of this is fine in theory. The amount of stuff that we feel responsible for is roughly equal, and we definitely help each other out (don’t get me started on the ugly things that laying tile does to a woman’s hands).
But I struggle with it. I sometimes assume that I’m stuck doing something because I’m the chick, and he’s the dude. When the house is trashed, I wonder why he doesn’t feel the same frustration when he sees it. WHY do I have to ask for help in cleaning up a mess we jointly created (or, at the very least, jointly benefited from)? When he innocently asks me, “What are we having for dinner?” when we’re both covered in the rubble from our latest home improvement project, I want to growl in frustration**. When he calmly suggests that I might train the dog not to jump on people (as opposed to what, teaching him that on purpose?), I have to hold my breath to not respond. And when a neighbor complements him on having a partner who bakes pies, homemade Oreos***, and can throw together a mean spaghetti sauce, I cringe just a little bit.
Who am I, Betty Crocker?
It’s all fine. I know it’s fine. I know that this is just who we are as people and humans and how our lives get divided up. I know that being at peace with the various aspects of myself, be they Betty Crocker or Rosie the Riveter, is part of growing up. I know that when we have kids, we are likely to go deeper into traditional roles than we are now, and I know that all of this is harder because my role in my first marriage was so not traditional and because growing up, my mom did it all****. I know that his willingness to trust me with most of the responsibility for our pets, our meals, and our money is a big deal, and that I would have a really hard time doing the same.
So when I start to freak out about being stuck doing things because I’m the woman, I try to sit quietly for a moment and ask myself: Am I doing this because I have to, or because I want to? (Cooking, for instance, which I usually choose to do.) Are there other alternatives that would work for both of us? (Perhaps we can hire someone to clean up.) Am I fixating on how it should be rather than what is? (Just ask him to help clean the kitchen. He will.) Do we divide things up this way because of our genders, or for other reasons? (Frankly, the chainsaw is too heavy for me to use safely.) Instead of getting poopy about it, should I be proud? (I do make pretty rocking homemade Oreos.)
And I finally bought a rolling pin, after a year of using well-cleaned cans of veggies to roll out cookie dough. I call that progress.
I’d like to hear from you. Are you struggling to adjust to your role with your partner? If you’ve been married before, is the division of labor in this relationship different than before? Or, have you always been comfortable with the more traditional parts of your role? Do tell!
*His words.
**What, you don’t growl when you’re frustrated?
***Because I heart you, here’s the recipe for homemade Oreos. Make sure to use Dutch-processed cocoa. Enjoy!
****My parents were divorced so my mom handled everything because she had to. In terms of “modeling behavior,” that explains why I assume that I have to do it all myself, too, and why I sometimes assume that ANY division of labor is gender-based.
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I never cared much about cooking, keeping a clean (and cute) house and all those “nesting” tendencies until I got married.
And now I’m a Martha Stewart in training.
I told my husband this weekend that “You domesticate me”. I realized that I want to do all those things now. I want to take care of him and I want to nurture and make a home for us.
I’m struggling with adapting to my new role as “wife”. To my DH a “wife” just loves to cook & clean and is just born to do so. Sorry for him but I’m completely the opposite! So, we’re slowly adapting to our new “roles”.
We struggle with this, too. In some areas, both of us take the initiative, in others, neither. It’s hard because it means that I feel alone in my desire to clean the house, and when something needs “fixin,” I’m likely to NOTICE it but neither of us are particularly handy.
It’s ALWAYS different. People are complex, we have several sides. Everyone has some degree of interest in ‘traditionally female’ tasks and in ‘traditionally male’ tasks. When you get two people together, the division of labor sort of happens however it will, and it’s based on a lot of things. Preference, energy, schedule, skill… Mixing it up is good, too. Getting stuck in a habit - in any aspect of a relationship - can be bad. And doing a chore you haven’t done in months or years can be rewarding!
I suppose it’s easy for me. I’ve always had a very flexible gender role orientation. Sometimes in my relationships I’m ‘the guy’ and sometimes I’m ‘the girl.’ I like the way things are with my current boyfriend - we’re both a little bit of each. And we like to mix it up, too. His cooking isn’t exactly anything to write home about, but I appreciate the effort he puts in. And there’s something about putting a nail in the wall at just the right angle without it wobbling back and forth that makes me so frustrated I could scream.
You just can’t be afraid of being a little bit girly, or a little bit dudely. Everyone has to be a bit of both at times. That’s exactly the kind of flexibility that makes a relationship strong.
Yeah, I said ‘dudely.’
What always makes the most sense is for each of you to take the chores you most enjoy, are best able to do, and feel are most important. Whatever is left over should be divided equally, or shared. My husband loves to cook, but hates to do laundry. We either take turns cleaning, or clean together. Projects around the house get split evenly - often with him supplying the brawn (just because he can) and me figuring out the details (because I’m an engineer, and he’s just not that mechanically inclined).
If the gender stereotypes don’t work for you, you should definately work out your own system. But most steretypes exist for a reason. It is way more important to me that the house be clean than it is to him. Does that mean I should do all the cleaning? No way! But it does mean that I end up doing more of it. Luckily he totally pitches in when I declare a housecleaning day - if only because that means it gets done faster, leaving more time for us to do something fun together!
oh how i struggle with this! i had, for many years, planned on marrying a wife-husband who would do all the cooking, cleaning and laundry. when i met my now husband, i swore i would stay the same, but something changed. i slowly but surely became this domesticated wife-in-training. while i was initially horrified by this transition, it works out best for everyone. i do all the laundry (because i’m picky about how its done), i cook (because he will catch the kitchen on fire) and buy all the house running supplies (groceries, toiletries, cleaning supplies, paper supplies, etc) and we split much of the cleaning. he wrangles the dogs, pays most of the bills, cleans up the dog poop in the backyard, makes the computer work and works on our new house, so eventually we can move.
the radical feminist in me is less than thrilled by this arrangement, but deep down the martha stewart in me tells me this is a good thing.
I also think that this happens differently with all couples. I’m like you, I do the cooking and handle most money stuff. I almost always initiate the cleaning. We’re both trying to learn to be more handy. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when we actually have a house where we need to do work and mow the lawn and everything instead of the rented apartment we’re in now.
And I must concur on that oreo recipe. I love Smitten Kitchen and I make those oreos all the time. My friends have dubbed them “faux-reos” which are unanimously more popular than their namesake.
I get a bit grumpy about cleaning up and household responsibilities. We both work full time but I’m home first so I have to make dinner. ANd why does his idea of clean is a half butt job. GAH! I was just getting crabby about this on Saturday. *SIGH*
This post inspired me to think about our gender roles. Which are reversed in many ways in our relationship. Great post!
Thank you for this wonderful post and I feel you! We have a very traditional division of household duties. At first I actually didn’t mind, because my schedule was flexible, but now with both of us being very career driven I find it harder to keep the house clean by myself. I really struggle with this because the house is ultimately my responsibility, but we both live there. Some nights I am just too tired to cook or clean, and then I get a little upset because I never imagine my life being stuck in a traditional gender role. Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Cookie jumps in when he can, but he’s also just as tired as I am. Now that I am working more, we’re trying to figure out an alternative that works for both of us, but it’s a process.
we have a simple rule that covers cleaning, laundry, doing dishes, and all of those other rather onerous tasks of daily life: we switch off. If he does the dishes one night, I do them the next. If I do the laundry one week, he does it the next. When one of us is really stressed or overwhelmed, the other picks up the slack out of understanding and love :-). And some things - like cooking, paying bills, grocery and other shopping - we have a wonderful time doing together!
I embrace our gender roles, not because of the tradition of it, but luckily, I just like “women’s work”. We both contribute equally financially to our marriage, but I’m lucky to be the messy one in our relationship (Mr. Peng picks up after himself, he was raised a very good boy!) so 100% of the time, if there is a mess at all, it’s my mess. I love cooking and even cleaning (not organizing… but down and dirty scrubbing, I love). Mr. Peng will usually keep our place tidy, and I’ll give it the deep clean. I’ve never taken the trash out once in our lives, and I don’t think he’s ever cooked. If I didn’t randomly enjoy these tasks, you’d bet your bottom that Mr. Peng would be doing 1/2 the deep cleaning work too!
I too am inspired by your post! I think I’ll sit down and really think about the ways we both contribute to our relationship!
I love Suzanno’s suggestion! Take the chores you love and make them your own and any leftovers get split equally. Brilliant!
@Mrs. Penguin:
omg, i too do not enjoy organizing, but will get down and scrub the floors until they shine.
I can totally see where you are coming from, some how I ended up being the one who cleans the toilets and does the laundry and he doesn’t even notice that the house is a mess…It’s the little things like not putting the throw over the back of the couch and leaving it in a jumbled pile on the seat of the couch that drive me bonkers. My mom did almost everything, even when my parents were married (divorced when I was 18) and now that she is remarried and has started over in the kid department (youngest sibling is 
she still does it with her new husband.
I am so afraid that I will find myself taking on that type of situation and be just as worn out all the time as she is. I also hate the idea of being placed in such a gender specific place as having the wife’s work and the husband’s work. But when it comes down to it we do what we are good at. I have a much better eye for detail when it comes to where the picture should go. He has a better eye for nailing things into a stud so the picture doesn’t end up on the floor with a big gaping hole left where said nail was pounded haphazardly into the wall he just sheet rocked and painted.
There are some things we do share the duties the of. If I ask he will vacuum and sweep, clean the stove and he honestly does most of the dishes (unless I bake then forget it, it’s all me). We both cook, about equally, although him more so during the summer when the grill is going not stop. We both garden but he does all mowing and weed whacking. (I grew up using a ride on mower and refuse to use a push mower because they scare me and I can’t start them myself. Our yard is not big big enough for a ride on so he has to do the lawn and he enjoys it too.) The man has no idea how to even turn on our washer so that project falls to me.
I also pay all of the bills. His, mine, ours.
We have developed an easy sort of deal when it comes to these things but I still fight at those gender rolls now and then. Enough that I do make him fold his own laundry while he watches hockey or baseball.
Oh Miss Cheese….how you make me smile! As a couple we are still trying to figure these out. I’m fiercely independent and feel I can do EVERYTHING for myself. I owned a house for 5 years while my boy was still in his little grad school apartment so I’m accustomed to fixing what is broken in my own way and time. I suppose I’d always envisioned having a “wife husband”…but as with most things fate has an odd way of giving you what you need not what you’ve planned for. My boy grew up with mom/grandmother/aunts that both worked and fulfilled all the “wife” duties, including a warm meal on the table when the husband arrived home. So that’s what he always envisioned…..then he met me. (Insert evil laugh here) Now that we’ve living in the same house…well both our expectations are getting an overhaul. I wish I could say it’s an easy adjustment but like you I find myself growling when I walk in the door late from work to the question “what’s for dinner” and the dog’s bowl sitting empty (seriously how hard is it to scoop a cup of food into the dog’s bowl?) We did finally agree that in an effort to minimize the non-canine growling we are going to look into hiring someone to handle the cleaning a few days a month. We’re still slowly working towards figuring out our “roles” and since I also use a clean veggie can I suppose we should add a rolling pin to the registry We are a couple years older than you guys, but I really think us being older and “more set in our ways” makes this more difficult. Long story short…we’re right there with ya!
I don’t mind my gender roles… for the most part 
I cook and clean and clean out (his) cats litter box. But I work 40+ hours a week, as does he, and sometimes I have to remind him that yes, the woman is supposed to cook and clean the house (I fully believe that a woman’s place is in the home. At least mine is. Yes, I went to college and I can live an independent life, but I would love nothing more than to be a stay at home mom, that is just me), but the woman is also supposed to not have to work And until the day when he can fully support me, I will not be able to fully support our house by myself. He seems to get that, and happily takes out the trash when I ask him
Like Pengy, my guy is the clean one, so I got lucky that way. He cleans up around the house, takes care of the trash and recycling, and is really good about keeping the bathroom neat. We both do laundry. I do most of the cooking, but I think that just stems from liking to make a mess in the kitchen. I’m also the in-house tech support.
We haven’t really discussed our division of chores, but I think we’re happy with where things are. The other factor that plays into this is that he works from home, and I work in the financial district with a long commute. Just because of time constraints, he cleans up during the week and makes his own meals, then I do a lot of cooking on the weekends.
While we haven’t discussed gender roles as pertaining to chores, this is a factor that came up early on re: finances and career and I am pleased to say I was (and continue to be) delighted by how progressive he is.
Thanks for the recipe, btw– I can’t wait to try these out! (and I still use wine bottles as rolling pins– love them!)
@Suzanno: I like your ideas. We’ll definitely be talking more about this, the mister and I.
@Amanda: I love the word “dudely.” Right there with ya.
@Mrs. Cookie: You know, this is what worries me the most. Right now, I have the most flexible schedule of the two of us, so I end up running errands and that kind of stuff… but it won’t always be that way, and I cringe to think about how different (and painful) it will be when my job becomes more demanding than the current lull.
@tberry: You got that right… it’s the worry that I’ll be as exhausted as my mom was. More to think about.
I think my FI and I have done a pretty good job figuring out how to divide household chores — we’re pretty balanced about it. I hate cleaning the shower with the fire of a thousand suns, though, so my FI takes care of that for us! In exchange I clean the toilet, which I weirdly don’t mind at all in comparison.
We have run into trouble, however, when one of us gets really busy and the other one picks up the slack. It becomes easy for the person doing less work to take the other person’s efforts for granted. My FI was recently swamped with a huge project, and I took over the shopping and most of the cooking. One night, as my FI chopped an onion for our dinner (his first foray into the kitchen for weeks), he said innocently, “we haven’t had many home-cooked meals lately, have we?” What?! I’d been cooking for him every dang night for the past week and a half! And so what if I threw in a frozen pizza and one or two leftover nights — I was still making sure he had hot food when he was ready to tear himself away from the computer!
He must have seen the look on my face because he quickly amended, “I mean, home-cooked meals that we cooked *together.* Right. *You’ve* been cooking a lot.” I think the moral to that story is that it’s important to notice and appreciate what your partner does!
I do a lot of stuff, but only because he’s the one working currently. I do the shopping, errands, cooking, dishes, laundry, taking out the trash, organizing and taking out the recycling, cleaning (although we do split cleaning on the weekends) etc. Whew! He recently told me how he realized that he hasn’t been in a grocery store in months!
We do the banking/bill paying together. We usually play the album Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys during this time, I don’t know why!
It gets a little crazy for me, especially when I get caught up with the job search! But… his job is pretty stressful, and I like knowing that I’m making his life a lot easier by doing all of these things. He would do the same if he was laid off and I was working full time.
I can totally relate. I do all the ‘Womens Work” but some times I’d like someone to cook for me and do the laundry.
One of the best things I ever ever ever did for my relationship, was to hire a housekeeper. We still argue/negotiate about the little things, but who really WANTS to clean a toilet, anyway? I’m happy because the house usually looks presentable, and he’s happy because nobody’s nagging him. It’s absolutely worth the extra cost, because we have more time available to spend doing what we love, and that time is priceless.
He does the laundry, I fold.
He cooks, I load/unload the dishwasher.
He is the master of the Roomba, I Swiffer.
He does the grocery shopping, I pay the bills.
But we have no one in the household who can do the plumbing stuff (I can change a flapper; that’s it), no power tool go-to guy, and no one to really handle the big time Manly Man jobs. When it gets right down to it, your division of labor is probably more balanced than ours.
Your posts are always so thoughtful and articulate! I am totally with you. I struggle over the fact that I’m the one planning most of the wedding, cleaning the house, doing the dishes, etc. And while this arrangement has more to do with the fact that a) I’m a neat freak and b) as a grad student, I’m home a lot and Mr. HC is not, it still makes me nuts sometimes. And I worry what the housework balance will be like when we both have demanding jobs and children. Let’s just hope we’ll both be sufficiently well employed that we can hire a maid service. LOL.
I hate cleaning. I hate laundry. I hate dishes. He hates cleaning, laundry, and dishes. Neither of us can safely handle a screw driver.
We hired a cleaning lady who does laundry too. We eat at the deli down the street about 3 nights a week. And we hire a handyman when necessary.
We both work overtime to pay for these services so that the time we are together is not wasted doing stuff that we dislike or cannot do without an argument ensuing over the proper way to put together the new bookshelf.
It really became an issue of what is the most important to us. Having less time together during the week by working extra thus giving us much much better quality in the time we do have or having several extra hours each week that we spend in the house and irritable because we are doing chores we both dislike. We choose quality over quantity.
We are both happy happy people with a good relationship and never is it an issue of who washed dishes last.
Ok so, I read your post and realized my guy was a lot more like your ex in the beginning… almost 5 years in now and he’s far more like your fiance… I am taking on everything! It certainly gets exhausting.
Side note, but no less important, I tried the recipe tonight. The cookies got really think and fluffier than they were supposed to I think. Don’t know what happened?
@Kristi: Did you use dutch-processed cocoa, or regular cocoa? If you use regular cocoa, the cookies get puffy (something to do with leavening… read through the comment’s on Deb’s blog post and they talk about it). Glad you tried the recipe, though!
This is something we struggle with off and on. Our division of chores does generally fall along gender roles. The big ones, like cleaning the house top to bottom, we both pitch in equally. But I usually take the helm on daily chores, like cooking and laundry. I still struggle against us falling into traditional gender roles, because we are both graduate students and plan on making a two career family. Because of that, we’ve thought a lot about traditional gender roles in our relationship and how that will affect our careers and our family in the future. We haven’t come up with a definitive answer yet, but we’re making it work so far.
I love Cheese posts! And I love this one even more since you included the oreo recipe for me! Thank you!
My FI and I are about the same level of messy, and we both do chores that the other one doesn’t give a single thought too. I haven’t gone near the cats’ litter box in ages, and he cleans it every day. Conversly, he hasn’t cleaned the toilet since we moved into our condo over two years ago. We basically just try to be accepting of each other’s peeves and requests, since we have wildly different ones! Good thing we love slothing together enough not to let our cleaning peeves get the best of us!
Homemade oreos! You’re the coolest chick ever! (and I mean that in the most gender-neutral way possible)
we are both pretty messy people. But when one of us points out the piles are getting too big, we both will tackle it - even if I usually am the one to start it. He does dishes, even when he cooks, because I always unload the dishwasher - something he can’t stand to do. I will wash the clothes, but he tends to fold and put away clothes much sooner than I will. We both fix things in the house, though he usually takes the heavy lifting since he can lift me easily (~145 lbs). I pay the joint bills since the house is mine and most of our stuff is in my name. He does most of the driving on long trips because he enjoys driving and I don’t. And we shop together unless there is a good reason not to - clothes, cars, appliances, food, tech, etc.
But we talked about these things. Made it plain with each other than mess would happen, that I hated washing dishes, and that he hated emptying the clean dishes. (weird, I know!). Have those conversations.
[...] On Gender Roles and Rolling Pins… by Miss Cheese [...]
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Mrs. Cheese, Knoxville
Age and Occupation: 29, Engineering Manager
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, CAD Designer
Engagement Date: July 31, 2008
Wedding Date: May, 2009
Blogging Since: October 16, 2008
Venue: Our home and the two acres it sits on
About Me: I’m an emotional girl who loves sentimental things, parenthetical asides, and trying to do things herself. I can cook, sew, am a whiz at planning, terrible at delegating, and totally in love with my fiancé (who will be my second husband but first love of the rest of my life). For our home/ garden/ DIY wedding, we’ll be moonlighting as interior designers, home improvers, and gardeners with the help of our fabulous friends and neighbors. We can’t wait to be married, and are learning how fun getting married can be.
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