Contributions of partner to houswork/household maintenance - what is fair??

[porcelina]

I'm having a hard time keeping up with it all. I am rarely able to plan meals for very long, finding myself scrambling at the last minute. I am constantly cleaning up messes, putting things away, etc. We even have help from someone who does the heavy duty cleaning once every two weeks. I work about 30 hours a week. When DH gets home, he does a great job of playing with children, at least relieving half of the work while keeping one occupied (DS1 is 3.5, DS2 is 1). However, he rarely does housework. He hardly ever touches dirty dishes, though sometimes at least puts them by the sink (mostly not), he has not touched a vacuum cleaner or broom in a long, long time. He does his own laundry, but then I get mine, the kids, and the towels/sheets/etc. In the summer, he does mow the lawn, and occasionally picks up sticks in the yard, etc. He does all the leaf-raking in the fall, and snow-shoveling in the winter. He did mop the basement after flooding. When I tell him he's cooking and give him the ingredients+recipe, he does it.

But, he never initiates meal-making on his own, never cleans up after a meal unless I ask him to, and when he's with the kids, the house falls apart (nothing is put away/cleaned when I get an occasional one-two hours of sleep in time on the weekends). Of course, I'm the one who worries about what to feed the kids (at these ages, they don't eat the same thing most of the time), the one who makes sure kids are on schedule and get what they need when they need it, get presents for birthday parties, etc.

Is this normal? One of my friend's DH works full time AND does all the cooking all the time. Another does most of the cleaning (they have no kids). I feel like our work division is unfair, but I'm trying to figure out if those helpful cases are exceptional, or what.

How do you and your partner divide it? Is it "equal"? Or at least, closer to equal?

[Momo123]

My DH and I have had many an argument about this very topic and right now, I feel like there is no right answer to what "equal" is.

Our situation: We both work and have one DS, DH has a longer commute and longer, sometimes late hours. He is gone before we wake up and does not get home until 6:30pm at the earliest so I do the morning routine, drop-off/pick-up of DS at daycare, all meals, grocery and other shopping, laundry, vaccuming, keeping track of DS's schedule/appts. DH takes out the trash, gives DS bath (unless he is working late), does the bed-time routine and puts him to bed (again, unless he is working late). He is also supposed to do dishes but I end up doing them during the weekday because he is busy with DS after he gets home. We take turns cleaning the bathroom. We live in a 1BR apartment with no yard.

When he gets home late several days in a row, that's when I start getting cranky and stressed because I don't have time to do everything. It also frustates me sometimes that his schedule is flexible (he can make plans after work or come home later) but mine is not (I have to drop off and pick up DS at a certain time). When I complain, he says there's no such thing as equal, we are a team and each helping out in our own way. I agree with this as a concept, but I think it's easier to say that when you're the one who is doing less :) If I persist, he starts talking about how some of his friends (who are married to working partners) do not help out with house stuff at all. I have not actually verified this with their partners, but I can see this being true and I'm not sure how that works. Also, I am more concerned about having a clean/tidy home than he is.

It's taken me a while to come to "peace" with the division of labor, but we do have an okay system going unless DH is working a lot of late hours. It will be interesting to hear other points of view on this topic!

[gitanamama]

From my experience, the situation you describe is pretty "normal," although definitely not fair or equal. It certainly seems to be the dynamic in our household, and most of my girlfriends (none of them have kids) complain about the same thing. It's something I'm really trying to work on in our house because I'm finding myself feeling burnt out and resentful lately! Growing up, both of my parents worked outside the home and they shared the housework pretty equally. My husband's family was the opposite--he grew up in a very traditional Latin American family where his mother did 110% of the cooking/chores/etc. I never imagined I'd find myself being a "housewife" (on top of having a full time job) and I've realized it's going to take some honest communication and restructuring to change the pattern we've fallen into. 

My hubby will pitch in if I ask him to, but he definitely never initiates a cleaning project or plans a meal on his own. Like you said, I'm the one who keeps the household running--planning meals, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, etc. I've accepted the fact that my hubby has different skills than I do and that he's not great at multitasking or managing more than one project at a time, but I'm trying to shift more of the responsibility to him. I want my son to grow up seeing both of us contribute to our household and share responsibilities. 

I go back and forth between thinking, "This is just the way most guys are (not detail oriented, not great at multitasking, not particularly neat or tidy), just have to learn to accept it," and thinking, "Get a grip! I'ts not the 1950's! Give the man a broom and a sponge and take the day off!" Obviously I can't offer any advice, just commiseration and the comfort (maybe?) of knowing you're not the only frustrated mama in this situation. :(

[porcelina]

Originally Posted by gitanamama . My husband's family was the opposite--he grew up in a very traditional Latin American family where his mother did 110% of the cooking/chores/etc. I never imagined I'd find myself being a "housewife" (on top of having a full time job) and I've realized it's going to take some honest communication and restructuring to change the pattern we've fallen into.

This is our situation too! Although, they had a nanny who did housekeeping, which makes it even harder -- his habits of leaving things around are very hard to change! I guess it's just going to have to be continuous, conscious effort to get him to pick up. I fear that if I keep swallowing it, I will grow resentful. But, it is so hard to not end up nagging. I did have one success -- he would always leave pjs around the bedroom. I would sometimes put it in dirty clothes, sometimes put it somewhere else. He got really upset, because he wouldn't know where they were. He kept saying, "please, just put them in my drawer, so I will know where they are." I said, but then what incentive do you have to do that yourself? It took him a while, but he finally got it. For many months, they stayed in the drawer (though I saw them laying around yesterday!!). I'm trying to apply those "natural consequences" to DH like I would to DSs! :)

 Maybe I'll get a big box and just start putting all his stuff in there... lol!

[coldandsleepy]

Originally Posted by gitanamama 

From my experience, the situation you describe is pretty "normal," although definitely not fair or equal.

Yup... pretty much this.

I work FT.  So does my husband.  As far as housekeeping goes, he will usually perform certain tasks if I ask him to-- loading or unloading the dishwasher, for instance.  He will generally not do anything without my prompting until it gets really, really, really bad (which never happens these days, because totally destroyed house = totally depressed me).  I don't think this is maliciousness or laziness or anything on his part, I think he just genuinely has some sort of messiness filter in his brain.  I look at the house and go OH NO SO DIRTY and he looks at it and goes "dishes in the sink. toys on the living room floor.  is anything growing mold?  nope!  we're good!"

[hildare]

well.. i woh ft, but dh is a sahd. 

i do:

weekend childcare everything

wash diapers

other laundry

clean some

cook on weekends

clean kitchen after supper nightly

around 3/4 of the housework which gets done mostly on the weekends while he:

does farm stuff (lots of it this time of year)

does 1/4 or more of housework, he vacuums, etc but he is NOT good about picking up after himself/the kid during the week

does childcare 40 + hours a week

cooks weeknights for all of us and feeds kid during the day

and we're looking at having someone come help with cleaning 1-2 x a month now that i'm getting roundly preggers. 

in your case, i'd be tempted to have a family meeting and preprepare a list of all chores and when they need to be done

and make a responsibility chart to see if it's divided fairly... would that help?

[LilMomma83]

Sounds like us (OP)! My DH WILL do stuff, but I have to ASK him to...he never just thinks to do it on his own...I am trying to get past being upset about having to ask and instead just calling him mid morning and asking him to do several tasks (and ranking them in order of what most needs done) My DH works nights and watches kids in the morning I work days and watch the kids and night and we are both home on the weekends (usually). Today he did surprise me and do the laundry without me asking and also picked up after the kids (I assume anyway because the hosue was clean when I got home from work).