Photo Courtesy of GlacierGuyMT
Last week I was being interviewed by a producer for the CBS Early Show. She asked, “What percentage of the housework do you do?”
“Probably 70 percent,” I answered.
“That’s interesting,” she said.
“Why? I think most women probably do more, don’t you think?”
“No, it’s not that,” she said. “When I asked your husband the same question, he told me that he did 70 percent. No, wait. I think he said he did 80 percent.”
I busted out laughing.
“70 percent?! He thinks he does 70 percent?! Did he really say that? Are you sure?”
She had to wait while I got all of the chuckles out of my system. Then I said, “I’m happy that he does any housework at all, but he definitely doesn’t do 70 percent of it.”
Later that day, I asked my husband, “Do you really think you do 70 percent of the housework? Or were you just saying that because you wanted to look good on TV?”
“How do you know I said that?”
“The producer told me. Do you?”
“Yee-ah,” he said slowly, bracing for a fight. Fortunately for him, I wasn’t angry at all. I found the difference in perspective amusing.
“Do you even know what I do around here?”
“Um, yeah?”
“What do you think I do?”
“You put the clothes away?”
“That’s all you think I do?”
“Um, yeah?”
“How about dealing with the mail? Paying the bills? Clipping the coupons? Buying the groceries? Doing our accounting? Taking Kaarina to and from school most days of the week? Cooking 90 percent of the meals?”
“That’s not housework, though,” he said.
“Paying the bills isn’t housework?”
“Nope. Housework is cleaning. You don’t clean that much.”
“I dust.”
He gave me the eye.
“Okay, so I don’t do dust all that often. But I dusted our bedroom for the TV cameras. And the camera man told me that I was a good duster. I also clean the bathroom once a week, and scrub out the toilet whenever there’s mold in it. And I clean the kitchen once a week. What do you do?”
“I vacuum. I pick things up. I do laundry,”
“But I put the clothes away. It takes longer to put the clothes away than it does to shove them in the washer.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Riiiight.”
Reader: I feel the need to inject here that this was a playful conversation. We were smiling the entire time and occasionally poking one another. I threatened to stop doing all that I do around the house just to see if he would notice. But I didn’t really mean it, and he knew I didn’t really mean it.
The following day, I was sitting at our dining room table, which has basically become a desk that I use to sort the mail into 6000 piles that only make sense to me (coupons pile, stuff that needs to be shredded pile, bills pile, Mark’s mail pile, etc).
“I’m sorry that I didn’t think of that as housework,” he said. “I see that it takes a lot of time.”
I hugged him. “By the way, cooking takes a lot of time, too.”
After this discussion, it occurred to me that many spouses probably walk around with this simmering resentment about their partners who seemingly do so little around the house. Little do they know that their partners have the same resentment about them. Fascinating, right?
So maybe the first step in solving the housework debate centers on this difference in perception. Who does more? If you both think you do more, then one or both of you is in dire need of a reality check. But which of you needs the reality check?
So I’m curious. Who does more housework in your home? Think about that question and then ask your spouse the same question. Let me know if you and your spouse suffer from a similar difference of perception as I did with mine.
Note: My appearance on the Early Show was bumped to next week, so those of you who thought you missed it really did not. I believe it’s supposed to run on Tuesday, but I’ll post an update closer to the air date.
Copyright 2010 Project Happily Ever After
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{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
OK, this is soooooo easy for me. Ray does all the housework except for paying the bills. I do that but not even all of that. I did all the housework and child rearing in my first marriage. I was truely blessed when I met Ray that he does it all and all I have to do is the home repairs and work the two jobs.
After we started this routine, one evening after I had come home from work to dinner being cooked, was handed my cosmopolitan and newspaper and got to relax out on the balcony while he served me dinner, cleaned it up and wash,dried and folded two loads of laundry I said to myself, “Self, men have had one hell of a racket all these years if all they had to do was go to work and write a few checks a week!”. I then hugged my husband , told him what an incredible man he was and haven’t touched a dish in over 10 years.
In my defense, if one is even needed, I built the balcony, re-furbished the kitchen and bought him the washer and dryer HE wanted sooooo
When my husband and I were looking into buying a house, we found one with six bedrooms. This is double the size of the house that we were renting back then. I secretly worried about how on earth I would be able to handle all of the chores on my own. My husband helped at the old house a little bit…but I felt like I did most of the work. So I came up with a plan. I decided that it would be a good idea for him to be in charge of the outside and me to be in charge of the inside. This would rid me of chores such as mowing, weed eating, pool maintenance, and stuff like Aluminum Soffit cleaning (dont’ even ask…we got a letter from the HOA just last week). Somehow I managed to get him to secretly agree to my idea. Although I still hate washing the pots and pans after meals, I feel like our arrangement has worked out pretty well.
Joanne and Ray, Marry me… i need someone that would clean and cook for me when i get home from work and someone that is handy around the house and that can replace my deck, LOL.
No arguments or even funny conversations around here who does the housework. I do it because I’m the housewife. I even have to take out the garbage and recyclables. The garbage is supposed to be hubby’s job, since it’s the one job I totally and completely despise. But hubby said he didn’t want to, so now he’s not doing it. And unless I want garbage piled up to our roof, I take care of it.
Even when I was married to my second husband and worked a full time job, I still did 75% and my daughter did 25% of the housework. Even when my second husband got laid off, I did 75% of the housework and my daughter did 25%.
At this point, current hubby barely does the “manly jobs” as he calls them. They usually aren’t getting done unless I pitch a fit. And mostly I pitch a fit because I can’t find the damn tools to do the job that I’m more than capable of doing but he insists on doing. But I get stuck repairing the fence when he’s out of town with tools that are less than adequate to do the job properly.
I would say I do about 90% of the housework. We constantly have discussions about dividing the housework (and yardwork) more evenly, but he will wash the dishes for a week and then not do anything for a month until I talk to him about it again. We’ve tried making lists for each of us, we’ve tried splitting the housework/yardwork up…I’ve tried not doing the housework but that just led to moldy dishes and an overgrown lawn (which I then had to deal with). We both work full-time. What really kills me is his insistence on getting a house with a huge yard, and he’s mowed the lawn once.
I think what confuses me the most is why he thinks it’s not important to maintain a house he invested in and a yard he invested in. I don’t like doing chores (I know there is a small minority that enjoys cleaning) so I understand why he doesn’t like doing them. But why does that mean I’m the only person contributing to the maintenance of the home? I never criticize how he cleans. Frankly, I’m not that picky.
I have researched some cleaning companies and some yard companies because I will not be able to be happy in this situation. He doesn’t think paying someone else to do these things is “worth it”, but at this point I don’t really see any other options for us. I don’t want to nag. I don’t want to be the “bad person”. But clearly discussions aren’t working out for us, so I think outside help is needed.
Has anyone else reached this point? I’m really not sure what else to do. I just don’t think I can physically handle all that responsibility and I also don’t think I should have to.
If you can afford to hire it out then do it. I was like Lynn: always asking, cajoling, begging, crying for more help. One day I’d had enough and told him that if he didn’t help more I was going to hire a cleaning lady. He laughed and said, “Go for it.” So I did. And these last two years have been awsome! I don’t nag him and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve cleaned a shower in the last 6 months. I would rather cancel cable TV than Miss Melody.
Hubby doesn’t do yard work either. We have gardeners. Or I do it. He will help me get flagstones and help me position them. But then he does it his way and not mine when it’s my creative activity. Then I lose interest in the project.
Last year he made the rows in my garden since I wasn’t allowed to due to medical reasons. But he does them his way and not mine.
So, I basically won’t be asking for his help anymore. I’d rather do it my way and leave him out of it.
It does depend on the season. My husband has one block of time off during the summer. When he’s here I lean on him HARD to help me. He never says no. When he’s around I really prefer that he take the kids and do something with them since they are with me ALL THE TIME ALL THE TIME and sometimes I need a break. But most of the year he’s out of the house and simply not here. My husband’s responsibilities are to pick up his dry cleaning and go to work. I deal with the rest of it–I pay all the bills, I do the taxes, I even did the mortgage financing and refinancing when we had an addition put on. He sat next to me at the signing saying, “this is right? this number?” and I’d nod yes and tell him to sign. He’s not stupid–he’s incredibly bright. He’s just not here and has no time. I’m the money person so I handle it. As for day to day cleaning type housework.. well, he just doesn’t see what I see. I do all the picking up and cleaning and all that. On weekends he’ll throw laundry in and fold etc. When he sees me cursing about the kids trashing the playroom he’s usually right behind me asking where things go. BUT.. the bottom line is that we each have our jobs in this relationship. His is to go to work and make the money–the big money that pays for everything. Mine is the house, the kids, and my side job which pays for all the extra stuff.
However, true confession, I’ll be working more this coming fall and I hired a cleaning service. I complain TOO much about the house and the messes and I decided I was worth a little break. A little present to myself.
Claudine´s last [type] ..No Shirt- No Shoes- No Enter
I do 90% of housework….
However
I do get sick of it, especially when I am very busy with work and the husband has been off since 3:30, and he has a snarky comment about the pile of laundry or something….Then I have a standoff protest. …Until I get a little help or the dust and fur balls have created tumbleweeds that jump out from behind the bed when we walk by.
I do most of the housework. No reason to ask my husband. I do almost ALL the housework. However, now that we are running a B&B, my irritation reached a critical stage where I was exhausting myself and getting madder and madder, so I had to point it out to my husband and ask for help. Now he helps clean the B&B rooms. How cool is that? (I should point out we have not resolved all the other stuff that goes into living. I still do most of that.)
I do about 70% also….this past weekend, though, he was on a ROLL…did ALL his laundry, cleaned the kitchen, went through piles of junk in his drawers and cleaned his side of the bathroom. I work now too, and lately, given his illness, he’s been completely out of work. SO…..I clean MY side of the bathroom (his is way more disgusting than mine, he even admitted to it), and MY side of the bedroom. The only things I ask of him are; clean up after yourself, take the garbage out and empty the dishwasher. I think asking your spouse to at least pick up after themselves is basic common sense and common courteousy. If he picks up after himself, half the battle in cleaning is won right there! I do the same! Also, I WILL take the garbage out, but we live in a complex–the garbage is usually quite heavy and the can is about oh, 100 feet away–literally. So, I try and make him do that–but about half the time, I just do it myself. And about the dishwasher–I’m really short, so it takes me literally almost an hour to empty it because I have to keep moving my little footstool over and over and stack and balance and oh….I just really don’t like it. So, he does that. Thankfully! When I wasn’t working at all, I did probably 98% of the housework, and that’s okay, but now that I am working more than he is, I do kind of expect him to do more around the house. Not everything–I’m not a slave driver, but I think whoever works more OUT of the house (or, does more w/ a home business IN the house) should do less of the housework. I think each person should get like 3 jobs they absolutely detest and then be willing to do the rest! Luckily, we don’t have a yard, if we did, we’d have to have a gardener because neither of us is good at that. Anyway, I do the majority of the housework, but I think most spouses have completely different “comfort” levels when it comes to cleanliness–and at the end of the day–it’ll be there tomorrow–and if we’re not, hey, we don’t have to worry about it now do we? Great post, Alisa, and great comments everyone else! Oh and JoAnne and Ray–yeah, can I have YOUR marriage–cleaning wise!
Many Blessings,
-Sarah Liz
For us, expressing appreciation (consistently) for whatever the other person does is very important. I think it actually preempts potential conflicts and makes it clear that we are being seen by the other.
…and I loved vacuuming when I was a kid, and still do.
I had to chuckle a bit as I read this because it’s reminiscent of convesations I’ve had with my hubby. I realized years ago that we each sincerely believe that we do more around the house. It was an interesting learning for me. My hubby, much like yours, doesn’t necessarily put all of my “chores” into a category of chores. For some unknown reason, he believes that certain things just simply get done done around the house without the classification of “chore”. I however, am positive that I pull more weight!
After we had argued about “who does more” years ago, I actually realized that we don’t just have different perspectives on how much we each do ourselves but, our perception of each other’s contributions may not be completely accurate.
I actually asked him at one point, to make a list with 2 columns. One column filled with his “chores” and one column filled with things that he thinks I do. And, I told him I’d make the same list and we’d cross reference our lists. I had a feeling it would be incredibly eye-opening to see which tasks we put on our own chore lists that the other person hadn’t even thought of. Needless to say, we never did make lists (hubby deemed it a “silly” exercise) but I do wonder how different the lists would be.
And don’t even get me going on the seasonality of hubby’s chores. Yes, he does a good amount summer chores that I do not do.. but my chores are 365 days a year and his outdoor chores last for 4 months!!!
The Hubby Diaries´s last [type] ..Ignoring The GPS
Our arrangements have been similar to others’ in that he handles his fulltime job, our stressful small business, the bills, the trash and the occasional spot cleaning of the carpet and cleaning up after dinner. I typically handle pretty much everything else – the laundry, the cleaning, the cooking, the shopping, the child-wrangling. In the past, when I was totally burned out, he was very supportive of hiring a cleaning service. He wholeheartedly believes in the hiring the work out if you can afford it, because honestly, cleaning just isn’t important to him and he has a much higher clutter and dirt tolerance than I do.
We’re trying out a new “family cleaning” session every two weeks so that we can train, I mean, teach the kids how to care for their home. It’s nice in that I know it’s on the calendar and everyone pitches in. We split up the big chores according to what is the least odious to each person. However, I’m not sure this new tradition will make it through the school year, but here’s hoping!
Great post Alisa,
I look forward to watching the interview you did. As for housework around here I probably do 80% of cleaning, laundry, bill paying & probably 90% of the cooking. As everybody here known my beloved is very ill many days. So if it is going to get done I have to do it. I don’t mind at all. I was single for a few years in between marriages & had a SLOB for a roomate. So I was already used to keeping a clean home. Ad to that the fact that I am a bit of a neat freak. Not compulsive about it but I hate filth. Every person I met or dated could not believe I was a bacholer as soon as they saw my house. Yea part of that was clean before expecting company. I would close my roomies bedroom door just so they wouldn’t see how he kept dirty smelly clothes all over his floor. Lysol & fabrize also goes a long way
It was the total opposite in my first marriage. In that one my wife did probably 80% of the housework & all the bills. Except when she did a 1year tour in Korea & the times her Air Force career required travel. That was by her choice though. She was just one who believed that the housework, cooking etc were the wife’s responsibility. I am not one who holds to that but if I did much other than cook the occassional meal she didn’t like it AT ALL. I guess that was how she was raised. Whereas in my childhood, both parents ran a small town drug store. This required a lot of hours. Especially when they were getting the business started. So they along with us kids at home all shared the household & yard chores. Well that’s me.
Alisa…YOU ROCK
Ron
Excellent point, Alisa. So much better to talk about this than simmer in silence. Beauty of talking about it is you actually learn more about the guy you’re married to — which is a real plus for any marriage.
Reminds me of that joke, you know…
One day hubby comes home from work and comes home to a nightmare. He opens the door and the first thing he comes across is dog pee and a bounding dog anxious to get outside. A newspaper is strewn all over the floor and there is unopened mail falling off the hall table. The front room TV is blaring, lego is scattered all over the floor. There are broken cookies all over the coffee table and spilt milk. He hears screaming in the kitchen and runs to check it out. Kids are in there attempting to make sandwiches and there are some kids he doesn’t even recognize. A pot has boiled over on the stove and whatever was in there is burnt to the inside. Dishes are oozing out of the sink and his steps crunch on some unknown material on the floor.
He goes down the hall in a panic worried something has happened to his wife and passes by the bathroom. There is water spilling over the top of the tub and all over the floor. Towels are strewn all over and toilet paper has been spooled all over and creeps into the hallway. He looks down the hall and there is a laundry basket askew on the floor with a trail of clothes leading into the bedroom.
He bursts into the bedroom to find his wife laying on the bed a book propped up on her chest.
GOOD grief honey what happened?????
She casually looks up at her husband and says, Oh I decided to just take the day off and read my book.
Maureen, that is an awesome story and must’ve been a wake up call for that husband.
I think that one thing we forget is that repairs, lawn work, and maintenance of the exterior of the home is really housework too, and men do a lot of that. I also think that even if a husband helps with cleaning, cooking, etc, most women will tell you that they are really in charge of the operation, which involves making sure he does what you ask him to do.
I do all the housework and he knows that I do, we’ve had this talk many times in the past. He does all the yardwork, including picking up two dogs work of poop, takes care of the cat box for two cats, takes out the garbage, and any other “manly” job there is for the house as well as helps me if I ask. I know I do more work in general than he does, but his is more labor intensive than mine so that’s one reason I don’t mind. But when we first bought this house I was so angry with him when he wouldn’t pull his weight around the house. Since then I’ve learned that I actually like taking care of the house and doing the “womanly” jobs. I work dayshift at a hospital and tend to be off anywhere from 3 to 5 hours before he gets home so I have a lot more free time to do these things. I decided that I’m more happy when I’m not worrying over whether the work is evenly split, because there’s no way I’d volunteer to mow the lawn. I’ll pick up a hammer, but preferably that’s just to hang a picture inside or pound the nails back in the fence. Since I got married six years ago I have changed a lot. Little things don’t bother me as much. I happily put away his laundry for him because leaving it out and waiting for him to do it would drive me more nuts than doing it myself.
I don’t want to seem old-fashioned, but I enjoy doing all the housework because I want him to be able to come home and relax from work if he wants to since I have plenty of time to wind down by myself before I even lift a finger for the house before he gets home.
For Ray and I it wasn’t a matter of a gender difference in the nature of our jobs but more that we know what needed to get done and we each did the jobs our talents said we were better suited for.
Ray by his nature is a nurturer caregiver kind of person so he likes taking care of me and our home. I am very good with the home repairs and renovations and such and I work very hard outside the home to support our lifestyle. It doesn’t make Ray any less a man or me any less a woman, I think we compliment each other very well by not being stuck with the stereotypes society has set up as “normal” guy stuff and gal stuff.
Joanne that reminds me of a couple of things. Before my beloved became ill she was hanging some pictures & I said honey let me do that with the drill. I did a couple & took a break. Well she picked up the drill & went to town doing more stuff. She LOVED IT! Walked up to me with the drill & said “I see why you men like these things, that is POWER “.
On the flip side even before she became sick & on a day when I was off & she would be working. I would clean the house from top to bottom, make a really nice dinner, light the house & bedroom in candles & dress up nice for when she got home. She said it was the sexiest thing I could have done. No I didn’t do this every day..LOL Probably once a month. But talk about making for one hot night. YIPPIE!!!!!!
Guys it is the male equivelent to the wife meeting the husband at the door in Victorias Secret stuff. Man I miss those days…. WHAAAAAA!!!! lol
Just make sure you are BOTH off work the next day too. You may find yourself kind of worn out. But in a good way
Keep Rockin Alisa
Ron
I have some one come in and help with the cleaning… I give up new shoes and fancy hair appts for this tiny bit of sanity. Before my help it was a big fight between us for who was going to wash the dishes and who was cooking.
Now he deals with ensuring the older two are bathed and I take care of the two babies. He has to help with sleep walking the girls LOL because they are twins and rather demanding
Gayle´s last [type] ..Surround yourself with happiness
Interesting topic and one that was used as an example of our ‘problems’ by my ex-wife on why she should end the marriage. When my (now former) wife and I got married she made a huge thing out of being ‘super housewife’, and all the inside chores were her domain, and the outside ones were mine (to the point of shooing me out of the kitchen as I was a ‘useless man’, etc – but all in fun, or so I thought!). Then as she fell out of infatuation she got resentful about the arrangement and complained I didn’t do enough around the house. I enabled her by finding myself apologising and promising to do more inside, but of course when I gently pointed out that a) it was her idea, and b) I did all the outside stuff, repairs, car maintenance, etc, that evidently didn’t count.
I come from a family of 7 kids, so my parents had taught us how to do all the housework – cooking, dishes, washing, vacuuming, etc, so it wasn’t really a problem, so ended up doing more of the internal housework (although she didn’t take on any of the other stuff I already did!) I couldn’t win at that either – among other things I was doing pretty much all the washing, but got strips torn off me because she said I’d ruined a couple of her items, so I said I’d do all the washing (mine, the boys, sheets, towels, etc) but not hers. A few years later she complained some more – saying she did everything, and she was ‘such a doormat’, so I enabled her some more by trying to do more until I think I was doing most of it.
Still didn’t work though, and she ended the marriage anyway – but I know this was just another symptom of her own unhappiness, and it was easier to find fault with me (for anything!) rather than look internally.
Anyway, after all that ranting – I think that chores or housework are pretty much any activity in the home, so cooking, cleaning, ironing, mowing the lawn, washing the car, gardening etc all qualify. I own a house and have my two boys with me and doing everything myself (and trying to train the little devils to help!) and it’s not a real problem (and suspect this infuriates my ex wife as I think she thought I couldn’t cope without her!) along with help from my girlfiend who stays over sometimes.
Drummer Guy – I love that you would do that for your wife! I might send that suggestion to my husband! Nice.
I discussed this one with my husband to see what he thought. We agreed that if you include all house related things (bills, yardwork, shoveling snow, picking up dog poop, cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc..) then we are pretty close to 50/50. Which is great because we both work full time, so it really should be 50/50 anyway.
Being honest, if it were left entirely up to me, I probably wouldn’t clean as often as I do, but my husband likes things a little cleaner/neater than I do. So I’m coming around to his way of thinking.
Drummer Guy: I was one of 5 daughters so I guess one of us had to help dad out in his workshop and that was me. I love to work with the powertools and build things. I have made quite a bit of furniture for ourselves and family. My last “project” was to convert our living room into a large dining room because we love to have big family/friends Sunday dinners and I needed a 10′ long table. I found a site that sold re-furbished old barn wood and bought enough 150 year old oak to panel the whole dining room and then make a farmstyle oak table. Ray thought I was crazy but then he couldn’t believe how phenomenal it turned out. He thinks I’m amazing but then if you ever had his pasta you would understand that I’m the lucky one.
Joanne, just as a psuedo-lurker, I wanted to say that your post made me smile. Thanks for that!
i’m reading this while the hubs is at work, and i intent to talk to him about this difference in perspective. but i want to say that I think we have a pretty decent balance in our life…
!)
he does all things:
tall (he’s taller than me)
mechanical (not because i can’, but because i don’t want to)
gross (because he loves me)
dog (they are his dogs, even though I often do dog things – its his job)
heavy (because i said so
and he fold the towels, because i hate to fold towels!
and I do what’s left – pay bills, balance checkbook, maintain the budget, do laundry, vacuum, cook, keep up with our daughter, make sure the oil is changed in the cars…
my list goes on and on, because I itemize my list… and his is generalized in to “all things ____” i think its pretty even around here most days though.
Thats great Joanne. It takes a real skill & talent to work with wood. I am TERRIBLE at that. Like Ray I do love to cook & am pretty good at it. I need to expand my menue though. Just yesterday a fellow church member brought me some Red Snapper he caught in the Gulf Wed. I am going to attempt to panee them. I haven’t made snapper in quite a while. I don’t get to go out in the gulf & even at our cheap seafood prices here snapper can get expensive. I was wondering since you live on the Jersy Shore (sorry for the mispeling) do y’all get seafood pretty cheap? We can get Shrimp right off the boats for $3.99 a pound already boiled or $2.99 raw YUMMY!!!!! It’s cheaper than chicken here..lol
Mellisa I actually enjoyed doing stuff like that for my beloved. I love to cook & was single for a few years so house cleaning just comes easy to me. When I did that it was an all day project. Mainly because I cooked sauces that had to simmer for hours. A nice shirt & tie upon greeting & rose peddles leading to the bedroom & on the bed are always a nice touch too
Although lining the halls with candles once nearly caught the carpet on fire, not my best idea..HA! I do so miss those nights. Now that my beloved is so sick it just isn’t possible anymore. Besides she is home 24/7 now & it only works if it is a surprise upon coming home. Oh well at least I have the memories.
Ron