A Wife’s Work and a Young Man’s Too
April 9, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Seven extra hours of washing, dusting, vacuuming, tidying up, putting away: A new study from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research has found that that’s how much more housework women who are married do. From Science Daily:
“It’s a well-known pattern,” said ISR economist Frank Stafford, who directs the study. “There’s still a significant reallocation of labor that occurs at marriage—men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labor. Certainly there are all kinds of individual differences here, but in general, this is what happens after marriage. And the situation gets worse for women when they have children.”
The researchers did find that the amount of housework that women have been doing has steadily decreased since 1976.
Well. Until we bought our house in a town in northern New Jersey in 2003, we always lived in apartments or condos and, aside from more clothes and a few more dishes, I don’t recall any significant increase in housework on my part after Jim and I got married. Charlie’s birth definitely inaugurated a new era of Lots to Clean, mostly in the form of laundry (clothes, sheets, towels upon towels) and the floor (whether linoleum, hardwood, or carpet.) Some experiments making gluten-free bread on a hot summer day in Minnesota and some memorable “it’s all over the rug and spreading!” moments have tested my cleaning and multitasking skills, as has the need to mop up a major mess while simultaneously tending to a distressed child in need a shower.
And of course, it’s not just the house that needs to be cleaned, but that other place where we semi-live, the car, proper cleaning of which would probably add a good hour or two of “carcleaning” time (a whole 40 minutes would be needed to pry out the dimes, French fries, pens, and plastic utensils lodged under the front and passenger seats and in one of the seatbelts). And the soda, and the sand in the summer (but what’s a trip to the beach without getting sandy?).
Happily, as Charlie has gotten older, he’s been doing more and more around the house, from taking out the garbage to folding laundry—-if (quoting Prof. Stafford above) the “situation gets worse for women when they have children,” it’s possible for it to get better as they grow up, and for more hands to lighten the (house) work load.
Good for Charlie, and good for you
.
Eleanor is my right hand girl. If everyone in the family was as neat and helpful as her, it’d be smooth sailing.
(As far as men–I don’t know how Jim is, but my big guy is a spoiled mama’s boy–if there was actual mud on the walls I doubt if he would notice. But he’s fussy about the state of his BBQ–go figure.)
“situation gets worse for women when they have children,”
What I can’t understand is why this is “worse.” I assumes that working in the house is bad and more work in the house is worse. Would more work outside the house also be considered “worse?”
Being a parent involves a lot of all different kids of work, but I don’t know that it is a bad thing.
I really can not complain. Joe does almost all of the cooking and grocery shopping. We pick up what the other person does not like doing. It is nice to have a balance like that. I tend to do more house work but it tends to even out in the end.
It’s the division of labor thing, especially if the mother also has an equivalent job outside the home. It takes 2 to tango.
Housework isn’t “bad” and actually is kind of expected in order to get on, but it’s not particularly valued in this society. I think there was a calculation a few years ago that figured out what a “housewife” would earn if paid on a professional basis. It was alot more than one might think.
Doing some housework—cooking and cleaning the kitchen—has always been a reassuring ritual for me. Charlie does learn somewhat by example and he’s definitely interested in what goes on in the kitchen.
Shopping used to be onerous when Charlie was younger, too bit to sit in the cart, and needed constant, constant supervision (how many packs of chicken or ground meet did he poke a finger at). I used to just try to get home a few minutes earlier, race to the store, race home. Now shopping is part of a very pleasant routine and Charlie’s helping out is a big part.
Things have only been “better” for me, after having a child……
yeah right try being married to a mexican with 2 babyies. I have no time to even epilate at least the bottom part of my legs, or to even wax my mustache. Just attending to the kids takes all day. when im done with one, the other needs attention and back and forth all day. Got no time for cooking or cleaning. And the worst of all is that my husband sais i do nothing all day and the house is a mess and is always complaining. And cuz he cleans half of the house once a week he sais he does all the cleaning, which is my job. Gosh, I feel so desperate and trapped, as much as i love him sometimes i think i hate him even more. Its not fair. He comes home and hangs our with his brother, watches tv……and i go to bed at 1am, exhousted, and the truth is that i havent done anything all day…..nothing that u can see….Am i the only one out there so stressed and overwroked….thigs wouldnt be so bad if i didnt have him complaning all the time….