Equal Families – NY Times
June 30, 2008 by Tracee Sioux
Filed under Parenting
My friend Violet send me a very fascinating New York Times article about the struggles of getting and maintaining equality in a family.
It takes a very interesting look at what many, including probably myself, think of as the ideal – mom and dad working 30ish flexible hours and sharing equally the housework and parenting.
Life, and the other people that exist in it – like your boss and his boss – intrude on the ideal, of course.
Statistics show that even though women are working more they are still doing twice the housework and the same amount of childcare they were doing before. In other words, it’s not so equal in real life.
Many blame this on centuries of ingrained gender roles that are deep as DNA and hard to shake.
The article takes a fascinating look at how lesbian couples manage the work, household chores and childcare. Take gender out of the equation and what happens? It’s much more equal – but they work at it.
Also interesting is the biggest indicator of who does more work or plays what roles is your FRIENDS.
Evidently, peer pressure effects more than whether you will take the hit off the bong in high school. It also effects whether you will keep your job or quit, whether you expect him to do the dishes or you don’t, whether he takes the kids to the park or puts them to bed or mops the floor. The biggest indicator is what your other couple friends are doing and what roles they are playing in their marriages. Isn’t that odd? And fascinating?
Maybe I’ll reevaluate my friendships in that light.
Go check out When Mom and Dad Share It All by Lisa Belkin. You’ll find a family-labor issue you can relate to.
My husband and I certainly share the housework. Some of my friends are similar. Others, the wife works alot less than the husband (or not at all) so she does all the housework. I think whatever works for the couple is ok.
But I have a male friend who has been married for about 10 years. He very recently learned that his wife was on the verge of leaving him. She has lots of grievances, I guess you could say, that have built up over the years. In her top five, is the fact that even though she works full time, and in fact is practically totally supporting the family for the last year, she still is 100% responsible for the housework. My friend is intent on saving his marriage and his solution is to figure out a way to hire a maid to solve just that one issue, b/c he won’t do housework. It’s just not in his DNA or whatever. But I can TOTALLY see how that would be a major problem over the years. Just because someone is a female doesn’t freaking mean that by default they are responsible for doing housework. And I think women who are all “he can’t do it as well as I’d do it, so I might as well do it” are freaking ridiculous and need to get over themselves.
I think the responsibility is on parents to teach boys and girls that housework is not women’s work. It’s people’s work.
Here. Here. Rebecca.
Statistically, your friend is not alone. It’s you – with your equal housework – that is the exception.
Many, many, many women who work fulltime are still doing most or twice as much housework as their husbands. It’s in the top 3 reasons for arguing and divorce – equitable housework – right up there with money.
THat’s exactly why she’s leaving him. He’s let her and expected her to do all the stuff that he’s either too lazy to do or think’s he’s too good to do. That’s BS. But my husband is not above pulling that crap either. It burns me up. In general he’s in charge of mowing and doing the yard (in a blue moon) and during those times I try to help him however I can – pick up the limbs, etc. I’ve even mowed a little. Because we’re supposed to be a team. I think he’d rather it work more like a boss/assistant scenario..assistants usually quit after a couple of years.
This is a big issue in my marriage, and sometimes I am surprised how much of one.
Honey, I’m thrilled you aren’t cheating on me or shooting up heroin or something, but can you please do a load of dishes once in a while without me nagging you?
I can’t complain. I could’ve a while back during our Marriage War. But things have improved greatly (because of the marriage war?).
He does almost all of the dishes (this ONE thing makes me so freaking happy cause this is my most loathed chore) and picks up some and helps the kids clean their rooms and does yard work and some of the cooking and quite a bit of the childcare in the evenings and weekends. He fixes the cars, thought I’ve been known to help, files paperwork, and does yard work.
The article does mention a hugely key factor – the “standard of clean.” I’ve notices this as self-sabotage in women myself.
If women want help they can’t be so rigid about the “right” way to clean something. You can’t complain about how the kids rooms got clean (unsorted toys) or how the dishwasher was loaded (cups on top) or how he spends his time with the kids (here’s their schedule, don’t stray) or what he cooks.
You have to LET GO of the control if you want them to take responsibility for household chores and childcare. They do it “good enough.” Good enough or “at least it got done” has to be the standard if you’re pushing for more chore equity.
I think it is a lot harder when both people work full-time and the husband has to do more than fill the supporting role.
My husband is great at a few things like laundry, cooking and taking care of our cars. But no way does he do HALF the household chores, and that is an issue for me.
Well here’s the problem couples run up against:
Your definition or “half” isn’t the same as his. His “housework” doesn’t factor it all the deep cleaning you do every six months, the deep scrubbing of the shower or mopping the floor or cleaning out closets and basements and garages or dusting blinds or doing floor boards and ceiling fans or cleaning out the fridge or spot cleaning the carpet or clearing out the dryer vent.
I got tired of beating my head against the brick wall trying to change his definition of half.
This is something I’ve just now discovered. My husband would quickly straighten things (throw things in drawers and under beds) and say “I cleaned” and I’m like , well thanks for picking up that first 15 minutes of my 2 hour weekend cleaning chore..really, the effort was magnificent.
I think he’s starting to get it though. I’ve explained that cleaning really means things like laundry, dishes and mopping and if he really wants to get me to chill out and maybe want to have sex this century he might want to pitch in with some of that.
I certainly have nothing to complain about. I am having a boy, and he’s definitely going to be exposed to the realities that women aren’t necessarily better at housework or responsible for housework by default b/c of their gender.
I do think women can get a feel for this kind of thing before they get married. It shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out if a guy subscribes to old-fashioned gender roles or not. and I don’t mean by asking one question … I mean by observing and having in depth discussions about these issues, if in fact it’s important to the woman.
What articles like this tell us, I think, is that there the “rational belief” about gender roles has shifted.
But, perhaps there’s a “deeper, subconscious belief” that still has us going by our gender roles.
Particularly studies like the one where they ask couples with similar jobs who is doing more housework and why. They point to a deeper disconnect between what we say we believe and what we truly believe.
- the male is a doctor and the female is a professor and they say “she does more housework because the nature of his job is more demanding.”
- they role reverse where she is the doctor and he is the professor and they say “she does more housework because the nature of his job is more demanding.”
It points to a deeper belief that regardless of what his job is, both men and women agree that “his is more demanding.”
Even if it’s just a perception, it’s still determining who is doing more housework.
It doesn’t appear very effective to judge it. But being aware that the underlying deep belief is there can be effective in changing the underlying belief, I think.
I definitely think the underlying belief can be changed.