Household equality and the labors of our family
May 9, 2016
Every so often, I think about the fairness of our relationship.
It’s in the context of my chronic health crap and how I hate that PiC has to pick up my slack. It’s also in the context of considering whether the overall load is properly balanced.
Socially, the weight is typically heavier on the women’s side for what we call “emotional labor”. That’d be the scutwork of making life smooth, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
As head of my nuclear family’s household, the division of labor was the breadwinner (me) did all the money stuff, and the non-breadwinners (not me) did all the housework. This wasn’t a mutual agreement, it’s what the non-breadwinners were comfortable with. But the part I wasn’t comfortable with was picking up after everybody when they made mistakes and couldn’t figure their way out.
In our own small family, it’s different. Our roles and contributions change depending on the day and the need. The often unnoticed work of keeping things clean, making adjustments to schedules to accommodate other needs, making the schedules themselves, and all that, belongs to both of us because we make it known. We make it noticed.
As the family financier, much of my contributions are nearly invisible in our day to day lives, but that doesn’t mean it’s without value. It’s of tremendous value and we’ll both benefit from it in years to come. This valuation doesn’t just magically happen. PiC doesn’t just read my mind and go “Ah! You’ve scored a coup for us in ten years with that move!” That would be weird. But I tell him. I say out loud (this is the key part, saying it OUT LOUD) that I’ve been working on our estate plan, or the questions with the lawyer, or the mortgage refinance. He gets mini updates and that helps him understand that I’m not just staring at hilarious Hulk gifs online all day. I could.
It’s easy to declare that I am not automatically the family secretary, maid, or nurse but these chores and labors are not static assignments, and so it’s important to pay attention to the shifts lest either partner find themselves burdened with the lion’s share of the work permanently. Believe you me, that breeds a world of resentment, snarling, and imagined payback. That’s not one of our best looks.
Scheduling
We share a calendar that we’re both responsible for adding things to. That’s not in the “if the world were perfect he would add them” kind of way. If PiC tells me something is happening on such and such a date, then I can reasonably expect that 75% of the time he’ll also have added it to the calendar. He can reasonably expect the same success rate from me.
I avoid being our social secretary by not being social and we observe a loose “to each their own” rule. If they’re his friends, he takes care of “just because” or birthday gifts. My friends, my responsibility. Same with family. He doesn’t worry about how we’ll do Father’s Day and I don’t worry about how we’ll do Mother’s Day. If I say we’re doing a thing, then he’s guided by my preference. If he wants to do a thing, then I work with that. His siblings are not my job, like my sibling is not his. This isn’t to say that we see each others’ families as chores, we simply don’t make them the other person’s emotional work. I don’t take it upon myself to worry over this person’s birthday, or that person’s anniversaries because most birthdays and anniversaries are not a thing I care deeply about. He cares, so he pays attention. He’ll remind me to send a text to whomever is having a birthday, whether it’s my side or his, because he gets alerts and I don’t.
In over ten years of our relationship, he has planned for every single special occasion celebration. Every single one. Even if it’s not something that I personally find important to do, I do cherish his effort and his love in doing so.
Nursemaiding & Parenting
He does 99% of daycare duty which means he has to come home when LB is sick. We take turns with being point parent. If his deadlines are pressing, he goes back to work. If mine are, he takes hir while I work.
He takes every morning shift, matter how painfully early, no matter how tired he is. I don’t sleep well so middle of the night wake ups are mine. He still insists on coming to check on hir with me if it takes more than a few minutes. Then Seamus comes to check on everyone! Baths and bedtime used to be his job when I was home alone all day with hir. Now we switch off so he can hit the gym some nights.
If we were to keep tabs, it’s really close to 50%.
Cleaning House
He likes a house to be clean. I like a house to be tidy. Therefore, I pick up those loose things that inevitably clutter and sweep up with my adorable new broom and dustpan. He wipes down the stove, scrubs the toilets, beats the rugs. We split things like vacuuming and dishes.
Highlight: PiC’s always cleaned the toilets in all the years we’ve lived together. This isn’t my favorite thing about him but it’s on the list.
Money, money, money!
I happily (ferociously possessively) take care of our bills, investing, real estate, savings, and taxes. He does a few bills and Craigslist sales and gets periodic update on the Financial State of the Union. I also do most of the household needs ordering from my Amazon account because I work the rewards systems for gift cards.
We each bring home a good income. I still feel pressure to keep making more because it’s my family that’s costing us a significant amount of money every year. He doesn’t look at it that way but I do. So, even though we have nearly equal incomes, I’m always 40% more concerned about stretching every dollar and saving every ten. He’s gotten pretty good at saving too.
Guest Haus
We host together. If we have friends or family staying over, we menu plan together. He’ll do the grocery shopping, and I’ll do the cooking. He’ll clean the guest room while I launder the bedding.
Everybody’s gotta eat
I am Chef, I do most of the “big” cooking: whole meals, more complicated entrees from scratch, new recipes. He is Sous Chef and reigns over all the reheating of leftovers and filling in the blanks with a vegetable or making sandwiches and soup.
He makes the grocery lists and we shop together unless I’m down for the count. It’s our family thing.
Maybe the funny thing about this is Dad doesn’t know (see above, about old household) so he cracks jokes about how we must starve if we rely on my cooking and PiC gets really confused.
On the road again
Travel planning is my domain because my heart would bleed to find that we overpaid or failed to maximize points or miles. He does some of the research and weighs in on details.
Four-leggers
All pet health stuff is my area of expertise so I take point on decision making and manage all the medication ordering. PiC takes Seamus to the vet as often as I do, and we split walking duties.
:: How do you create balance in your lives and recalibrate? When do you need to recalibrate?
*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich, andDisease Called Debt
How did you start this system? I’d love to have something like in place, where responsibilities are divided equally and fairly without having to talk about them every time. Did you talk about who would take what?
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It was a progressive thing, and it took time. I’m happy to share in a later post since I don’t think there’s a short answer 🙂
This is nice, very nice indeed. I’ve always felt the most difficult part of a marriage or live-in relationship is the division of labor, especially in today’s world where it’s no longer assumed that that the woman will do X and the man will do Y, but somehow the women ends up doing most of X anyway. No matter what.
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I can’t tell if we don’t have that problem because we specifically worked through it or if neither of us are the personality type to assume that the woman is responsible for keeping a household. Chicken or egg?
One of my biggest concerns about marriage is the inequality that is the norm. More hands in the mix should make lighter work, not heavier!
Choosing a quality partner is so very key. You have a total keeper!!
Agreed – it’s vital to have a true partner, not just a spouse who expects you to do most of the work based on nonsensical norms.
This is something we’ve had to work with as well. We’re both not the tidiest people ever, but my threshold for cleanliness is still higher than his. We’ve found ourselves in spots before where from my POV, he’s not helping as much, and from his POV, he’s helping a lot and I’m not recognizing it.
So, now when something needs to be done, I’ll approach him and say, “I’ll do X, if you do Y.” That way, it seems like we’re both getting off even. And he can’t really say no, if I’m making a point of asking for his help and pointing out that I’m willing to clean things too despite my busy schedule.
I don’t think it’s a perfect system (if that were the case, he’d be a housemaid), but it’s working OK for us!
That’s a wonderful technique and it works well for us, too!
What Funny said: Even though we’re supposed to know better, women still tend to pick up the shitload when it comes to the house.
It burns me up to see young women caving in to this inequity. Things were supposed to be better by now! And it makes me FURIOUS to see young men just playing along, willfully blind to the amount of work their wives/girlfriends are doing and expecting headpats for doing anything themselves. Gah.
those of you who are raising sons: I am begging you to teach them to take care of themselves. Do their future partners a favor.
After a dismal first-marriage experience, I am now sitting in butter as far as household divisions of labor are concerned. My partner actually seems surprised when I bring up how grateful I am that he just pitches in and does what needs to be done.
If it’s kosher to post URLs, here’s my take on the whole housework thing (warning: the following may contain bitterness):
http://donnafreedman.com/2013/03/10/an-anomaly-worthy-of-praise/
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I think that it’s not entirely on the shoulders of the young women, but also on the shoulders of the parents (both of them when they’re present) who raise the men to believe this is what they should expect and on the men themselves for refusing to see how they could be better. All around, people need to improve and quit using phrases like “he’s not capable of doing [the thing you need him to do]”.
Learned helplessness is a thing and so is faux helplessness: if he doesn’t do it well, then he can keep doing it til he’s better. End of story.
Ours is a tenuous balance. Sometimes, I feel, it’s not at all balanced though. There are so many things Tim can’t do because of his conditions. Since I’m sick too, it’s often quite frustrating.
But when I sit down and realize how many errands he runs for me… I feel a little better. Except when he insists I go to each bloody doctor’s appointment. That’s just aggravating.
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His or your doctor’s appointments?
I really like how you and Mr. PiC divide up the housework so equally and fairly without having to reach a formal agreement. I pick up most of the housework at our home, which makes me feel a big depressed sometimes (although I know I should feel grateful for a happy family).
Sometimes I feel like I need to list all of our household shores in an Excel spreadsheet and assign each task to either Mr. FAF or me so that I won’t have to take over 99% of what needs to be done around the house.
He’s taking care of some important paperwork for the family, so I’m letting him off the hook. But once we’re done early next year or so, I think we will need to reconsider our division of work.
I strongly encourage you to have a conversation with Mr. FAF about dividing the workload. I loved Louise’s points about why women are “good” at the housework AND traditionally paid less, it’s a cycle we have to actively break. I noticed that you feel obliged to feel grateful for a happy family but don’t acknowledge that that’s because you’re picking up a lot of the extra work that could be shared. Of course that lifts the burden on the spouse who isn’t tasked with a fair share, so they would seem happier. But I wouldn’t take it as a given that having to do the work would make them automatically unhappy.
If what it takes is to list it in an Excel sheet, then that’s fine! There’s no shame in using a tool that works to smooth your lives. Know that it might be a little bumpy given the habits established but that’s normal and for a good cause.