By: Revanche

Our division of labor since COVID

October 9, 2024

Things have shifted around here quite a bit in the past four years. Not just because of COVID, also because of developments like having a second kid.

He does all the grocery shopping. We used to split this 70/30 (more him).
He does all the daycare dropoff and pickup, I do all the elementary school dropoff and pickup. We used to split the daycare dropoff and pickup a little 80/20 (more him).
He does all the car maintenance and records tracking. I do all the paying for the car maintenance. This is the same as before. It does worry me some that I haven’t dealt with car stuff in over a decade and don’t know much about the cars.
He does most of the weeknight and all the weekend dinners. I used to do most of the dinners. I don’t cook from scratch very much these days, and he buys lots of ready made entrees at Costco so we can cobble together with frozen or fresh veggies depending on how far out we are from our last grocery run. Sometimes we use veggies from the garden, but it’s slim pickins at best. Here’s hoping the pea sprouts suddenly burst into bloom and yield delicious snap peas.
I still do all the financial everything: savings, spending tracking, submitting for and tracking reimbursements, donations and mutual aid, investing, strategy and goal-setting. Once in a while he’ll ask what our financial health is like. My usual short answer is we don’t have retirement money yet, but we will. That’s kind of the biggest picture answer.
I used to do most of the dog walks and all the dog healthcare appointments and maintenance. Ear cleaning, wound tending, medications, all me. He used to do most of the morning walks and maybe the late night ones.
I do all the dental appointments (6 a year), he goes to his own (2). He has a mild phobia? strong dislike of the dentist and doesn’t want to pass his anxiety to the kids. Fine by me, I love the dentist! It’s a nice relaxing hour in the comfy reclining chair and we recently even found some improvement in my gum health. Flossing DOES work. Smol Acrobat doesn’t share my love for the whole thing but their bribery is good enough.
I get all the orthodontia appointments too (4-6 a year). The appointments are fine but the 2 days after they’re tightened are terrible.
I handle half the eye appointments: myself and JB usually. He does his and Smol’s. The optometrist gives me the heebies.
He’s done all of Smol’s medical appointments, I generally do all of JB’s now. We used to both go.
I do all the other paperwork in the household: registrations for vehicles, for school, forms for school and daycare.
He does all of Smol Acrobat’s showers and bed routine, I used to do all of JB’s. It just shifted as JB outgrew the need for us to bathe them and my work was more demanding.

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