Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My mother advised me growing up that a woman will always end up doing more in married life. I'm newly married and find things are 50/50 for the most part although I probably do more cooking and cleaning so maybe it's 60/40. But it's ok, I have more time since my hubby works longer hours. What do you guys think is appropriate in this day and age?
Emotionally, I expect more from.the man I'm with. I don't mind picking up the slack in other areas. As long.as hes willing to be more emotionally present (sine im severely lacking in that department)
My mother advised me growing up that a woman will always end up doing more in married life. I'm newly married and find things are 50/50 for the most part although I probably do more cooking and cleaning so maybe it's 60/40. But it's ok, I have more time since my hubby works longer hours. What do you guys think is appropriate in this day and age?
Maybe she just meant women "do more" of the heavy emotional lifting?
The division of actual labor depends primarily on each partners career/work schedule and other personal limitations.
Personally, I hate household chores so my insane solution to this is, if the wifey is all like "it has to be 50/50" that is, is to figure out what exactly my 50 is and hire a cleaning lady to do it for me.
If I have to work a couple extra evenings, then so be it. But, I do not like to clean and will do anything I can not to.
My mother advised me growing up that a woman will always end up doing more in married life. I'm newly married and find things are 50/50 for the most part although I probably do more cooking and cleaning so maybe it's 60/40. But it's ok, I have more time since my hubby works longer hours. What do you guys think is appropriate in this day and age?
I think those days are long gone. My husband and I are easily 50/50. I don't think there is one task that is entirely his or is entirely mine. I never have those moments where I think my husband is lazy, whereas many of my friends gripe about theirs because they don't pull their weight. It is tough when he has to travel for work, but we seem to balance things out pretty well. I anticipated doing things the same way that you are when we first got married, but he willingly added things and we would alternate with cooking for example. Whatever you do, don't keep score. That will always create problems.
People will always think they do more than half and that's nothing wrong. I.e. when "non-paid" work is measured, I cannot but just laugh how overwhelmingly "male tasks" were obviously left out for so many decades. Call it a culture of "male-bashing" that started with elevating woman's role into oblivion and proclaiming men as incompetent, stupid, etc. This was followed with promoting a smart, successful, independent professional woman in the media, while promoting the drunkard, stupid, illiterate guy as a representative of male population.
No guy actually works more "housework" today than he did decades ago. That's because most of man's "maintenance work" was never included. If you'd go back 30-40 years ago, people actually had to maintain their own cars by themselves. They did most of the work around the house by themselves. They were fixing anything from plumbing to electricity on their own, or they had to call for their male friend who'd help them out. They'd mow the lawn without machines, paint the walls & move furniture in the process all by themselves, fix the roof by themselves, etc. I can't think of many guys climbing on their roof today, much less fixing things around the house. Not to mention "rural" households and tasks being done in remote areas.
In fact - many guys weren't home at all back in the day, so they couldn't be "lazy in front of tv", because the standard for guys since the industrial era was to either be employed whole day at work OR to be somewhere away participating in war. Many U.S. households didn't have TV in the 60s, so it's really silly to even talk about it. I can't think of today's men having either harder time or more work in general.
Same goes for women - they had way more time taken by doing tasks that are done by machines in today's world. Microwave, dishwasher, laundry machine, dryer, you name it. Maintaining a household tasks took far more time than it does today and many Americans aren't even bothering with cleaning the house today, just be honest and say how often does an average woman vacuum her living room or resting room. Even with the help of her husband sharing the work. Being a housewife in 1950s was a full-time job indeed. Women would die out of boredom today if they'd be full-time housewives... well, now they have facebook though. But it's better to go to work than sit home. Most office workers are indeed checking on their facebook account even at work. This doesn't just apply on women. Tasks done by both husbands and wives back then are either being done by machines (such as dishwashers and lawn mowers) or outsourced (ordering dinner, eating at work while children eat at school, maintaining the cars by technicians, doing the housing repairs by professional workers, etc).
This myth about housework just has to die already, but the media keeps it going.
Another myth is the story about bigger economic earnings by women than 50 years ago, it's all about inflation. Neither men or women earn more today, in fact they earn less - women earn more than 30% less than 50 years ago, men earn even less. Housing prices and other expenses literally exploded in that same period and two paychecks are mandatory for vast majority of couples. Only part that is true about the myth is that women earn closer to their husbands today than they did back then, while many women would actually drop and stay out of workforce in the 50s/60s as soon as they'd marry/get children, which isn't the case today.
Couples simply re-arranged the tasks over time as more and more women kept being in the workforce after childbirth.
No, I don't believe women should do more than men, but I'm not so sure they don't do more than men. Before I retired I employed six women to work for me, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, running a dispatch center much like a 911 call center. Very few of them were what you would call 'slackers', most of them were very good workers, in fact they did so well I tried never to interview men for a job. Over the years I've observed women working at various jobs, most of them are good workers. Most of them will give more than 100% if called on to do so. Many women I know work on their relationship with the same enthusiasm.
IMHO, most people will think that they are contributing more than 50% to the relationship. Its because we are selfish and self centered. We don't know all the efforts that the other person makes. For example, the OP thinks she is putting in more than her 50% because her husband isn't home as much cause he's working overtime. But the husband is thinking he's putting in 50% more cause he's making extra money working overtime to contribute to the family finances. When you see real inequities is when one partner sits home or is involved in fun activities, while the other works and brings home most or all the money, and then the one who works is still expected to do 1/2 the household chores, and all the outside chores, yard work etc.
I think if people are measuring, then they are screwed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
