Poll

In your household, which partner does more of the household work and child care? (assuming opposite-sex couples here - explained below)

My partner does more. I'm a man.
25 (9.9%)
My partner does more. I'm a woman.
27 (10.7%)
It's close but my partner does a little more. I'm a man.
19 (7.5%)
It's close but my partner does a little more. I'm a woman.
12 (4.8%)
It's equal. I'm a man.
16 (6.3%)
It's equal. I'm a woman.
27 (10.7%)
It's close but I do a little more. I'm a man.
7 (2.8%)
It's close but I do a little more. I'm a woman.
20 (7.9%)
I do more. I'm a man.
25 (9.9%)
I do more. I'm a woman.
69 (27.4%)
Question as written does not apply; I'm in a same-sex relationship.
5 (2%)

Total Members Voted: 245

Author Topic: Who does more household work?  (Read 34187 times)

MoonShadow

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #100 on: August 31, 2015, 08:38:40 PM »
Part of this is how we express our love for each other. DH is a "acts of service": he shows me he loves me by making me food, taking the dog out when it rains, and remembering to not put my jeans through the dryer. I'm a "words of affirmation": which means I' walk him to the door when he leaves for work at the DAMN CRACK OF DAWN and tell him how much I love him and to have a good day, and I'm pretty good at whispering sweet nothings in his ear if it gets me out of chopping an onion.

Ah, yes.  The love languages.  My wife's love language is 'gifts', which doesn't work well with Mustachianism.

Cressida

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #101 on: August 31, 2015, 08:47:34 PM »
I would like to view results without voting but it doesn't let me. Is this a firefox issue?

No, it's pollster's choice. I just changed it. Let me know if it didn't work.

mustachepungoeshere

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #102 on: August 31, 2015, 11:29:17 PM »
Part of this is how we express our love for each other. DH is a "acts of service": he shows me he loves me by making me food, taking the dog out when it rains, and remembering to not put my jeans through the dryer. I'm a "words of affirmation": which means I' walk him to the door when he leaves for work at the DAMN CRACK OF DAWN and tell him how much I love him and to have a good day, and I'm pretty good at whispering sweet nothings in his ear if it gets me out of chopping an onion.

Ah, yes.  The love languages.  My wife's love language is 'gifts', which doesn't work well with Mustachianism.

Yes! I am acts of service. Husband is physical touch. He would rather I ignore the dishes and go snuggle with him on the lounge. :)

MoonShadow

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #103 on: September 01, 2015, 12:46:57 AM »
Part of this is how we express our love for each other. DH is a "acts of service": he shows me he loves me by making me food, taking the dog out when it rains, and remembering to not put my jeans through the dryer. I'm a "words of affirmation": which means I' walk him to the door when he leaves for work at the DAMN CRACK OF DAWN and tell him how much I love him and to have a good day, and I'm pretty good at whispering sweet nothings in his ear if it gets me out of chopping an onion.

Ah, yes.  The love languages.  My wife's love language is 'gifts', which doesn't work well with Mustachianism.

Yes! I am acts of service. Husband is physical touch. He would rather I ignore the dishes and go snuggle with him on the lounge. :)

I'm a touch, also.  Unfortunately, gifters don't care that much for touch.

Squirrel away

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #104 on: September 01, 2015, 02:16:11 AM »
The thing I get the most frustrated about is that I like a tidy home, so I minimise the work I need to do to keep it tidy. I pick up after myself, I clean as I cook, I declutter to make housework easier, and I never walk from room to room empty handed. Going to the bedroom? Grab that pair of shoes from by the front door and put them away.



Yes exactly.:) Don't put it down, put it away.

ShoulderThingThatGoesUp

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #105 on: September 01, 2015, 05:33:27 AM »
Serpentstooth would be proud, I just realized the baseboards in the powder room were gross and wiped them off. How do you get stuff off the caulk between the baseboard and the wall? Those still look terrible.

GuitarStv

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #106 on: September 01, 2015, 05:59:29 AM »
I'm currently tearing out an old toilet that's been in place since the 1950's and it is becoming a HUGE job that will end up taking me much longer then I thought it would. Rather be doing dishes  for 10 minutes :-)!

Weird.  I'd much rather have a HUGE job that will take all my time for a few months but has a final completion date than ongoing monthly/weekly/daily stuff that's never really done.  I get a much greater sense of satisfaction from completing the former.

justajane

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #107 on: September 01, 2015, 06:02:18 AM »
Serpentstooth would be proud, I just realized the baseboards in the powder room were gross and wiped them off. How do you get stuff off the caulk between the baseboard and the wall? Those still look terrible.

That's a huge pet peeve of mine. I assume you've tried a toothbrush? One time I used a toothbrush and Barkeepers Friend and was able to get it clean, but it took a lot of work.

Kitsunegari

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #108 on: September 01, 2015, 07:26:49 AM »

For example, he recently said "We" need to put the tomatoes from the garden in the fridge (a clear one-person, very easy task), then got annoyed they were still out two days later.  I told him I thought they were fine out, and if he's the one who cares, he can do something about it before he gets mad at me that it isn't done.  I pointed out that he basically opts out of doing a lot of things around the house because he doesn't care about them and I do.
So the tomatoes are a very silly example, but emblematic of a frequent occurrence.  "We" ought to reduce the mail piles (but only "I" go through the mail and actually act on items, recycling, filing or responding to them).  "We" ought to make meals a lot (but "he" rarely starts it after saying that and only comes over sometimes to help).  "We" need to clean/organize the fridge, particularly the veggie drawer so we don't lose CSA veggies going bad (which I did this weekend).  And so on.

YES! Why should *I* do something because *he* thinks it should be done?! It makes me livid.


2) the time disappears into the woodwork - for example, it usually takes DH 20 minutes from me starting to dinner to notice and offer to help if I don't say anything bc he gets on his computer game as soon as he gets home and loses track of time.  So he maybe registers he missed 5 minutes of the work once in the week, rather than realizing it's 20 minutes*7 days for over 2 hours of work he didn't "see" me doing.

Anecdote: we usually share cooking 50:50, but this month he had a particularly busy period, and on a particular week I cook every mean from Saturday to the following Sunday, 8 days straight. On the following Monday he offered to make dinner, because "yesterday you made both lunch and dinner". When I pointed out that had I cook every single meal for the previous week and some, he could hardly believe it, and insisted for a while it wasn't true, until I ask him when was the last time HE cook, and only then he gave in.

/End rant

eyePod

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #109 on: September 01, 2015, 07:35:49 AM »
This is interesting. I answered that my wife does more but it's definitely different type of stuff. We both do dishes, she handles laundry more, I handle vacuuming, she mops, we both do yard work, but right now she's mega-pregnant so that changes everything.

I think the important thing is to talk about it if you feel like your overwhelmed. It's so much easier to unload the dishwasher with an extra set of hands instead of unloading it angrily while someone else is sitting on the couch.

Kitsunegari

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #110 on: September 01, 2015, 07:42:34 AM »

I think the important thing is to talk about it if you feel like your overwhelmed. It's so much easier to unload the dishwasher with an extra set of hands instead of unloading it angrily while someone else is sitting on the couch.

Sure, but there is a limited amount of times I want to remind my SO the same damn thing every fucking week. It's great to talk but the other side has to listen, and not just hope I'll stop nagging.

justajane

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #111 on: September 01, 2015, 08:06:03 AM »
It's so much easier to unload the dishwasher with an extra set of hands instead of unloading it angrily while someone else is sitting on the couch.

I find this to be one of the keys to getting things done and lowering resentment. Clean at the same time. This past week-end, my husband vacuumed while I cleaned the kitchen. It just feels so much better and more communal to work together. If someone else is sitting on the couch while you are breaking a sweat scrubbing something, it can really irk. But if you are doing it together....

This can be hard with kids, since oftentimes one parent has to entertain or watch a younger child while the other is cleaning. That sometimes annoys me as the cleaner, though, even though I know all too well that watching a child is also work. I guess in my head I think, "My husband is watching the baby, and instead of relaxing I'm cleaning." But it has to be done some time.

eyePod

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #112 on: September 01, 2015, 08:22:21 AM »

I think the important thing is to talk about it if you feel like your overwhelmed. It's so much easier to unload the dishwasher with an extra set of hands instead of unloading it angrily while someone else is sitting on the couch.

Sure, but there is a limited amount of times I want to remind my SO the same damn thing every fucking week. It's great to talk but the other side has to listen, and not just hope I'll stop nagging.

I don't want to pry but that seems like a bigger issue than just the chores...

Kitsunegari

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #113 on: September 01, 2015, 08:26:25 AM »
I do get the frustration and resentment some posters feel when their SO isn't doing their agreed upon  fair share, but then I would just treat them like a roommate and care for myself. Do my own laundry, buy my own food, make my own meals (and plop down on the couch next to them while they played video games to eat the fat juicy steak I made for just me). I figure SO can find the kitchen just as easily as I can. However if we had agreed that one SO did "x" things and the other did "y" things, then I wouldn't expect the other SO to help normally if I chose to split chores that way.

What if we can't agree upon what's a fair share of chores? My SO just refuses to make prior agreements over who does what, because "we're not roommates and we don't need to make rotas/divide tasks". I think it's an unreasonable position, but in 3 years none of us changed idea.
Some days I just have to chose if I want to feel like a maid or if I'd rather feel like living in a pig-pen.

Kitsunegari

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #114 on: September 01, 2015, 09:32:13 AM »
I do get the frustration and resentment some posters feel when their SO isn't doing their agreed upon  fair share, but then I would just treat them like a roommate and care for myself. Do my own laundry, buy my own food, make my own meals (and plop down on the couch next to them while they played video games to eat the fat juicy steak I made for just me). I figure SO can find the kitchen just as easily as I can. However if we had agreed that one SO did "x" things and the other did "y" things, then I wouldn't expect the other SO to help normally if I chose to split chores that way.

What if we can't agree upon what's a fair share of chores? My SO just refuses to make prior agreements over who does what, because "we're not roommates and we don't need to make rotas/divide tasks". I think it's an unreasonable position, but in 3 years none of us changed idea.
Some days I just have to chose if I want to feel like a maid or if I'd rather feel like living in a pig-pen.
I suppose I meant more along the lines of what kind of roles, if any, in the household you each decided to be responsible for before marrying. Was there an understanding that you would do the bulk of the domestic work? Or was itr understood that you both worked full time and so would do things equally? If the latter, and you feel your SO isn't pulling his weight and it's making you angry and resentful, then you are free to just take care of yourself. Just because you are married and a female doesn't mean you have to be the caretaker or cook or clean for him. You don't have to do his laundry or clean up after him in anyway. I would just calmly tell DH that you felt he wasn't sharing in the household chores and that it was building resentment in you towards him, so from now on you will each will fend for yourselves unless he's willing to work out an equitable agreement. And stick to it. You have no reason to feel guilty if you only buy enough food for you, or make dinner or do laundry, etc... for yourself if he isn't contributing to those things and expects you to do the full amount alone. Get a maid and split the cost if you feel that there is no way you can work out a fair equal agreement. Also make sure you are aware of the things he does do - he may do a lot more things to make your life easier (car and home repair chores, etc...) then you think he does even if it's not domestic stuff. Take the value of those things into account too. Otherwise I don't think there is much you can do except marriage counseling to work out the issues.

He didn't agree to a rota/defined share/defined roles, but we agreed on a 50:50 ratio because we had the same work schedule and income.
This is not happening because, like many other couples, we have different standards, and also because he has been doing renovations/fixing around the house/house-related DIY projects, so he feels he's pulling his weight, even when those things weren't agreed. For example, he spent a good chunk of the summer building an outdoor kitchen on the balcony and building tall flowerbeds to plant vegetables. So he did a lot for the house, but not things I care about, as we don't need a balcony kitchen and our garden is too shady to grow vegetables (and the arctic weather doesn't help).
I know I don't have to clean after him, but am I supposed to let empty cookie boxes on the table for weeks? or not use the drier until he put his clothes in the closet? I can't change the sheets only on my side of the bed...

Guitarist

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #115 on: September 01, 2015, 09:45:16 AM »
So basically your poll does nothing to make this assertion, conclusion, whatever you want to call it.

I didn't say the poll proved anything.  What I said was that I "see no reason to think that American households in general break down much differently" than the poll: that is, where women do more housework in around 60-65% of households. I meant exactly what I said; I'd be surprised if the true distribution is wildly different, if women do more housework in, say, 80% or 40% of households.

If you do see a reason why I should think the distribution is very much different than 60-65%, let me know and I will certainly be happy to have that information.

There is nothing in your poll to suggest men are reluctant to do household chores.
These are words you said. That is all.

justajane

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #116 on: September 01, 2015, 10:06:58 AM »
ETA: DH has many great qualities, he's just shit at equitable division of household labor, which is a problem when we work roughly equivalent hours.  I'm not a maid nor am I a 1950s housewife.  He would tell you it's not that he wants me to do them, it's just that he doesn't want to do them (and they are called "chores" for a reason), but the end result is that means I have to do them (as neither of us are keen on spending the money to get them done now) or live in a pigpen.

Have you thought about a cleaning person? Would it break your budget? Some people have said on her that they think hiring out some of the cleaning saved their marriage.

Bob W

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #117 on: September 01, 2015, 10:09:42 AM »
This is a lot of perception stuff at my house.  My wife thinks she does more.   

I most often do the shopping,  cooking.  Wife tends to load the dishwasher (the dishes come out nasty IMO).  I mow the lawn, (2 hours week) repair crap,  address maintenance headaches,  vacuum occasionally.  She tends to do the bathrooms.

She has taken to doing most of the laundry and this appears a cross she likes to bear.   There are 3 of us and she does 5-7 loads per week.   I tell her she over washes.   My personal stuff should only take one load per week.   

I generally clean the fridge.   I bake the brownies.  I generally walk the dog more. 

All in all,  I don't think we do a lot of household work and could probably do way less if we organized.

This is an interesting question and I think I will start tracking my actually hours.

I do value you my hours at 3 times hers though because she is unskilled labor and I know how to repair things,  paint and generally know how the house and cars are put together.   If I were not there,  she would need to pay a handyman to do much of the stuff I do.   Although it would be infrequently.    You won't ever see her patching drywall and paint matching.   You won't ever see her fixing a leaking drain or repairing the lawn mower.

So yeah,   I think the question of who does more is better stated if there is a value attached to it.

Housework does suck though --- I  mean some people like it,  but I'm picking electronic toys over scrubbing the toilet 98% of the time. 

CommonCents

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #118 on: September 01, 2015, 01:24:51 PM »
This is an interesting question and I think I will start tracking my actually hours.

I do value you my hours at 3 times hers though because she is unskilled labor and I know how to repair things,  paint and generally know how the house and cars are put together.   If I were not there,  she would need to pay a handyman to do much of the stuff I do.   Although it would be infrequently.    You won't ever see her patching drywall and paint matching.   You won't ever see her fixing a leaking drain or repairing the lawn mower.

Ok this is total shit.  Your time is just as valuable as her time and vice versa.  Barring some truly nasty stuff like I don't know...cleaning up the burst sewer pipe?...it should be valued equally in the marriage when considering time spent doing chores.  The cost of outsourcing is something entirely different.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2015, 12:43:00 PM by CommonCents »

Cressida

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #119 on: September 03, 2015, 01:37:58 AM »
This is a lot of perception stuff at my house.  My wife thinks she does more.   

I most often do the shopping,  cooking.  Wife tends to load the dishwasher (the dishes come out nasty IMO).  I mow the lawn, (2 hours week) repair crap,  address maintenance headaches,  vacuum occasionally.  She tends to do the bathrooms.

She has taken to doing most of the laundry and this appears a cross she likes to bear.   There are 3 of us and she does 5-7 loads per week.   I tell her she over washes.   My personal stuff should only take one load per week.   

I generally clean the fridge.   I bake the brownies.  I generally walk the dog more. 

All in all,  I don't think we do a lot of household work and could probably do way less if we organized.

This is an interesting question and I think I will start tracking my actually hours.

I do value you my hours at 3 times hers though because she is unskilled labor and I know how to repair things,  paint and generally know how the house and cars are put together.   If I were not there,  she would need to pay a handyman to do much of the stuff I do.   Although it would be infrequently.    You won't ever see her patching drywall and paint matching.   You won't ever see her fixing a leaking drain or repairing the lawn mower.

So yeah,   I think the question of who does more is better stated if there is a value attached to it.

Housework does suck though --- I  mean some people like it,  but I'm picking electronic toys over scrubbing the toilet 98% of the time.

And she won't ever see you scrubbing a toilet. Seems like you're getting as much from the arrangement as your wife is. So your "3 times" assessment is completely bullshit and I'm glad I'm not married to you.

Jakejake

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Re: Who does more household work?
« Reply #120 on: September 04, 2015, 06:17:41 AM »
Yes, valuing your time as more valuable than hers is messed up. You're in a marriage, not a wage earner/payer relationship. So the question shouldn't be whether your around the house skills would hypothetically earn you more in the free market, but instead whether your free time and her free time are equally important.