A super easy way to end the chore wars is to throw out all the Martha Stewart Magazines and lower your standards. If you are the only one who cares that the napkins match the throw pillows, guess who is responsible for taking care of that?
Anything over and above the basics is the responsibility of the person who cares, IMO.
judgybitch 
What if Roosh posted an article that said, “Hey women. Want him to do more around the house? Then put out more.”
I mean, Isn’t that the exact inverse of what Sandberg said? And isn’t that just as condescending and sexist as well?
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i always laugh at the gullible people who believe that a millionaire like sheryl sandberg & her husband do their own dishes or laundry. i don’t do my own laundry & i’m not a millionaire.
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For your average beta, that deal would totally work. They’re already happy and willing to pay for it (being the provider), what’s a couple loads of laundry as well?
The problem would be the woman holding up her end of the bargain, aka staying attractive and enthusiastic.
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A big YES to this:
“A super easy way to end the chore wars is to throw out all the Martha Stewart Magazines and lower your standards. If you are the only one who cares that the napkins match the throw pillows, guess who is responsible for taking care of that?
Anything over and above the basics is the responsibility of the person who cares, IMO.”
Adult women figure this out pretty quickly. There are some things that I do myself because I care more about how they’re done — but I’ve also picked up a lot of habits that Martha Steward (and probably many others) would cringe at — for example, while family-bed sharing with littles, I learned that I’d quickly wear myself out if I compulsively washed the bedding after every little accident — or worse yet, got everyone up in the middle of the night and stripped the bed and changed the sheets right then — I mean, the mattress is still wet with the pee or throwup, so where’s the sense in putting a clean sheet on over that?
It makes much more sense to just wipe it up as best you can with baby wipes or whatever you have on hand, put a towel over it, and go back to sleep. You can decide the next morning if you need to launder the bedding or wipe it down really well with something like a mixture of water, dish-soap, and vinegar, and just let it go for a few more days. I know this sounds gross to someone who’s yet to experience being peed or thrown up on the middle of the night, and survive the experience intact, but it is what it is. 🙂
My dear husband did once tell me that I was “nasty” for not immediately stripping the bed — but he seemed willing enough to let it go rather than taking this little job upon himself. 🙂
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Oops, I mean Martha Stewart — the “steward” of good habits and high standards. 🙂
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Susan, you just described our life with babies, too. We ended up buying a cheap 2 inch foam topper ( a solid one, not a poofy one) and resolved to just throw it out.
It was toxic after three kids, let me tell you.
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I agree with you a 1000% on this.
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Twenty-five percent of United States gross domestic product growth since 1970 is attributed to the increase in women entering the paid work force
funny how an increase in workforce by 50% only shows up as an increase in GDP by 25%
But i guess its jst a matter of “structural ge nder-bias” or some other fancy concept of excusism…
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So true about the napkins matching and stuff.
There are two types of chores. There are ones that NEED to be done (cleaning the dishes, the bathrooms, doing the laundry, changing the sheets, etc) and the ones that someone may aesthetically want done (arranging placemats on the tables, arguably ironing for most things, dusting more than about once a month, making sure the hand towels match the floor mats in the bathroom, etc).
The same is true for outside chores, by the way. The ones that NEED to be done (taking out the trash, mowing the lawn) and the ones that someone may just WANT done (fertilizing, gardening).
I had a former girlfriend who loved gardening… but not always, there were times when the garden needed tending and she wasn’t in the mood. And at those times, she felt it was my responsibility to help her with it, since neither of us wanted to do it, and it needed doing. And my opinion was the same as JBs. I couldn’t care less whether we have a flower garden or not. I don’t ask you to sit down and help me learn a new piece of music I’m not in the mood to learn for the quartet I sing with. Whether I’m in the mood to do it right now, *I* wanted the quartet in my life, it’s my responsibility.
And the first question that always comes up for me whenever someone starts talking about a ‘fair’ distribution of the household chores is this: Is the person talking about it REALLY including ALL of the chores, or are they lumping the traditional female chores into a pile and insisting on an even split, while leaving the traditional male chores on the guy? My ex-wife was big into complaining when I wasn’t doing my “fair share” of the laundry or the dishes… but she still considered it my job to take out the trash and mow the lawn. It just never occurred to her that if it was fair to de-genderize the tasks and split them up, then it was equally valid to de-genderize the MALE tasks as well. (By the way, this particular ex-wife also didn’t work, so she’d get upset because I didn’t do half of the dishes, laundry and general clean up when I got home from my full time job, but never really considered that maybe it would be fair for her to earn some money and pay half of the bills…)
I’m all for not assuming that a given job is yours because you are female… as long as you’re all for assuming that a given job is not mine just because I’m male. But if you expect me to mow the lawn and take out the trash and clean the gutters and maintain the cars and rake the leaves and clean out the garage and so on without you lifting a finger to help, then yeah, I’m going to get a little bit cranky if you try to tell me it’s “not fair” that I’m not doing half of the inside-the-house work as well.
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Wow, so you worked full time AND you were expected to do half the housework even though she didn’t work? That’s just insane. How could anyone possibly justify that? I don’t EXPECT my husband to do any of the housework, although I am happy when he does.
He does take out the garbage and mow the lawn.
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Chapter 21 is up now, Susan.
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The first two words of Valenti’s essay : “My husband”. Tracy Clark-Flory, the Salon journalist who writes at the intersections of gender, feminism, and tedious sex, likes to drop that one in her opening paragraphs.
Oh how Valenti loves to signal her status to other women that she is married and has a child.
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Yay!
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Wow, another brilliant idea from one of the creators of “Ban Bossy”! We’re so lucky!
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My friend works full time, and with his 3rd child recently born he and his wife decided she would be a full time mom. 2 of the children are in school (6 and 8). Last time I saw them there was obviously some tension. We three were out to dinner, and she was talking about how he flat out refuses to help her with things when he is home if she asks, and had just the other day told her no when she asked him to help putting the kids to bed.
When he and I were out to lunch the next day, he told me that he was working late in his home office after a full day and decided to take 10 minutes to get a glass of water and relax. She saw him in the kitchen and asked for help putting the kids to bed, and he told her “I’m taking a 10 minute break from work, I’m not going to use the time putting the kids to bed. Thats not relaxing to me” and then went back in his office.
He then told me about the things he is frustrated with; she never seemed to get anything done – vacuum always in the middle of the floor with vacuuming incomplete. Laundry piled up. Her regularly complaining about how much she has to do and can’t get done resulting in him spending his weekends knocking out basic housework as quickly as possible and attempting to help her develop structure for her daily housework.
This has always been the happiest couple I’ve known, until recently. I guess kids have amplified their perceptions of each other’s shortcomings; he cold and unapologetic/callous though driven, focused, and organized. She disorganized and easily overwhelmed though loving, and deeply caring.
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Well, it was certainly wrong for her to gripe about their differences to you guys, and I imagine that this was the only reason that he griped to you about her the next day. I will say that after having a new baby and being a very hands-on mom, seemingly simple tasks could get overwhelming for me sometimes.
My own husband did a lot of the cooking during the months of adjusting to life with a new baby, even though he was working full time. I’m not saying that he was obligated to do this, but it sure made those times of adjustment a lot easier, and I’m very thankful to him for it.
In a case where the wife is placing a lot of unfair demands on her husband due to being extremely overwhelmed, maybe it would help for the husband to figure out what tasks he could reasonably (without becoming too overwhelmed) take over for her temporarily to help her adjust to whatever change they’re adjusting too, while also explaining that after a specified period of time, he hopes she’ll feel ready to resume those responsibilities.
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Yeah I’m the guy that everyone feels comfortable talking to. “A good listener” I’m routinely told, and I don’t really have friends except people I think of as basically family, so that part wasn’t too odd to me – I’ve been close to both of them for years.
Yeah as an outside observer having known both of them for a while I can see both of their gripes. They seem to stem from life stresses causing personality difference clashes.
He does quite a bit – all the typical guy housework, and spends a lot of time with the children during the week as well as things like coaching soccer teams on the weekends, etc.
She certainly has a full plate being a full time mom and homemaker with three children.
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Well, they’re very lucky to have a good friend like you who is capable of seeing both sides, and who sees good qualities in both of them!
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…or are they lumping the traditional female chores into a pile and insisting on an even split, while leaving the traditional male chores on the guy?
They’re usually lumping. Fun fact: Warren Farrell, three-time board member of NOW and reformed feminist admitted that NOW cooked the books in one of its famous studies decades back purporting to show women did the lion’s share of the work.
The study omitted the substantial extra time men spent on the job compared to their spouses, the extra commuting time, and various other time consuming and necessary behaviors. It also neglected to include some of what was traditionally considered men’s chores. Oh, and it considered time with a sleeping child entirely comparable to something like roofing.
Fuck feminism.
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It sounds like he’s tired of dealing with the fallout (and extra work) from her inability to cope.
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