Domestic Chores

Growing up in your household, which parent(s) were predominantly in charge of all or most of the domestic chores like cooking, cleaning, vaccuming, and doing the laundry inside the home?

I'm not curious about the outdoor aspects required of house and home-keeping like gardening.

My professor asked my entire class this question, and over 90% of us responded with our mothers being the holder of this role in the home. I was surprised that a bunch of young (predominantly white and wealthy) kids still grew up with this notion. So, I'd like to put the question now onto you and I wonder just how realistic this is.

 

Yes, my mom does most of the indoor chores.

 

My mother.

 

Dishes
Laundry
Cooking
Cleaning

Dad does

Builds stuff (like tables and cabinets)
Yard Work
Cooking (he actually cooks often, or both my parents make dinner)
and he also does alot of indoor work too (cleaning, fishtanks) not a lot of cooking or cleaning though

I get to do everything.
Cleaning
Dishes
Yard Work
Lawn (always, 100% of the time)

my parents believe in traditional gender roles to some extent...

why would that suprise you? Things are still unequal as hell.

 

My mom...my dad pitched in more when she went back to work when I was 16.

 

My parents did it all equally and took turns.

 

My mom and I do most everything while my brother and dad do nothing. My dad does cook and occasionally do yardwork but not much. It's especially bad since I do many afterschool activities and have a larger courseload than my brother so he should help more, and also my mom works full time while my dad is unemployed. Still, when I come home from school I have to clean up my dad's messes. >.<

 

Dad most definitely. Mom always hated doing any sort of housework, indoors or out, and instilled a hatred of it in me that I am still trying to fight.

My husband and I share the chores pretty much equally when he's at home (from diaper changes to washing dishes and everything in between), but I have to do everything that needs to be done while he's at work during the day.

 

my mom did all the inside chores while we were young

when my father was home(he would travel 20-25 days a month)...he would do all the yard work like leaves, shoveling, etc and occassionaly cooking.


not sure why this would be shocking. There are still many, many stay at home moms..especially among the white and wealthy contingent.

Actually, i have a question for women. If a guy is the sole income...is it wrong for the woman to take care of all the housework? Obviously a guy shouldn't just leave a trail of clothes as he walks in the house expecting them to be picked up....but normal household chores.

To me, that seems like a very fair distribution of work.

 

My folks tend to split it- both will do laundry, both do dishes (though usually mum), etc. I think my mom does more of the daily stuff, because dad's out of town quite a bit for work and plays hockey and coaches my brother's team, and dad does the raking, shoveling, lawn mowing, and all the moulding/painting/building/whatever (we do a lot of things like that, ever since we moved in we've been rebuilding fences, painting rooms, redoing the carpets, whatever).

 

mom, mostly

but then, she was a single parent for quite a while too

She did do most of hte housy chores when she moved in with my stepdad, but if we wanted a -really- clean house (ie important guests, selling the house etc) my step-dad would do it because he was a lot more detail-oriented when it came to cleaningn than my mom ever has been

Now, I do the vast majority of the chores at home. Well, my boyfriend helps out when he's over (poor guy, he does dishes nearly every time he's over). I hate doing chores, but they are a necessary evil... I can't wait for spring, so I can get a good cleaning an chuck a bunch of stuff, have a garage sale for an even larger quantity too

 

When my mom and dad were married, my mom did a lot of the work. But, towards the end of their marriage, my dad started chiping in.
When my dad got re-married to my now ex-stepmonster, he had to do all the work. She was a heap of laziness.
Now, I do the work at my dads and share it equally with my mom at her house.

 

mym om and i pretty much split them in half unless one of us is busier than the other. It's just she and I. My grandma was a stay at home mom and did everything during the week and my grandpa did everything one day on the weekend and took the kids outta the house every sunday to give her an all day break. They have an AWESOME marraige the best one I've ever seen actually.

 

My mother and I always did everything. Even when both her and my father work. Even when he quit his job-he played video games all day while she was at work, she had to do the housework when she came home. Surprisingly, they got divorced shortly there after.

Megara, to your question, if there is a stay at home spouse, yes it is only fair for that person to take care of the household. Though, I don't think that it gives the working spouse liberty to be a disgusting slob and expect the stay at home spouse to be their maid. Example, working spouse could at least put their clothes in the hamper or dishes in the sink...not leave a stink trail for the other to clean up after...

 

My mom did all the cleaning. My dad would cook sometimes, as my mom is a terrible cook. My dad never did traditional "dad" outside things. Never built anything, never cut the grass, did repairs ect. He was raised a bit of a snob, and though that was what "hired help" was for. Problem was, my parents didn't have any money and didn't even own a house, until I was in 8th grade. This house fell into disrepair, as my dad wouldn't do the work, and my mom always pleads poverty, even when she is doing fine. So they would wait until something was falling to pieces to hire someone to fix it. And my parents are the type who always claim to "have a freind who can do it." So, they would put off any and all repairs for years sometimes. But, of course, people reserve nonpaid or underpaid work for freinds as their last priority, so there were very few changes made to the house my parents bought.

I also think my dad was plotting his getaway years before he left, so perhaps no money by him was spent for that reason. My parents, according to my mother, also didn't have an equitable spending of the money. But, my mother is more than happy to take on the martyr role, (she was still blaming my father for "not letting me buy new pots and pans" TWENTY YEARS after they got divorced, when I asked why she was still attemptiing to cook for her second husband on 40 year old, crappy thin alunimum pots which burned everything.) So, God only knows how the money was really spent. She always had enough for cigarrettes and valium. And my dad drove an expensive sports car.

My dh is a real Handy Man, does about everything outside and builds furniture and does all the repairs inside. I refuse to cut the grass. We have a freakin acre, and I can never do it well enough for him, so he does it. I really HATE to do housework. It isn't what you think, it because I am a perfectionist, and when I DO something, I freak out if it gets messed up. NOT a healthy way to live in a house full of children, so it is healthier, if we let things go to pot, rather than have a raging mama all the time. I just ignore most of the mess, because if I start, no one would ever have any peace. And that wouldn't be fair at all, to my kids, or even my dh, but he doesn't realize it.

I'd LOVE a housekeeper, though. If I didn't have to waste MY time doing it, I wouldn't get so upset if people mess it up. But, in our situation, it is better to let it get to be a mess, than to have me being a nut. I'd rather PLAY with my kids, and do what I want with my time, than waste time scrubbing baseboards, or whatever. I only have so much energy, as well, so, I can't make housework a priority.

My dh was raised in a hermitically sealed enviroment. Never saw a dustbunny until he began to live with me. His mother is, also, not healthy about her perfectionism. But, it never stopped her from still doing it, and making everyone afraid to pick up a toy, or wear a shoe in the house. One of those old Polish "House Proud" womyn, you'd see, out, scrubbing down the front walk. My dh would regularly come home to find prized toys (including his Lovey, a stuffed dog) thrown away because she was on a cleaning spree. I think his dad thinks men die, if they pick anything up. Bear's pretty good about dishes, although he pisses and moans the entire time he does them. I figure, he wants them done the MINUTE he places the last bite of food in his mouth, so, in that case, he can do them. Usually, though, the kids do the dishes in our house.

I do the laundry. Bear just is awful at it, and he does work 40 hours a week. He also, for some reason, which makes NO sense for a man who works with technology, can't figure out how to work our front loading washing machine. You can't put the soap RIGHT IN the drum, but it is easy to do, my kids all manage. He's basically banned from the laundry room, unless I need something fixed.

Whenever my dh would start talking about his "House Proud" mom and grandma, I'd bring up that Pride was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. LOL.

Several of Moon's freinds are Harry Potter maniacs. They call our house "The Weasley's" as it is a rabbit warren of little hidden rooms, interesting stuff all over the place, a nice, warm mum type, kids running all over the place, a huge "garden" and what one of the kids called "a bit of magic in the air." (I told her I thought maybe it was just the odor of the bunny's cage, though. ) Only we aren't red haired. It wouldn't be such a welcoming place, if I were screeching at everyone to keep everything in place.

 

nope, not fair. Taking care of babies and little kids, in itself, is a very demanding job. Way moreso than any out of the home job I ever worked before having kids. When DH is home, he is expected to do just as much "work" as I do. That is only fair. I am on the job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I'm lucky to get maybe an hour or two off on one of DH's two days off each week.

 

dad was in the navy. he wasn't home the majority of the time. and even when he was, his hours ran pretty late. so even though my mother worked her ass off, she still did the housework. though chores were parcelled to us kids, too. now i'm home, my job is the home. dave works for money, i keep the house. seems pretty fair to me.

 

this does, of course, include dave helping with the kids a bit. when he's in town. but his job is high pressure, high stress. my job, while being constant, is lower intensity the majority of the time. however, dave understands that i don't get days, evenings, or nights off. even when he's away on business and going out to dinner for business, he has fun. i don't. it helps that he gets that. now, if i could just train him to pick up after himself, we'll be golden. i have a hard enough time picking up after 3 people.

 

it is pretty fair, though you do have to figure in the constant requirement of the children: fevers all night, no time to yourself, etc. most men DO work a 40 -50 hour week, then have nights and weekends off. SAHMs do not. so not only is she "working" the same number of hours as he is, she's got more, until she gets a babysitter. then, when her husband get home, he REQUIRES her time and attention as well. physically it's not TOO demanding, but emotionally and psychologically, it's a real bitch. i'd rather work sometimes.

 

true, but taking care of the kids is part of the fathers role too. Its not like ALL fathers ignore their kids. So they have work hours + kids.

That's true when the kids are very little and you're taking care of a few. Once the kids reach school age and they're getting shipped off from 7:30 to 2:30, the nonstop running of motherhood slows a bit. I assume during this 'down time' mothers would be cleaning the house/laundry and taking a break.