On a recent ride home, the kids started discussing work and jobs and how things were divided between men and women. It was all based on pure observation of how our household runs and I found it quite enlightening.
For example, men don't plant. Women do. Why? Because Daddy never plants anything but Mommy does. Huh?
Girls can do anything that boys do except play hockey and football. Boys can do anything girls can do except have babies. Interesting. Almost true.
In our house, chores are divided between two working parents. Mom is in charge of cooking, shopping (food and clothes), landscaping/gardening, majority of the cleaning/tidying around the house and decorating/redecorating (what? that's a chore!).
Dad is in charge of dishes, laundry (kids and adults), some cleaning (particularly the kitty litter - yuck), mowing the grass/raking and as Alex calls it "Mr. Fix-it stuff".
We all share in cleaning the table after dinner, feeding the dog and cat, letting the dog out, chasing the cat after she gets out, and *some* cleaning up after ourselves; coats on the hangers, clothes in the hamper, toys put away, shoes on the mats.
This topic came up again recently after I slammed my finger in the steel door leading to the garage - uhm, yeah it hurt a lot - and Abby offered to help cook dinner while I tried to keep the obscenities from leaving my mouth. Alex quickly realized he wanted to contribute, too, so he asked to do the dishes. He knew this was one of the "Daddy tasks" and he was ready to prepare for his role in life...good man.
How do you divide the jobs in your house? Should you? Or did it just come about naturally, like ours did?
1 comment:
Even tho we both work full-time, our roles are still somewhat traditional. I do bathrooms and laundry. We share dishes and vacuuming, and Hubby does all the outdoor work.
Post a Comment