I started watching this documentary about the division of household labor and how men tend to overestimate their contribution while women underestimate how much they do. It pissed me off for a ton of reasons, but mostly because I’ve seen it exactly as described as a child and as an adult. I’ve lived it from several different angles as well. I think it’s crap and I think it’s about time we all started talking about it.
We are selling men short over and over. We allow them to be spectators of family life, with subpar knowledge about their children, and no expectation to contribute to the household, other than paying for it all and maybe grilling, especially if other men are around. It’s not important for me to be present for their children’s doctors appointments and if a man is involved at that level, then he’s an exemplary father! How pathetic that we believe men are only good for paying the bills.
How many stay at home dads do you know, or have you known? I think I’ve known maybe two? And both were actually short term solutions, not an actual permanent plan. I’ve known many men and women that behave as if the dads barely know their children and couldn’t handle being left alone with them for more than an hour at a time. I am 100% confident that any man, with the right attitude and desire, could actually care for his children with no help.
It all comes down to household labor being considered “women’s work” and therefore not valued at the same level as paid work outside of the house. Any woman that stays at home with school aged children would most likely be capable of handling the logistics at a major theme, or any big company. Why? Because the logistics of keeping a home running effectively and efficiently require that same level of attention to detail. Shuffling multiple kids around to school and activities wore us out after 8 weeks. Almost every weekday this past fall, at least two of the kids had something to do. At least twice a week all three needed to be picked up or dropped off at something at the exact same time. In some families the mom has to do that all by herself while her husband sits at work taking care of something much less complicated.
I watched my father use a lot of weaponized helplessness against my mother while I was growing up. “But I don’t know HOW to do that as well as you. And you just get mad at me because I don’t do it right. So maybe you should just do it.” I don’t know how my mother stayed with him when he said things like that so often. He walked over messes on the floor, he made messes and wouldn’t clean them up, even when she asked nicely, he pretended not to see things that needed to be done, and he lied about that. For years my mother made more money than he did and he did no appreciate that. He did take us to our doctor appointments because she had less flexibility than he did sometimes. And she made more money. But he refused to do housework more than once. Or he did it so poorly that she’d just have to redo it, especially folding clothes. She could only get him to dependably fold towels and nothing else. I hope he’s better now because she didn’t deserve that ever.
At our house now, I’d like to think that we have a mostly fair division of labor at the adult level. For the kids, Girl is generally the one helping out because she has always liked to help. She liked to be around adults as a little kid too, and always wanted to help. It’s easier to ask her to do something because she just says ok and does it without complaint. Boy #3 always asks why Girl can’t do it if he’s asked, and Boy #2 grumbles if you look in his direction these days. As a little kid, he was extremely helpful and did just about everything while Boy #1 always asked why he had to do something and Boy #2 wasn’t asked. So I guess the younger two are in the same pattern. I’ve been trying to consciously ask the boys to do things because Girl does so much more than they do without any complaints. I don’t want to give any of them the impression that she is somehow more responsible for household tasks than the boys are.
I do think that there’s a lot of hidden labor that both adults in my house do that we don’t talk about much. I fill up the dishwasher rinse fluid, the water softener with salt, fill her car with gas if I happen to drive it when it’s low, and I sort the mail most of the time. I usually do the dishes since I don’t cook and I do all the floor care because my wife hates it. She does all the cooking and meal prep including making the grocery list. She remembers birthdays and when to send cards. She takes care of outgoing mail we need to send and she manages the cats’ Chewy order. I manage most of the subscribe and save stuff and the guinea pig’s Chewy order. We both manage the big calendar of everything that’s going on. We talk about a lot of things as they are happening and I definitely feel like there’s a lot less hidden labor than in my life previously, but I also know that I am more aware of what gets done for me and the house that I don’t have to worry about. It’s been tough with surgery because I have been ordered to remain on the couch up until this week, so the little bit of picking up that I do here and that wasn’t getting done AT ALL.
The documentary talked a lot about how society expects men to be tough and work hard to provide for their family and taking time off from work makes them seem less dedicated and available for their job. What a weird culture we live in here that makes the means in which someone provides for their family more important than their family. One of the men even said that talking about sharing the household load with his wife isn’t something he can exactly talk about at happy hour with his coworkers. Uhhh, dude, perhaps the reason why your wife was so frustrated with you was because you were chilling at happy hour with work people on your free time and not rushing home to help with your family. He expected her to run right home from her job to get everything going so he could just stroll in and drop in a chair for dinner. He was astounded that he had to entertain the kids outside while she got dinner ready. Why couldn’t she do both since he had to finish up some work calls?
I think it’s sad that we are still expecting so little of men and so much of women. Men are totally capable of nurturing their children and taking great care of them. Women don’t have some special gene that makes them better at it or gives them special knowledge. Just look back at childhood and the toys marketed towards children-girls are expected to play with dolls and home type things, why boys get tools, cars, trucks, and more outdoor things. Toys are just toys and there’s no need to prepare small girls to be mothers at such young ages. We do nothing to prepare men to be fathers, so unless we intend to start preparing little boys for fatherhood, let’s stop thinking we should be preparing little girls for motherhood. It’s all so ridiculous. Let’s just let kids be kids and not put crazy notions in their head about who will do all the nurturing as adults.
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