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Division of duties, etc. in your house?
Without venting too much, I feel like I do almost everything relating to our house, family, etc. and when I bring stuff up, DH will do it once or twice and then stop. It's driving me bonkers and I'm getting super stressed by it.
Briefly...DH no longer works b/c of an injury several years ago and DS goes to a sitter part-time still, so DH is home for periods of time by himself. I will come home and nothing will have been done. No cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. I rarely have time alone where I do nothing. I even take care of bills and such.
So what do you do and what does your DH so that things are balanced evenly between you?
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Re: Division of duties, etc. in your house?
This is actually a bit of a sore point with me right now, but we do have some division of labor so to speak. We too need to come up with a better system but I'll just keep the gory details to myself.
DH takes out the trash, including emptying the cat litter and the diaper pail. He also does all of our bills and any yardwork/maintenance that we need done outside. He also does the vacuuming, including the kitchen floor. We don't share a bathroom, so he keeps his clean (sort of). But I don't touch it -- I don't use it, so he takes care of it.
I do the laundry, the grocery shopping, and most of the cooking. We take turns cleaning the kitchen after dinner. I also make his lunch for him to take to work, and Justin's on the days he goes to school. I clean our other two bathrooms.
I guess it works most of the time.
Tyler Anthony arrived on 9.21.09
The Chronicles of Justin and Tyler
I wouldn't say that we have "assigned duties" or anything; but we have kind of fallen into routines wherein he generally completes certain household tasks and I complete others. That said, it took some time (and a number of discussions) before we both felt that the division of labor was somewhat equal.
As it relates to the house, we decided to hire a cleaning lady to come 1x/month to do a regular/proper deep clean. It's SOOOO worth it as it relates to the stress it eliminates in our marriage. We feel it's one perk of having a two income household. In between those cleanings, I've become more responsible for the kitchen (except for the dish washer - for some reason, that's his thing) and living areas and he keeps up with everything outside and cleaning the bathrooms. For the most part, we both do our own laundry (although it's not like we won't do a load for each other) and I do most of DS's laundry (only because I like it done, folded, and put away in a particular manner). It's all really random how it shakes out; but it works for us.
DH pays most bills (I cover a few); and I schedule all appointments and do almost all of the shopping (including grocery) for the family.
As it relates to parenting, I have "morning duty" with DS and DH has "evening duty," through the week. That just makes sense because I'm home in the mornings (and he's not, through the week) and DH is home in the early evenings (and I'm not, through the week). When we're both home, we divide and conquer. All that said, he's been fantastic about doing more than his "fair share" during this pregnancy. As he explained it, I'm busy "making a pancreas for DS2," so he doesn't mind letting me sleep in on the weekends, giving 99.9% of the baths, and changing 75% of DS1's dirty diapers.
It's a very dynamic system; but we make sure to have regular discussions about the goings on of the household, and we ebb and flow as necessary. It helps that we can [now] have such open discussions about our expectations of each other, etc.
I wish I had words of wisdom to help but I really don't. Dh doesn't really do anything around the house. I don't know where he got it because his father is wonderful and cooks, cleans, takes care of the house and is just genuinely an awesome man. He and MIL are the best of partners. Now they've been married for 30+ years so maybe I need to ask MIL how it was in the beginning.
I do all the laundry, clean bathrooms, do dishes, take care of animals, do the bills, do about 85% of the cooking (most of the time I can count on at least 1 night of assistance from DH on the cooking, or we go out), do all of the grocery shopping, deal with my car all on top of my two hour daily commute.
DH mows the lawn and does work on the house/yard as needed. He will help if I ask him but most of the time he just doesn't seem to see when things need done. It's really rather annoying. However more often lately he has been helping because I'm just too exhausted to do it all. I don't mind terribly that he doesn't help more because he really sucks at cleaning and I'd mostly rather do it myself. It would be nice to have more help now tho.
If you find the solution, please pass it over this way.
I do more of the day to day household management stuff since I work part-time. I do the grocery shopping, errands, all the laundry and most of the ironing, clean bathrooms, kitchen, change sheets etc.
Mike takes out the trash, he does baths, does all the yard work, pays bills, vacuums.
We share cooking and kitchen cleanup duties, we split diaper duty when he's home, he helps me pick up every night, stuff like that. I rarely have to pester him to do things.
Dh is awesome with chores. Not gonna lie, he does most of the laundry and dishes and cooks every so often.
That being said, although he is a good dad, he has never thought a day in his life about all the extras necessary to take care of a child. He thinks new clothes just appear in the drawer when DD grows out of a size or changes seasons. He takes her on errands without an extra diaper bc it doesnt occur to him that she might pee/poop in the hour they are gone. He has no sense for weather and if she might need a coat or hat. I think the only time he got up early to dress her for church and pack the bag is the time I made a stink about it. When her toys are all over the house he asks me why her stuff is everywhere as though I own my stuff and her stuff and he only owns his stuff. Although he would completely disagree, kids pretty much belong to the mother no matter how much the dad loves them.
This has been a tough area for us as well and we actually just discussed it in our counseling... right now I am in charge of: laundry (separating, washing, folding and putting away), grocery shopping and meal planning, cooking and 95% cleaning up after dinner, paying all the bills and budgeting/balancing the checkbook, and doing any and all household cleaning (vacuuming, bathrooms, etc.), I do all the childcare related things unless DH is home in time which he is occassionaly home in time to do 1 feeding and maybe help w/ bedtime
We kind of alternate in taking out the trash and DH takes the big outside cans to the curb on Monday mornings for trash pick up. DH also does any yardwork which includes leaves, weed wacking and mowing the lawn (which we have just over an acre so it takes some time) and he obviously brings home the bacon ;-)
I think it is very difficult as a SAHM in my opinion b/c it is more difficult to make things even since I consider a large part of my "job" to be maintaining our household which to me does include laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. I do wish that DH would be more helpful even w/ little things like if I cook he can do the dishes so that it is more somewhat even but I've found that marriage in general is never going to be 50/50-- its just not and as I've come to let that realization sink in and get over the fact of always wanting things "fair" I've been much happier-- I know that I am responsible for myself and I try to give 100% (which if both people are giving 100% then nobody should feel slighted).
I also know that my husband is my #1 priority (after God) and I do get joy in being able to be his helpmate (I know what I am typing is controversial for some but its what I personally believe). I've found that once I stopped getting angry and bitter about DH not doing the dishes I was happier and I once I stopped viewing it as "its his chore and he is never doing it" I noticed he was slightly more inclined to do it (w/o me having to "nag" him) and It was so much more of a blessing to me b/c I felt like he was relieving me of one of my chores...I dunno just a different perspective and some things to think about
I feel this way too, even though I don't see it through a religious lens. Mike works very hard, his success in his career allows me to have flexibility in mine. So I do try to "take care" of him, make sure his clothes look nice, he has everything he needs to get in and out the door at home easily, etc. If our roles were reversed, I know he'd do the same for me. Not everyone may agree, but to me, the person who is home more can (and should) take on more of the household duties. Regardless if it's something that hasn't always been in their gender role to do.
Also, I beg to differ with the above comment that kids pretty much belong to the mother no matter how much the dad loves them." I know lots of dads (my husband included) who are equal parents to their children, down to buying clothes and diapers and knowing where the Vaseline and Tylenol are in the house.
ETA: Obviously, during the summer, his "share" of parenting duties increases tenfold, because he's with DS more than I am; but I don't necessarily expect him to complete a larger portion of the cleaning, etc. Sometimes it happens, and that's great; but it's not my EXPECTATION of him. That's what I mean.
Ditto this for my husband, except he admittedly has no fashion sense, so he typically doesn't go shopping for ANYONE's clothing (although he wouldn't be opposed to it if/when necessary).
I don't pack Mike's lunch. Though sometimes I leave him a note in his lunchbox. ;-) Have a great day at work, honey!
I hear you. The way I look at it is, it's not a big whoop for me to throw in a load of laundry and do some ironing while the kids are napping or give the kitchen floor a quick sweep. It gets those things out of the way to allow us to have time as a family when he gets home from work.
And also I think it helps that Mike doesn't EVER say "have you done my ironing?" or "why is this house not cleaned up?" Because then I'd probably be pissed off and would tell him to suck on my big toe. If I have a busy week and can't iron his shirts, he does them. No big deal.
ITA w/ all of that-- DH is great with Nicholas--when he is home he does try his best to "take over" and give me a break meaning he will change diapers (has never ONCE complained or asked me to change a diaper when he was able to do it himself), he knows how to do everything with his feedings, how much medicine he takes, etc. it just stinks b/c there are often days DH doesnt get home till 7:30 or later which by that point DS is already in bed so the parenting all falls on me...if anything my biggest complaint is that DH puts more effort into parenting than into being my husband (if that makes any sense) but its something we are working on and I would rather have a DH that is helps w/ the kids too much than a DH who is spending his time doing xyz (insert hobby, etc.) at least when he isnt helping me with household things he is usually doing something w/ Nicky
Exactly. FWIW, I just "ETA'ed" to clarify what I meant, which sounds very similar to what you are saying.
BTW - I give/get lunchbox notes, too. ..."brown chicken, brown cow"... HA!
...in your pearls and tightly wound bun.
I can get behind all of this. When Kyle wasn't working last year, or on summer break, and even when he worked from home he took on the bulk of the household duties. When he was working full-time and I was only 3 days a week I took on more the household tasks.
As far as parenting goes, we've been a team from day 1. He knows how to take care of Logan as well as I do. The only thing I did that he didn't was breastfeed, and now that Logan's 2 the playing field's been sort of leveled there.
This is an upcoming discussion in our household, so I hear ya...
I do the dishes, laundry, dusting, sweeping, bathrooms, etc... Basically anything that involves cleaning inside our house. DH handles the trash and the yardwork. He also stays home PT with DS, which we all know is beyond a full time job. I also pay the bills. When dh and I are home together, and he doesn't have something he has to do, we make dinner together (he does the meat and I do the starch/veggies/sides/etc...). Other nights, either I make dinner, he makes dinner, or we order out (Bob Evans carryout is our friend).
Anyway, we have some organizational projects on the horizon, and once those are completed I plan on bringing up this topic... but in the meantime I'm going to stay the course because it is working for us.
The other thing that really helps us is we remind each other we're a team. So we take care of things for each other... like today I picked up something dh needed, a few weeks ago dh brought me my cell phone that I had left on the counter, etc... Those kinds of things always make us feel better about stuff.