Lucy: I read an article in the New Yorker that Japanese women do 90% of the household chores.
Me: Who does the other 10%?
Candace: Not my husband.
Miriam: There are certain household tasks, I don't want Bob doing.
Lucy: 90% of them, though?
Me: Early in our marriage Clifford made a spreadsheet to divide the hours of labor.
Candace: How'd that work out for him?
Me: Not good, his math was off.
Lucy: The real problem is that they choose the wrong stuff to help with.
Miriam (munching a freshly powdered donut): That's what I meant. I don't mind the cooking or the laundry, but I hate taking out the garbage. What does he do? Fold the laundry.
Me: Sweeping the floor when I am clearly trying to cook.
Lucy: Fixing something that doesn't need to be fixed when we are trying to leave the house.
Candace: Teaching me how to do a task better.
We all groan at that.
We had decided to shop at a Farmer's market instead of meet for coffee. Something about a health food kick that Lucy was on. It smelled of patchouli but the berries were fresh and juicy. We laughed about the fact that none of our husbands would have chosen to be there with us. Or even thought of shopping for the family at a farmer's market twenty minutes out of the way of our normal commute.
After Lucy shared her article with me, I started wondering why the division of labor between men and women was so lopsided. Even today the best statistics estimate that women perform 25 times more household tasks than men. Part of what Miriam hinted at is that there are certain tasks that are linked with our identities as women that we don't want to give over to men. Usually these tasks have to do with child rearing. We start out home with newborns, alternately recovering from whatever ordeal we had to face in dispelling them from our bodies and translating out their different cries. While someone has to take on the financial burden of maintaining household income.
What it really comes down to though is tolerance. Some people have different tolerance for how cluttered a space can be. Considerate partners, or partners like my husband who are looking to barter my good favor for sex, will attempt to be cognizant of which chores their partners have the lowest tolerance for and do them quickly. Especially if it is an easy task the reward can be swift.
I told them about my previous weekend as an example.
* * *
Satisfied that every dish from dinner the night before was crammed into the dishwasher, the clothes dryer was running and the kids were snuggled together like puppies on the floor in front of a Barbie movie, I left for a long shower. Long showers are what makes the weekend the weekend.
Clifford was sprawled face down on our mattress, his bare arms stretched over both pillows. I bent over to kiss the back of his neck before shutting and locking the bathroom door behind me. I loved how the steam of the shower caressed my bare skin. I closed my eyes to breathe in the heat. I loved Saturdays especially.
When I ran out of body parts to scrub, I reluctantly shut off the shower stream. After dressing, I opened my bedroom door to be knocked backward by the smell of fried butter. Clifford was in the kitchen.
The children had not moved from their tangled floor heap. On the dining table was waiting for me a cup containing a freshly cut flower and a plate of powdered beignets. My whole body smiled after I wolfed them down. I hoped he already ate his share because they were gone in a single inhale.
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How to Housetrain Your Husband
ChickLitThe Most Important Thing: We've been friends for over a decade. We laugh. We drink, and we get raunchy, even though by now we are also moms. We meet as often as we can to share the ups and downs of our lives. We trust each other. And if it were up t...
