THE ELUSIVE 50/50 DIVISION OF LABOR

Thank you so much for posting about this. I feel this frustration on a daily basis. My husband certainly does try, I will give him that. But, alas, it is I who thinks ahead most of the time. We have a 5 month old and both work full-time. For instance, I know I have to do laundry tonight because our son will not have a "onesie" for tomorrow. This thought would NEVER cross my husband's mind, ever. That is just a wee example of course, but there are several on a daily basis. Men and women are wired differently, but some things seem so blatantly obvious you have to wonder if they even notice everything we do.

Thank you for writing this! You didn't mention, however, that when it is brought to a man's attention they get REALLY defensive. My husband has been out of work for the last 2 months - though he spends several hours a week looking for positions and doing some client projects - our 1 year old is at a sitter and we have a cleaning service twice a month. Though I am working full time it has not occured to my husband to grocery shop, clean, do laundry, pick-up toys, get mail, take charge of daycare, banking, bill paying or just routine household maintenance much less make dinner. However, this subject is taboo - - even when we were both working. He just assumes I'm on it.

This is so true. While women have made great progress in the last 40 to 50 years, there is still this notion that we are ultimately responsible for anything that has to do with the home. So women (both stay at home and out in the work world) end up doing double duty. It's very frustrating.

I've also asked myself this question about our society at large, but my husband and I have set about attempting to buck this system when it comes to our own marriage. It was actually my husband who led the way in insisting we have an egalitarian arrangement - primarily because he did not want to be the main breadwinner while I got to have a closer relationship with our children. He realized that this wish meant equal shares of the housework as well, and we work very hard to assure this is true. It takes a tremendous amount of letting go by the woman and tons of communication to negotiate together as a team what actually constitutes 'clean' or 'done' for a chore, how often a chore should be done, etc. All of this communication must happen without the woman dictating the answers. That's hard! But the result is a marriage with lots of intimacy and a true partnership - and I only have to do 50% of the housework.

We believe that many, many couples want to achieve this - we're optimists! If I'm permitted to suggest a place for additional discussion, please consider this an invitation to visit us at our website for equal parents: www.equallysharedparenting.com.

-Amy

Preach it, sister! In some ways. I am lucky... my husband does most of the wash and all of the vacuuming; he empties the dishwasher about 60% of the time and deals with dry cleaning, too. Even so, these two chores aren't even equal. If there's too much laundry to be done, our son's clothes and stuff he needs gets done first, with a few token items of mine. And our apartment is only 1,100 square-feet, so vacuuming isn't a huge chore. I typically work longer hours, spend more time looking after our son, take care of all the bills, take care of all our arrangements for trips--even just to the park--child care, dinner, you name it. And even if I'm working late, he still expects me to take care of dinner--or at least leave something easy for him to make, with instructions. I used to think it was because his mother stayed home that he was used to the mom doing it all... but now I'm not so sure. I honestly think he just thinks stuff magically gets done--he doesn't see or seem to know about the behind-the-scenes stuff, just the results. Perhaps it's time we all start writing lists of what we do--a wife's will be three pages long... the husband's maybe 3/4 of a page. Maybe shame will help?

B'coz moms have always been powerful Ministers of Interior!

I haven't yet figured out why the traditional one earner family has become the two earner family.

So lame. So old hat -- a retread column.

Women are so oppressed that they cannot decide with their husbands who will do what in the household, mere passive victims of the oppressive male-dominated society.

That must be it -- women aren't free to choose.

That would explain it -- actually, that's what you just wrote, isn't it?

Women basically want to be in control, and men let them - actively or passively.

Human nature is the answer you are looking for. Throughout history woman have primarily taken the responsibility for the household and kids. We know have traded paying more in taxes than households did in the 1950's for more government in our lives. Households have not changed, they won't in the future.

"While women have made great progress in the last 40 to 50 years, there is still this notion that we are ultimately responsible for anything that has to do with the home."

I find it hard to believe that putting your kids in daycare to make more money is "progress". Is sending the message to you kids that a bigger house or newer car the right thing?

Who tends the children is one of the most critical things to a culture. Raising children is vital to any family and shouldn't be outsourced. It's a core competancy of the family and should be treated as such.

I’m no Don Imus either. But I’m about to say something a broad segment of the population—working moms—may find objectionable, if not politically incorrect. O.K., here goes: many people, including many working moms, prefer that mom take care of more of the housework and oversight of the kids. Not everyone is mad at "traditional" roles and many feel that women have more innate abilities in taking care of the nest than men do. That's not to say husbands don't want to help, but many believe that husbands can't do it as well. I know that makes many feminists mad, but you know what? Men and women aren't fungible. Many feminists seem to me to be angry at God for designing biology so that the hardship of childbirth falls on them. They never stop to think maybe there are good reasons for that design - maybe women as a whole are just better at taking care of home and hearth. Maybe our kids and our homes miss something when women aren't the "primary caregivers". So instead of railing against "traditional" roles of men and women, perhaps try embracing them and making your family and society the better for it.

Yes, I believe you are generalizing too broadly here. I do not think you can draw conclusions about this issue based on the “several families in which it is the woman who retains responsibility” within your social circle. Nor is it appropriate to draw the conclusions you have reached based on the responses that you will no doubt get from women with whom you have touched a nerve – those who have an issue within their marriage (legitimate or perceived) with respect to work load imbalance.

Quite frankly, the observations you have made simply do not reconcile with the daily reality of my life – that very often it is Dad I see dropping-off or picking-up at the day care center, chaperoning class trips, waiting for their kids at dance classes or pushing shopping carts around at the local supermarket.

Your column draws my attention to a larger issue -– that this it is still politically correct to propagate negative stereotypes about men, and more specifically about Dads.

I cant think of one husband that would be able to handle the flak for doing things less than the wife's way.

Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

I am actually surprised to see this article being discussed on BusinessWeek and that too on front page. This would be a great article on MSNBC or other blog sites. Just another example how the quality of BusinessWeek mag is declining. Has very little to do with 'Business'! Hopefully in future the blogs feature articles relating to day-to-day business.

Ok, I have just got to present the male side of this legendary controversy since all the other responses to date are from droning women. Woman can be slobs also. When married, I did most of the housework including laundry, sweeping, cleaning, etc. Our bedroom was a wreck of strewn clothes—mostly hers. Now single, I’ve had a virtually pristine house for years. Accolades from various female suitors firmly attest to my high standards.

No, I’m not a perfectionist. And sometimes throughout the year’s I’ve been a slob. What I’ve discovered about most women (besides my ex) is that their standards for cleanliness are not only higher but their urgency and frequency of cleaning is greater than most males. As a result, we men simply give up trying to live up to the urgency and high expectations.

Many times it’s simply a matter of timing. On occasion, men don’t mind leaving a day or two worth of dishes on the counter or skipping the shelf dusting and will gladly cede ownership of these “unnecessary” mundane tasks to the more ambitious among us. And let us not underestimate the, perhaps subconscious, sense of purpose and pride that comes with female ownership of household tasks. I was shocked on many occasions to find live-in girlfriends offended, unappreciative and downright hostile at my attempt to help around the house.

Such an absolute statement "not a single exception" is not justified, and I am not the only exception. And btw, my father was also cooking and helping out my working mother quite a lot- every lunch he would take care of feeding 3 of us at home (cooking real food, in India - not the packaged junk americans call "lunch prep" these days) as my mother was still at work.

I work fulltime (my wife stays at home because she does not want to work and wants to take care of our now 5 year old) and I still take care of more than half of the household stuff- most of the cooking (my wife does not like cooking), a third of the grocery (this used to be 100% until recently), 100% of the gardening, car maintainance, computers, home electronics, more than half the paperwork, moving, finding rentals etc.

She takes care of the grocery (70%), our son when I am not at home, and herself. Helps out with the house a little bit.

I think the split is quite fair, though some more chauvinst guys tell me it's not. Are there such male chauvinists still around? Sure. A lot of them? Sure. Are most guys like that? If you truly believe that then you are (one or more of the following) from an older generation (not born in 70s or later), come from a more conservative background, or are a feminist. Or maybe you are right to some extent - perhaps that is why almost half the software engineers in India are women, but only a small fraction in the USA. Perhaps that is also why you have yet to see a female president.

Btw, my son loves to play "cooking" - picking me up as the role model :-)

Big topic! And very true regarding (in my opinion) the fact that men get an easy pass with regard to childcare/parenting/household work. BUT....and here's where I may sound a little Imus-Like myself...why do women persist in marrying men who will not help them raise their children? When I bring this up, it's usually the women who get a little defensive. I'm a guy in his late 20's, and I won't go into my inevitable frustrations with the opposite sex, but here's my point: politically, I'm absolutely a feminist, and I think women have tremendous untapped power in the world (even if it may look sadly otherwise at times) and I simply wish that they might take more care in determining which guys on planet earth are.... 'rewarded'(?) for which sorts of male behavior. Men respond to incentives like anyone else.

Example: Right now, marriageable young men (generally, but maybe this is simply a stereotype?) know that they do not have to be particularly sensitive to family-types issues, mainly b/c women never seem to demand it of them. Or at least many women have trouble determining what male character traits to look for when dating to help figure out which men will help raise their own children if they were to get married in the future.

If men in the broader society started to understand that they would never again have companionship/sex unless they started to exhibit basic family-centered attributes, I think we would see a big change in male behaviour! But sadly, probably the main perception that men get today (including me, a recent lawyer) is that appearance and status counts for more than anything else when finding a mate (status meaning education level, income, etc. Appearance meaning more height than I posses.)

Men and women both think with their reproductive organs: it's just that men and women have 2 different organs pushing them to do 2 different things. Women are correct in demanding that men spend more time using their brains. And men would also be correct in suggesting that some women might also consider using their own brains a bit more when finding a mate: only that will help women find men who truly care about the same values that they do. Rationalization may not seem like the most romantic of values at first, but it will definitely go further than the temporary illusion of 'destiny/perfection' in making a happy marriage. Always put your most imporant values first. And put as much time/energy in finding someone who shares them as you possibly can. No guarantees that it will work, but you certainly have a better shot of finding a future "Great Dad"!

your hanging out with the wrong crowd.

Grunt. click. Me man. me stupid. Me need woman to wipe my butt.

Please stop complaining. Don't be such a girl (i.e. whine). Perhaps women tend to organize households because that's what they are good at and wired for.

I don't feel your pain...but then again...I'm just a dumb old dude that can't organize a household. But let's let men do what they are good at...namely anything that requires strength or logic.

Back in the distant past (1992 if I recall correctly), another Texas billionaire, H.Ross Perot, ran for President of the United States on the Reform Party ticket. He ended up with 20% of the popular vote and nearly captured the electoral votes of his home state, Texas. One point he made repeatedly was that, prior to the 1970's, a husband could work and earn enough to support a stay-at-home wife and his family quite well. By the 1990's it was taking two incomes to support a family, and today it is taking two incomes plus a mountain of credit card debt to keep a family afloat. And some women actually call this 'progress'.
This 'working parents' column is a lightweight softball question. The real question should be why do so many women have to work full-time jobs? Why can't their husbands support them anymore? Sorry, all you feminists out there, but I unretired 4 years ago and have been working mostly around mothers who have school-age children, and my own observation is that most of them would rather be home taking care of their families. Sorry if that comment has Gloria Steinem and Hillary Clinton spinning in their graves, but its the truth.
Howard

As a guy, I guess I'm an exception and I have a few friends in the same situation. I'm the primary "bread-winner" by a long shot and am the primary care-giver for my children. I also do almost all of the housework, by default. Relationships aren't always fair, yet we all seem to have time to complain.

How about the things women typically don't do their fair share of? Lawn care, car maintenance, critter control, fixing things, disciplining the children (taking on the 'bad cop' role), computer/electronics maintenance.

Yes, I agree, women do, unfairly, shoulder the vast majority of the work. But come on, at least paint the full picture.

My Dad has always done most of the cooking and shared in the cleaning and been an active partner in matters of family. Both my parents worked. I saw them share and that quality became important to me, too.

I, too, do most of the cooking. I share in all the chores. It's what I was raised to do. I wouldn't know how to do it any other way.

I guess that old saying is apt: To see what your spouse is going to look and be like later in life, look at his/her parents. It's not always true, but it's a good indicator.

I don't doubt Anne Tergensen's experience that many of her peers struggle with husbands who don't pull their weight. The majority of dads may not do their share. But, I know plenty of dads who strive to shoulder half the housework. Obviously, change takes time and dads are still trying to figure out and adjust to their new roles in the American family.

But, I think there is something else happening. I wonder if families will need to alter their perspective of domesticity. In these debates, I often read that dads don't meet their wife's standards for housecleaning, laundry etc... It's quite possible that many dads clean, wash clothes and otherwise maintain a home in a different style. Perhaps one of the challenges for American families is accepting a new way of doing things.

For example, I start washing dishes, picking up toys, taking out garbage and doing laundry around 10:30 p.m. I'm sure my wife would like it done before she goes to bed, but it's clean in the morning. We make compromises designed to create a decent household split because, though I am far from perfect, my wife and I strive for domestic balance.

Perhaps mom and dad both need to let go of some of their historical models and perspective in the new age.
(Originally posted on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper's parenting blog, WorkingDad.)

I'm sorry that Anne's reality is such that she knows of no family where the domestic sphere is managed equitably and happily. As a stay-at-home-dad, it my primary responsibility to manage our household, although there are certainly some tasks that I expect my wife to help with. Even before I left my career to take care of our son, we had established some general idea of who was going to do what. It seems to me that this all comes back to communication and expectations, and that it is no great feat of logic or expenditure of time and energy to sit down and evaluate the skill-sets that each partner brings to the marriage and then divide tasks along those lines. Sometimes, tasks will have to be learned ... I needed some updating on my laundry skills and my wife needed some help on how to be a better grocery shopper ... but we both were willing to help each other out. Isn't that what marriage is all about?

The fact is there are plenty of families who don't fall into this stereotypical and helplessly outdated mode of domesticity. And it's not even that new ... my father did most of the ironing when I was a kid, for example.

Instead of trotting out the same old anecdotal "evidence" that we as a society aren't moving beyond some arcane sense of "she does all, he does none," why don't we look at some of the real and exciting changes in the American family, where men are more involved in their kids lives than ever before; a reality where men are finally receiving enough of an "emotional education" where if their partners are really feeling unfairly put upon in domestic life, they need only sit down and discuss the changes that must occur. Fathers and husbands want to make life at home work, they want be supportive and loving and equals. If they didn't, they wouldn't have chosen to become either. They may even posses the right tools for the job if given the expectation and support to use them.

I do not dismiss the persistence of gender roles in our society, but I think Anne rushes past what I think may be the more interesting cause of the imbalance she is referring to when she talks about her mother's standards compared to her fathers.

My wife and I have conversations about this from time to time. They usually conclude with her grudging admission that the reason she does a lot more of the domestic stuff like shopping and cooking and cleaning is because she just cares more about when and how those things are done and they are correspondingly higher on her priority list. I, on the other hand, grudgingly admit that those chores would be higher on my priority list if I wasn't so accustomed to her taking on the resonsibility. It turns out that our notions of the "ideal" are just different. Whether or not these notions are the result of socialization, they are completely objective. I could change my expectations as easily as she could change hers and vice versa.

Therefore, if you accept Anne's assumptions about the distribution of these notions about domestic chores among the genders, one question to consider is whether the persistence of the gender roles is due in part to women being unable or unwilling as individuals and as a social collective to compromise with the alternative predominantly male expectations.

The exact opposite is true of my wife and I. I am very resentful of this and I feel really stuck. In terms of household management tasks, she needs to be told what to do, has no interest whatsoever, and is not organized. She wants me to be her manager, do this, do that ... With her room-mates she picked up her fair share, but when we first moved in, she lived like a hotel guest. Several representations later, I am still trying for something resembling 50/50. All of the things she does are self-satisfying: reading books, watching TV, going out to stores, to the gym, etc.

She has come to reluctantly carve out a small set of chores that are trivial in today's world. She considers herself busy while the laundry or dryer are running. She cooks some times, and almost always washes dishes. I consider these trivial, and I would gladly do them exclusively, if she were to pick up something else.

After repeated reminders about garbage duty, I still have to worry about it, or I cannot be sure it will get done.

If anything involves thinking, or planning it is too much to expect. If I don't have the presence of mind to remember it, if it is not on my palm, or to ask her to do it, it will not get done. She recently started making a list, but it only happens after I bring it up.

Someone has to worry about pruning the garden once a month, paying the bills, cleaning the air filter, collecting receipts in a folder for tax time ... someone has to know whether the plastic milk bottle can be recycled or not ... she still asks me every time.

Your article also needs to mention what other tasks there are, not just the simple ones, cooking cleaning, etc. If one person is the breadwinner, they spend day in and day out in a frustrating corporate environment. If you expect them to go work a full day, and then come home and take over the whole baby thing so that you can go out, that is absolutely misguided. Many mothers think that way, to my dismay. I have a friend whose wife comes home and plays with her dollhouse.

In addition to the gazillion other things I keep track of, I spend some time to worry about our finances, our retirement, to plan ahead, etc ... This is absolutely essential. If I don't do it, it is never ever going to happen. For my wife, such things don't exist.

The thing that hurts me the most is that between waking up and going to bed at night, I am either doing something or thinking ahead of what I need to do, and in sharp contrast my wife has staked out a very very small set of "worries" that is becoming more and more irrelevant as each day goes by. If she does things, they are things that she likes to do. In contrast I don't recall sitting down, and I almost never get to do the things I like, but do all the things that need to get done somehow, magically, by themselves ...

I know this is the case with many other of my male friends as well, sadly. But, it can easily be the case with a lame/lazy/indifferent man, I have no doubt.

I always found generalizing based on gender to be rather unimaginative. I have heard the arguments that women are more financially responsible, or men being more accomplished, etc ... , but in my experience I encounter many more counterexamples of whatever gender-based rule is proposed, than actual confirmed cases of it.

Okay, this entire column says it like it is. A woman opens her mouth to say something that she feels is not right about the way things are organized in our society. More women pipe in to agree and vent how they are feeling, then their voices get shut out by a group of men who feel it is there place to speak up on the issue. The women's voices get drowned out, and the initial point is lost.

If the initial post is not relevant to your situation. That is wonderful. If you are chalking the gender role difference up to having different standards... let's say you don't care that the grocery shopping is done. Then this goes out the window once you have children. Obviously they need to be fed. Who cares if it is a "predominately male or female expectation".

And if we are going to get away from gender roles and stereotypes, let's get away from the one that dads always do the yard work and handyman work. I know what a sawsall is, and I know how to use it, buddy.