Your point is very well taken. Both my wife and I work full-time jobs. My wife, however, works significantly more hours than I do. So your argument is that while she is working, and I am doing home chores, that it equals out. That makes sense to me, and I can certainly buy into the logic. In other words, work is work regardless of where it is performed. The trick, I suppose, is to win the lottery and be done with it all . . . .Originally Posted by J'lyn GG
I do everything. That's what happens when you are widowed.
But to the point, I have shared the household duties my whole life. Even though I am not very good at some (I am a clutter bug so disorganization doesn't bother me much). My mother taught her sons to do their share and my father taught his sons to do their share. When my wife was alive though we did gravitate to certain things. She did not like me doing laundry (wash one load of delicates with towels and you are forever banned), she hated dusting. She liked doing gardening, I did the lawn. I cooked fancier than she did, she cooked better and I always messed up the kitchen more.
I asked her several times if she minded me doing some of the housework while in a skirt or dress and she told me that what I wore didn't make the job any different but it seemed silly to her to dress up to get dirty.
The earth is the mother of all people and all people should have equal rights upon it.
Chief Joseph
Nez Perce
“Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” - Fred Rogers,
This reminds me of my SO's favorite children's book, "Frederick" by Leo Lionni. The book illustrates that we all bring different talents to life.
Someone made a very cute video about it:
Here's also a Google Books preview:
http://books.google.com/books?id=SoT...derick&f=false
Reine
Point 1 - emulating your mother: You tell me. Are you? Really?I cannot help but wonder, though, whether I am accepting of the role because of the example my mother set as a woman, and my own transgendered proclivities. My mother, of course, was the primary female within my life growing up. I looked up to her. I respected her. I love her very much. Could it be that I am trying to emulate her as a result of some kind of reverse social conditioning based upon being transgendered?
Interestingly enough, my wife’s mother was also a traditional housewife, and played virtually an identical role to that of my mother. Yet, my wife is all too willing to forsake and leave any such similar role in her life far behind. So what does this say about her? What does this say about the strong relationship we have? Knowing my wife as I do, I simply cannot see her in such a role. So in this, is it possible that my being transgendered allows us to actually maintain and further solidify our relationship in some bizarre, reverse gender role manner?
Point 2 - solidifying the relationship via cross-role trading: Prior posts referring to difficulties in your relationship because of your gender identity leave me doubting this.
What does this say about her, and what of irony? It would a lot more ironic in, say, 1965. There's not a lot unusual in the husband and father playing more of a role at home these days, having a professional wife. Well, maybe not in a DRESS, but you get the idea ... If you're telling me that you're doing all this dressed like June Cleaver, I still won't grant the irony, though I will give weirdness points!
Lea
My mother, like yours, was very much traditional housewife and she had a full time job too. She raised my sister and i single handed and i think she did a very good job of balancing all her work load. All while my father was at work/seeing other women etc.
I'm very pleased that i have turned out more like my mother than my father. This includes the doing the majority of household chores, doing a full time job, all maintainence and repairs on the house, and looking after my daughter.
My wife only works a few hours in the evening, so this unfair division of labour is not something i'm overly happy with, but then i guess that is similar to my mother's situation too, where one person does all the work while the other does what they like.
Sorry about the moan. But you did ask...
Katie
We split the chores, except for the laundry, which I do all of.
The chores aren't an even split, however, as she does most of the cooking because she gets home earlier, and I get home around 8 PM. But then, I pay for meals out on weekends.
Plus I take care of the dog and cats more than she does, even though she's the one that wanted them.
DonnaT
I wonder if I qualify to respond to this thread,I have no SO or children to care for,I work full time and do all my housework from A to Z,home maintenance,vehicle repairs and so forth.I have always been a Felix Unger and if you put faith in astrology I'm a Virgo,the only femme expression is my CDing, where is it writen that being a "homemaker" was a female role?Well justthought I'd cherp in.
Lisa.
"you are a strange species and there are many out there;shall I tell you what I find beautiful about you ,you are at your best when things are at their worst" ...[ Starman]
It may of course be a bit disturbing to sense that one is really not so firmly anchored to the gender one was born into.
I'm a part time housewife. I dread cleaning the house, but I do it when necessary. Like you, my wife works longer hours than I do, and I hate to see her spending her spare time, what little of it she has, doing the drudgery. I'm a much better cook than she is, and unlike her, I actually like cooking. I don't mind at all that I do most of the cooking in our household. My motto is "stay out of my way, and let me go, and you'll eat very well". But our division of labor is more because of the time I have to do these things than because of any inner drive to emulate my mother. Both of my parents worked, and early on they decided to split all the housework between the three kids. I've been cleaning house since I was a kid. As a result, I grew up appreciating and preferring a clean house. My wife is the same way. We split it between us, and we manage to keep a nice house.
And I like that "win the lottery" idea there, Anne. I'm all over it.
Any money found in the laundry is MINE!
"This is no social crisis....this is me having fun!"
www.flickr.com/photos/tgmarla/
Preach the good word!
My wife has repaired holes in walls while I vacuum the living room. She'll do the grocery shopping while I'll mow the lawn. I'll polish the woodwork while she does the laundry. I'll mop floors while she's doing the bills.
It's really a random distribution of chores in our household. Random, but fair. Now what I do while I'm dressed, that's a different story. :-)
I grew up in a “real-estate” household. Father was a real estate developer, mother was interior designer (and hated to cook). 9pm and both would still be arguing over where to place the closets on a blueprint of the next model. That is why I learned to how to cook. I did most of the cleaning and yard work. My mom said I was extremely organized as a kid. I figured out a “system” to streamline everything, lol.
Same with my business careers. Basically orchestrating order out of others’ chaos, in various applications. Same applied to housework in relationships. The busy mind of abstract reasoning, lol. I am one of those annoying energetic people that wakes up early…fired up…and doesn’t drink coffee, lol. (But I am not a “Type A”)
By the time my SO(s) would be ready to stop procrastinating the housework, it would be done. Housework is like mental therapy for me. Whenever I feel “disconnected”, I always start vacuuming & cleaning. Makes me feel like I am accomplishing something and puts me in a creative mind-set, for some reason. I never really thought in terms of division of household labor…I just did what needed to be done before my partners got around to it.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
We share the duties of the house, any imbalance that exists is created by our schedules. Due to time restraints I cook often (and got pretty good at it), do the dishes, linens, vacuuming, and some cleaning (although my version of cleaning is not up to snuff, apparently). I'm pretty sure that I do more around the house than most married men, and it makes my wife happy which makes me happy. On top of this, I also do the typically "male" appointed roles like maintaining the vehicles, shoveling snow, cutting grass, taking out the trash, home renovations and minor repairs.
As kids my sister and I did most of the chores around the house. We didn't have a typical upbringing, so there was no typical housewife role model to refer to. Again, necessity and time restraints.
Ginger
I have total ownership of the outside chores and the garage. My wife does most of the inside stuff. I will cook but she would prefer I didn't. I seem to make to big of a mess. I can do laundry IF she sorts it out. Otherwise very thing will be pink or lint covered. I fold the towels because they are square. If I had to fold T shirts I would just throw them in a drawer. It's strange but when I try and clean something like the kitchen, no matter how much effort, it never seems as clean and organized as when she does it. My philosophy on doing dishes...if it won't go in the dishwasher it should go in the trash.
If I start doing too much housework, my wife feels threatened and pressured that she isn't doing enough. Sometimes I manage to get her to realize that each of us could get bursts of business and the other can help a bit more.
Back in the 80's and 90's I enjoyed impersonating and working as my wife in the house. It was wonderful to have her appreciate a by product of my interest and to get a reward out of my mix of pleasure and labor. She understood most of my deep feelings for dressing and roleplay. But what ment the most to both of us was that my taking on her identity(as best I could) as my role it was the ultamate form of flatery and admoration. Back then I was smaller and could use her uniforms and clothes to keep me in role. I had my own clothes too but I had her pemission to use hers from the start. It was more than rewarding then, but now that she has whent home to God the memories are presious! Tradional probly not so much but I was a good wife and friend to her.
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