How do you work out the "division of labor" in your relationships? Who does what around the house/for the family? Especially if one or both work full time?
well i work part-time (officially, sometimes i work more hours) and he works 60 hours a week (max, usually more like 48-50). we do not yet have any kids/pets.
i do everything except dishes (we do not have diswasher), ironing and trash (i do dishes/trash if he is away on business...).
Oh... and once, a while back when things were in a bad place as far as my frustration and overwhelmedness goes, I took my typically scientific approach.
We made a list of the things that need to get done in the house. Then we assigned mutually agreed upon weekly time totals to those tasks. (Grocery shopping 1.5 hours, Taking out the trash 20 minutes, etc..) Then we divided them up, with me doing 50% more than him (because of our respective work hours) turns out that he still should have been doing more than the assigned tasks that he WASN'T taking care of.
I have only lived with Ben for 6 months and we have only a dog to look after. He does all the food planning and cooking. I do most of the house cleaning and all the laundry. He does floors. He does most of the dog walking, I help when I can. I leave for work at 6am, and I'm usually back around about 6pm.
i pretty much do all the housework, except for trash, and litterbox. i meal plan (i do now anyway, ha), grocery shop, and do most of the cooking, although jeff has his specialties and cooks once or twice a week. jeff washes the cars. we both take care of the garden, but hire out lawn care.
until recently jeff did our family finances but i just took that over. i pay all our bills and do a weekly budget.
i do most of the childcare obvs, but when jeff is home we're a team. on weekends we're pretty courteous about giving each other breaks, depending on our individual needs that day.
sometimes i wish jeff would at least pick up after himself more-he used to be really good about this, but as time has gone on it's like he just figures it's my job. unfortunately i tend to pick up after him without thinking about it, since i'm picking up after myself and a toddler already.
oh and re: the comment above about scientific data of time spent on chores...there have been studies that come out every few years that show consistently that working women on average do more hours of housework than working men. something like 17 per week compared to 10 for men. i also find this article really interesting-it came out when oslo was about 7mos and totally opened my eyes to the real gender issue labor division:
We've been doing this for a long time and we've settled into tasks that we are each comfortable doing, and good at doing. With my skills, I handle the bills, grocery shopping, most of the cooking, scheduling of all appointments (I tease Jack about being phone-phobic - lol), organizing and executing almost all family celebrations/holidays. I do all this because I'm just naturally organized, punctual, and can get thigns done quickly
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i do everything except dishes (we do not have diswasher), ironing and trash (i do dishes/trash if he is away on business...).
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We made a list of the things that need to get done in the house. Then we assigned mutually agreed upon weekly time totals to those tasks. (Grocery shopping 1.5 hours, Taking out the trash 20 minutes, etc..) Then we divided them up, with me doing 50% more than him (because of our respective work hours) turns out that he still should have been doing more than the assigned tasks that he WASN'T taking care of.
Oh well.
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until recently jeff did our family finances but i just took that over. i pay all our bills and do a weekly budget.
i do most of the childcare obvs, but when jeff is home we're a team. on weekends we're pretty courteous about giving each other breaks, depending on our individual needs that day.
sometimes i wish jeff would at least pick up after himself more-he used to be really good about this, but as time has gone on it's like he just figures it's my job. unfortunately i tend to pick up after him without thinking about it, since i'm picking up after myself and a toddler already.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/magazine/15parenting-t.html
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