Working From Home - backwards step for women?

I would expect whichever person was at home and therefore didn't have a commute to probably do slightly more on balance - on days I WFH I will chuck a wash on while I wait for the kettle to boil/hang it out at lunch/might tidy or hoover on my lunch, DH does the same when he's WFH.

But it's not like disproportionately women work from home or are being forced to (to my knowledge!). So it's not like it's some societal step back - it's just that in your house, you happen to WFH more and you're picking up more household stuff as a result. Just tell your husband you can't/don't have time/it's not fair?

Yabu wfh has saved my career. I have two young kids and if my husband and I couldn't work at home a couple of days each, we would have struggled a lot. We live in London and have no help. We could move of course but I'm glad we weeent forced to. We both work in niche fields so it would be bad to move.👌We have an easy schedule. He does pick up drop off on a Tuesday and Thursday. I do Monday and Wednesday. Friday is shared.

However, I must admit I don't particularly like working from home. I prefer my office days. But once the kids are a bit older I will get them back.

Being physically in the home means you can do house stuff, if you have the time to. My DH wfh and I can tell when he's had a busy day because no housework has been done, other times it will be tody and clean, meal prepped etc.

Oh yes and I do hate those days I come home and it's a mess and so much to do after long commute, full on day lol 😆

Kindly, I think this is more due to the dynamics you've created unconsciously than WFH arrangements.
I did the same and was running myself ragged. It was actually posting on MN that helped me sort things out to be more sustainable.
a) I don't do anything house related during my working hours. If we had to rush out the door after breakfast without cleaning up the crumbs they stay there until after I've picked the kids up. Kids help clean up and prep dinner when they get home, even if it's just by staying out of the way for a bit!
b) My husband helps in the morning, get the kids up, prep breakfast or lunches or dinner, whatever needs doing
c) We have a cleaner to help us keep on top of things
d) I got a dryer (which doesn't seem much use right now, but in winter it saved loads of time). Also, if I haven't had time to put a wash on in the morning before work we have a back up
e) considered but not yet got a robot hoover.

I almost gave up my job because I found there were not enough hours in the school day to keep things clean, cook etc and posters persuaded me it'd get easier and to rope the family in more. It took a while but I'm really glad I did so because I enjoy my job and would have found a life of cleaning and cooking frustrating.

I love WFH. Regarding housework and admin I leave most of that to my DH. It doesn’t have to be the woman who does it.

What I think is really bad for women is the increasing tendency to try to do childcare as well as WFH. It's not good for women to see childcare as something they can do at the same time as working, I feel like it leads to burnout and also to not being taken seriously at work.

That's just being stupid and unprofessional. Would you take your child in the office? If the answer is no, then you can't do childcare. You deserve burnout if you are a CF.

Do what what you would do if you were in the office, pay for the childcare you need. Not only will you be a crap parent and a crap employee - and most people who do that don't care, but hopefully it will show you are doing very little and that will have consequences.

Being in the house with secondary school children is one thing - they do their own thing, you can take 3mn to say hi - but actually parenting and not staying in your office? just no.

It pisses me off because it's usually WOMEN and it's another excuse not to take us seriously and another thing we have to fight.

It's the same for me OP. When I wfh I tidy up, do laundry, fetch kids. When DP wfh he is on meetings solidly until 6pm.
I much prefer him going to the office so I am not clearing up after him while I work..

I agree that it falls to the person who is wfh, but it seems to be the case that women are the sex that are wfh more than men - is this because they choose to,? or because they are in roles where they can do it, or is it because of expectations in their family? I expect more men do choose to go into work so they can escape the house jobs (or possibly because they don't even think of them).

I agree OP, go into the office more and split it with your H so that only one of you is home at any given time. Then see how much he does on his days at home.

For me, as a single parent, I feel trapped by all the jobs when I'm at home all day. Then again, there's no one else that's going to do them.

TBH I think this is more a general division of labour problem rather than a WFH problem. I love WFH as I drop 2 hrs commuting - amazing! However if I WFH I am working. I remember a long time ago a conversation with husband when I first started it:
Him "Why didn't you tidy up the kitchen?"
Me "Why didn't you?
Him "I've been at work all day"
Me "Me too"
It took time but the message slowly got through. I'm working when I'm working, irrespective of location. I will accept package deliveries and maximum put a wash on shortly before I am due to finish. Otherwise - I'm working.

My dh and I split the chores - he is in the office more and travels for work so of course I tend to do more cooking (otherwise on office days no one would eat until 8pm which wouldn’t work for my 6 yo!) and I do more of the after school ferrying of the kids. But still dh pulls his weight and then some.

I think you need to have a word with dh so that he is workin from 6.30am too!

Another OP that’s disappeared 🙄

I agree with some points as my situation is the same, except my husband is now 5 days in office and I am wfh full time.
I think it will come down to who is workimg from home, will naturally pick up more home jobs as they are there and no commuting time.
I am frustrated tbh, but the alterniatve is back to office and I dont really want to do that either.
I always did more, even when we were both office bases. He will say he does a lot and hes not that bad but I definitely do more either way.

So go into the office then … if he’s going in 3 days, why don’t you?

Exactly. It really gets my goat when people refer to WFH as if it is some kind of 'get out' from work. People will work with the same level of conscientousness whether at home or in the office.
The biggest piss-takers I've ever worked with were pretty shameless about doing it when everyone worked 5 days a week in the office. One essentially used the workplace as a social event for meeting and chatting with mates and did all her home admin, phone calls to bank/utilities/ holiday planning openly in the office for years. No one would ever say anything to her, including managers, because she was more trouble than she was worth, so she could act like that with total impunity.

I said something to her once in a reasonable time about her always being on personal calls, to which she took great affront, and I got told by the office bully that I shouldn't have said anything to her or I could be accused of bullying. She then took 6 months off 'sick'during which she project managed her loft conversion..

Another one couldn't afford childcare so she took days off every week with litanies of excuses from a rota of illness going round her whole family, to not being safe driving when it was windy, falling down the stairs a couple of times a month, on and on. She was staying at home with her child to avoid nursery fees. Again, before Covid and again she got away with it.

On the other hand I know a lot of people who when WFH will work their commute time for free, could be 2 extra hours a day.

I WFH and DP doesn't. If anything I still manage to do less housework than he does, on account of being a lazy slattern. But obviously things like laundry fall to me because it's much more convenient to do it if you're at home all day rather than trying to cram it into evenings/weekends.

I'm child-free but most parent friends say WFH has been a boon for them. Better flexibility means they can fit work around their kids' nursery/school hours. Both parents at home more (and not knackered from commuting) means more hands on deck for domestic chores.

Women not using their words is a backwards step for women OP. You shouldn’t need to go to the office to escape doing all/most of the housework. You need to speak up, sit your husband down and work out together how you’re going to divide the tasks up evenly/optimally.

Nah, that's not my experience - I have a very similar set up to you (one day a month in the office for me, DH is in the office 3 days a week). He does just as much around the house as me (if not more tbh). I don't do anything around the house particularly when I'm WFH - I might stick a load of washing on the line when I stop for a coffee, but that's it. DH also gets up before me and deals with the pets, empties the dishwasher, sorts breakfast for the kids (and does that whether he's at home or in the office).

So I would say this is more your own conditioning - you're feeling like you should do more because you're at home and then you're resenting it. Whereas you could just not do all the household stuff during the day and split them between you after work/at weekends as you would if you were working in the office.

I’m with you OP, it’s not great and I think it’s holding women back now.

There are so many threads on here about mums being able to do so much more housework/childcare etc when they work from home, but I’ve never heard a man say that.

Also the dads I’ve worked with go into the office “to get a break from the kids” - and I’ve never heard a mum say that.

I definitely notice a difference between DH and I when we WFH.

We both take our jobs seriously but I will tend to use my lunch break to do something like prep dinner or laundry whereas DH will sit and read a book or something.

I guess that's just socialisation for you!

What I think is really bad for women is the increasing tendency to try to do childcare as well as WFH. It's not good for women to see childcare as something they can do at the same time as working, I feel like it leads to burnout and also to not being taken seriously at work.

I could go into the office more if I wanted to- maybe I should?

I still don't understand why you would do LESS if you go to the office. If you work full-time either way, why are you adding stuff when you are at home? It doesn't make any sense.

No, when I'm working from home, I'm working at my job. More fool you if you're trying to multi-task housework at the same time. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

Since when does WFH mean "doing the school run"?

You might have a couple of employees who take the piss and are doing childcare instead of working. They would the same ones who do "tea runs" and other waste of everybody's time in the office.

If people are professional, they are just as efficient at home as in the office - often a lot more efficient at home.

WFH has been an absolute boost for me, with the added caveat that my job isn't full on and I have a LOT of downtime. I used to sit in the office on a sunny day watching the clock tick by knowing I had a pile of washing I needed to do that could have been dry if I'd have been home.

My DH works shifts, he does the chores when he's home but when he's working, I do them all. I'm saving hours a week of commuting time, I can wash clothes overnight on the cheap rate because I'm not rushing off to work in the morning, I have time to hang it out. I can also grab it in if raining, accept deliveries, get food out of the freezer for dinner. My commute home used to be crawling bumper to bumper for miles and thinking about everything I still had to do after I got home. Now I can properly chill out in the evening and at weekends.

WFH has been an absolute godsend for me. I no longer feel like I’m constantly rushing from place to place and letting everyone down, which means I can be calmer and more focused when I’m working. I can collect DD from school at 3.30 a couple of times a week, which she loves. I actually find I get more housework done, as I do bits and pieces on my lunch/coffee breaks, so I feel like I’m keeping on top of it more. I’d never go back to a full time office based role now.

I’d argue it works the other way, and men pick up more of the responsibility. I WFH a fair bit now, and I do everything in home on the days I don’t have a commute. When I’m in the office I still do nursery drop off and pick up. I’m actually very efficient at how I manage my time for household chores, kiddo, exercise (marathon and / or triathlon training), and then my working time. I don’t get how it isn’t achievable for other men to balance the home-front, work, and the hobbies?

But every couple is different, but I do significantly more than my SO, and I’m okay with it (she gave me my kiddo after all, and she lets me train for whatever marathon / triathlon I’ve got upcoming). If your SO isn’t helping, you need to have a word with them so they pick up the slack as no-one can do everything solo.