Parents do £70k of unpaid work in the home

[1Wanda1]

From an article in The Times today (have pasted a few bits as most people won't be able to read the article if I link it. This might be of interest to the many MNers whose partners seem to think they sit around doing nothing all day!

A separate study found British parents undertake £70,768 of unpaid work a year around the house and running around for the children.

It found that the average parent spends more than 100 hours a week juggling household tasks, from cooking and cleaning to ferrying children around and helping with their homework.

Parents were spending 29 hours a week cooking, preparing and serving food and drinks, ten hours playing with the children, the same amount of time driving on the school run, to activities, clubs and playdates, and nine hours giving advice.

Perhaps next time she has a day off, you could juggle yours so it’s the day before (if possible) and give her a list of all the chores to do that day instead of you?

When do you sleep - there are 168 hours in the week. If you work 40 then this means you are averaging 4 hr sleep a night.

Out of the out sourced jobs it's child care that costs the most.

It's children that usually tie a parent to the home.

Many people I know are Shap but also have a cleaner or nanny. Or work and also have childcare and cleaners... Interesting article op!

@1Wanda1

I think this article appeals to you because resentment has set in in your own life.

It sounds like you're both pulling your weight. You work 3 days a week, your partner works full time. On the days you're not working, you are maintaining the family home. If it was the other way round would you prefer that? If you were both working full time you'd have to scrabble to get things done in the evenings and both be even more exhausted. Or outsource some of it. It's a nice set up to have one person working a 3 day week- have a think about what specifically is annoying you about this set up. Your two days "off" aren't really days off. But your partner isn't having time off either, they're working.

What you need to do is make sure the weekends and evenings are evenly split so that you are both getting time to relax and pursue your own interests. If this isn't happening then you both need to sit and have a serious discussion about how you can carve out time for yourselves. It's doable.

And switch to online shopping so that you aren't running around so much! That's often a huge chunk of wasted time in the day.

And gardeners of course

I really don’t understand this and it doesn’t sit well with me to class looking after kids as unpaid work. I chose to have kids, it’s a lifestyle choice. It’s not work to feed and play with them, going to parents evenings is for their development. If I didn’t want to do those things I wouldn’t have had them.

Was coming in to say the same thing! This is just family life not everything is a transaction.

Perhaps the OP's maths are off again.

This. I clean my house because I don't want to live in squalor. I looked after my child because I loved her. I didn't do it for anyone else so wouldn't expect to be paid.

Exactly.

@Getthefiregoing - I agree with most of that except @1Wanda1 works 4 days a week. Her 3 days are her day off and the weekend.

I think if couples have this pattern (one person has the 'big' job, the other picks up the wifework), there needs to be a conversation and agreement. Not just an assumption that the other person will do all the drudge because you don't fancy it.

I just came on to say the same.
How depressing to consider everything a transaction, with monetary value.

I get around 4-5 hours sleep a night. Up at 6 with youngest and go to bed after doing chores and bits that need doing around the house until 1-2am. I work long hours during the day so this is the only time I have to do it as a single mum.
I don’t resent it, I just accept that this is how it is, especially until the children are older. The exceptions are Friday and Saturday night when I go to bed about 11 and catch up on some missed sleep!

I have one day off a week. I spend it swimming, drinking coffee, maybe doing a bit of work in the garden and some crochet. I very deliberately do not waste it on doing housework. It's not really a day, it's the 6 hours between school runs.

I could pick up more hours at work now the DC are both at school but I've chosen not to and if I'm going to keep my 6 hours it's definitely for me.

Unpaid work! Looking after the children you chose to have and running your home is not unpaid work, it is part of being an adult - 🤣

@Getthefiregoing "I think this article appeals to you because resentment has set in in your own life."

It didn't "appeal to" me, I just thought it was an interesting read, and I've read many threads on MN recently where posters have observed that their partners don't seem to appreciate the value of what they do in the home, so I thought it would be of interest/a conversation starter here.

To the other posters critiquing my maths/hours of sleep time, I corrected my original arithmetic in a later post.

It was supposed to be a light-hearted thread for general discussion, not an invitation to attack me, my maths, my household. It wasn't about me. It's just a newspaper article. Make of it what you will.

100 hours of household chores and 10 hours of playing with children?

well, I really dont think I know anyone who does 100 hours of household chores!

That only leaves you 68 hours a week for work/sleep/ family etc

So I wont worry about this stat that seems to imply spnding 10x longer on chores than children, because I dont think it is anything like real.

I hate these attempts to put a monetary value on the tasks of living and raising children. It can sound very nice and like it's trying to show the value of these things, but I think it's more insidious than that. It's about showing how home life and parenting 'doesn't pay' and therefore isn't something to strive for, promoting more that women should work as much as possible, being away from their kids as early as possible - the extension of free childcare for example is part of this. It's sad as I think it adds to this narrative that home life etc is low value and difficult and not an especially worthwhile use of time.

And since when is it a good idea to reduce everything to it's potential monetary value? Is watching a sunset intrinsically valuable despite the fact it's not earning you any money to spend that time? Should we cut down more forest to make way for building that can contribute to the economy? Plenty of things have and should have real world value that's not convertible to money.

On the other 4 days I do 2 hours in the morning before work. Then about 4 hours in the evening. 16 hours.

Doing what? Seriously. What takes 6 hours a day on top of work? Do you clean your bathroom with a toothbrush every night? I'm a lone parent and don't spend anywhere near that time on household chores (and my house is always clean and tidy)

My morning

Washing in machine - 2 minutes Run hoover round-5 minutes
Wash dishes- 2 minutes
Packed lunches - 5 minutes

My evening

Hang washing up - 2 minutes
Make dinner - 30 minutes
Wash dishes - 5 minutes
Empty bin- 1 minute
Quick bathroom clean - 5 minutes
Quick wipe down of kitchen - 2 minutes

So about an hour a day, prob spend 2 hours once a week doing more thorough clean/hoover.

Food shop done online relaxing on sofa.

House/school admin dealt with on lunch break.

My original reply stands. Anyone spending the ridiculous amount of hours OP mentioned on household/parental tasks is doing it all wrong!

I hate these kinds of articles. It's not work, it's life. When we put a £ sign against it it becomes too transactional:
I work earning X, you earn Y, therefore it is fair of me to do less than you around the home (aka fuck all) because there is still Z owing on your side of the balance sheet. Adjusting or inflating the numbers won't solve that.

OP Many people feel their partners don't value them but I think you've confused monetary value with not feeling valued/appreciated etc.

I'm not attacking you OP. Instead of "appeal" try "the article is of interest to you" instead.

Because it's certainly not of interest to me and I think that's because I don't view these aspects of life in terms of their monetary value.

I'm simply asking, why do you? Or why, at least, did the thought pique your interest? It sounds like you do feel resentful as you've given a lot of thought to totting up the hours you do various household chores etc. I have no idea how long it takes me to do things. I put laundry in the washing machine, I order shopping online, I cook a dinner, my husband washes the dishes and cleans the kitchen. Sometimes I hoover, sometimes he hoovers. I have no idea what this adds up to.

I think you need a chat with your partner and to shake up the current situation a bit. You clearly crave more time to yourself and feel like there isn't a fair balance. I think if you can find the balance then you'll feel less inclined to view the things you do on your days off in terms of a paycheque.

So what's the solution? I'm sure that most of us would feel very disinclined to pay someone to clean their own house, so those advocating this way of life will need to invoice their partners. If the couple has £70k on top of the household bills they can split it according to who does what. WH Smith probably sell timesheets that can be completed as you go. I'm not sure what happens when one partner doesn't clean the bathroom as well as the other would prefer though - maybe add legal advice or union representation to the list of basic life skills that are being billed. The legalities would need to be sorted out in a pre-nup anyway, I suppose. I couldn't afford to pay someone £70k to run the hoover round and put the washing in, so I might have to trade in my husband for a cheaper model. I hope he doesn't put in a backdated invoice or I'm screwed.

Some people are just badly organised or procrastinators.
Never have I spent that much time doing stuff, efficiency levels and peoples attitudes mean people have a huge difference in time spent on house chores.

I remember assisting colleagues with admin tasks at work because they were sitting fretting about them. One remains a good friend, she is a massive over thinker. The task she was fretting over would have taken her an entire day I looked at it and worked the problem as such and she did it in three hours. She is the same with her chores . I used to say we are not nurses our decisions won’t kill anyone so just do it. I had actually been nurse when young and worked in operating theatres where you really could have killed people if you messed up.

I love spare time and also being lazy means I have honed how I do things so I always have spare time.

You do the task you dislike first, you have strong convictions in your decisions., you learn to multi task, you never agree to do anything you don’t have to. You don’t buy anything unless you need it, you have a present, paper and card cupboard so that you buy things when you see them so no extra trips. No washing clothes unless actually needed. A woman in my office used to wear a complete clean set of clothes every day, she would wear them once, my attitude was we don’t work down a coal mine so what’s the point in a clean set every day.

I agree with you, @Getthefiregoing
It speaks volumes if you measure your marriage and family life in terms of £££