to give DH a stern talking to when he gets home?

[CailinDana]

DH's works full time in a flexible, non-stressful job that he loves, I'm a SAHM to an active but relatively easy going toddler. DH's jobs around the house are: cooking dinner each night (his choice, he loves cooking and hates clearing up), emptying the bins, washing his own clothes and hoovering at the weekend. That's it. Every so often we have a "discussion" about housework (ie I tell him he needs to keep on top of his jobs) he agrees he needs to buck up and he is very good for about a month afterwards. Then, everything slowly starts to slide. If I mention anything there's always an excuse: "I've been very busy," or some such.

This week my patience is wearing thin again. The bins are overflowing, and every week for the last three weeks they've been like that at some point. He's been ill for the last couple of days so I've said nothing and just worked around it because if I say anything I'll get the "I've been ill" and I'll look like a massive bitch. However, not long ago he rang me to ask if it's ok if he goes to the pub for a drink. I said yes even though I was a bit hacked off that I unexpectedly have no help with DS this evening (hate that, but I can deal with it) but more so because those bloody bins have been driving me nuts all week, I've said nothing because he's "ill" and now the poor "ill" baby is off to the pub!!! Grrrr!!

Am I being petty or should I tell him I've had enough of this? I mean, emptying the bins isn't too much to do of an evening is it??

Youarenotsilly your comment to NYAC was incredibly unpleasant. Do you always make personal attacks on people who disagree with you?

The way this thread has gone doesn't surprise me,as I've seen it before on MN.

It seems expecting men to do their fair share really gets some people's backs up.

I'm a total hypocrite at times. I freely admit that. Sometimes its take someone who knows how to play it, to hold up a mirror to others who are doing it though.

Look I've said your principles are great. I despite how you beat people with it though. There are a lot of very intelligent people on this forum. Try and learn from them, and why they don't share your views or strength of feeling.

They are not anti-feminist or misogynistic. You seem to think everyone is though. They might not be as strong in their values as you, but it doesn't mean they don't think they have certain ideals. Constantly hitting with that stick and trying to undermine their argument by using labels to show just how good you are as a feminist, is just wrong.

^ I gave up my FT job to look after the children - makes sense because dh earns hugely more than I do.

However, I didn't give up my job to become a full time drudge and pick up after the rest of the family - why do women do this?^

I think you have actually answered your own question there... You aren't working because DH makes more money. It isn't a men vs women issue, it is, I would like more money coming in through the door, so DH has to go to work, while you stay at home and look after the DC. That is a choice that hopefully both of you have made, but in most cases that isn't what happens.

I cant be arsed to read all 16 pages so just read the OP.
I reckon the bins are like the final straw. He is an adult and shouldnt 'have to be told' ffs. The OP is not his mother, is not soley 'in charge' of the house just because she is a sahm. She works all day doing childcare so what housework is left should be split without her having to say anything.
His lazy thinking (has to be reminded or let off cos he is 'ill') is disrespectful and infantile. Clearly he doesnt consider the joint house his problem because he thinks paid works makes him the bees knees. Maybe his mummy did all that.
Far as I can see he is a grown man, should do 50% when he is at home but most importantly of all, should not need to be 'reminded' as if somehow the home was the OP's domain and slightly beneath him. He is an adult. He should see what needs to be done all by himself. And do it.
I cant be arsed to discuss if this is a feminist issue but it should be an equal partnership.

Nyac - I always look forward to reading your posts :)

LOL @ "predatory" :o

I do not agree with you youarenotsilly and it's disingenuous, dressing up a personal attack one one poster as concern for others. It's also MN guidelines, as I'm sure you're aware.

*against MN guidelines.

I just read through nyac's posts. I think she says things that makes people feel uncomfortbale because maybe they are putting up with inequalities themselves. So people get defensive. I dont find them predatory.
And yes, I have been on the sharp end of nyacs posts in the past. I didnt like being made to think and got narky but I would never have said 'predatory'

'Print out the Politics of Housework and stick it under his nose tomorrow and ask him why he's being an unreconstructed male chauvinist when this is 2012.' Nyac - please! Apply that to a thread that really needs it.

Shall i put up my hand because my H cleans the loo and his penis didn't drop off? Similarly when i change a kitchen bin, as i stated earlier, i don't then need to book myself in for beauty treatments in 'retalliation' as stated by someone earlier. They don't have to be defined to within an inch of their lives, they are just jobs that get done, hopefully without resentment on both parts.

It is clear to me that the OP would prefer to go back to work soon and hates housework and others on here are calling her a 'dogsbody', which is hilarious. She appears to have the better deal at the moment to me. She will be having a 'stern word' with her H this weekend, inbetween him hoovering and cooking, because she's so run off her feet looking after one child all week. 'Stern word' if used by a male would be controlling and patronising wouldn't it?

Similarly, again, this is another of those threads which, if turned on it's head would have a COMPLETELY different response.
'My H is a SAHH, he considers that to be looking after our child primarily, and not the housework. I work, come home and cook and haven't changed the kitchen bin for three days. I hadn't been feeling well, asked permission to go out for a drink, and now he has the hump.'

I think OP will eventually go back to work and still be complaining when she returns because everything will not be on her terms.

Leave me alone YANS. How many times do i have to say that. Just keep your opinion about me to yourself, unless you want to do it in a PM.

Alternatively you can start a thread about me, and see how far you get with that.

This thread is about the Cailin's first post, not about me.

The thing with the Politics of Housework is that what's described in it is still happening now forty years on.

Housework is described as trivial, so trivial that women must do it and men don't have to. All the same excuses made for men not doing it are in there. All the tactics by men who don' want to do it, of doing it in a half-hearted way or "forgetting" it or whatever are there. And what you end up with is a whole lot of resentful women. Last time round who started a women's revolutions.

Gosh some of you are just nasty aren't you?

OP, rise above the unpleasantness. You have the right to feel however you feel. What action you take is a different matter but some of the comments on here are just horrible and judgemental.

What happened to support? If you have nothing nice to say why not just not post? What a radical thought

"I think OP will eventually go back to work and still be complaining when she returns because everything will not be on her terms".

That's quite an impressive feat of both mind reading and predictive ability bringbacksideburns!

Nyac - I always look forward to reading your posts :)

LOL @ "predatory" :o

Nyac's posts are spot on.

YANS, your personal attacks are bang out of order.

"Housework is described as trivial, so trivial that women must do it and men don't have to"

Exactly right.

Although DH and I both clean the toilets.

I'm pg and exhausted and he's largely carrying me domestically at the moment (although I still do the majority of the planning and organising).

I can't even imagine the roasting I'd get if I listed out who did what jobs.

Being scathing of women who don't kill themselves on domestic tasks is a peculiar hobby of some on here.

Any kind of perceived laziness in a woman is a mortal sin - women must always be in control and busy and disciplined.

But we must always seek to "communicate" with and "understand" lazy men. Because it's different for them.

No-one has addressed the point I made earlier about men sharing 50% of all the various chores (not just housework), and getting 50% of the relaxation.

Cailin - how do things stack up for you in this respect?

Where SAHPs sometimes suffer and feel resentful is that they don't get to be away from the house, and from thinking about the house and the child.

Conversly - you have a point bettybat

bringbacksideburns well said..

Here's what my slow brain doesn't quite get.

The OP of her own admission, is out of the house most days with dc in the park / play groups and has little time to do the many chores she lists she does other than what appears to be over the top hoovering and cleaning the kitchen ( minus the infamous bin ! )

So there is a list of chores left over from the day which the OP seems a bit unhappy about.

DH does some chores as listed but due to illness doesn't take bin out ( poor excuse ) but comes home from pub and takes bin out after recieving 'deathstare '

Given the unlikelyhood that the OP does all this other stuff with dc on her shoulders, I'd assume DH is looking after the dc. Which in the terms of this thread is 'work'.

If he's slacking with certain chores ( but not others as he clearly does the cooking and washing with no problem ) then find some other work he's less likely to slack on, perhaps taking dc to a playgroup or to the swimming pool. Then as he's then sharing 'work' the bins can get done as they become your 'work'.

i.e. Identify work he won't / can't slack on and seek harmony rather than seeing yourself as a victim of the male selfentitled mysoginist block and cause conflict.

If he's lunching out in the evenings whilst the OP spends all night doing the paperwork clearly something is wrong. If he's down the pub whilst the OP is on the Internet all night.... equality ! But the OP hasn't described that situation of him lunching out infront of the TV so I assume that's not the case.

OP I think it's been said, you're unhappy with being a SAHM, though I'm sure you appreciate the value of spending the days with a dc and seeing him develop. Your DH misses all this, so find 'work' that gives him more time with dc.

I suspect you'll return to work once he's in nursery or school which will mean all these issues will need to be really sorted out. And a cleaner seems to be the optimum solution.

Time spent on Internet discussing bins time it actually takes to remove bins \ by time dh spends reading femist texts someone of the Internet gave you time he spends in pub talking all this over with his mates = conflict IMO .

< looks at own overflowing bin >

"i.e. Identify work he won't / can't slack on and seek harmony rather than seeing yourself as a victim of the male selfentitled mysoginist block and cause conflict."

If it's her job to identify the work he is prepared to do and assign only that to him, then she is a victim of male entitlement and misogyny.

She is not causing conflict by expecting him to do the jobs they have agreed he should do.

He is causing conflict by not living up to his end of the domestic bargain they made.

I've been out buying shoes They are lovely and I feel better.

I am quite pleased such an interesting thread has grown out of such a seemingly trivial issue TBH. I don't mind people having a bit of a fight over it, it's interesting to see people's reactions. The fact that people seem to feel so strongly about it suggests that my reaction wasn't as silly as some posters are trying to make out- surely if it's a nothing issue then there would be nothing to discuss?

I will try to address the questions I've been asked but forgive me if I miss some.

Rhino - it's great for you that you don't need a strict division of labour. If I didn't specify certain jobs for DH to do, he would do nothing, nada, zilch, apart from the cooking. Like I said earlier, he agreed early last year to clean the bathroom properly once a week (I give it a wipe now and again), he did a piss poor job (excuse the pun!) for a couple of weeks then the bathroom became utterly filthy. He just would not do it properly so I've taken that job over. I've already rolled over once and taken over a job he was supposed to do. The bins was a replacement job that seemed like an easy one, one that he could keep up with. Or so I thought.

We have divided the jobs because DH would admit himself that he is useless for taking the initiative with housework. He is very very good with DS, but will do things like giving him his lunch and then leaving the kitchen looking like a bomb hit it. I then have to clean it, so I never ever have the situation where I'm not involved with feeding DS - I either feed him and clean up or DH feeds him and I clean up. For once I would like to hand a job over to DH and for him to just do it, all of it, without me having to finish it off in some way.

The aim of the division of jobs was to circumvent his general shitness with housework and to ensure he was at least doing something around the house. It is a solution we have come up with to deal with a problem in our relationship, one that was causing a lot of resentment. He has not stuck to his side of the bargain, and I'm annoyed about that. It may seem like a petty thing, but the overall issue is bigger than just emptying bins. I can just about accept that I will have to endlessly clean the countertops after him, endlessly empty his cereal bowl, endlessly wipe up the messes he leave around, as long as I feel he's doing just one small thing and I don't ever have to worry about it - emptying the bins. That hasn't happened so again I'm the one picking up the slack.

When I say I hoover three times a week, I mean I hoover the sitting room and kitchen, mainly because DS has a habit of picking crumbs and unidentified pieces of crap off the floor and eating them. It takes 10 minutes max to do it and it saves me having to pull things out of his mouth. The hoovering that DH does at the weekend includes the bedrooms as well as the downstairs.

I don't feel I do an unusually large amount of housework - they're just basic jobs to keep the house going (except perhaps for the windows, but I don't do that every week obviously). The kitchen has to be cleaned daily, the washing done pretty much daily, floors need to be mopped once or twice a week, shopping once a week, tidying constantly (!) and so on. I would imagine if any SAHM listed what she does it would look similar to my list.

I do know that I'm lucky to have this time with DS but I feel looking after DS and housework are two separate things, I shouldn't have to "pay" for my time with DS by being the household dogsbody. I don't mind doing the jobs that I can fit into the day. What I do object to is DH going back on an agreement that we made.

If I talked to DH about this (haven't yet today) he would be very contrite, as usual. He would be better for a few weeks then I'd be back in the same situation in May or thereabouts. Ten years of experience have shown me that.

By the way I don't see myself as a victim of misogyny. The feminist element was brought up by other posters, and while I find their points very interesting and relevant, I'm looking at the more from the point of view of how it affect me personally. The way I see it, I'm an adult living with another adult. We both work, and my work allows me to carry out much of the work in the house. The other adult has agreed to do some of the work, but has gone back on that agreement, and I'm not happy about it.

Also, I really wouldn't mind picking up the slack for DH and just emptying the bin if I felt he would do the same for me. But he just doesn't. If I don't wash DS's clothes, don't get washed. If I don't clean out the fridge now and again, it just gets mouldy and festering. If I don't mop the floors, they never get mopped. If there was a true give-and-take situation, where we both had jobs to do but we both helped each other out, then there would be no problem whatsoever. It's easy to forget to do something now and again. My problem is that during the week, he has this one cleaning-related job to do. He is home at 5 and goes to bed at 11 so he has six hours to do it. Yet, he doesn't do it. That's what riles me.