To think that this FLY business is just another way of trying to convince women that service is what they are meant for?

[madamez]

We've had house-work-is-what-FAther-Xmas-made-women-for.
We've had housework is the standard on which a woman's morals are judged.
Now we have housework as therapy: FInally Loving Yourself. What's loving about knocking yourself out with drudgery? Surely it's more self-loving to say, bollocks to doing more than the minimum, mess is no big deal and my time is far too precious to wipe skirting boards twice a day?

or is it Trisha

On a daily basis I make lunch for me and DS, wash up, put a wash on maybe, tidy away his toys at the end of the day. What else is there to do? I can get the rest done with DH on a Saturday morning or whatever.

As for FLY-ing, I like the idea especially after my first child when my spare time shrank to nothing and the housework still needed to be done.

I used FLY concepts to write out a list of cleaning that I wanted my aupair to do, on a room-by-room, area-by-area basis, with tasks to do each day of the week.

And believe me, if I had the time, I would be very happy to do that cleaning myself. Cleaning is good for the soul.

Having said that, the busier I am, the more attractive cleaning is. I find that the more spare time I have, the more I waste it. As they say, if you want something done, give it to someone busy.

rebelmum - I'm sure there are people out there who do stretch the housework to 40 hours a week. There are people out there who stretch any job out there to meet the time available just because they have no imagination and can't otherwise occupy themselves.

I agree with Xenia that the more you have to accomplish in your day, the more organised you have to be about it. But I don't think that work is the only aspect of busy-ness in the equation. I think there are plenty of SAHM or part-time working mothers who don't spend a second more on housework than is necessary because they have far better things to do (not TV ).

well Anna, if you would not do them yourself, then of course you would not expect dh to do them.

Yes, that's true.

Do you ever invent chores at home? When I was on maternity leave I found myself inventing chores. Lavish meals including carefully made creme brulee, ridiculously clean house, trips to the gym, expeditions to buy a postage stamp. I was driving myself demented with these often futile tasks.

I would worry about anyone, male or female, who based their sense of self-esteem on how shiny their sink was.

Quattro, could you run through that again. The bit about finding a balance is so easy.
Could you do a morons guide :
do a)
followed by b)
the do c)
Because I seem to struggle with this.
And I was hoping that you could help me out, so that I could put this into practice.
This is not a sniddey joke, it is a serious request for simple rules, for how to obtain the thing that you think is so easy.

blueshoes - you are missing the point .

Actuall;y rebelmum1, I spend quite a bit of that time home-educating my children. Jeremy bloody Kyle indeed

when my dd was sick, I became a master craftsman with play dough, I was making busts of dp and carefully designing playdough meals, like corn on the cob and shepherds pie, I even did the individual peas and carrots, we cooked it in play pans just as it would have been made. My MIL would have been horrified.

Oh I like him

So Anna, if your dd has to make an Easter poster for school, would you do it with her during the time you take care of her?

blueshoes - one of us would do it - depending on who was available or keener. We wouldn't have any problem getting it done.

The point is: we would never ever write a list as we would find that incredibly petty/condescending.

Ah, you explained yourself better this time, Anna. Thank you.

I tell him orally (is that ok with you?), then he asked for a full list, so I wrote it down. His spirit is willing, but his mind finds it hard to concentrate on specific tasks, which happen in this case to be childcare-, rather than work-related.

The Point of my post was BTW to illustrate glitterfairy's article that while dh is happy to do childcare, he tends to want to do just pure childcare without the boring bits.

Your Point was a bit tangential so with your clarification, it is much better.

I'm like your husband@blueshoes. I like childcare, just not so keen on the housework bit.

Oblomov,

Why not just have areas of responsibility, work out how regularly these chores happen and then divide them up between you? Fairly of course

I've tried to work out ours:

(1) Food shopping
(2) Cooking
(3) Washing up and bins
(4) Laundry
(5) School bags and kitbags
(6) General cleaning (wiping and hoovering)
(7) General tidying
(8) Changing the beds
(9) Cleaning windows
(10) Feeding cats and cleaning bowls/litter trays

Quattro, I think the problem is that as I work part time, I am not sure what % is fair to delegate to me and to dh.
And I end up doing alot - although he does do alot, but I can't seem to find the evidence of it
And then end up feeling like I can't cope ?
Which is no good at all.

Plenty of parents find the fun trips with children dead easy, who wouldn't but lokling after a child whilst cleaning down the back of the lavatory is not quite so much fun but both parents who look after children if there is no cleaner etc I'm afraid sometimes need to put the fun trip on one side and childcare plus do chores - otherwise you get = man plus child equals fun; mother plus child equals trying to fit in chores around childcare at home. That's a very unfair result.

As for lists I don't think we did them as we just had areas we were each mostly just solely responsible for so I would not ever think about X because my husband did it (the washing for example) and he would not think about school bags because I did that.

(And then eventually when we could afford it and got a cleaner I did do a good list of when things were done on each day, towels washed once a week, beds changed every 2 weeks I think it is, etc etc for her to follow).

I remember my ex husband who is a teacher asking for in the school summer holidays a list of the DIY little bits and pieces that needed doing sometimes - things to mend etc. That was his request.

Xenia - you are absolutely right on that last post .

I'm now pondering the list scenario... do you think I could a little list of "chores" for my partner's ex-wife when she does childcare? Clean their ears, wash their hair, put them to bed before 10.30 on a school night...? No - I didn't think so . But it's not just men who are bad at childcare...

DH and I split the chores when we married and it works for us.

DH does all the DIY, cleans bathroom, empty bins, cleans bins, tidies living room every night and since DTS came along, he bathes them.

I do the hoovering,clothes washing, ironing and dish washing.

We both cook, clean kitchen, dust and do the gardening.

Consequently, house is regularly clean and tidy.

Apart from lists, dh and I also email each other loads eg to put dates in our personal diaries, buy milk on way home, little bits of news that we might forget if we waited till we got home.

Helps that both of us have desk jobs.

Lists are only a step away. Although I normally do the grocery shop, dh happily grocery shops to a list of ingredients I prepared with his input on menu planning, as do I. I have lists at work, lists at home, and things generally run like clockwork in my household. Lists are great - visualise blueshoes rubbing reams of lists over her body.

But of course, with dh and I working outside the home, we have to be super-organised because there is very little give in the week's schedule. We both acknowledge that and don't feel at all put out by lists.

Anna, as for giving a list to the ex-wife, made me giggle. I think your 'petty/condescending', add 'patronising' description would work better there - but then you already knew that.

I guess you are either a list person or you are not. I'm really not. I do occasionally do lists for specific tasks but pretty rarely as I find that the time could be better spent actually getting on with the task (I am a qualified project and programme manager, so I do know how!). Revision was always great for lists - but then I realised this was purely a way of avoiding the revision.

As with most things I think the key is to think about the end result. What would you like to achieve? Is this realistic, and then what steps take you there. So Oblomov might think about what things make a difference to her - I for example am happy to have heaps of things to be done on the kitchen table, but dh finds that upsetting, so filing belongs to him but I try to make an effort in that direction. On the other hand I hate having dirty dishes etc on the surfaces, so that's more my bag (I actually do quite like shiny sinks - or at least empty ones!) and dh tries to tidy up more. Things that don't bother either of us don't get done. So it's a prioritisation issue - maybe the things your dh does aren't that noticable to you?

nooka, I am a project manager too! But not in a Prince II way ... my lists involve a pencil and paper and then rubbing to edit or cancelling things off once done. Updating is dead easy.

Agree that lists are not for everyone.