"Traditional" household roles

[LorlieS]

How far have we really stepped away from these in reality? How does your household operate?
My mother is appalled that I do very little cooking at home; hubby does nearly all of it for myself and the kids. She does EVERYTHING for my dad and as a result he is a man child and extremely lazy!
However, I would say I do 90% of cleaning of the house, clothes washing and ironing etc. I also do majority of DIY.
We both work ft on similar wages.
When I returned to work from mat leave, hubby took a day off work to look after our little girl and absolutely loved it! Took her to classes etc; they have a fantastic bond. Difficult for us financially but no regrets.
He was very often the only dad there but that didn't bother him. He says he would give anything to be a SAHD if he could whereas the thought of myself being a SAHM fills me with dread!
I guess the key is our division of jobs works for us 😀

My husband does 50% of the cooking, all the laundry and some of the tidying up. We share the kids stuff fairly equally but like many women I am the project manager. I tell everyone where to be and when and I organise everything. It doesn’t feel equal but me but all the older generation are like oh my god isn’t he brilliant 🙄

The trick is to marry a feminist.

Despite being raised in a 50s marriage traditional household, my husband has never viewed me as anything other than his equal partner. We're in our fifties now.

When we started our family, we both went part time and split childcare between us. We both cook, we both clean. He probably cooks more than me, I probably do a bit more round the house but that's decided according to preferences.

DH does 95% of the cooking and food shopping and all the meal planning. We share laundry and childcare genuinely equally now that the DCs are out of the early years, when they were more me-dependent and I worked 0.8. I do slightly more of the kidmin, he does more of the holiday arranging, we both buy for our own sides of the family and write our own cards at Christmas, blah blah. It's genuinely equal.

I do 99% of the cooking and food shopping, and 100% of the meal planning.

DH does 75% of the laundry, I do 80% of the other housework as I work part time so gets done on my days off. He pitches in if he's around though - we split the house between us yesterday.

What he does do pretty much 100% of, which I'm incredibly grateful for, is all the household and school admin. He's the one who books the parents evening appointments; remembering which DC need PE kits/piano bags/packed lunches on which days; when the home insurance should be renewed; when the car needs it MOT; when the mortgage agreement is up...all that stuff.

He also remembers anniversaries, both ours and his parents, and always remembers birthdays and Mothers/Fathers Day. Twenty years together and I couldn't tell you the date of birth of a single member of his family, because I've never needed to know.

I do everything for the pets and the garden though, as he didn't want the pets and doesn't care about the garden. 😆

DP (male) does half of the laundry, almost all the washing up, does a proper clean of the toilets once a week, does maybe 40% of the cooking, and is in charge of hoovering the stairs. We do a meal plan, and shopping list together, and he's just picked up doing the weekly food shop as he now finishes early once a week.

I (female) do half the laundry, proper clean of the bathroom once a week, 60% of the cooking, sweep the whole of downstairs and wipe down the kitchen daily, all dusting, and all the less frequent jobs like gardening, cleaning the windows, steam cleaning the floors, cleaning the sofa, washing blankets and cushions, all the DIY, the admin and budgetting.

He moved in with me, so it was easy for us to slip into me being in the project manager role, as I was already running the house solo. We have had a few discussions regarding this, which is the reason for us meal planning together, him taking on the food shopping, why he's in charge of toilets and stairs, and why he's mostly stopped asking me where things are until he's really looked.

Definitely not a "traditional" split, not that I'd be putting up with it if it were, because we both work.

Your marriage will be as sexist as the man you marry.

My dh does most of the cooking. I deal with the carnage he leaves behind! I do clothes washing, dishes/dishwasher. I do sporadic cleaning and hoovering. I'm the one that cuts and strims the grass/paints the fence, etc too.

Dh works full time and I don't work. He enjoys cooking whereas I like baking but not making meals. I will prep veg/meat for him to cook when he comes home or sometimes do the whole dish if he's out late.

In our house I do the majority of chores.

I was a SAHM til our youngest went to school and still work PT now. Husband is FT.

If chores need doing he'll do them tho and if I was FT, I'd expect him to his fair share. Works for us.

For many years I was a SAHM and did nearly all the household chores. Now my DH has retired and we split things 50/50, I’m enjoying it as we both have plenty of time for fun stuff.

From when we got together I was firm it would be 50:50 as much as possible although i did work part time for a while when kids very small. My other half does all the laundry, half the cooking and some of the cleaning. It works for us

It's my house and a man doesn't get to live with me for free. They need to pay rent and do their share of housework. Or they get kicked out. I'm no man's maid. I'm 62 so not young.
I've been like this all my life. My DS can do anything I can do. I didn't produce a man baby.
I dont know why women put up with it.

@Gettingbysomehow Fair play to you! I can't believe how many women put up with men doing very little because their hubby is wealthy/"traditional"/other.

I worked part-time for a long time after having dc, so I did most of the housework and admin. Dh still did quite a bit though, including all garden and diy stuff and more than 50% of the cooking. Since I went back to full time, we do approximately 50% of everything each, but he still does more cooking.

My mum doesn't think it's odd or wrong, but she does think dh is some kind of marvel for doing so much!

We've always had what feels like a very fair split. We both dropped our hours slightly when DS was small, so that we could cover most of the childcare between us. DH does the vast majority of the cooking, I do all the clothes washing. The rest we split between us. DH does more around the house now as he has dropped his hours more and I've gone back full time. I did have to work quite hard to step back from the mental load when I went back to full time hours though, but we got there in the end,

I can't believe how many women put up with men doing very little because their hubby is wealthy/"traditional"/other.
I agree with you.

I'm surprised more women don't realise they're being spun a line about a man's "traditional" values when it comes to them being responsible for all domestic and child-related jobs, whilst they're cohabiting with this man, have children with this man, sex outside of marriage didn't seem to be a deal-breaker and (often) the female partner is working outside the home some or all the week.

There's a lot of men who are very selective which traditions they choose to cling to.

Cooking 50:50 but DH nearly always does the dishes

Shopping 50:50

Cleaning/household chores 50:50

Laundry - mostly me because I wfh so I tend to chuck a load on/hang the washing out etc while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil when I make myself a cuppa

Maintenance/DIY - all DH, but he's a joiner!

When DS was a baby everything was 50:50, when he was a toddler and for first few years at primary school I worked away during the week so DH was default parent and did all school drops, kids parties etc

Latter part of primary DH did drop off and I did pick up so 50:50

@LolaSmiles Exactly. And why do women put up with such nonsense?

Oh I don’t tell him where to be with his own life. I mean I know where the kids needs to be. This week I know where we all have to be at what time for example and make sure we have the presents we need (we might involve reminding him to buy a present for his family) I basically do all the mental work while he thinks we share things 50/50. He doesn’t acknowledge the project management work that goes into organizing the lives of 3 children.

with regards to finding a secondary for my daughter- I research all the schools, I look to see when the open days are and we both go to them and he thinks we did that together

I'm not sure how I feel about our split.

DH works FT, I'm 0.8. His take home is around twice mine.

I do 100% of cooking and shopping, I do all the family administration (parents evening/dentist/lift organisation etc etc), all the school pick ups and cleaning, washing etc.

He does breakfast for the kids in the morning and does 1 packed lunch. He usually does the dishwasher and makes sure bills/credit cards are sorted. He lights the fire in the evening.

Think I've just got used to doing it all as was on mat leave for 2 years and then mainly worked pt. So I'm good at the organisational shit and k ow who needs what.

He works long hours and my job is much more flexible. Don't feel its fair though.

I do 99% of non DC work related stuff.

DH can earn more in a day than I do in a month.
I am 💯 in charge (he gives me all he earns) and it works for us.

I am completely a feminist and believe in equal opportunity but in my case equal education and opportunity was derailed by the appearance of X4 DC in as many years.

Mostly I don't regret it because we're pretty happy and DC thriving.

Sorry should read non DH work related stuff

@SurrenderedWife Do you work yourself? How does it work if he gives you literally all of his earnings?

Yes. But part time. Around everything else.

He pays me the money. I spend it on us.

I don't think it matters, as long as both contributions are equitable, and both partners consider each other to be equal and their efforts are both seen as working together to create a home and family. In these circumstances a house wife/husband scenario can work very well.

The problems arise however if one partner ends up doing all the drudge-work despite also working full-time or a stay at home parent is considered lesser for not bringing monetary 'value' to the household and is consequently financially disadvantaged/abused.