Question for familes with 2 full time working parents - who does what in the house?

[popsycal]

Both myself and DH work full time. I have to bring work home most nights and on weekends. DH doesn't. He can switch off from work when he leaves the building. We have one ds 21 months.

Just interested in experiences of those in a similar position. How does what in the house in terms of house work, cooking, washing, gardening, DIY, car stuff etc?

Thanks

I dont work full time now but when with exp we both worked full time and I did almost everything - all domestic stuff, housework, childcare, cooking, diy etc he maybe put the bins out once a week and that is ALL - he really offered no support - with current DP I work much less than him but he gives me way more support than ex did - he looks after children alot to allow me a social life, quite happy to do bedtime etc, will do dishes, hoovering, tidying when he is in and gardens, cars and bins are all yours!! He wasnt like this at first though it seems to have developed.

Becca
xxx

I work outside the home four days a week and spend Fridays with our two daughters. DP works five days We pay a cleaner, who also does our ironing and we have a dishwasher. We split the cooking - DP does tend to do more a bit more of this than me (now - he couldn't cook when I met him!), he puts the washing on and I put it away (after long wrangles on this), he does the garden and the car because frankly I would let us live in a wilderness and cars mean absolutely zilch to me (whereas DP appears to be having a Titchmarsh Crisis, and his identity is deeply tied up with his wretched vehicle), I tidy tidy tidy in maddened annoyed way, he does the bigger DIY things. Oh god, that all makes me look terrible. I do do all the expressing for dd2 (obviously), which means two sessions in the day which I'd otherwise spend cooking for later, and I sort out pretty well all of dd2's food and I put their clothes out at night (shudder at the thought of what he'd dress them in) and dress them in the mornings while he's showering, and get dd2's food together for the day and generally stumble about and clean up dd1 and get them out of the house sometimes before actually getting my own breakfast down me or embarking on the Morning Expressing session.

Obviously we both feel put-upon and oppressed

I worked full time until my second was 18 months old (5 years of kids) and in that time I got kids up, dressed, fed, washed delivered to nursery/school etc [obviously paid work in the middle] followed by picking kids up from after school club/nursery, feeding, bathing, homework, spellings, cooking, playing, bedtime, ironing, tidying, shopping, all the bottle thing associated with babies, organising the home generally, washing, etc. Round trip to work about 30 miles too.

DH worked and did the car thing, washed up, mowed the lawn and organised his evenings viewings!!!!!

DH and I both work fulltime and we have a 2.9yr old ds.

I must admit that most of the housework falls into DH's lap. I cook all the meals, he does all the dishes. He has a day off during the week and he can't just sit and relax, so he spends that day tidying the whole house. It's wonderful!

It's quite an even split though. DH does all the tidying and I do all the cleaning (except the dishes). Our ds calls the hoover "Daddy's Noo Noo".

We both work f/t and DD is 3y2m. DH quite often has to work at w/e, I don't.

We have a cleaner who does the big clean once a week. I usually do the little bits inbetween (wiping hob etc.) and cope by letting my standards slip :0.

i usually cook, put stuff in dishwasher, empty dishwasher. DH works from home 2 days per week and he will usually put on loads of washing if needs be. I do all the beds at the w/e.

I generally put DD in the bath, wash her hair, read story. I give her b/fast in the a.m. and get her ready for school.

I mow the lawn and do bits of pruning.

DH does all DIY, cleans the car, does tyre pressure, oil etc. He will also help out with garden bits.

Quite the 1950s household in some ways!

My DH works full time and I work 4.5days a week so almost full time! We leave the house at 8am and get back about 6,30ish.

I do most of the cooking, we have a cleaner who does a big clean on a Thursday and I do most of the tidying and cleaning in between. I load and empty the dishwasher. DH more often does the washing, but TBH it depends on who is around to chuck the next load in.

I have a lady who does the ironing. I usually put our clothes away, the nanny does the childrens, she also changes their beds and keeps their rooms tidyish.

DH gets the children up in the morning and dressed and breakfasted while I get showered and dressed. But the nanny lays out their clothes for them the day before so they pretty much get themselves ready these days.

I usually do the shopping, often online and most of the time put it away as well.

DH does the digging bit of gardening and keeps the bushes and trees pruned, I do the planting and care of the plants bit.

On DIY DH does most of the heavier work, but the decorating is more or less shared.

On my half day off I look after my DS and then we pick DD up from school. In no way can that be described as work though, I love every minute of it and my DH would also love to have that extra bit of time with them

We both work full-time and have a dd nearly 20 months and a dog.

We have a cleaner who comes twice a week so we rarely have to do any major cleaning like floors, hoovering, bathrooms etc.

The nanny does all the ironing incl dd's and what she can't manage I send to an ironing service.

We have a dogwalker for during the week as we can't guarantee that we'll be able to walk the dog every day (though in reality we usually can so she gets two )

I do most of the cooking, but dh does the dishwasher loading/unloading most of the time.

We share things like bins, gardening etc, whoever has the time does it. We all walk the dog at the weekend usually (unless we have something on like going out for the day in which case one of us will walk dog and the other will get everything ready)

DIY - nope, sorry, we are both pathetic so we either get someone in or rely on my Dad! Car stuff - not sure what that is. I take it to the cleaning place when it gets so revolting I can't bear to get in it any more! Does that count?

I think ours must be the only household on MN where we both work fulltime, but can't afford any hired help!! What are we doing wrong???

Toothache you could get a cleaner for 2 hours a week and it would only cost about £10 to £12 - you could give up something else to make up for it. Believe me it's worth it

Agree with CountessD about the cleaner. P and I both work fulltime and share childcare reasonably well but I was becoming incredibly bitter about always being the person who cleaned the bath. worth cutting almost anything else out to find £20 to get the deepcleaning done (still feel bitter about daytoday tidying and laundry, oh well...)

When both DH and I worked full time, pre-DD, when we had 2 school aged boys 'chores' were fairly evenly shared.

HOUSEWORK - One did upstairs and the other did downstairs

COOKING - DH, but he loves to cook and doesn't feel it is a chore.

WASHING/LAUNDRY - Me

GARDENING - Neither of us, we had a man come in and tidy up for us, though DH did mow the lawn.

DIY - DH because I am clumsy !

CAR STUFF - DH 'cos we only have one car and it is his !

Nowadays I do most everything as a SAHM.

I also used to do the washing up and day to day general tidying. I worked more hours a week than DH, too.

What would a Cleaner get done in 2 hrs a week though that would be any use to me????

It's definitely Laundry that gets us down. Our Dining Room table is constantly hidden under a pile of clean washing.... the washing machine and tumble dryer usually have loads in them too. We don't have time for ironing so most of the clothes are ironed as required or don't need ironing at all.

Dreading to think what it's going to be like once this one is born!

I iron on demand too, the very thought of standing in front of the ironing board for hours on end ironing endless shirts, makes me want to throw myself under a train !

Well maybe you could have an ironer rather than a cleaner.

In answer to your question, unless you live in a mansion a good cleaner can get a fair amount done in 2 hours. We have largeish 4 bed house and she does all the hoovering, cleans both the bathrooms, cleans the kitchen and washes the floors in that time.

Re your piles of ironing everywhere, I used to be like that but then I went and bought the largest round wicker bin you have ever seen and I keep all the clean clothes in it. You may need two of course!

Exactly WSM! What I really need is someone who irons clothes and puts them away.... that seems to be the most time consuming exercise in our house that we are both loathed to do.

Can I hire someone who would do just that?

OR

I could have a utility room built onto the side of my house and hide it all in there!

Of course you could. Advertise on a card in your local newsagents or ask your friends who have cleaners if they will do ironing and have capacity.

Toothache - We both work full-time too and don't have any help. Could probably afford it though, but dh objects on principle to paying for anything we could do ourselves.

My job means longer hours, and a longer commute, than DH's, so I usually leave while he and ds are still in bed, and get home after them too, though I do try to get away for the nursery pick-up at least once a week.

Obviously that mean that dh does the getting ds up and taking him to nursery bit, though his mornings don't usually extend to making the beds.

It also means that during the week he does most of the cooking, as he's home first.

Cars, and anything to do with DIY are his domain too, as is putting on the washing, although I get to do the ironing and putting away bit.

He does any major DIY, but I do any decorating.

In the garden he does the lawn, and any major pruning/chopping down, but I do all the planting/weeding type stuff.

He does the bins, and washes the windows, and will hoover. I try to do most of the rest - cleaning, tidying, grocery shopping, get clothes for ds, etc. There is a definate emphasis on the try there though - in practice time constraints usually mean that I end up deciding we can live with dust if it means that there is a little time left for living!

GillW - That sounds very similar to us. I leave just as DH and DS are getting up. I hate it.

CD - None of my friends have Cleaners as they either don't have kids or don't both work fulltime. So I think an ad in the paper is a good idea... hmm. Probably would have to stop it once I left for Maternity leave as my money drops to only £100 per wk for 20 wks!!! But at least it would help us to get things prepped for the new baby.

Ooooooooh I'm off to look at the website for out local paper.... How exciting???! I could be joining the MN'ers with hired help.

Sorry, this is going to be long, but couldn't resist answering.

One ds (5, reception), one dd (3, afternoon nursery). Still have fulltime nanny.

General cleaning/tidying: cleaner 2x wk, M&F, does everything, inc. ironing. We try to maintain in between, have silly high standards.

Shopping: almost entirely me, big weekly delivery plus extras as necessary. Always coming home in office suit hung about with carrier bags.

Cooking: sort of both in ad hoc way, mostly picnicing except at weekends (nanny does all children's). Weekend cooking mostly me, but probably equal division on tidying up (can't do it together, can't be doing with each other's system).

Laundry: nanny does all children's, super-efficiently. Dh does own gym kit & stuff which can't be ruined. I waste most of a weekend day doing mine & rest of his.

Kids: I do M/W/F/Sat mornings, he does Tues/Thurs/Sun. All negotiable except not my Sunday morning. Rest of w/e sort of shared except it's the usual story of I look after them unless he has a special plan (or I ask). I always used to do all the homework side, I've just managed to persuade him to start getting involved. I do almost all of the nanny/cleaner/school admin things.

Gardening/DIY/car: he does everything. Don't have garden as such but 4 roof terraces & windowboxes & he does them very very beautifully (also involving children in jobs). I have to try to remind self of this when grousing about shopping/laundry/being default childcarer.

Other: I do holidays & travel, he does bills & whether we should be changing our mortgage. He's also much much better about keeping our social life going.

The whole thing is a horrible nonstop militaristic logistic, but I truly think that if either of us stopped working (and he does freelance on top of his FT office job) we would just go looking for other pressures until we'd reached the same state.

i can't resist asking - what on earth does your nanny do in the afternoons?

Yes, and binkie why do you do mornings when you have a nanny - surely the joy of a nanny is that they do all that!

Sounds highly organised!

Both work FT, no hired help, round here SW London, got quoted £70 a week for cleaning, or £40 for bunch of Brazilian who didn't speak english,, couldn't reach higher than 3ft, who seemed intent on scrubbing every stainless steel surface in house with a metal scoring pad and then lathering it with baby oil. They lasted 3 weeks before I had to sack them.

Now live in hovel.

Normally Dh does, washing, in fact he is obsessed with there being a load on!! He also irons

I do everything else including cooking, cleaning, DS, DIY etc etc.

OK I work full time and ATM so does DH. I would say I do 80 - 90% of the housework - cooking, all washing, stacking dishwasher, cleaning, changing beds etc. He does - bins (usually) garden (ocassionally) emptys dishwasher (sometimes) hoovers (when nagged or feel guilty!) and he walks the dog!

TBH this is 100% better than it used to be when he wasn't even working full time - he did nothing! We have low standards anyway and I try to do one big clean a week (w/e) where I will tidy/hoover/wash kitchen floor if there is time. Washing is w/e work, 3 - 4 loads or more with sheets and towels, I just do it constantly for 2 days. We DO NOT IRON EVER (unless a special occassion like a wedding!) For instance this weekend, I did the shopping on Friday night with the kids Saturday very little bar 2 loads of washing and tidying kids rooms. Sunday 3 hrs in the garden cleaning the sodding patio and playhouse (needs another w/e to finish), 2 more loads of washing, tidy kitchen (3 times!) hoover hall. DH did nothing Sat and sunday and 15 mins of hoovering living room and kitchen (but not the edges! Actually he also emptyed the hoover This is the norm. Which means that bathrooms, bedrooms, sheets, towels, kitchen floor didn't get touched! Again!! If I get the time I will try to do the bathroom tonight while the kids are in the bath. Everything else will just have to wait

To be fair - DH does do the kids as much as possible and that is totally shared when we are all around.

Binkie, can I have your life?!!