Why are some women happy to do more domestic chores?

[GenuineInterest]

That's it really. I've name changed for this. I'm genuinely interested in why some women are happy to do more domestic chores than their male partners.

My husband does the house maintenance eg DIY, lawn mowing. He also works longer hours than me.
I love DH and am happy to do things for him and vice versa him for me.

I'm a woman married to a woman. We both work at a senior level in the same industry, but I do 4 days a week and she does 5. I also work from home more than she does. We both frequently have to work weekends and evenings due to the nature of our work, so the fact that I do 4 days and she does 5 isn't really determinative of anything more than I get a chance to take our child to a few activities on the "day off". She earns more than me though.

I do more domestic chores than DW. I wouldn't say I'm "happy to" do this, but it's just how it is. It's not about gender, it's about the roles you fall into in a relationship, the amount of time each of you is physically in the home, how much you both work, and various other factors.

Because I haven't won the battle (yet), and for anything except work he is a bit lazy. I spend a lot of time deciding whether I should just get on with it, or whether to have the argument. No consensus yet, but the cleaner and robot vac have both helped (I won those battles).

Thinking about it is cleaning that is the contentious point. Other housework is 50/50. But dusting, wiping, hoovering and even tidying isn't.

You're at the top of the downslope when you start playing games like that.

I am in the house more. Dh works FT, I am a sahm and also have a small business that I do in my spare time. It makes sense to me that I would do more of the everyday household stuff.
I would not expect dh to get home from work and wash up or do the laundry, when they are things I can easily do in the day.

Dh cooks dinner 2/3 times a week, takes the bins out, goes to the tip, mows the lawn, sorts out & pays most of the bills, drops into the supermarket during the week to get shopping etc.
I do most cleaning, washing, meal planning, I sort out admin stuff to do with our dc like docs/dentist/educational things, I book holidays. Dh is abit rubbish when it comes to things to do with his health, so I have to remind him about things like dental check ups and I physically give him his vitamins 😂 and r else te would forget.

When I was working FT pre dc - dh actually did more household chores. He used to be way more anal about cleaning/tidying then me. Since having our dc, he has definitely relaxed, as he soon realised you can’t keep a pristine house with a toddler!🤣

Dh is naturally more organised then me, we are moving house in a few weeks and he has done about 90% of the packing and labelling…we play to our strengths, I think.

Some people love cooking, some enjoy gardening, some are never happier than when they are sorting out recycling and going to the dump. Heck, some people love cleaning things till they sparkle.

Some people loathe ironing with a passion, others absolutely hate cleaning the bathroom. Some might gag at the mere thought of unblocking a drain or clearing up cat sick. Whatever.

As long as all the jobs get done, and things are split so that nobody ends up being a servant while the other has their feet up, then what does it matter who does what and when?

I haven't ironed for years. DH is only averagely good at it, but I let him crack on because rather him than me. I'd much rather potter about in the garden or nip down to the supermarket.

I'll take this further - what really annoys me is how we've gone BACKWARDS. Growing up, I'd say at least half the mums were SAHMs and the other half were often part time. Overall, the women definitely did the vast bulk of the domestic chores - cooking, cleaning, household management etc. Fair enough seeing as they usually worked fewer hours too (not always, but usually).

But the men did plenty. In addition to working in paid employment on a full time basis, it was the dads who did all the slightly awkward irritating things - lift clubs, especially late at night after parties and events; any and all jobs that involved a bit more physical effort like lawn mowing, car cleaning, DIY; irritating things that needed a bit of effort before going on holiday or hosting events like filling the car with petrol, checking the tyres, dragging out all the suitcases, preparing the house in any way that was needed; the vast bulk of sports activities on weekends etc; admin around insurance and banking and money and all the rest of it; bins/recycling. In addition, certain childcare tasks were considered "dad's" - I can confidently say that in most cases my friends were taught to ride their bikes by their dads. When we got older, Dads did a lot of the driving lessons. Any child that was even vaguely sporty - girl or boy - it was the Dad who was expected to step up and support/do extra training and practice etc.

So I have very little patience even with so called "traditional" set ups. Because it seems to me it's not terribly traditional at all. Just yet another way women seem to have been shafted.

Oh and dh does all the ironing. I haven’t ironed anything in about 5 years!

I haven't read the thread but is the consensus that it is women's fault men dont clean?

No it's because women are just 'better' at it and men just prefer mowing the lawn and taking the bins out 🙄

My impression from MN threads... you people are SO DAMN FUSSY. Control freaks left right & centre. I never heard of this concept of being "houseproud" before I logged on here.

Us slatterns shrug & do just enough to get by.

At one point I was doing more housework than H, who said he needed chores that were routine, he wasn't as good at identifying ad hoc housework. That's why he started cooking daily. I'm still better at spotting ad hoc housework needs. Our brains just work differently. He likes routine & routine makes me depressed.

This is something I think about a lot. I work fewer hours, I get paid less to do so. Both full time but mine are usually fixed. We don't have joint accounts for anything other than bills so my choice means I have more free time but less money. If I use that time to do unpaid cleaning am I a mug? I would say yes, but more recently I don't have to commute so an extra hour most days, so is it fair I use that time to clean? I don't think there are any absolute answers to this, but it's good to think and talk about it.

I'm a sahm now and very happy to do it because I have a nice life. It takes me all of 2 hours a day to get the place tidied up. I have a cleaner come in weekly to do all the deep cleaning and I just maintain it. I enjoy cooking a home cooked meal everyday and I have lots of time to do it. My dc is primary aged so I have time to do it all and then enough time for myself. When dh gets home, dc is bathed, fed, homework done and we just do family stuff every evening. My dh is hands on and will do anything Domestic without needing to be told, but I have the time so I just do it.

Interesting how so few people mentioned the mental load.

i do very little in the house (chronic illness so I can’t physically do more than I do now) but god, the mental load felt just as heavy as doing all the cooking.

OP - I think you made a mistake by not qualifying your original post. Because many many of the responses here are for women who work part time or are SAHPs and therefore have the time. Which is 100% not your situation.

Personally, I think the the two things that kill relationships fastest are lack of respect and resentment. And if one person is doing everything, it demonstrates a total lack of respect from the other. And the person doing everything will just be more and more resentful.

Because he’s at work during the day and I actually enjoy it, believe it or not. He does his share when he’s back in the evenings and weekends, but I prefer being the person in charge of the home as it’s something I actively enjoy. We split it to our strengths 🤷🏻‍♀️

We are a partnership. He works full time, I no longer work so am home. I do the majority of cleans but dh still pitches in. He does the mowing and bins. He also loads dishwasher when needed etc. Before work he gets up and sorts out anything that was left over the night before in the kitchen. He does a manual job but still comes home walks dogs, helps out with anything I ask of him. I dont work due to ill health and our youngest also being honeschooled and her ongoing hospital appointments would mean it's hard to fit a job around that.

Okay just seen this and that’s completely different, he’s unreasonable.

Also I love looking after our home. Very old fashioned to some but I've always liked it.

Me too. I find peace and fulfilment in making my home a warm, inviting and happy space for my family. If that’s old fashioned, so be it.

He does the hoovering, ironing, washing, dusting and bins

I clean the bathrooms, kitchen, and I do the cooking and dishes.

It's even because we are both working full time and neither of us really enjoy cleaning.

But leaving the housework to me would be a dealbreaker. I would be miserable!

So ... totally contradictory to your initial point then @SlickShady?

Maybe societies settled into various gender roles because on the whole men were better and more comfortable doing 'men things' and women doing 'women things'. After all, most, if not all, societies across the globe have the notion of gender roles. And it's the same in the animal kingdom.

Especially given that killing is vastly different to cooking.

How is it game-playing to clearly & incontrovertibly state the facts, & ask for agreement, @Pyewhacket?

With my mother it was 50% martyrdom and 50% control freak.

I do everything, no don't do that you're doing it wrong, why does everything fall to me, you shouldn't ask what to do you should know, why didn't you ask me what to do I didn't want it done like that, I want to do it myself, why do I have to do it myself.

In the end it was either leave her to it or slap her.

I was absolutely determined to not replicate that train wreck!

In my marriage who does what has changed depending on who was working more hours at the time. When I was a sahm for a couple of years and he worked 2 jobs I did everything round the house. When we both worked we split it. Now he's a ft carer for me and our disabled sons and I'm self employed working from home and he and our eldest son do all the cooking and cleaning and I do all the bill paying and appointment arranging etc.

Everyone in a family contributes as much as they can, when they can or if they can. And it all gets done.