Feminist approach to housework chat/support thread

[BertieBotts]

We were talking about this ages ago and it never materialised, so I decided to start one. Kind of a space for discussing how to split housework, how to get DPs/DHs/DCs doing more, how to foster a good attitude in sons, and indeed daughters. How to tell if your standards are actually your standards or some arbitrary level of "clean" you think you need to maintain in order to not be judged. Whether you can lower those standards to get away with less work. Whether you are in fact doing more than your DP without realising due to hidden "wifework" etc. Whether you have ended up with the shitty jobs while he cherry picks the nicer ones, and how to change this. Shortcuts are encouraged - you're no more of a woman by cleaning the entire house with one lemon and an old toothbrush than by using an expensive but effective cleaning product. And any possible other thing you can think of, but with a feminist slant.

The first assumption on this thread is that housework is not the job of the woman, or even the job of the unemployed partner or stay-at-home parent, but that it is the responsibility of everyone who lives in the house. Whether some family members do less at some times because of age, ability, illness, or other pressures is fair enough, but overall it should be a fair split, taking these criteria into account and recognising that they are going to change over time. It might require a shift in your thinking/vocabulary. Your husband and children, if you have them, don't "help" with the housework, they have their own share. If you are doing their share, or even part of it, you are in fact the one who is helping them, so get that recognised and appreciated. And of course support/moaning room here too (and no assumptions that you have a partner or your partner is male - just mentioned a lot because of the bias a lot of other threads have towards "Men are just wired differently and can't see dirt, lol, what are they like!")

Anyone in? :)

They still have at least one DC that they need to provide care for. And care at home should be to a high standard. I wouldn't expect my DS to feel less cared for at home than he does at nursery.

I agree that care at home should be good but it's crazy that mothers feel they are somehow inadequate if they don't spend every second of the day interacting with their child. I was really shocked at the SAHD thread where posters were saying that a SAHD with one 3 yr old shouldn't have to clear the breakfast table/wash up/hoover round because his job was to look after the 3 year old. I'd have had exactly the same reaction if it was a SAHM. Let the 3 year old play by herself for an hour a day (not even in one chunk if necessary). She'll be fine. She might even benefit from it.

I agree with SM on this one - a SAHM with a wage earning 37hr week partner should do most of the housework and housekeeping if not all.

So, a single parent who works 37+ hours a week could get away with doing less housework, then?

no,lessthan.i have not name called.i have disagreed
for weeks now fem toipics hae been pushing to have different moderation,mnhq sensitive they may be attacked or called names

well,you see many here dish out names as a defaut when they dont liek or care for a post

it has become a predictable recognisable feature of fem topics, sure as eggs is eggs when a post isnt liked someone will say
derailer
is you drunk
troll
misogynist
fem topics request as needing different moderation to protect from name calling and abuse. how ironic then that namecalling is a predictable feature

if i had used any of aforementioned names,certainly that would be aggressive,i have not done so.go figure

misogynist was pointing out a fact. As was derailer.

Change the record.

FrothyDragon

Yes and no. The problem is that a house needs basic cleaning, and whoever lives in the house has to split it between them. If there's two of you, that's arguably easier than one of you. Single parents have a tough gig because they usually have to work FT and do the housework, and don't necessarily have much less to do than a 2 parent FT working family (Maybe a bit less laundry but the loo still needs cleaning whether there's one of you or two).

fem topics need to stop name calling as default postion when dont like apost. the name calling in itself is a diversionary tactic,get off topic,minimise post and poster

here the thing,it doesnt matter what names anyone types,as it doesnt change my flow on a thread.it does make me think its intellectual avoidance or laziness.is it easier to say troll, derailer than address a post not liked?

i dont need to shuffle the playlist
some of you do though
or at least examine why its the default position

OK, let's try this get up.

My Dfather, before retiring, worked away for 2 weeks at a time, then would spend 2 weeks at home. My DMother worked part time,5 days a week, 51 weeks a year. Now, whilst DFather was working away, 12-14 hours a day, DMother was responsible for the housework. So, when DFather was at home, and DMother was working her 23 hours a week, who should have been responsible for the housework?

But SM, we have explained where we see your posts as problematic. Why not examine your views?

Please read my post again. I didn't say that you name called anyone. I said that you were aggressive and that you could have phrased your disagreement in a less antagonistic way.

And the fact is you have derailed this thread. Because it is now about you and the issues that you wish to discuss rather than the OP's.

Frothy, I'm hoping your DFather had some time to relax after gruelling fortnight then pitched in with the housework! What actually happened?

dont call me Your father should have been IMO (assuming I'm reading this right and that your dad was on a "two weeks on/two weeks off" job so when he was at home, he wasn't going to work)

It was a case of the two weeks he was home he'd do the majority of the housework while DMother worked... She insisted on doing the ironing though.... He killed many a shirt. :(

Funnily enough, he still seems to do the majority of the housework, now they're both retired, but argues that Mum does most of the cooking which is more gruelling (especially as they live somewhere rather hot, so the kitchen gets even more gruelling) BUT he's forbidden from doing any housework when they have "local" guests (Greek, tend to believe that housework is a woman's job)

your ma and pa sound like they have it sussed.

Thanks for your OP Bertie. I would like to join in because I am a feminist and I have a genuine interest in a chat/support thread that has a feminist approach to it. Clever of you to post it in the feminist section so that it doesn't clutter up other areas of MN where people might think that it is a debate thread!

So just to make sure I have understood, the title of the thread is;

Feminist approach to housework chat/support thread

What a good idea, so we can have a chat about approaching housework in a different way to the mainstream traditional way, is that correct? So this is sort of like the 'resisting femininity' threads where like minded people get together to chat about something, if I understand correctly?

Great that your OP/title was so clear about what the intentions of the thread are, so people won't mistake this for a debate thread.

I just hope it doesn't get stomped all over the way the resisting femininity thread did, by people with an overinflated sense of entitlement and a 'resistance to feminism' who think they can disrupt and derail other people's conversations!

Anyway, I'm in. Great idea for a thread sharing feminist ideas and experiences is really helpful and enriching.

BTW I am MNing whilst DH tidies the kitchen.

But we don't have a great balance all the time. We got caught out by that thing that happens when the woman stops working to look after babies and suddenly ends up doing the lion's share of the housework.

I now work from home and the children are at school. Our balance is much better now but we have both had to work at it and step out of mainstream assumptions in order to find a way that works fairly. We still have work to do though.

As far as the whoever is home needs to do the bulk of the housework idea goes, i look at it like this:

if you are at home with small children, they are your job. you should clean up after yourself and them as you go e.g. do the lunch dishes but not undertake proper housecleaning

In my wage paying job, i am expected to keep my work area tidyieh and clean my tea mug/not leave it to fester, but no one expects me to hoover the carpets or clean the toilets or wash the floors, just because i'm there anyway- if nothing else it would take me away from my actual work

i see housework for sahp as analagous to that.

Stay frosty i am sorry. It must be mega frustrating.

StayFrosty.

The furious zone is a horrible place to be. These issues are really important because they affect our happiness and also our relationships. There is a massive power dynamic played out in who cleans the toilet - a feminist issue if ever I saw one.

Marilyn French writes well about this in 'The Women's Room'.

My partner works very irregular hours and is sometimes away for weeks at a time.

We have a rota but tbh it seems pointless as he is away so much! I have now instigated a new unofficial rota whereby I do everything when he is away and as little as possible when he is here

Since he learned to cook it has balanced out much more evenly. The thing we still row about is laundry - if I put a load on and go out for the day, nine times out of ten it is still in the machine when I get back, whether I ask him to hang it up or not. Hoovering is also an issue as we both tend to do our chores when DS is asleep so that slides for months weeks sometimes.

We have had years of horrendous rows about housework and I suppose that only now am I remotely happy with the split. And it has been hard work getting here. His mum did EVERYTHING at home so there was a lot of conditioning to overcome.

The planning / organization is still a problem. But I don't really see how to improve that, with him away so much. One of the things that has helped is plotting everything into linked electronic calendars on both laptops and phones so we both know what we & DS are doing. This has successfully eliminated a previous pet hate of mine, DH booking work / making social plans without checking what my plans were or who needed to be available for DS. The other thing that helped with that was being very rigid if he did 'double-book' e.g. saying blandly "oh dear, YOU need to sort out a babysitter / change your plans" rather than changing my own plans to accommodate.

One thing we still have issues with is standards - he will let things slide for a while, then wants to spend for hours deep-cleaning the kitchen. DS is 2 and DH is only just realizing that actually, he doesn't have the LUXURY of four hours to do a really spectacular Kim and Aggie clean as that equates to four (more) hours of solo parenting for me!

Interruptibility is still a real issue for him. Again, he doesn't seem to realise that sometimes it has to take three hours to do a half-hour job, if you are doing that and looking after a baby at the same time. Obviously that has improved enormously now DS is 2 but I do worry about when the next baby arrives as this is something that used to drive me mad when DS was younger - DH would leave him wailing "just while I finish wiping the kitchen counters" etc.