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When I first met my husband and we started to date, we were already in the workforce. Neither of us lived at home. I was living with a roommate and soon got my own place and my husband lived in a house with four other people. We were all in our 20s. I knew enough to know at that point in time that there are a few domestic chores that I did not like to perform: vacuuming (although this is now changed and I rather enjoy it) and ironing. That has not changed, I still dislike ironing. It does not mean I don’t know how to or that I am bad at it. Not at all, I will iron but it is likely in extenuating circumstances.
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So when we started to date I remember saying to him: “I don’t vacuum and I don’t iron. If you are looking for that kind of domesticated girl… I’m not her.” A few years later when we got married I chuckled that the few items that he really wanted on the gift registry were (you guessed it): a vacuum cleaner and an iron.
Some things change and some remain the same, like I said, vacuuming is in ironing is still out. There are a few exceptions to my no ironing rule: 100 linen items (I own a few but I love them dearly) and I am one to make sure that the kids had ironed shirts, blouses or skirts when they were little. He never liked doing those clothes and I did not mind. I preferred ironing to them being seen, by my mother, all dishevelled.
Chores are a necessary evil but I believe that doing chores and staying organized in a marriage (or any long term co-habitation relationship), one has to have a modicum of compromise as well as a set of rules (spoken or unspoken). These rules help you navigate those pesky everyday chores that make the world function.
The key is to NOT keep a tally of who does what or you are destine to fail.
Margarita Ibbott
If you have three children and a dog, as we do, you come to understand that there will be three meals a day, clothes that need to be clean, bathrooms that need to scrubbed and dogs that need to be walked. These are just a few of the daily, weekly and monthly chores that need to happen (although, I am not sure what only gets done on monthly basis in that list but you get where I am going with this).
There is not a day that does not goes by that I don’t read a comment about how a woman is doing everything and a man is doing nothing. I can never understand this. Why is this perplexing to me? Because my hubby and I have a partnership. We both do a certain amount of chores around the house so that one person is not stuck doing everything but more importantly because we all have to contribute. This is the way that his mom brought him up. I thank my lucky stars most days for the fact that she taught my hubby how to fend for himself.
Why?
Because she knew at some point in time, he would be living by himself and he would have to do these things. Paul learned the basics of cooking when he was a teen. He did not have to make dinner for his family, that was not a requirement. But he could definitely feed himself. His mom is a great baker. She made cookies and cakes so they would have them after dinner. It is something she did. She enjoyed it, as far as I could tell. She passed that on to Paul and he has passed it on to the girls. I am not a baker (as you well know if you read my blog) but that does not mean my kids should not learn these skills. My eldest likes baking. I have also taught my son to do chores but there is always room to learn.
In my house there are boy chores and girl chores (DO NOT write in the comments that I am archaic and out of touch with the modern woman.) This works for us so here it is:
We both do these chores:
- cooking (me during the week and him on weekends)
- laundry
- organize the garage
What hubby does:
- shovel snow (with the kids)
- yard work (in the fall)
- cuts the grass
- takes out the trash
- painting (he has painted most of this house)
What the kids do:
- get the recycle together
- vacuum
- clean their own bathroom
- clean kitchen floor
- shovel snow
- cutting grass (son is just learning to do this)
- clean their rooms
- keep the playroom tidy
What I do
- laundry
- bathrooms (MB and other bathrooms)
- vacuuming
- dusting
- organizing
- the kitchen
- the linen closet
- bedroom closets
- bathrooms
- family room
I truly believe that the a happy marriage is paved with compromised and shared chores. You will rarely if ever hear me complain about what my husband won’t do. I find that taking on these chores together makes it easier. I would encourage anyone that is new to a marriage to learn from this example. We are bring up the children to understand that this is important because chores never go away and never are done. EVER.
How do you split up the chores in your household?
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Margarita Ibbott is a travel and lifestyle blogger. She blogs about travel in Canada, the United States and Europe giving practical advice through restaurant, hotel and attraction reviews. She writes for DownshiftingPRO.com and other online media outlets.
Hi Margarita,
What a great post? Sounds like you have a busy household but it runs pretty smoothly. It is great to see more about you and your family. 🙂
My husband and I work together as a team, both in business and our personal life. We take turns cooking. I put the clothes in the washer, he puts them in the dryer, I bring them upstairs, and we sort and put away together. We do dishes together (I wash, he dries). The only exception is when he was out of work, then he did just about everything and I got totally spoiled. We have people come in and clean now (yay!) but we used to do that together too. We are proud that our boys learned to cook and clean when they were still living at home so they were well-prepared for adult life.