Actually, I think that before a couple marries, they ought to come up with a business plan. In writing. Who is responsible for what duties, with built-in periodic review dates to change the contract if things aren’t working.

I actually think, in some ways, women VOLUNTARILY take on the traditional care-taking/house-care duties from day one, as a way of showing love their men (at least during the early years of marriage, before kids). As in saying “see how much I love you, I’ll do your laundry for you/cook great meals for you/I’ll take care of your domestic needs” and other duties (in other words, be their MOTHER). And so the tacit agreement is made that the woman will continue to take care of her husband as if he were a child when kids come along. And come to think of this, this is preached in many Christian churches. For a woman to show her love to her husband and adherence to God’s laws, she’ll be the Proverbs 31 woman. Even if over time, she is shredded into a million pieces trying to do it all.

This expectation (either mandated by social/religious customs or by her own way of care-taking) creates a psychological bind that women can’t easily change.

I say, it’s time for a revolution. Who SAYS it’s the woman’s job to HAVE to take care of the housework after work? The women do do it, yes, that’s true. But who’s holding the gun to their head? I mean really? If they don’t want to do the chores, don’t do it. Eventually, the kids will be old enough to pitch in and it could be a FAMILY endeavor. Make a game of it, even. But I don’t see that happening in many households either. The mother should be teaching ALL the kids (both sexes) to do age appropriate chores. By the time the kids are teenagers, they should be taking over routine household tasks – dusting, laundry, washing bathrooms. Is this happening? No. It’s not. Too many teenagers have too few household responsibilities. Why? Because teamwork wasn’t modeled.

What’s nice in our household is that my daughters see their dad doing laundry, cooking and washing dishes. They will see that it’s not all the woman’s job to do these things. They will most likely look for a mate that will be capable of doing just what their dad was able to do.

But, yeah, this doesn’t happen in most marriages. I get that. Out of my four sisters and I, I think I’m the only one whose husband does housework around the house. I feel only slightly bad for my sisters, but the way I figure it, they bought into the conditioning that household tasks were the sole domain of the woman, thanks to my mother and other social conditioning.

My mother can’t believe sometimes that I leave the house to go out without making sure my husband and kids have a meal on the table. I’m like, “mom, really? He’s not a child, he knows how to cook for himself and the kids and cook quite well. Trust me, he can HANDLE it”.

And he can handle it because I made sure he got a lot of practice!

Ah well… I probably should stop while I’m ahead.

This is an area where I tend to get a little feisty about. Sometimes I am really domestic and traditional, but most times I’m not.

I basically do whatever it is I feel like doing, and I kind of like it that way.

What I mean is that in a lot of families where both parents work, the mom ends up “working” (job, childcare, household chores) for several hours more per day than the dad does. I don’t have exact stats right now, but I know that they exist and I know that women still do shoulder the bulk of household chores, even when both partners work. No wonder they are tired.

In our house, my partner is more likely to fall asleep while bringing the kids to bed than I am. But each person and each family is different.

My husband and I went to work and we shared duties of cooking, washing dishes, and laundry. He wasn’t fond of washing floors, toilets, or dusting. But he COULD do them if need be. But he mowed the grass, did the car maintenance and fixed the toilet when it broke, etc.

I know of a LOT of women who make their men do a lot more than a “few” ‘manly’ chores. I live in a working class neighborhood. The husbands aren’t computer literate, but they sure know how to do the manly chores. They have a honey-do list a mile long because most of them can’t afford to contract it out and since they don’t have brand new houses, they have legitimate house repairs or renovations that need doing. Some of them have some fantastic landscaping.

Of course, the manly chores mean nothing to the city dweller who lives in an apartment or condo. So yeah, those men could be pulling their weight with childcare and housework.

The thing is…I think it’s a shame that MY man wasn’t taught how to make major repairs around the house (cause his father didn’t know how). He tries, God love him, he does. But projects don’t turn out well for him (yeah, even though he could DESIGN it just fine, building his creations always goes a little wonky). But he does his own brake pad changes and other intensive car stuff.

I’d gladly take back housecleaning if he could replace the broken doors, cabinets, redo all the trimwork (our house if 40 years old). Course these things require MONEY…which we don’t have a lot of.

Yet, I still see women whose husbands do a lot of manly work complaining about their husbands because they aren’t helping out as much with the kids. Um…well, wait a minute. How many of the women are taking on manly chores to help the husbands so they have more time for the kids? I’d like to know. Why wouldn’t the argument go BOTH ways?

So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t care what task needs doing, whoever has the expertise and the energy and the time, ought to pitch in and do it. Teamwork…it’s require in the workforce these days, why not the home front?

Okay. I’m not sure I actually replied well here. A lot of things figure into this.

Bottom line, there are no clear-cut solutions to some of our most frustrating problems to creating a truly egalitarian home arrangement. Lots of variables to think about.

My husband still finds it difficult to bond with his girls. He, an engineer, quiet by nature, nurturing by his mother but extremely neglected and criticized by his father finds it really difficult even though he has made a bigger effort than I had ever anticipated.

Our daughters are anything but normal though. High sensitivities coupled with high intellect and at least one of them with ADHD like qualities makes it a challenge for him to bond.

He does so much for them (like has taken over making lunches for them) and with them (playing ball with my oldest, playing games with all of them).

It’s been great, though not without challenges simply because our strong female emotions and personalities tend to overwhelm him sometimes. I sometimes wonder how it would have been if he had at least one boy to relate to…though our oldest daughter is tomboyish.

Life sure has been very low-stress around our house though. Being unemployed frees up a lot of mental and physical energy. Wish we didn’t have that pesky little thing like bills and insurance to pay for.

I know of about 6 couples with children whose wives work who has NO energy left over for sex. After 5-10 years, even though the mothers might be taking care of the children quite well, and working quite well, they are neglecting their sexuality and their husbands in order to do so. I talk to my therapist about this phenomenon. She tells me, that by the time women are MY age (41) many of them have turned off their sexuality because they have too much resentments built up trying to do it all. Whereas I enjoy quite an active and varied sex life because I have the energy and desire to keep that very important part of my life alive.

Just curious. I would love to know how that is working out for the working moms who’ve commented here.

Anyone willing to educate me on the matter?

I can see your points Andre. There is nothing quite as good as mom, even though some people would have us believe otherwise. Mothers are more biologically invested in children – an infant is a “we” before an “I” and that ONLY happens with mom, because the infant came from mom and of all the hormones involved in pregnancy and in breastfeeding (if that is being done). Mothers ARE the extension of the child, until the child develops a strong sense of self…that can ONLY happen from good mirroring from the primary caregivers.

At least the first three years are critical, but even up to the first 7 years which have some of the most important impacts, because many of the predominant beliefs of the security of the world get laid down in these years of childhood. The child mind is the one to organize all the incoming input. This best happens with someone heavily invested in their welfare – a parent, ideally a mother, or even a nurturing grandmother. My mother-in-law was a wonderful mother substitute and loved my daughters almost as much as I did. This is not to knock fathers at all. Thing about fathers, caring and nurturing that they might be, is that they are missing the natural biochemical symbiotic relationship of carrying a child and nursing it.

The vast problem I see is that this relationship and motherhood in general is so undervalued. Mothers have one of the most important roles in the world, and pretty much the least respect for it. It’s no wonder that we find it difficult to be ‘just’ a mom.

Looking back, sometimes I wish I stayed home from childbirth on, but my husband was laid off and I had kept my laboratory job to keep us afloat.

But I’m still pleased with being home now, now that I have been home for 7.5 years. My oldest (now 9) and my middle daughter (now had me for 7.5 years, and my youngest (6) had had me her entire life. It’s been a grand adventure. We’ve been to so many places together – from historical re-enactments (civil war, living historical farms, wild west towns) to museums – and have traveled a bit too to different places by car and had the time to travel by train to go see my dad in Colorado – someone I hadn’t seen in 29 years. I’ve had energy in the afternoons/evenings to take my daughters out individually for “Mommy and me” dates, and spent time doing science projects and now getting into a lot of art projects as a way to have fun together. I will get an opportunity to give my daughter’s class a lecture on Forensic DNA analysis (one of the jobs I had before I had kids). What’s more, I’ve had a lot of energy to pursue my own intellectual interests (not those an employer asks of me).

I grew up with an emotionally absent and verbally (and sometimes physically) abusive mother. I grew up with an alcoholic father and alcoholic step-father. Family life really just sucked. I learned a LOT in the past year (since I posted last) about how to deal with my childhood wounds. I would never have time for that if I had to work on top of be a mother. I realize a lot of people didn’t have the upbringing I did and didn’t have some really messed up abuse to contend with. But, since I didn’t have to work, I had the time to do a LOT of investigation into the origins of some of my own issues I brought with me from childhood. I am now quite knowledgeable human psychology which helps me in all my relationships.

My daughter had selective mutism. Staying at home gave me a chance to be a full time advocate for her, and I have quite a following on my blog of other parents of selectively mute children who look for resources and support.

I may not have a paid job, but I certainly have a very meaningful vocation. And I think of all the things I would not have been able to do had I been working all this time.

That being said, my husband’s been laid off for a year and this is the second time he’s had a direct hand at influencing my daughters lives. But, he also gets more frustrated at I am at their normal but sometimes frustrating developmental behavior.

It’s a race to see which one of us can get back to work first. The thing that irritates me the most is NOT the fact that I took the time off at all, but that I am challenged with finding an on-ramp back into the STEM field. I’m doing my best to network, but companies aren’t so keen on the 7.5 year gap in my work history.

Still, despite the career setback, I would NOT have changed it for the world. At all.

For those mothers who work and still find time to be with their children, I’m glad it works for you. I personally hated it. I resented having NO time for me because I was gone 11 hours a day, to come home to take care of kids, and then fall into bed and wake up a zombie the next morning. It didn’t matter that my husband shouldered as much as he could when he was home (he had an odd rotating shift work pattern). It was brutal.

I have grown more as an individual AND as an intellectual when I didn’t have to spend time at/on the way to work. I hear a LOT of bitching going on from my working mother friends. Too bad, I think, for them, they are all on the verge of collapse, divorce, and are otherwise miserable, stretched so thin they can barely stand up. I look in some of their eyes and see the pain and the sadness and the loneliness of too many demands. Most of the husbands help. It’s just not enough.

Busy, busy, busy, only time for work, housework and childcare. Some are accustomed to their frenetic pace, but I look at them and I see the pressure they are under. I hear the bitterness creep in from time to time. Then they crack jokes about it in order to keep from buckling under the pressure they are under.

Sad, so sad. But that’s what the world is coming to. The push to do more, have more, be more…

Yeah, you’re right. Daycare babies will be just fine….because they will have been indoctrinated to regulation and routine from a very early age to hold in emotions, to obey rules, to eat and poop on command.

Conform, conform, that is the norm.

Ah, who cares. Not I.

I’m glad you all feel confident in your choices. That’s the only thing that matters. If anyone feels offended, it may be because you are worried that there might be some truth to their concerns. That’s MY guess.