A little housework poll

[ailbhe]

This isn't as carefully thought out as I wanted it to be but I've had a hell of a day and topped it off by cooking us all dinner while watching both children - Emer on my hip, Linnea playing in the kitchen. Then we reached a point where Rob only had to hold Emer for her to have screaming hysterics - we've been working up to that for a couple of weeks now, he has always ignored small babies by default and she's really noticing - and now I've gotten her off to sleep and perhaps I will have an uninterrupted, hot cup of tea.

At least Rob is prepping tomorrow's dinner, which will go in the slow cooker. Tomorrow had better be better than today.

[Poll #852294]

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

It will be interesting to see other people's answers.

Housework wasn't divided gender-wise for my siblings and me, because Mum had been raised with different chores than her brother and believed it was wrong. (Dunno what Dad thought). But Mum and Dad definitely did different things. Mum did most of the cooking and kitchen-cleaning and general cleaning. Dad did the messy things in the basement with machinery. For many years, I thought that everybody's Dad did laundry, because it was one of those basement things, part of Dad's domain like the Workshop and the Furnace Room.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

My answer to the last one is not quite relevant, because it was an all male household from when my mother died when I was nine. Even by that age, however, and certainly after, it was quite clear to me that "boys' work" and "girls' work" was a very outmoded concept, and not one we were going to get away with using at all.

[artela.livejournal.com]

I feel I need to "clarify" - my only other sibling was also female, so I have no idea whether a male sibling would have been required to also help with housework. I do know that Dad did not regard it as "his job" while I was a child/teenager. We started doing housework and chores from school age onwards, with the range and difficulty of chores increasing as we got older. Our parents gave us both a "basic small allowance" that was topped up depending on whether we helped with housework and chores. Once I became an older teenager certain jobs became my responsibliity - my younger sister was never asked to do as much as I was until I left home.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

This is very close to my experience: I have only one little sister, too, and my father also, to quote my mother, "expects certain things" of her. For which read, expects her to do all the housework. Unfortunately, my mother is completely bored by housework, so in practice little gets done. My father will do the manly jobs in the garden and heavy lifting, but can't cook, clean, iron or wash to save his life. Probably literally.

Myself and my sister had designated jobs when we were little - drying up, setting the table, handwashing all our own clothes before we got a washing machine (when I was 13. Mmm, handwashing jeans every week), keeping our own rooms clean. My mother didn't pay us for doing housework, because we were a family, she said, not a business, and we all helped each other for free. Except, of course, that my father earned the money, my mother depended on him and we got limited pocket money rather than unlimited access to the bank account, but I think I see her point...

When I was thirteen, my maternal grandmother moved in and was cared for by my mother. After that, my sister and myself did a lot more of the housework and shared some of the caring work. My father didn't help out with any of this, as looking after my mother's old mother was obviously women's work. Also, they loathed each other.

[barakta]

Yes the parental jobs were gender separated to an extent and I think we kids didn't realise that it was possible to have a habitable house without stress until we left home. My mum was a SAHM till I was 10, and then went to nursing retraining and then university after that. My dad is an IT bod who used to work stupid hours like Rob, and after I was 10 was rarely home before 7pm, and often out till later, or leaving at 3 or 4am... I have two siblings, one older, one younger - we are all female.

My mum did most of the cooking, cos she likes cooking and my dad basically didn't care about cooking. None of us would eat dad's food unless it was 'English Breakfast' food which he could cook perfectly and have it all hot at once (which I take to mean he CAN cook if he cares, but he doesn't care so he generally doesn't cook). Interestingly my dad's girlfriend has managed to teach him to cook other food, if you call painful cooking by numbers cooking - the girlfriend won't tolerate a man in her house who can't cook - so a slight incentive there me thinks.

My mum did most of the laundry and ironing, because she had and still has some (unintelligable to anyone else) system which works most of the time. Sometimes she would ask one of us to stick x loads into machine and hang them up and stuff, but she preferred us not to shove her system out of synch while not being bothered if we did do some laundry. She does and did most of the ironing, cos she likes ironing, and does it in front of the telly.

Other jobs were done by whoever got yelled at to do them, usually when the place was a shithole and it needed done. I guess my mum did about 1/2 to 2/3 of the housework with the rest of us doing whatever when required. We didn't have a rota, probably because my mum would have to be organised then - she doesn't like being 'organised' by systems.

My dad would often come home late at night and tidy the kitchen from scratch or whatever. He was perfectly capable of doing laundry and if necessary would iron his own shirts etc. The only job which was gendered was mowing the lawn which my mum refused to do on gendered grounds - she had other legitimate reasons like being not strong enough esp after her mastectomy and having horrible heyfever... But she prefereed to call laundry a man's job.

[perdita-x.livejournal.com]

housework in my parents' house was always divided into "who's disablity stops them from doing this and makes them more able to do $foo". Mum and Dad as I got older needed more help with housework as they couldn't stand to do washing up or lift things so I started to help.

I wasn't asked to help with housework until I was 10 years old as my sister couldn't be trusted not to break things (dispracsia) and my parents always stood to "we treat you all as equals (where possible)".

[perdita-x.livejournal.com]

also myself and Kian tend to split our housework.

I do stuff like the clothes washing (but not drying) and I clean up after all the cats and hoovering.

Kian cooks, cleans the woodwork (and anything being polished), washing up and tidying the bedroom.

We split it pretty much the same as my parents did with me.

[megaleena.livejournal.com]

I ticked 'no' for the last one, but what I really mean was ma and pa split most taks equally, except pa took on additional lawn mowing and bin duties (and did most of the ironing too actually. And emptied/loaded the dishwaser most).

[megaleena.livejournal.com]

I ticked 'no' for the last one, but what I really mean was ma and pa split most taks equally, except pa took on additional lawn mowing and bin duties (and did most of the ironing too actually. And emptied/loaded the dishwaser most).

[webhill.livejournal.com]

I said no for the last. I'm not sure it was right but let me elaborate. Tasks were divided along gender lines for my parents by virtue of my mom did what she wanted to do because she thought my dad would probably f it up if he did it, and my dad did whatever my mom told him to do! Usually dad did take out the trash, do yardwork, scrub the pots and pans, and clean the floors. Mom did laundry, general dusting/tidying, and regular dishes, and cooking. I can still hear her yelling "DAN! do the pots! they aren't going to do themselves!" "Yes dear."

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I assume for the last question you mean "Yes, for my generation, when I was a child/teenager." (As opposed to now.)

When I was living with my parents, none of us had a lot of set chores. My Mom did most of the housework and cooking. My Dad would cook occasionally. My Mom would enlist us to help as needed. However, the few set chores we had did seem to be gender-divided. For example, I was never encouraged to cook, while my sisters were. On the other hand, I got just about all the outdoor duties, such as mowing the lawn, and anything that required physical strength.

(I also got tasked with everything to do with computers and electronics, but that was more because I was the only person who had either any clue or any interest. Whether that was a gender stereotype issue or not is hard to say. My sisters initially had equal access to the computers and more access than me to stereos and radios and other electronics, but they found them boring and stopped showing an interest.)

[astrogeek.livejournal.com]

Both my parents worked full time, so we had a "cleaning lady" who came 3 mornings a week; one day she'd clean downstairs, one day she'd do ironing and one day she'd clean upstairs. My mum is a nurse and worked shifts, so would only be home for dinner about half the time, and since my dad's job was much more flexible he always did most of the cooking, weekend/evening childcare duties etc. I guess looking back, my parents kind of had reverse roles from what was common at the time. Our only resposibility was to keep our own rooms clean and tidy.

[tafagirl.livejournal.com]

As for the last question: there were only Mam and I, so it's a bit difficult to know :-)

[dangerpudding.livejournal.com]

We had a few things that may look like they were divided along gender lines - Dad always handled taking the trash out - but were more about physical ability - we had a trash compactor, and the rest of us couldn't lift the trash without hurting outselves.

[mrs-warwick.livejournal.com]

In a way jobs around our house were divided on gender lines, in that my dad was so busy doing DIY jobs and fixing the cars etc. that the other stuff was done while he was busy elsewhere. However he would often vacuum or wash up. He can cook, but it was mostly restricited to the Sunday roast or Christmas day as he was rarely available to do other meals. I don't remember him loading the washing machine but I have seen him empty it and hang the washing on the line.
All of us children had our own jobs to do around the house, my stepsister was exempt from dusting and vacuuming because of her dust allergies, so she got extra ironing and washing up. With a big house, 6 children, 3 horses, 3 dogs, 2 cats and varying numbers of rabbits and guinea pigs; there is no way we could have survived if we hadn't all done our bit.
Paul and I share most things; but I have told Paul that I will learn how to fix the car when he learns how to do >99% of the laundry rather than once-in-a-blue-moon.

[st-lemur.livejournal.com]

My mom did most of the cooking because my dad worked long hours; when dad was home he would cook. He also always insisted on doing the dishes, because he said it relaxed him; I have never understood this.

Mom & dad were very big on making sure that both my brother and I learned how to cook.

Hauling out trash bins was always the responsibility of my brother and me.

[rmc28]

My mum did more around the house than my dad, because he was in paid employment for more hours than she was. But because he worked shifts, housework got done by whoever was there to do it (and got nagged).

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I answered both yes and no on that last question because in /general/ my mom did "female" tasks and my dad did "male" tasks -- she cooks dinner, he takes out the trash, he does a lot of the handyman tasks, she does the vacuuming, etc.

But she deals with height-related stuff like gutters, and he does (and has always) cooked breakfast, and I'm given to understand that he did a lot of the night time feedings and diaper changes, when my brother and I were of that age.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

As you know, Bob, I'm old enough to be of an entirely different generation than you, so that probably skews my experience, but I grew up in a house where different tasks weren't so much assigned by gender as expected to be done by one gender or the other, and where I rarely saw my father (or later, brother) do any chore that didn't involve repairing things or working out of doors.

Not only that, but the girls' chores were, not so much handed down as grown into, so that the older I got, the more difficult (and to me, distasteful) the tasks were. Ironing, for instance: I started out ironing my father's handkerchiefs, gradually working my way up until by my mid-teens I was responsible for ironing his uniform shirts - to exacting military standards.

Which is probably why I refuse to own clothing that needs to be ironed today...

[sshi.livejournal.com]

we were made responsible for the cleaning of our own rooms from about twelve or thirteen (i.e. about the time puberty and boundary issues hit at once!), but otherwise housework was my mother's responsibility, as she was working either intermittently or part-time and my dad had a full-time job (interestingly, he stayed in employment rather than my mother despite the fact that she earned more, because the bank would give a mortgage on his salary, but not on hers. the 70s were sooo enlightened...)

it was only once my mother was on chemotherapy a few years ago that my dad was introduced to the idea that he might be able to carry out common household tasks, such as ironing and cooking pasta, which had always been maternal territory. turns out he's a demon with the iron, too.

there wasn't any seperation of tasks along gender lines among the children, really, as we were both female. although we really weren't encouraged to do things considered 'male' tasks like lawnmowing , we weren't generally allowed near the 'female' ones either - I only learnt how to cook and light a fire when I went to college! plus I ended up in a rather practical course and turned out to be fairly handy with a screwdriver (my mother still can't seem to get around the fact that I can indeed feed myself, wash my clothes and assemble furniture :)

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind I was an only child with slightly older parents. That coloured my answers somewhat. Also that my mother was South African so had grown up with "help". Not that we had any but you know what I mean....

[biascut.livejournal.com]

My mum did (actually, still does) most of the day-to-day running of the household, Monday to Friday and Saturday morning: cooking, cleaning, washing and so on. My dad was/is usually responsible for keeping cars running, decorating, mending anything electric (though, Lord, he's hopeless with electronic, and I have to tell him how to save things on floppy disks), and so on. My mum, when she'll admit that there's an unequal distribution of household tasks, says that this is a result of her being at home for eight years with small children: it just becomes natural for the person who's at home to do the vast majority of the housework.

My brothers and I didn't have any specific tasks - there was a rough attempt at assigning us household tasks when we were young teenagers, but we procrastinated so much that my mum would give up and do it herself. When I was fifteen or so, I started cooking dinner if my mum wasn't in from work, emptying the dishwasher and putting breakfast dishes and things in the dishwasher. I was the eldest, but it was mostly the gender difference. I still think the difference between me and my brothers is that I think, "Well, if I don't do it, someone else will have to." My brothers think, "Well, if I don't do it, someone else will!"

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

My mum, when she'll admit that there's an unequal distribution of household tasks, says that this is a result of her being at home for eight years with small children: it just becomes natural for the person who's at home to do the vast majority of the housework.

I really don't understand how anyone can look after a small baby and also do housework. I just about manage some laundry and often it's just putting a load on with taking it out being done by Alex when he gets home from work. I've cooked two meals since Aisling was born (lunch tends to be cold food or heated up soup and bread) and both times there was someone in the house to baby wrangle. I do manage tidying, but no cleaning. The only thing that Alex doesn't reliably do that I wish would get done is wash the floors. I'm planning on making that my weekend chore (because Alex can baby wrangle then) once I'm back in the UK. But this is why our Health Visitor says I have an amazingly supportive partner. And I do. He is great and I'm a little lazy when it comes to the house. But there's a small part of me that comments that if I did what Alex does, no one would notice. It would just be normal.

Also, while I say my parents divided chores on gender grounds, that's not really true. My dad brings the money home and does some food shopping. That's it. Mum has always done everything else.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Well, I suspect the house was less than spotless when there were babies as small as Aisling and Emer in the house! As toddlers we all went to the village playgroup for about ten hours a week.

Mind you, she also says that she has hardly any memory of Jimbo (youngest of three, four years younger than me) as a baby: the whole thing passed by in a blur of running around after me and Ginger Tom and hoping the baby was more or less still breathing. He was an astonishingly cheerful baby and is now an astonishingly cheerful adult, though, so benevolent neglect seems to have suited him...

[megpie71.livejournal.com]

I forget what I answered to the final question, but I do know that I wound up doing more housework than my brother. My least favourite job was the vaccuuming and dusting, which Mum had delegated to me, and which I loathed. I hated the noise of it, the fact that when I'd done it, the carpet still looked like crap, and the repetitive nature of things.

My brother and I also shared the dishes and a lot of the cooking - the rule was that whoever cooked didn't have to do the washing up afterwards, which was a good incentive for both of us to learn how to cook. I tended to be expected to do more of the housework than my brother (I got told I could do all my own ironing when I started high school; he got his ironing done for him by Mum for a lot longer) and I did suspect this was along gender lines, since Mum did tend to default to this. However, we also spent a lot of time being looked after by Dad on the weekends (Mum worked night shift Friday and Saturday nights), so we got the male role model for parenting and housework and similar.

In our current place, Steve and I have a vague arrangement that I'll take care of the downstairs areas, and he'll take care of the upstairs. I tend to cook more often than he does, and I get annoyed by dirty dishes sooner than he does, so I'm the one more likely to do the washing up - although we do have another vague arrangement that if I wash dishes, he dries and puts away. He also tends to take the wheelie bins out, although I'm the one who'll empty the bin under the sink and the box for recyclables into the wheelie bins. Oh, and the garden is mine - he gets to deal with the (non-existent) lawn.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

Given that is was me, my mum and my two sisters, there wasn't much opportunity for gender splits. I ended up being the one who fixed things, changed plugs and fuses and so on. My next sister hoovered and tidied. My mum cooked and did everything involving money. The youngest sister did very little.

This all fell apart when she drank heavily, when it all fell on my shoulders as the eldest there by five years. However, I was brought up to believe that housework was what people did, not what women did and youngest sister's dad shops and cooks, so it reinforced that equality.

Nowadays, Pol just now does very little, but when he's not depressed and hiding in his room, he washes up and does laundry. I'm doing the vast majority of the housework.

[hopeforyou.livejournal.com]

My parents divided up chores along gender lines, more or less, but I got to do everything.

It was solely my responsibility to feed and water the chickens, collect eggs, and slop the pigs.

My father and I were in charge of planting, weeding, and harvesting.

My mother was in charge of housecleaning. I had to keep my own room clean and help with housecleaning.

My father fixed the cars in the driveway and garage when they were broken. I had to help him fix the cars, and occasionally the tractor.

Both my parents shopped for groceries, did the dishes, and cooked meals, but my mother cooked and shopped proportionately more. Sometimes I shopped and cooked, too, but less often than either parent.

My mother usually bought clothes for my father. My father hated shopping in malls, but was fine with paint shops, hardware stores, farming shops, and auto shops. I often got sent out to buy things for my father when he didn't want to.

My father was responsible for working on electrical circuitry and plumbing. My mother was responsible for painting the house, inside and out. I usually ended up doing all this stuff.

My parents divided their chores. I ended up doing them on my own, or helping them do them.

[lnr]

My generation is all girls, so it was impossible to have any sort of gender divide. As for my mum and dad: well, mowing the lawn was usually either my dad or me, and he probably did a little more on the DIY but mum was involved. Pretty much everything else I think was fairly evenly divided. My dad dusts, cooks, irons, hoovers, does the washing and washes up with the best of them, and even cleans the loo. I think perhaps he spent less _time_ doing these things, but that's because he was out of the house earlier and home later.

Oh, and dad takes the kitchen bin out when it gets grim, but that's because he has no sense of smell so it's less horrid for him :-)

[lnr]

Oh and while I was the one who did the lawn Emily was the one who helped lots with DIY things like building the kitchen. I was always much more inclined to help with big things when there was a monetary incentive.

[naath.livejournal.com]

We didn't have chores - I was a spoilt brat.

My mother did all of the housework and raised us kids - untill my brother went to secondry school she was a SAHM and Dad was allways out at work trying to earn enough money to raise spoilt brats so it didn't seem too unfair that she did all the cleaning while we were at school and Dad was at work. After that Mum went back to work as a teacher full time but continued to do all the housework and cooking etc.

Unfortunately attepmting to *help* with the housework allways resulted in being yelled at for doing it wrong which was worse that being yelled at for not doing it... which is part of why I didn't do any, and suspect it might be part of the reason Dad didn't do any either.

These days I do about as much housework as my housemates (that is, virtually none). Occaisionally my mother shows up, throws her hands up in horror and does our housework. I wish she wouldn't. The mess is very comfortable and she *moves things* so I don't know where they are!

[k425.livejournal.com]

I didn't do anything. Neither did my brother. Well, apart from attempting to keep our rooms tidy. Our jobs, as far as our parents were concerned, were to do our homework and our music practice so that we could get decent jobs.

Dad worked full-time, mum worked part-time once we were both at school. On the days she didn't work, she did the laundry, the vacuuming and the shopping. She was also in charge of the flower beds and the cat. Dad did all the ironing and washing up and at weekends he did the cooking. In fact, he did all the hot meals. Mum's never been much of a cook. He was also in charge of any DIY that the council wasn't doing, and in charge of the lawns, the veg patch and the allotment.

We were expected to look after the gerbils, to help with daily bits - setting the table for meals and clearing away after - and to help with hanging out and bringing the washing if we were at home. Especially if it rained. Oh, yes, I had to sort out my own sandwiches when I stopped wanting school dinners. We were expected to help when asked. I spent many an afternoon picking beech seedlings out of the grass because it needed doing, and sifting stones out of the soil when we first moved.

I don't know how much of the housework split was a gender-driven thing and how much was "I don't like doing this" or "I do like doing this". Or even "I have time to do this".

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I think my parents took more or less equal responsibility for making sure things got done, except that my mother was the only one who assigned chores to me. That may have been a deliberate choice to make sure I didn't get given two sets at once - I'm not sure. I think all three of us did more or less an equal amount of the actual chores from the time my mother started working outside the home, which she did when I was 10. Before that, she did a larger share, but my father always did quite a bit. I started getting chores at about 4, I think.

There was no particular gender divide - I remember both my father and mother cooking, washing up, dusting, hoovering, taking bins out and doing DIY. My mother actually did rather more of the DIY than my father did, because she had more of a natural inclination towards it. She also tended to do the spring cleaning, but my father did most of the cleaning-for-guests, which balanced it out.

The only thing I don't ever remember my father doing is gardening, but I don't think that was gender-related; it's more that it wasn't thought of as a chore, so equal division of labour wasn't an issue. We only ever lived in three houses that had gardens. I was too young to remember the first clearly, but I think it was maintained by the landlord. The second was when my mother wasn't yet working outside the home, and she started the garden as a hobby, so it became "her thing". I think she was clear that she was doing it because she wanted to and not because she had to - before she started, our neighbours had completely grassed over their patch and had asked her if she wanted them to do the same for hers, but she had said no. My father had his own hobby, which was writing, and he had a study for that in a separate part of the house.

The second house with a garden was just after my mother had started work, and by this time she had also taken up choral singing as a hobby, so she no longer wanted to deal with a garden. This time, the garden became my responsibility. I think I volunteered, and I certainly enjoyed it - if I hadn't, I'm sure my father would at least have shared the task with me, because that garden did need to be kept decent to keep the landlady happy. My father continued with his writing (and still does today; they currently live in a flat without a garden, but I gather my mother has taken to container gardening on the balcony, which confirms that she doesn't think of gardening as a chore.)

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

My father went out to work full time, my mum worked part time until I was in secondary school, then full time til she started her own business when I was in my early teens. My mother did all the housework and laundry, my father did all the heavy gardening, lawnmowing, DIY. I don't remember having to do anything. Dad died when I was 15, we moved house, and my mum worked hard at her business, did the laundry, and nobody did the housework! When I moved in with, then married dh, I found housework an unbelievable drag - I just didnt really know what to do. It was fair that I did all the housework, decorating, etc, as I didnt go out to work. He did the difficult DIY, such as rewiring.
I had a break while pregnant, as I had to have a cleaner, as I was on bedrest. I carried on having 3 hours of help a week in the house until my youngest was about 2. Then it all fell on me again, including all the gardening, lawnmowing, etc. It was too much. As I now have only one teen at home, things are a lot easier, and it is again fair that I do almost everything. DH will do the odd cooked breakfast, or boil a few potatoes for tea, but he hates my cooking, so will usually buy a ready meal for himself. Neither of my children would do chores, as dh didnt think it fair for them to have to do any.
Both my kids can cook, tho; they had to learn during the one year I took paid employment. I can't remember what help I may have had then; the year is a total blur.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Division of labor in the household seemed based mostly on schedules and skills rather than gender qua gender, but from the outside, it would look that way, at least for my parents. Less so for my brother and I.