Who does the house work

The Big Red Button

puffishoes wrote: »

Same as us we don't really discuss who's turn it is to do what, we both know what needs to be done and we both get on with it and do it.

I always find it very odd if couples are constantly arguing about cleaning.
it's where you live and you moan about keeping it clean? it's something you're going to have to do almost every day of your life. pretty long argument to be having.

Yeah exactly!

The way I see it, if you're living on your own, you're going to have to do all of these jobs on your own anyways. If you're living with someone else, then surely you're both going to want the place where you live to be fairly clean and cosy!

It just seems a bit mad to me, of all the things to argue about! It's only housework, just a normal day-to-day part of life. Of course both people should pull their weight, where possible, but don't imagine that I would ever resent someone or count "points" against them etc for times that I did more cleaning or cooking or whatever than they did!

pinkpigs

Surprisingly it's 50-50 and the best thing about it, there is no nagging.. got myself a goodin'

P.P.

trodsky

My wife is pretty big so I insist she does it. If my dinner sucks I beat her.

Seriously

Wibbs

trodsky gets a ban for being a... OK I'll be polite. Meh I think the reason for the ban and my feelings should be self evident even for passing knuckledraggers.

Gelato

chatterpillar wrote: »

In my parents' house, when I was growing up, my mum always did the majority of the housework, as my father often worked twelve-hour days as a self-employed engineer, while my mother was a primary teacher. Obviously she worked very hard, too, but she was the one who was around the house at the times when cooking/cleaning/childminding/laundry etc needed to be done.

My parents are still both relatively young, but he has taken early retirement due to illness. Therefore, seeing as he's at home now, he now does most of the above - as well as tending to the garden and doing all the taxiing for my younger siblings. My mother still takes care of the evening meal, and bakes homemade bread most days - just because it happens that she's home in time to do so.

Basically I was brought up in an environment where each parent does what they can do. Gender doesn't come into it at all.

I don't currently live with my boyfriend, but that's the attitude I'd take, too.

I was brought up in a fairly similar situation. My dad worked 12 hour shifts and my mam worked 9-5, so generally, she was the one at home when things needed to be done, so she did them!

At the weekends, it was different and dad did more around the house. He also did a lot more of the stuff that maybe mam didn't want to do - DIY, gardening, etc. He always cooked the Sunday roast dinner.

With me and my partner, we work similar hours, so if either of us sees something that needs to be done, we just do it! Obviously we have our favourite jobs, like he does a lot of the cooking, I usually clean the bathroom, he has a "thing" about laundry so usually he does that, I nomally clean the oven etc. etc. but we rarely have discussions about it!

flowerchild

My parents shared equally. So do my husband and I. We had a guest for Sunday lunch My 7 year old cleaned bins in our bedrooms and the bathroom, vacuumed, set the table and did a lot of the food preparation, like peeling carrots. I felt so proud, I was quite emotional. The 5 year old often sets the table for breakfast, which is surprisingly helpful.

Dortilolma

We both like a tidy house, so it's pretty 50/50. If he gets home first he cooks dinner, if I get home first I cook dinner. We both do the washing up and when we do a big clean of the house we do it together.

It works out pretty well.

pwurple

Cleaner does the ironing, vacuuming and mopping.

He does laundry, i do cooking.
Both of us tidy and do dishes.

On DIY, i do painting, he does repairs.

Garden, i do planting, weeding, pruning, he does grass cutting and hedges.

hattoncracker

70/30

.. he'll do one big clean of the kitchen once every few weeks... I do all the laundry, clean the bathroom, mop the floors, and when I'm off work I cook.. When I'm working he cooks for me.

I've only asked him to hang out washing once in the whole time we have been living together, which was before I left for work one morning.. He was only hanging it out when I walked back in the door at half six that evening..

We will get there, tho.. I'm organising a strike....

battleaxe88

I'm a stay at home mother. So it just makes sense for me to do the housework while my OH if is work. When he gets home the housework is split evenly. If I make dinner he'll wash up afterwards and vice versa... I cook the most days, he usually cooks on the weekend.

Works for us. There is never any arguments about housework.

Morag

I do all of it, the kids do some chores it would be nice to have their Dad pitch in but he doesn't. Came home after being away for the weekend to find all the dishes on the countertop dirty, the dishwasher was never loaded all weekend.

I once left a teaspoon on the floor of the sitting room to see if anyone else would pick it up, I gave up after 6 weeks.

Malari

Sharrow wrote: »

I do all of it, the kids do some chores it would be nice to have their Dad pitch in but he doesn't. Came home after being away for the weekend to find all the dishes on the countertop dirty, the dishwasher was never loaded all weekend.

I once left a teaspoon on the floor of the sitting room to see if anyone else would pick it up, I gave up after 6 weeks.

:eek: That would drive me bonkers!

I think we both have the same definitions of "tidy" and "clean". I know some friends who claim to have cleaned their kitchen and to my eyes it's still a mess :pac:

woodchuck

I think it's pretty much 50/50 with my boyfriend atm. Every week I do the dusting and the hoovering and he cleans the kitchen and the bathroom. I tend to do more of the washing up, but that's just because I do a better job of it than him and I end up redoing a lot of it if he does it. I do more cooking too, but that's because during the week I'm usually home before him and if I'm hungry I'm not going to wait for someone else to do it for me!! He does other things that I don't like doing though, like taking out the bins, keeping the patio areas clean and weed-free and doing any DIY that needs doing (I help if I can though).

Other things we do together like the shopping and the laundry.

I find I pick up after him a lot though when it comes to leaving rubbish and empty mugs etc around the place. He'd happily leave things lying around until the 'weekly clean', but I can't stand seeing dirty things around the place. Clutter is one thing, but rubbish and dirty plates is another.

When I wasn't working I did more around the place than him (or certainly nagged him less at any rate :P)

Giselle

Malari wrote: »

I think we both have the same definitions of "tidy" and "clean". I know some friends who claim to have cleaned their kitchen and to my eyes it's still a mess :pac:

I felt like an awful hag a few weeks ago in a friends house, when she told me she'd spent the whole day cleaning.

I looked around and thought to myself "Cleaning what?!"

Different standards altogether.

Malari

Giselle wrote: »

I felt like an awful hag a few weeks ago in a friends house, when she told me she'd spent the whole day cleaning.

I looked around and thought to myself "Cleaning what?!"

Different standards altogether.

Haha! I know, to me it needs to be visibly tidy as well, not a clutterf*ck :pac:

Giselle

Malari wrote: »

Haha! I know, to me it needs to be visibly tidy as well, not a clutterf*ck :pac:

Not just visibly tidy...I was STUCK to the floor!

Once, she told me she was going to change her bedding but didn't bother as it had only been on the bed about six weeks (read three months into that)!

She's a lovely girl really, but I don't stay over at her place .

nbar12

I was brought up in a house where my mum did all the cleaning and cooking. I don't know any better, so I would expect my future wife to clean up after me and have the dinner ready when I'm hungry.

Giselle

nbar12 wrote: »

I was brought up in a house where my mum did all the cleaning and cooking. I don't know any better, so I would expect my future wife to clean up after me and have the dinner ready when I'm hungry.

You'd want to start learning.

woodchuck

nbar12 wrote: »

I was brought up in a house where my mum did all the cleaning and cooking. I don't know any better, so I would expect my future wife to clean up after me and have the dinner ready when I'm hungry.

Good luck with that :rolleyes: It's fair enough if one person is working and the other looks after the house/kids, but if you both have full time jobs why should one person do all the cooking and cleaning themselves!?

borderlinemeath

I do most of the cleaning in the house, all the laundry, hoovering, bed clothes changing, ironing etc. Most of the time I clean out the stove and reset the fire although he tends to fill the coal bucket and stack the logs.

But he does pretty much everything outside, gardening, cleaning external windows, cleans the cars, the garages and sheds. - all of what I consider to be the 'dirty stuff':D and really don't enjoy.

biko

About 50/50 except we have monopolised a few things - somehow I always do bins, handywork and most of the car maintenance. She does all the laundry since my unfortunate mixing colours incident of 2010.

borderlinemeath

biko wrote: »

About 50/50 except we have monopolised a few things - somehow I always do bins, handywork and most of the car maintenance. She does all the laundry since my unfortunate mixing colours incident of 2010.

He was involved in the dry cleaning incident of 2006.
I had two separate hampers, one with regular and one with dry cleaning and glanced at the washing line and he had put the entire hamper in on a 40deg wash.

matrim

We split things up fairly evenly.

I do most of the cooking, so she does most of the dishes, which I think is a fairly nice split as I don't mind cooking

We each do our own laundry and if there is any common stuff we throw it in with our own if there's room or just do it when there is a full loads worth. Neither of us iron much so that's just done when we need it and the person does it themselves.

Other than that we normally take turns doing everything and it seems to work our fairly well.

Ickle Magoo

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Roesy

We have a fairly even split going on most of the time. My husband has been picking up most of the slack the last week or so because I haven't been able to and I do the same if he's sick/busier with work etc. His eye for detail wouldn't be the same as mine and he wouldn't be as adventurous with the cooking but he is a way better hooverer and ironer(on the rare occasion that either of us iron!).

The Cool

It depends on your situation really - as somebody else said, it's not about gender. I moved in with my OH this summer and for the first few weeks I did pretty much all of it because I was sitting home unemployed and he was working mad long days. For the past month or two I've been out at work the same hours in the day as him but then coming home to spend the night working on my thesis so while I'd been stuck to my computer he did most of it. Now we're into normal routine and have the same free time it's 50/50; he's a bit cleaner than I am but I do all of the cooking so it works out the same.

LeeHoffmann

At the moment, I do nearly everything because I´m not working and he is. The only housework he does atm is bringing down the bin (because he´s taller and I´d struggle a lot more with it) and the shopping (because he has a car and I don´t and it´s a good distance to the supermarket) even though I´ve offered to take over that duty several times. It depends though on who´s the busiest. He did all the cooking, the shopping and most of the cleaning for the last 2 years while I was working and studying at night. It goes back and forth but it´s egalitarian and sensible I think

Bid08

I practically do it all, we both work full time jobs but at home my mam done everything for us especially the boys and in my b/f house same thing and esp for him - so it makes no odds to me as I grew up with watching mam wait hand on foot on my brothers

in saying that he does all the outside work and works early hrs

I know alot will still think its 'not right' but im happy to do it and each to their own

NeonCookies

I'm on a year abroad atm but in my house, my mum does the main housework and cooking because she's home all day. My dad does any DIY and is never afraid to chip in and help with housework - he has quite high standards anyway! My brother and I are always expected to help. Although he's still in the teenage "I live in my own bubble" phase I think..so getting him to actually do anything is a pain!

My jobs at home are doing everyone's ironing and cleaning the bathroom - both jobs my mum hates, and I don't mind. Doing the ironing means i don't feel bad about watching trashy daytime tv on my days off :P

I'm living with my boyfriend now for the year in Tokyo. Our apartment is TINY which in some ways means less cleaning but it also gets messy so easily. He does cooking, washing up, and takes the bins out. I tidy the bedroom, clean the kitchen and floors etc (because he doesn't notice it!) and clean the bathroom. We do laundry together, and we don't iron. Works for us! We haven't had any arguments about it really.