LW, I am unclear. If your wife's political stance is "someone else should clean up after me", that's bad and not actually a political stance (except possibly a classist one) and the two of you need to find an equitable way to split household work, even if it still ends with you doing most of the cleaning, and that's something you can demonstrate to the kids.
If your wife's political stance is "the idea of housekeeping we were both raised on is a relic of an oppressive definition of (white)(middle-class) femininity aimed at isolating women from the public sphere and creating unachievable classist standards, and it's not a moral failure if the dishes sit in the sink for two days" she's probably right, and it's not her fault if you can't let go of that standard. (It's great that your single mom was able to do it all, but I bet you she didn't have time or energy for any art other than her cleaning and her kids, and she was scrabbling *very hard* to do even that.)
I suspect it leans closer to the second one, if only because unless you married a much younger woman she must have been happily living with her own slobbiness for quite a few years before she met you (And also you don't seem to have any complaints about her *expecting* anything out of you.)
If that's the case, you need to figure out how much of the cleaning you do is stuff that's really necessary for you to be happy (and, of course, have a house that's safe for kids), and how much is just you adhering to a standard you've never really thought about, because you're probably going to end up compromising on some of that with a baby around regardless. And if some of it is just that you enjoy keeping a really nice house, that's what you explain to the kids - "Dad keeps the house because he likes keeping a pretty house and it makes him happy, Mom paints because she likes painting and it makes her happy".
If you and your wife just have really incompatible standards with how clean you like your space to be, you should (if you haven't already) work out some compromises on messes/perfectionism to be kept in private spaces and compromising in shared spaces because you value each other's comfort. That's something you'll definitely have to teach the kids anyway, because every kid needs to learn it, so get started now.
But I wouldn't worry to much about teaching your daughter that it's cool to be a slob. A, because it clearly *is* - you fell in love with her mother, after all, who is super cool - and B, because she will still be getting plenty of messages from outside the family about how girls are supposed to do all the cleaning.
As for imparting housekeeping skills - if you don't hate doing them, and you do them with the kids around, they will pick up on that when they're very young, and will want to help and to learn what you're doing. Let them - give them little ways to "help" as soon as they can show interest, and keep going as they get older. It will become "cool thing we do with Dad and that Mom thanks us for a lot" unless the two of you teach them otherwise, same as in a household where it's Mom doing most of the tasks.
no subject
If your wife's political stance is "the idea of housekeeping we were both raised on is a relic of an oppressive definition of (white)(middle-class) femininity aimed at isolating women from the public sphere and creating unachievable classist standards, and it's not a moral failure if the dishes sit in the sink for two days" she's probably right, and it's not her fault if you can't let go of that standard. (It's great that your single mom was able to do it all, but I bet you she didn't have time or energy for any art other than her cleaning and her kids, and she was scrabbling *very hard* to do even that.)
I suspect it leans closer to the second one, if only because unless you married a much younger woman she must have been happily living with her own slobbiness for quite a few years before she met you (And also you don't seem to have any complaints about her *expecting* anything out of you.)
If that's the case, you need to figure out how much of the cleaning you do is stuff that's really necessary for you to be happy (and, of course, have a house that's safe for kids), and how much is just you adhering to a standard you've never really thought about, because you're probably going to end up compromising on some of that with a baby around regardless. And if some of it is just that you enjoy keeping a really nice house, that's what you explain to the kids - "Dad keeps the house because he likes keeping a pretty house and it makes him happy, Mom paints because she likes painting and it makes her happy".
If you and your wife just have really incompatible standards with how clean you like your space to be, you should (if you haven't already) work out some compromises on messes/perfectionism to be kept in private spaces and compromising in shared spaces because you value each other's comfort. That's something you'll definitely have to teach the kids anyway, because every kid needs to learn it, so get started now.
But I wouldn't worry to much about teaching your daughter that it's cool to be a slob. A, because it clearly *is* - you fell in love with her mother, after all, who is super cool - and B, because she will still be getting plenty of messages from outside the family about how girls are supposed to do all the cleaning.
As for imparting housekeeping skills - if you don't hate doing them, and you do them with the kids around, they will pick up on that when they're very young, and will want to help and to learn what you're doing. Let them - give them little ways to "help" as soon as they can show interest, and keep going as they get older. It will become "cool thing we do with Dad and that Mom thanks us for a lot" unless the two of you teach them otherwise, same as in a household where it's Mom doing most of the tasks.