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agonyaunt2022-09-28 11:40 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-09-28 11:40 am
Entry tags:
Care & Feeding: My Wife is a Total Slob...
... And Her Justification for the Mess Is Absurd
Dear Care and Feeding,
My wife and I (together for 5 years, married 3) are expecting our first child, a daughter, in February. My wife is incredibly beautiful, talented, sexy, intellectual, fiercely loyal, basically perfect except…she’s a HUGE slob. We often joke that she’s a “slut” in the original sense of the word, i.e. a bad and lazy housekeeper. If I don’t want to live with grimy bathrooms, a sink full of dishes, and tumbleweeds of cat hair blowing everywhere, I have to clean, which I don’t mind doing, if that’s the price of being with her. I was single for over a decade before we met and had all but despaired of falling in love or having a family.
The only thing that irritates me is when she justifies herself by claiming she’s fighting back against centuries of unfair domestic expectations of women, or that being a female “art monster” (a creative artist who neglects everything except their work) makes her rare and special. Her parents are a doctor (dad) and lawyer (mom) and she grew up with nannies and cleaning ladies. I grew up with a hard-working single mom and got used to pitching in from an early age. She’s entitled to her own choices, but I hope I’m not being out of line by NOT wanting her teaching our daughter that it’s cool and feminist to be a slob. How can I instill basic housekeeping skills in our kids, without getting into a verbal war about the historic imbalance of household responsibilities?
— The Art Monster’s Male Maid
Dear Male Maid,
I don’t think that rejecting all domestic work is an inherently feminist choice, but I do know that the reality for women is that “having it all” often also means “doing it all.” Even when both partners work, in heterosexual couples, women in the relationship are more likely to have primary responsibility for doing the laundry, cleaning the house, and preparing meals. Your wife may legitimately feel that she has to choose between her own creative work and the domestic work it takes to keep a home running. She also may simply lack the required skills.
Whatever the case, she’s made it clear she’s not interested in learning them, so it’s really up to you to decide how to move forward. An equitable division of labor is ideal for most, but that balance is unique to every couple, depending on careers, children, finances, etc.
As someone who made it to my late 30s before I even learned how to cook a grilled cheese, I do think it’s important for children of both genders to learn the skills they’ll need to take care of themselves and their homes as adults. But can’t you be the person to instill those lessons in your kids? After all, there are lots of families where one partner does the bulk of the domestic tasks, and when that partner is a woman, I rarely hear any outcry about who will teach the children. Or might you hire a housekeeper, if you have the resources? This is obviously a pretty privileged option, but when it’s feasible, paying someone a fair wage can be a lot easier than fighting about it in perpetuity.
And if you haven’t, I also think you need to have a serious conversation about expectations around the division of labor when it comes to childcare and the work of parenting. The workload at home is about to increase exponentially, and if you can’t agree on the best way to manage it, you’ll likely end up resenting each other, which would be worse for your future child than a sink full of dishes.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My wife and I (together for 5 years, married 3) are expecting our first child, a daughter, in February. My wife is incredibly beautiful, talented, sexy, intellectual, fiercely loyal, basically perfect except…she’s a HUGE slob. We often joke that she’s a “slut” in the original sense of the word, i.e. a bad and lazy housekeeper. If I don’t want to live with grimy bathrooms, a sink full of dishes, and tumbleweeds of cat hair blowing everywhere, I have to clean, which I don’t mind doing, if that’s the price of being with her. I was single for over a decade before we met and had all but despaired of falling in love or having a family.
The only thing that irritates me is when she justifies herself by claiming she’s fighting back against centuries of unfair domestic expectations of women, or that being a female “art monster” (a creative artist who neglects everything except their work) makes her rare and special. Her parents are a doctor (dad) and lawyer (mom) and she grew up with nannies and cleaning ladies. I grew up with a hard-working single mom and got used to pitching in from an early age. She’s entitled to her own choices, but I hope I’m not being out of line by NOT wanting her teaching our daughter that it’s cool and feminist to be a slob. How can I instill basic housekeeping skills in our kids, without getting into a verbal war about the historic imbalance of household responsibilities?
— The Art Monster’s Male Maid
Dear Male Maid,
I don’t think that rejecting all domestic work is an inherently feminist choice, but I do know that the reality for women is that “having it all” often also means “doing it all.” Even when both partners work, in heterosexual couples, women in the relationship are more likely to have primary responsibility for doing the laundry, cleaning the house, and preparing meals. Your wife may legitimately feel that she has to choose between her own creative work and the domestic work it takes to keep a home running. She also may simply lack the required skills.
Whatever the case, she’s made it clear she’s not interested in learning them, so it’s really up to you to decide how to move forward. An equitable division of labor is ideal for most, but that balance is unique to every couple, depending on careers, children, finances, etc.
As someone who made it to my late 30s before I even learned how to cook a grilled cheese, I do think it’s important for children of both genders to learn the skills they’ll need to take care of themselves and their homes as adults. But can’t you be the person to instill those lessons in your kids? After all, there are lots of families where one partner does the bulk of the domestic tasks, and when that partner is a woman, I rarely hear any outcry about who will teach the children. Or might you hire a housekeeper, if you have the resources? This is obviously a pretty privileged option, but when it’s feasible, paying someone a fair wage can be a lot easier than fighting about it in perpetuity.
And if you haven’t, I also think you need to have a serious conversation about expectations around the division of labor when it comes to childcare and the work of parenting. The workload at home is about to increase exponentially, and if you can’t agree on the best way to manage it, you’ll likely end up resenting each other, which would be worse for your future child than a sink full of dishes.
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I genuinely feel like this guy is Big Mad that his wife isn't doing Wife Things ("this is the price of being with her" and "slut" are ringing every alarm bell in my head.)
In my personal case, I have repeatedly offered to find and contract a housecleaning service, paid for either by me alone or as part of the household budget, to resolve the "who cleans and how much" issue. (Husband keeps kicking that to a "later decision", I'm pretty sure because he's got a whole train worth of Calvinist baggage about how you do your own work in all cases regardless of whether the scent of the cleaning products triggers your migraine or you can't stand up today, but that's separate.) There's also that I know how to do the tasks, but they do not give me any sense of satisfaction or pleasure, nor does the difference they make in my environment exceed the cost of doing them (mentally or physically.)
I also genuinely question this guy's definition of "slob," because I am here to tell you that with two cats, the cat hair tumbleweeds accrue in my house within three *days* (I assuredly do not have the spoons to vacuum daily) and that I do dishes once a day or once every other day if I am alone in the house, rather than fully after every meal. By LW's definition, this is "cat hair tumbleweeds everywhere and a sink full of dishes." By mine, it's Tuesday. What's a "grimy" bathroom? Can you actually see dirt, or is it just that she didn't put the anti soap scum spray on the shower?
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no subject