Small Strokes Big Oaks

I am not a housewife.  I have a job for 10 months out of the year.  But for 9 weeks, I am, essentially, a housewife.

Tim and I moved in together almost one year ago (July 1) and last summer, though I didn’t have a job per se, I did have my hands full with wedding planning, bridal showers, and just adjusting to my major life shift.  Now, Tim and I live together pretty well, the wedding is over, and the only thing we have really occupying our time is the dog.  Tim has two part-time summer jobs and I’m trying (rather unsuccessfully) to do some writing for money (which is, apparently, very hard to do!).  So, while he’s bringing home the bacon so to speak, I’m trying to “work from home,” which ends up meaning I do a lot of housework.

Let’s take today for example.  I woke up, unpacked from the weekend, put everything away, started a load of laundry, loaded and started the dishwasher, went to the gym, came back, unloaded the dishwasher and put the dishes away, put the wet laundry into the dryer, started another load of laundry, dusted, vacuumed, ate breakfast, showered, got dressed, and finally started up my computer.  Believe it or not, that was all before 10:30.

Granted, I was out of town from Friday morning through yesterday afternoon and Sunday is our usual day off to do-nothing-but-clean day, but I would have rather gouged my eyes out with a spoon than cleaned the apartment after the super fun weekend we had at my friend’s wedding.  However, if we put this into perspective, we have a two-bedroom apartment, not a single family home, and we don’t have any children.  So cleaning is relatively easy, but it still takes me a good portion of the morning (and the laundry is still going as we speak).  Imagine if we did have a larger home and children running around.  Then it would be an all-day endeavor.  Not to mention I’d probably want to, you know, do something with my kids.

We live in the 21st Century, so modern conveniences make having a partner who deals solely in domestic duties unnecessary.  We can freeze and refrigerate food, so we don’t have to go to the market every day to buy the food we need.  We don’t have to wash or dry dishes and clothing by hand, so we have more time there.  We can buy pre-made or semi-pre-made food at the store, so we don’t have to spend time chopping vegetables or preparing meat.  We can microwave food in half the time it takes to prepare it using conventional methods.  In short, my cleaning and cooking “duties” take probably close to a third of the time it may take me were I a wife in the early 1900’s.  This means I can, and do, work a full-time job while I am still able to “take care of the house.”  But it also means that, when I am working, things go by the wayside.  Dirty dishes may pile up in the sink, we may eat frozen meals five days out of the week, bath towels might not get washed for a few weeks, clutter might overtake the apartment.  I’m OK with this, and so is Tim, but, for a neat-freak like myself, it does take a conscious effort not to beat myself up about the things that haven’t gotten done.

It also helps that our generation seems to be demanding that husbands do their share of housework more and more.  I’m not saying that women should be “demanding” that their partners take on housework.  I’m just saying that Tim and I discussed very early on in our relationship how we would divide up the domestic duties, from grocery shopping to managing the finances, dusting to scrubbing.  I didn’t sit there and say “You’d better do this or else.”  We just talked about what we felt comfortable taking on and what needed to get done.  And we also promised that if something didn’t get done in a particular day or week, neither of us would complain about it, especially if there was a really good reason for it not getting done, like we were just too busy.  The difference here between our generation and the generation before us is that we have these discussions.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people how we talked about dividing domestic duties and they’ve said, “Wow, that’s just so great that you guys share so much of the work!  I usually have to do it all unless my husband wants something from me.”  No joke.  That’s usually what people tell me.

However, staying at home this summer has me paying more attention to the details.  There are things that got dusted this summer that maybe have never been dusted before because I never noticed that they needed to be dusted!  Our bed sheets and bath towels have been washed more already this summer than ever.  We’ve eaten literally the most amazing meals I have ever had because I’ve spent hours cooking.  I make sure our apartment always smells amazing and everything is always put away.

Doing the domestic duties is one thing.  Making it your job is another.  And it is a full-time job if you’re going to pay attention to details and spend any sort of time on it.  So why don’t we honor housewives like we do women with any other job?  Why aren’t women paid for doing the domestic work in their own homes? ¹  I’m not saying husbands should pay their wives for their work in the home.  But I am saying that I know many women who gave up careers to tend to housework and stay home with children for many, many years and then got divorced and were awarded nothing for their time at home, even though they were essentially working full time.  This means that their ex-husbands got to keep all the money they earned while they were working – including pensions and equity in the homes their wives kept so clean, etc., – that these women didn’t even have a chance to build because they were doing all the work at home.

Housework just doesn’t get the same respect as working for money.  I don’t know why this is because it is HARD WORK, but there are a lot of feminists out there who look down on women because they quit their jobs and stayed home with their kids.  This seems counter-intuitive to me.  We want women to be respected and have choices, but then when they make the choice to stay home, we don’t respect them nor do we honor that choice?  I have to admit, I felt like I was doing something un-feminist by staying at home this summer to work on the housework and not going out to make as much money as I possibly could to bust down that glass ceiling. But I’m not.  I’m taking time for me and for us, and I’m doing what I can to help our family.

The bottom line here is that we need to respect women’s choices, regardless of what those choices may be.  And we need to start actively honoring the work of women who do stay at home.