Most of Neels' Hunky Heroes are able to pick up a tea towel on occasion and dry dishes. This skill, coupled with the ability to butter toast and boil an egg is often the beginning and end of their housewifely skills. But Jemima Buttercup Alethea Darling is always pleasantly surprised at their level of domesticity--for a man.In A Gentle Awakening, during the midst of a measles outbreak at Wheel House, Sir Billy-Bob offers to make a bed. "Put the linen out; I'll see to the bed, you stay here and get on with dinner." Florina, whose father had always considered the making of a bed woman's work, was surprised..." The Founding Bettys were happily raised by a crypto-feminist father with more daughters than sense. He made hot breakfast for his brood every morning (save Saturday waffle morning), helped with the considerable Sunday dishes, and made a fetish of keeping counters clutter-free. Sadly, turnabout was fair play and he cheerfully employed his daughters mowing the lawns, roofing garages, digging out basements, pouring concrete, hanging drywall, painting anything that stood still long enough...etc. As you can see, there was no refuge in "I'm a girl" for The Founding Bettys.
Even so, I was writing out a check the other night as Mijneer Nathan van Voorhees was cradling our infant niece and my daughter (who will probably rule the world very soon. You have been warned.) said, "Dad should be paying for the pizza and you should be taking care of Melody." "Why?" I asked doing a mental fist pump as I knew this blog was upcoming. "Because taking care of paying for things is more of a Dad thing and taking care of the baby is more of a Mom thing." Which is true. I've been lashed to a nursing baby for the last year of her life so the conclusion was a fair one. That said, I'm looking up flights to Grandpa's house as we speak.
Mijneer Nathan van Voorhees is exceedingly helpful around the house. I highly recommend picking up a spouse who spent the previous two years starving in an Argentine pension--I was the sweet beneficiary of lowered expectations.
Question: How do you divide chores with your significant other? (Don't be afraid of being un-PC. I fully concede that, though I am no weenie, I have the babies and Mijneer van Voorhees kills the bugs. We made a deal. Betty Kylene makes her husband clean the gutters.)
Well, I'm pretty sure I have it pretty good. Nathan does the dishes most of the time, helps with the laundry, and we both do the picking up of things on the floor... but I vacuum :)
ReplyDeleteI married two Brits, as you know. (There was a decent interval of about a week between divorce and remarriage, but that was for immigration reasons.) Brit Hub 1.0 was not particularly well trained in housekeeping, but was fond of saying that we both did better if I did the cooking and he did the washing up (Britspeak for doing the dishes). There's no magic in housework, so he was willing to do the Hoovering (although I don't think he ever called it that -- could be a napkin/serviette type class distinction) while I cleaned the bathrooms.
ReplyDeleteThen I married BritHub 2.0, a man who had lived on his own for 25 years before I swept him up. His house near Oxford was immaculate so I had hopes that he was a naturally tidy person. Nyah, turns out he just didn't generate much clutter when he was on his own. He too is willing to do the Hoovering, which is clearly the chore I most hate. Unfortunately, neither of us is sufficiently allergic to dust bunnies, so we have to invite people round to be motivated to clean the house.
I do all the cooking just because I'm good at it and don't mind it. But here's where both Brit Hubs excel: We have 12 acres of woods, mostly white ash trees, which is a great source of firewood. Both Brit Hubs, but particularly Brit Hub 2.0, have felled sufficient trees, bucked them, moved them, stacked them, and then chopped them to feed a wood stove that heats 2/3 of our house. Amazing!
(In exchange for that heroic amount of work, I keep the kitty litter clean.)
I got it good.
We really did grow up in different families. Not the part about mowing lawns, roofing houses, laying tile, laying vinyl flooring, nailing floorboards, holding sheetrock, cutting and stapling fiberglass insulation...etc...Dad started early on that one...considering he had 3 daughters before a son showed up, he sort of had to...
ReplyDeleteThe difference was breakfast...before Mom had the CA, Dad was strictly a short-order cook on weekends (so Mom could have a bit of a lie-in). Before that Mom usually coordinated breakfast - she was strong on scrambled eggs...which I loathed and despised with exceedingly great loathing and despising (which turned out to be good fortune to our dog Sam - as I fed him secretly under the table whenever I could get away with it).
Dr. van der Stevejinck can cook a meal (he does best if he's told WHAT to cook), washes up fine - is fully capable of hoovering (but since I have teenagers, they get the dishes and hoovering and taking out the trash and recycling)...but he's most likely to be found pitching in with laundry...which is absolutely lovely (and what's a few ruined sweaters compared to loads and loads of laundry?). I am the type of wife who would give him a bland look if dear husband complained about his lack of clean socks. Lucky for both of us that Dr. van der Stevejinck is smarter than that.
Ruined sweaters :(
ReplyDeleteMijneer Nathan van Voorhees unloads the dishwasher and when he does he is really saying, "I know you hate doing this and I love you with the heat of a thousand hot, hot suns."
ReplyDeleteI love to load the dishwasher, however and leap into the mess like a jungle cat.
Dr. van der Stevejinck is fully capable of loading a dishwasher...but I have to leave the room (he takes about 10 times longer than me, and by the time the dishes go in the dishwasher they are just about clean enough to eat off). Lucky for me Alex van der Stevejinck is awesomely awesome about all things dish cleaning/putting away related. I've trained a great husband for some lucky girl!
ReplyDeleteWe mostly alternate doing what needs to be done. I do all the cooking, though, and my husband does all the washing up(this is a good thing, trust me). He also does all the hoovering because I have awful allergies and get hives if I'm even home while it's being done. So - while he hoovers, I run most of the pesky errands. It all works out in the end.
ReplyDeleteKeira you forgot to mention that your hubby has bath and bedtime duty. Now that is priceless. My hubby makes the money and goes to school, my kids do the chores and I sit on the couch and read blogs all day. Ok maybe not, but I got a sweet deal where my hubby made a bad deal... for him and I jumped on it. He is in charge of dinners every Sunday. It is my day of rest after all. Sweeeet!
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I had an arrangement (which he will deny til his dying day) that I would get up with the babies during the night until they were about a year old (weaned) and then they were his problem at night after that. If you average out the amount of times I had to get up compared to him, I win, hands down. No contest (3 times a night x 365 nights x 6 = a whole lotta getting up). He probably only had a total of maybe 10 times per child for their next decade of life (that's easier 10 x 6 = 60). Seems pretty sweet for him, right? Yeah, what it really boils down to is he was on barf duty. Stripping beds, cleaning carpets, washing down kids.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am kind of evil.
Professor van der Hertenzoon was given the task starting with the first child in the hospital nursery all bath duty. He quickly decided that using the hand-held shower attachment on the baby on the foam laid on the bottom of the tub and just hosing them down (face and all) was much more efficient than all that sissy wiping eyes with cotton ball stuff. As a result all of our four children took water full face from infancy and now are committed water bugs. Who knew?
ReplyDelete