Division of Labor

C.D. was telling me about the division of labor that she and her husband have with the chores. I have to say that it makes me laugh, not because her husband’s only jobs are taking out the trash and mopping the bathroom floor, but because I have no division of labor in my house.

Ever since my wife moved to Missouri I have had to take over all of the chores in our place. This is a new experience for me since it is the first time I have ever lived alone. Before that I always lived with my parents, so we all had our assigned tasks and chores. Even in college I had roommates to divide the labor between. (Of course, truth be told, it wasn’t so much a formal division of labor as it was whoever got tired of seeing the mess and finally broke down and cleaned it up. I have to say that I was quite good at holding out longer than my roommates. I even got it down that I would intentionally only wash one bowl and one spoon to use every morning, so I didn’t have to do all of the dishes.)

After I got married my wife and I went through the typical mutually-agreed allotment of tasks. Which basically consisted of her telling me what my jobs were and me whining about how it cut into my “sitting around” time. I held out in the beginning, delaying the jobs to see if she would break and just do them herself like my roommates, but she would always pull the wildcard out on me. There were things I needed and wanted from my wife that I hadn’t previously needed or wanted from my roommates. Like food. Needless to say the strike didn’t last long, and I would be mumbling under my breath all the way out to the trash can.

But as I said before, now I have to do it all. I can’t leave it for someone else to do, because there is nobody else to do it. I tried just buying more dishes or underwear to delay having to clean, but eventually I ran out of space to put them all. So, now I cook, wash dishes, take out the trash, do the laundry, clean the place, buy the groceries, run the errands, pay the bills, and generally deal with any problems or other tasks that might come up. I am both wife and husband now, doing all the chores that both of us split before. Maybe I will be a better husband for my wife later on.

Until then I will just laugh at all of these men that complain about having to do two simple chores. They just don’t realize how good they really have it.