Who clips the nails? (Part III. Why it’s not fair)

Post image for Who clips the nails? (Part III. Why it’s not fair)

by Katrina on July 20, 2010

This is part of a series of posts about how working couples share the under-the-radar chores that, taken together, represent the “psychic burden” of raising children. Be sure to read these parts first:

Part I. Survey results

Part II. Why it’s fair

My last post looked at why half of the parents surveyed felt they had divided responsibilities pretty fairly, even though moms were still doing far more than half of the work. In this post, I want to look at the other half of the story—if both parents are working outside the home, why aren’t we doing a better job of dividing up responsibilities within the home?

As one of you asked, is it “patriarchal social bias? [Is it that] I’m a workaholic? He’s a bit selfish? I’m naturally more social, organized, and future-thinking? Hard to say… ”

Several moms said they were simply better at clipping nails, multi-tasking, cleaning, and childcare:

“He’s just not responsible enough to deal with the details.”

“He says he doesn’t know how to it or just takes too long.”

“The first week of bringing home our baby, my husband cut my son’s nails and the tip of his finger. He’s been scared to do it ever since.”

“Maybe (probably?) its a gender thing but I can multi-task like crazy and he simply cannot to save his life so I handle more things that he does. Other times, the kids just prefer me over him (for example, give baths/wash hair).”

Some of you said you didn’t realize how uneven the roles really were.

“I am better at keeping up with everything that needs to get done—it’s often easier for me to just do something than to remind my husband (over and over again) to do it. This survey made me realize just how much I do!

“Ugh! This survey made me feel like things are not fair. I think most of the time, I just do things, and don’t think about how fair it is.”

Here’s what one dad had to say about why his wife does more of the things on the survey:

“To the extent we actively chose this arrangement, it’s because I work full time and my partner works half time. That said, I think it has more to do with gender conditioning and personality than anything else. Evidence: 1.) There are a lot of other, similar things she does (like coordinating visits with my parents (!), or maintaining social engagements, or our personal finances). 2.) She also did more of this stuff when we were both working full-time. I don’t think this is purely a parenting issue. I think there is general who-does-what inequality that gets magnified with kids because there’s so much more to do.”

Some of you said you know it’s not fair, but you’re willing to make compromises.

“To ensure our marriage survives, I can handle more. I would love it if my husband participated more in the complicated logistics—finding camps, scheduling, doctor’s appts, etc. I DO resent that part when I find that I am busy at work (as busy or busier than he is) but it still falls to me. “

“It evolved over several kids. In the beginning we split everything equally, then with subsequent kids it slid. Having things evenly divided is not as important as I used to think it was.”

Some of you consoled yourselves with the idea that it could be worse.

“It isn’t totally fair but close, and I have it better than most women married to a man.”

We all love our children, and many of us take great joy in organizing birthday parties, buying clothes, and even the more mundane things like clipping nails. But when we feel we’re doing it all, and also working, it’s hard not to get resentful.

“It’s not ideal. We argue a lot, too much, and he feels nagged by me, and I feel like I’m married to a middle-aged slacker. Can we say, ‘COUPLE’S COUNSELING’???”

“I grew up being told, I can do anything if I want to. And yes, I have a high profile job, but guess what. Nobody taught me how to combine career with motherhood without failing or feeling utterly overwhelmed. Truth is:  You can’t do it all, because a decent career sure as hell does NOT combine well with satisfying motherhood. “

“The only reason he does the few things he does is because he is unemployed and I am working.”

“I think our division of labor is clear when my partner sees nothing wrong in regularly carving out his personal time at home, but sans responsibilities, whereas I am always the primary person for the kids, even at my own birthday party, even when ill. Who’s to blame? I think we are equally at fault.”

In my next post, I’ll share some of reasons people felt they didn’t do a better job of sharing the load.

* * *

Subscribe by email | Become a fan on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

Tom Roberts

Many thanks, that article has made the subject easier to understand. Thank you 😀

Reply

Leanne

Did none of the parents in a 2mom or 2dad household say they don’t divvy up equally or fairly? This makes it seem like unfair or uneven division only happens in couples of other genders — was that the result of your survey?

Reply

Katrina

@Leanne. I don’t feel like I can draw any big conclusions because I only had 17 same-sex families complete the survey (despite your great recruiting efforts).

Here’s how the same-sex family responses break down:
13 said “I think it’s pretty fair”
3 said “I don’t think it’s fair, but I’m willing to live with it”
1 said “Totally unfair. It drives me crazy!” (In that case, it was a 2-mom family where one of the moms traveled a LOT for work.)

I just came across this from a new book called “The War On Moms” by Sharon Lerner (p. 50) which answers your question better than my survey did:

“Perhaps not surprisingly, the mounting data does show that same-sex couples tend to share housework and child care more fairly than heterosexual ones do. No doubt this is partly due to the fact that same-sex couple don’t have the same deeply grooved husband-and-wife patterns to fall into. Lesbians with children have a better record of dividing both domestic and earning responsibilities. And both lesbians and gay men are less likely to wind up economically dependent on a partner.”

Reply

Leanne

Thanks for the additional insight, Katrina! I noticed, in the tiny sample of my circle of friends who are parents, (and I might’ve commented on this on this web site before), that the same-sex couples I know who have one stayathome parent and one fulltimeworkingoutsidehome parent, seem to mimic the patterns/behaviors of the stereotypical working dad stayathome mom setup (with similar fair/unfair resentments)

Reply

Julie

I have recently noticed something with a local family with whom we are friends. This family has a mom who works 3 days a week as a doctor, a dad who works full time outside the home 4 days per week, and they have three small children. They are great friends with another family who are: the mom is a stay at home mom (for right now), the dad works a full time job outside the home 4 days a week, and they have two small children.

The thing I noticed is how completely these two families (who are totally unrelated to each other), help each other out. Both families have mini-vans and they all seem to take turns getting all of the children to various sports activities, appointments, school, and church. They fix meals and eat together at each other’s houses.

It is like they are two families blended into one. And the stay-at-home mom does not seem to be the one burdened with all the childcare and driving just because she doesn’t “work”. I know both of these families very well and I am in awe of the help they give each other. Maybe this also helps take some of the burdens off and makes life easier overall for these families. I do wonder though, how chores and such are broken down within the two family’s homes. Both dads are extremely involved with the children and their activities so I hope they also have an equal division of responsibilities in the homes.

Reply

Katrina

Wow. That is inspiring. A modern day village. Thanks for sharing.

Reply

Leanne

Julie — what a great community of those 2 families! Where I live, in a condo in SF, about 60% of the homeowners take care of each other’s cats and recently (those of us with kids) have started swapping babysitting with neighbors and helping each other out w/ kids/cats in emergencies and delivering food to each other and it’s just a little thing here/there but it means so much.

Reply

Leave a Comment

{ 1 trackback }

Previous post:

Next post: