Housework Question

Okay, not a real post, but a question: how do you split housework between you and your significant other? I’m asking all families, with or without kids, married or not, working outside the house or not.

Here’s what we used to do:

Me- take the kids to school, school lunches, all the cooking and cleaning, homework, school volunteering, bill paying, taking care of pets, errands, laundry

Gregg- Clean up the kitchen every night, walk the dog at night, read to the boys and put them to bed every night, all the house repair stuff, including dealing with contractors, etc.

And here’s what we do now:

Me- school lunches, all the cooking, homework, school volunteering, taking care of pets, errands, laundry, clean the kitchen half the nights, read to the boys at night

Gregg- takes the kids to school, bill paying, cleans the kitchen half the nights, walks the dog at night, vacuuming, mopping, all the house repair stuff, puts the boys to bed after book reading

So, it’s more even than it used to be, and some of it is necessity-based: I have to be at work usually before the boys are awake, and Gregg is at work too late to even think about cooking. I’m a morning person, and things like school lunches and laundry can easily be done in the morning. I found that I used to be too tired from being with the kids all day to read to them at night, and now I find myself looking forward to it. We all usually sit on the bed at night and read. We’re reading the first Harry Potter and Gregg and Kesh are always reluctant to stop. (A lot of it goes over Sachin’s head, and on those days, one of us will go in another room and read another book to him so he’s not bored.)

I like how it’s going. Some days I’m so completely exhausted I fall asleep at 8:30, but it’s still a good life. I do think sometimes Gregg could pitch in more, but the truth is that I care about a lot of the stuff that Gregg doesn’t (like whether my children are taking a bath in a dirty bathtub or not).

I used to feel that I needed to do ALL the work because I was the stay at home parent. Even if I go back to being a stay at home parent, that ain’t how it’s going to be from now on.

How do you split it up?