Housework and Labour... Question for Mothers and Fathers?

Question

Curious as far as sexism in these categories...

If you have at least one daughter and one son... (or assuming you did)...

How would/do you distribute Housework (vacuuming, washing dishes, dusting, laundry)... excluding that which you do personally...

The same for outside labour, such as mowing the lawn, washing the car or shovelling the driveway...

Answer 1

I am not a father, however, in correspondence to the sociological theories of Willmott and Young [1973], I would promote a symmetrical family with joint conjugal roles - this would mean the roles of the family are more or less equal with men and women spending the same amount of time on tasks in the home. Despite being raised this way myself, I would still approve of it had I not been.

Answer 2

We're going to do it the way my family did it, a rotation schedule.

Our parents had us help out with ALL of the household chores, and since it would be unfair to make the same kid ALWAYS have toilet duty, we rotated. It was fair, and we couldn't complain (although that sometimes didn't stop us).

Answer 3

I would probably work on some sort of a rotation schedule with an exception for chores they might prefer.  My family was 3 of us daughters.  We cleaned the house and mowed the lawn (riding lawnmower), shoveled the sidewalk, laid sod, and cleaned out the barn, so I would say we were not given chores different from what boys might have been given.

Answer 4

Well, I'm not a mom, and never will be, but here's my thinking.

It's crazy to not teach both flavors of child all tasks necessary to living -- including shopping, cooking, cleaning all different stuff, outside stuff.

Mostly, I prefer decision by consensus. Thus, though each child would have to do each thing now and then, I'd give them first choice.

Probably rotate all the things that everyone hated.

And, of course, bring this into the system at appropriate ages.

Answer 5

Choose, or take turns.

Answer 6

In my family, I do more of the kitchen work, but only because I'm older and my brother hasn't learned how to do it all yet. He gets to help mow the lawn and shovel snow. I don't want to do either of those things, but I wasn't offered, either. (I do take out the trash sometimes, though.)

Answer 7

the work is rotated, but they both could do the same kind of work.

Answer 8

Rotation - everyone does every job at one time or another.

For some reason, though, I get stuck scrubbing toilets more often than anyone else......

Answer 9

I'd say "who wants to do what?" If either child showed an affinity for any task, I'd let them do that.

Answer 10

I don't know.  I have never managed to get a child to do housework, and have no idea how to start.  however, once my oldest son was in his teens, i gave up tidying his room and left himt oget on with it himself, which he did.  And when he was sixteen he started doing his own washing and ironing.  he's lived on his own for three years now and as far as I know manages all right.

Answer 11

I would distribute work to what kid was best at what, me and my younger brother are not even a year apart and when we were kids it was based off of gender roles, I dont think in modern society we are that way anymore. Personally I would teach both how to cook, bc most single guys eat terribly. I would teach both how to clean the house. I would teach both how to change a tire, and would teach both how to mow the lawn, the diffrence is, is that my daughter would know how to be feminine while doing all these things, untill she was in her teens and then it would be up to her, and my son would have masculine things till he was a teen and if he wanted to do something else I would support him....

I think the problem with most society is that we are not accepting of the roles bleeding a bit, there are ppl now aday that are g*y, or w/e. we are not in the 60's or that time frame where manual labor is the primary source of income for the average middle class household. I think still a woman should be a woman and a man a man, i am very traditional personally but i dont think that its my right to stipulate my kids gender roles, after they start going through puberty bc that is when kids start to discover themselves i want my kid to be the best at what they do as long as they arnt being self destructive.