Dividing Up Home Drugery Chores

Dividing Up Home Drudgery
June 9, 2005;WSJ
Summary,article by Sue Shellenberger

Women's expanding role as breadwinners is altering old ways of splitting up household chores. Now that home-and-hearth are no longer automatically women's lot, how should couples divide duties?

Some couples are breaking new ground, based on email in response to my recent column on men stepping up their efforts around the house (and women not giving them credit): A sampling:

Pay-to-Play: This rule holds that whoever makes more money gets more time off at home to relax. Research shows the larger a wife's contribution to household income, the more help she gets from her husband.

The Seven-Day Switchoff: Make two lists of jobs, then alternate duties every week. One list includes drudgework "everybody despises," -- washing dishes, cleaning the counter and scrubbing the stove.
The other list can be tackled every few days, mopping, sweeping or vacuuming.

The Time-Clock Technique: Whoever spends more time at home does more chores. One risk: Husbands sometimes use this rationale to justify their wives' cutting back on hard-earned careers. Also, a time-clock mentality risks transforming spouses into stopwatch-toting efficiency critics.

Specialization of Labor: This capitalist approach splits tasks based on skill. One pitfall is that many householders now hire gardeners and contractors to do traditional male tasks. Thus men "don't uphold their end of the bargain. Another risk: This strategy can perpetuate inequities, sticking women with drudgery like dishes and laundry.

The Feudal Approach: A more egalitarian strategy is to give each partner hegemony in separate fiefdoms, A man might control the laundry, for example, while the woman rules the kitchen. Partners have not only authority over how chores in their separate realms are handled, but the clout to pressure a spouse for help.
This neutralizes a traditional female weapon in the chore wars -- control over how and when work is done. It affords men more satisfaction because they can steer at least a few outcomes. Also, men have to step up and bear consequences for slacking off -- such as kids hollering over a lack of clean clothes.

Enlist the Kids: This oft-neglected strategy is spreads the work to all who benefit by it.

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
Any strategy for divvying up household chores can work if it:

Is explicit, rather than based on assumptions

Springs from negotiation, rather than decree

Is flexible enough for changing circumstances

Assigns value to each partner's work, paid or unpaid

Is fair over the long term