Household Chores

No matter what country or culture you are from, housework is always a

necessity. But the division of these tasks vary from culture to culture, and have
changed over time. My family is a good example.
My mother and father are more traditional when it comes to gender roles in the
household. My father has always worked, and once my older brother was born, my
mother quit her job as a teacher and stayed home to become a full-time mom. She
has always been the typical wife and mother in that she does all of the cooking and
cleaning. My dad pays bills, makes some repairs, and refinishes furniture, but
otherwise, it’s up to my mother to take care of the house (and him)! Even though
there are some tasks she doesn’t like to do, she has never minded her role. She
shops for groceries, fixes the meals, does the dishes, and puts the dishes away, while
my dad can’t do much more in the kitchen than make himself a sandwich! Once,
when my mom was sick, he tried to make breakfast for me and my brother, and I
remember that the toaster oven caught fire. Once a week, my mother cleans the
house: she dusts, vacuums, sweeps, shakes out the rugs, scrubs the floor, washes the
windows, and scrubs the sinks, toilet, and bathtub so that everything is spotless. She
also does laundry about once a week, and folds, irons, and mends the clothes. She
makes the bed in the morning and takes out the garbage when it gets full. Finally,
she keeps the house looking nice with seasonal decorations and fresh wildflowers
that she picks.
My brother and sister-in-law, on the other hand, are much more contemporary
when it comes to the division of labor in their household. As with many younger or
middle-aged couples today, David and Barb share the housework and the childcare.
Barb cleans when she has time and makes the meals most, but not all, of the time.
David often goes grocery shopping on his way home from work if Barb hasn’t
gotten to it, and he cooks a few times a week as well. He takes care of the kids quite
a bit, which was not so common in the previous generation. There have been times
in their life together when one of them had a job but the other didn’t, and then more
of the responsibility for the house fell on the shoulders of the one at home. And
there was also a time when both of them were working full time, as is very common
for many couples today in the U.S. At that time it was very difficult for them to get
everything done around the house, and they hired a nanny to help out with the
chores and the kids. Nannies generally live with the family, as do au pairs, who
come from other countries to do such work.(Someone who comes just to clean the
house from time to time is a housekeeper or a maid.)While my mother is very much
on top of the housework so that things are always kept neat and tidy, it is a different
story at David and Barb’s. There, it is more likely that you will see dishes piled in
the sink, heaps of laundry next to the washer and dryer, or items laying around the
house.
 And then there are single people like me, also very common in today’s society.
All of the housework falls on me, because if I don’t do it, who will? But then again,
there is only me to make a mess, and to take care of. So really, I am the only one to
blame for the condition of the house. I tend to keep things fairly clean, and
straighten up when others are coming to visit. In the spring, when the sun shines into
the house more brightly and you can see the dirt and dust more clearly, I do a spring
cleaning. This is a traditional, more thorough cleaning of everything in the house. It
is also common for people to go through their closets and drawers at this time of
year and weed out what they don’t need.
Single parents are the ones who have it the hardest, since they generally need to
work, take care of the kids, and do all of the housework. Which type of arrangement
do you think is best?