Whenever women’s magazines poll their readers on the most common sources of conflict in relationships, the most frequent responses tend to be: A) “Lack of communication”; B) “Money troubles”; and C) “Not enough help with household chores, like the way he always tosses dirty underwear on the hamper — not in the hamper, mind you, but on top of it. God only knows what would happen if he ever bothered to put his dirty clothes in the hamper itself. It’s like he’s afraid there’s something alive in there that’s going to reach out and grab him if he ever opens the lid. Which, considering how nasty his jockey shorts get by the time he stops wearing them, he may actually be right about that.”
From these results one things is apparent: women’s magazines need to stop providing so much space in their polls for write-in answers.
As to the chores issue, however, I asked my wife, who confirmed that many women do complain about the inequitable distribution of household responsibilities. Clearly, times have changed since the era when the husband’s primary household task was to earn a living while the wife stayed home and took care of all the housework. Back then, of course, she had plenty of assistance, whether from a wisecracking maid or witchcraft, depending whether your understanding of traditional American life comes from watching reruns of “The Brady Bunch” or “Bewitched.”
Thankfully, in my home, we share all household chores equally. Take, for example, vacuuming. While my wife is responsible for getting out and putting away the vacuum cleaner, moving the furniture and performing the actual vacuuming, my job is to lift my legs as she comes by, while also increasing the volume on the TV so that I don’t have to miss the football announcer discussing the subtleties of the West Coast Offense.
Ha ha, I’m just kidding, of course. I would never suggest that what little housework I do is remotely comparable to my wife’s Herculean efforts to maintain our household — not with so many sharp knives lying around, anyway.
The other day she did mention, however, one key difference between the way men and women react when there’s cleaning to be done. She explained, for example, that at a dinner party when one woman begins clearing dishes from the table, the other women present will almost always jump up to help. Men, by contrast, she says, often do not even notice that their plates have been removed, and as a result will frequently start jabbing their forks into the tablecloth.
“That’s why it always amazes me that you can sit at the kitchen table reading the paper while I’m mopping or folding laundry,” she added. “I could never imagine just relaxing like that while someone else is doing work right in front of me.”
I offered to give her some pointers, and maybe even take her on a field trip to see how the experts who work on road repair crews do it, but she said no, muttering something about me missing the point.
But I think she’s the one missing the point. The women’s magazines always offer suggestions on how to get men to do their share around the house — essentially to cajole us into acting more like women. But wouldn’t a better (and more realistic) solution be for women to start acting like men? Sure, overall household cleanliness will suffer, but without the chores issue dividing us, men and women will finally have enough time to sit down and really hash out some of those problems with communication.
I suggest beginning with a pressing topic that no doubt requires greater understanding: the West Coast Offense.
Examiner columnist Malcolm Fleschner doesn’t have to be told twice to clean up after himself. Five or six times usually does it, though
