Home Job Descriptions
One thing
becomes clear when you live with just one person, each person has specific jobs
that they are accountable for (I don’t care what your eighth grade teacher taught you, “for
which you are accountable” just sounds ridiculous!).
I am the
only coffee drinker in the house, several cups a day. We keep the coffee in a normal sized tin, and
we have several huge cans of Kirkland coffee in the pantry. I use coffee-mate in my coffee which we also keep in a normal sized container and
have a huge reserve container in the pantry.
I am the
only one to use the coffee or the coffee-mate, and yet I never refilled
the small containers when they get low.
It is just not my job. There was
no reason for this, we didn’t take a vote, it just is Mrs. C’s job. I once tried to refill the coffee and was
told,
“Stop,
that’s my job!”
There are a
lot of such silly home chores like this.
Chores that anyone could do, but only one person does.
I unload the
dishwasher. She loads the dishes. When I load any dishes, she redoes my
loading. She will not, however load the
flatware. I find hers in the sink.
“You load the dishes, why don't you load the flatware?”
“Because you
complain how I load the flatware, it interferes with your unloading. I load the
dishes because you don’t know how. You’re
a man, no man knows how to load a dishwasher; I think it’s in the Bible.”
Yeah, she’s
right.
At night, it
is my job to turn out the front light.
Mrs. C works three nights a week and comes home at 9 or ten. She could turn out the light when she comes
home, but no, it is my job. At 10:30 I
go downstairs to get a refill of water and turn out the light. If I forget I am scolded.
It is Mrs. C’s
job to fill the humidifier in the bed room.
It is my job to turn it on. It is
my job to turn off the light at night. There
are many such silly jobs in our house with specific responsibilities assigned
for no particular rhyme or reason.
Mrs. C does
the laundry. I clean the bathrooms, and vacuum the floors.
We took a
vote on those chores. It was one to one. Apparently her one is bigger than my one. She says that is also in the Bible.
I should
have gone to Sunday School.
Same here in North Carolina. Wouldn't have it any other way.
ReplyDeleteLife. Equality. Or so.
ReplyDeleteI'll let you in on a little secret :) Its not in the Bible :)
ReplyDeleteHubby is doing 95% of the chores here now that he's retired. I mainly help clean up where he rinses the dishes and I stack them in the dishwasher. I have to refrain myself over and over again on letting him do things his way and not my way. I have to honestly say I don't miss a single chore :)
betty
My primary job is knowing where every single item is kept in the house. Hick's primary job is keeping the five acres of yard mowed.
ReplyDeletei think it is universally acknowledged realty that woman is an authority for house chores dear Joe :)
ReplyDeletehubby used to help me in my chores when kids were little ,now he is almost retired as my sons assist me if i need help instead of him
garden is totally his responsibility though
I remember my domination about filling the dishwasher. Peace reigned eventually though. Daft thing is, when Joe died he took the dishwasher with him... yes, the damn thing packed up which someone told me was judgement!!
ReplyDeleteI'm the SAHM so I guess I do everything, I even take the trash to the curb.
ReplyDeleteThat is too funny. You two really have an interesting life. Loved her using the Bible to back up her rules. You just can't argue that.
ReplyDeleteWe're both retired now, so we're in the midst of a re-negotiation of the Division of Labor. I do the laundry, sweep the floors, and take out the trash; she does most of the cleaning. The dishwasher is a whoever-sees-it thing. We still have a teenage son at home to mow the lawn, thank goodness. . .
ReplyDeleteI'm, uh, not sure which Bible verse your wife might be referring to. Maybe the Book of Fabrications. . .
Sharing. That is what it is all about!
ReplyDeleteWhen Romeo retired, he started doing some of "my jobs". Then he started re-arranging stuff. But you know, it was just better to put things back how I wanted them without saying anything, and I just let him do whatever of my jobs he wants....Lol.
ReplyDeleteThe expression in my house was "the way God intended" and you would probably need to have gone to Sunday school to learn that one too.
ReplyDeleteI am impressed about your vacuuming though. I have lived with three men in my life (well, four if you count my father) and not one of them seemed to understand the concept of vacuuming.
We both drink coffee, but I handle ALL things coffee. Ms. C must be right because I can't load the dishwasher correctly. I'm going to check the Bible.
ReplyDeleteThere are other chores that we split as well. It serves us well.
Hmmmm, that makes me think of our jobs at my house. I pretty much take care of "input" (grocery shopping and cooking and the husbvand takes care of "output" picking up the dog poop, the litter box and cleaning the toilets.
ReplyDeleteJust so you know, Grandpa loads the dishwasher, and does a fabulous job of it. Grandma leaves it all to him.
ReplyDelete“Because you complain how I load the flatware, it interferes with your unloading. I load the dishes because you don’t know how. You’re a man, no man knows how to load a dishwasher; I think it’s in the Bible.”
ReplyDeleteYeah, she’s right.
If she had married an Engineer she probably would have been wrong. The thought process of an engineer coupled with a man's innate laziness would have teamed up to create efficient loading of a dishwasher.
"We took a vote on those chores. It was one to one. Apparently her one is bigger than my one. She says that is also in the Bible."
ReplyDeleteWOW. THis sounds like proof of my theory on the following biblical quote: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands” (Eph. 5:22–24).
My take is that females are smarter than males, I read that in becoming male, the chemical process destroys part of the brain that connects the two halfs. Thus creating "woman's intuition" and easier recovery from strokes than men with a similar condition. Take two: women are persistent, steadfast and tenacious which are great attributes for those having all or most of the responsibility for bearing and rearing replacement humans. Males have these traits also but in my family, and I surmise some others, these attributes move further into the stubborn area for the females.
The alternatives to " wives being subject" vary from the criminal, to total submission with accommodation of some sort in between. I feel the biblical option is the way to go.
Male dominance is not supreme because it depends on the acceptance by the female. It may start badly because of the mental differences and the reluctance of the male to accept help. After embarrassment and failure a males success rate should improve. He should learn to profitably use the suggestions he get from the female. It is his responsibility to do a good job in leading.
I would say her "one vote" meant more because you made the decision as a leader that her way was better or equal to yours.
I'm ignoring all chores apart from making the bed and washing the dishes. Lola doesn't care as long as her food appears daily, so it's all good here.
ReplyDelete