I am glad you all don’t think my house is too bad. Those of you who said that are welcome to come on over and I will make you a big plate of brownies. Then I will leave the brownie batter bowl there waiting for Mr. A to come home and clean it. Please do not mind the industrial strength dust bunnies under the couches.
You know the thing about blogging? It puts me into contact with a lot of people who have very different lives than I do. And of course, you all don’t have to agree with the choices we make in our family. Lord knows I certainly wouldn’t make the same choices as a whole lot of you make.
But is this tone really necessary?
Am I mistaken or are you a SAHM? I can’t believe A. that you have “cleaning people” and B. that you expect your husband to come home from work, eat, and do the dishes. All the while knowing that he will be going back to work so that you can stay at home and be a domestic engineer. Where I come from that includes cleaning your own house and doing the dishes (what about cleaning while you are making your decent meal?)! I know, I know, you have 2 children. I have 4 AND live on a farm where I do chores in addition to keeping the house clean and doing the dishes. Just think of what nice glasses frames you could have gotten if the cleaning people didn’t come AND what a wonderful example you could set for your 2 children-that when something needs to be done you do it and not wait for the overworked guy to get around to it.
Here is the thing. I am not going to get defensive about our choices. Though I will note they are OUR choices — compromises made by both Mr. A *and* me jointly. I am not running a dictatorship here.
In case you are curious this is how it played out:
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Mr. A and I got cleaning people when we were both working. It was a choice we made to improve our marriage because we were alway bickering about the mess. It is worth every single penny we spend on it.
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Even with the cleaning people, when Mr. A started his new fancy-pants lawyer job about 2 years ago, it was no longer possible for us to get everything done and have the kind of family life we wanted. Because he earns about 3.5 times my salary, we decided together that I would quit my job.
- Because I am not working, it is now possible for Mr. A to be available to work 80-100 hours a week when the Firm deems it necessary. When he works extra, guess who has to pick up all the slack around here? Oh, yeah, that is ME. I do the extra lawn care, child care, cleaning, laundry, grocery buying, schlepping of kids to and from various lessons etc. There are an awful lot of sacrifices the whole family makes so Mr. A can have the career he wants. That’s ok, because we are generally pretty happy with our lives.
- Do I think it is too much to ask Mr. A to contribute 15 minutes of dishwashing in exchange for all that other crap? No, I don’t. Does he think it is too much to ask? Since he volunteered to do it, probably not so much.
Yeah, we have housekeepers and I like them a lot. Mr. A likes them too. Because we have them, we don’t have to spend time away from our kids scrubbing toilets.
Our marriage is in a really, really good place right now. This is largely because Mr. A and I have been together for about 11 years and have worked out how to communicate about what makes us unhappy. When one of us begins to feel overburdened, we shift things around until we find a good balance.
Our marriage is a partnership. I don’t have to be some kind of martyr to be a good mom and a good wife. And as for Mr. A, save your sympathy. Mr. A is a pretty damn happy guy.
We have decided that the most important example we can show our kids is how to have a good marriage. If they come away having learned that lesson, but with messy houses, I will die a happy mother.
Do what works for your family and will do what works for ours.
Jeesh.
I’m going to skip all the drama, all the namecalling, all the other stuff and go straight to what I loved about your post.
The idea that above all else, showing your children a solid and happy marriage is important. Brav-f-in-o.
I couldn’t agree more. HOw each of us gets to that point is our business, we may let people in on some of our secrets, but that doesn’t mean they know it all about how it takes each fo us to get that balanced, fulfilled marriage. I agree, what works for one family may not work for another.
I see waaaaay too many couples not putting the strength of their marriage first, that union suffers, their kids suffer, the entire family suffers.
If any type of around the house help makes it better, so be it. I for one had planned, until the law of nature screwed us over, to have a housekeeper when our child was born. We agreed we couldn’t do it all and that was one way to make the balance better… this decision was alongside the idea that my husband would be the stay at home parent… imagine how pissed off that would make some people.
[...] I also particularly liked the explanation of the differences between GenX and Baby Boomer mothers. It gave me a little insight into generational/sub-cultural differences that may have contributed this bruhaha. [...]