The REAL Cruel Irony of HOUSEWORK

I would like to address something that has presented itself since my last post.  The issue in regard to women feeling like housework is all their responsibility and husbands don’t help out.  Yes there are definitely men out there that hold hard to the “pink and blue work” mentality but I have seen how the majority of men are willing to help out around the house if we would only ask.  But then there is the problem of “but I shouldn’t have to ask!  They should just know!" We need to go a little deeper with this whole “battle” to understand it and be able to shift our perception into a more productive space. 

Regardless of how we feel about it we still live in a society where for the most part there is still very much the "pink and blue work" mentality in, at the very least, our subconscious and it is going to be a very long time before it is fully removed from our social conditioning "portfolio".  A big part of it is "the house is the woman's responsibility".  And I’m not speaking so much about from the male perspective as our own perspective as a woman.  If you look open mindedly at yourself there is a high probability you will see that.  Unfortunately Woman have been indoctrinated with that perception.  If the house is a mess and someone comes over we feel uptight because we feel WE are being judged..... not our husband.  Not our kids but US.  The state of our home becomes a reflection of our “self worth”.  If our house isn’t tidy, then we are “dropping the ball of responsibility”.  And I SO know that from personal experience.  I can’t just look at an unvacuumed carpet and think “That needs vacuuming”.  I look at it and all these unconscious background thoughts accompany it like “What would someone think if they came in and saw that?” and I see/feel it as a refection of me so messes in the house become an unconscious “attack” on myself worth as a woman.  That is one thing that we need to take a good look at and become aware of.  Even though I am fully conscious of this "fact", it is still a huge struggle when I see a messy house but there is something else I would SO rather be doing!  I really have to push myself to sit and take a good look at my values in the moment and decide which is truly important.  (An example I have seen in a number of households is the host(ess) doing dishes immediately after dinner even while the company is still there.  To me it makes more sense to enjoy your company and worry about the dishes later.  Could never wrap my head around that.)

The other part is the perception that our husbands aren’t willing to help and we shouldn’t have to ask.  They should be able to just see what needs to be done and do it.  That, I feel, is very unfair and another thing that should be looked at more deeply to gain understanding of their mentality in this area.  And for me I have been lucky to have experienced both sides of the fence so I can relate personally to the “male” perspective.

When I was growing up, my Mom was responsible for all of the housework (old school) so first and foremost that began my “indoctrination” of women being 100%  responsible for the house but, on the flip side, for whatever reason I was never given chores.  Mom did everything (and most of what she did I didn't even actually see).  I never had to lift a finger to help around the house.  How cool for me J but in the end it created problems for me.  When I first moved out and was living with another woman (who had been out on her own for quite some time) I had NO clue about housework.  I didn’t even know how to use a washing machine.  It was not part of my makeup yet to grasp the ins and outs of housework.  I didn’t relate messes as something that had to be taken care of.  So as a result, NOT out of laziness or selfishness but do to complete lack of understanding and awareness, I didn’t contribute to the caring of the house.  She would do all the work and I was completely clueless.  I was almost as bad as the video I will share at the end for a laugh.  I didn’t even realize what I was doing (or NOT doing!) until she got pissy with me.  Even then I still couldn’t wrap my head around what I was supposed to be doing.  Sounds crazy but it is true.  I had had absolutely no experience with taking care of a house and my brain just couldn’t wrap itself around it.  My brain wasn’t wired for it yet (So no.  Housework is NOT instinctual).  No one had explained it to me.  It wasn’t until I moved in with my first husband that suddenly I started to grasp that “this stuff doesn’t get done on its own” and had to start figuring things out.  It was hard!  I was completely clueless.  I remember one time seeing how dirty my carpet had become (even though I vacuumed regularly) and had no clue what to do about it.  Didn’t even realize you had to shampoo carpets every once in awhile.  Even when I did clue into that fact, I had no clue how to go about doing it.  Not like you can just pick it up and through it in the washing machine!  (which I'd learned how to use by that point LOL!)  Wow!!!  Crazy when I look back to those times.   Doing housework isn't something that just comes "naturally".  Like anything else, it is a learned skill.

So I know firsthand what it is like to not have your brain trained to see and automatically deal with stuff around the house.  So when we feel upset because we have to ask our fellow for help and feel that they should just know, remember that their brains haven’t literally been trained to see the house and the messes in it the way we do.  And men don’t have that “clean house = self worth” brainwashing.  On the flip side, my husband shakes his head at me because my car is what he perceives as “messy” where I don’t care.  Doesn't bother me or even really register where cars are important to him (he's a car guy) so he notices things like that.  It all in the perception!  And I feel it is as much a detrimental to our mental social development to portray men as "morons" when it comes to housework as it is to portray women as the "housewives".  Each negative stereo-type feeds the other.  (even though I included this "stereo-type" video at the end but its just TOO funny and because  I was once that guy I'm "allowed" LOL!).