One of the radio personalities we listen to each morning declared she was going on strike in her house a few weeks ago, and it got me thinking…. What would cause me to go on strike in our house? Is there any reason I’d ever feel the need to do so?
Her big thing was that she was fed up with not getting any help from her husband and kids when it came time to figure out what to have for dinner each day (yeah, it was a real knock down, drag out fight, can’t you tell? ;)). Now, dear readers, I would never find myself in this situation because, as many of you know, I don’t cook. I don’t enjoy it, I don’t get any real satisfaction out of whipping up a whole big spread or a nice fancy dish, I don’t like following recipes and getting all the ingredients and dishes together, and I’m not particularly good at it. I mean I am certainly capable of following a recipe and producing an edible finished product, but it’s just not my thing. In fact, I often say that if you want to torture me, make me chop stuff. Yuck.
Fortunately I am very lucky to have R, who is a wonderful cook and actually does enjoy it. This obviously isn’t the only reason I’m lucky to have him, but you know what I’m sayin’. He loves trying new recipes and gets totally involved in the prep and execution. His signature meal is Thanksgiving – he’s been known to make the entire buffet line of eats, even when it’s not really Thanksgiving. It’s hilarious too – he always stages his good dishes and photographs them. I’ll have to post some pics the next time we have one. They usually involve nice big cuts of meat, so it’s a good thing I’m not a vegetarian!
He’s gotten really into making food for D as well, which is awesome. He’ll bake up a batch of sweet potatoes and puree them up to be frozen, steam other veggies and do the same, and he even boiled a couple chicken breasts and baby-food-ified them the other night too to see if she’ll try meat yet (fyi, she won’t. she gagged every little bite of chicken. not sure if it was too salty or the texture, but it was pretty funny to see. so we’ll stick to cereal and veggies and fruit for now). I have contributed slightly in the baby food department – I’m good at mashing bananas. Probably because all you need for that is a fork, not a food processor. 😉 I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m lazy; it applies to this aspect of my life, too.
One time one of my grandparents asked me if it bothered me at all that R does all of the cooking. No, of course not, I replied (i think my answer may have surprised them a little. what? a woman doesn’t feel displaced when her husband does all the cooking? heaven forbid. yeah, different generations and all. i’ll forgive them :)). You see, we have an excellent division of power in our house – R cooks, I clean. It’s a great system. For although I couldn’t care less if I know how to make boeuf bourguignon or a killer rack of lamb, I do pride myself in keeping a mean clean house. I try to get things dusted and vacuumed once every week or two, which of course R thinks is totally unnecessary, maybe because he’s often trying to play video games when I want to vacuum. Too bad, just pick your feet up for 5 seconds. Whenever he huffs about me cleaning I just keep politely reminding him that he could have much worse things than a wife who keeps a clean house.
Don’t get me wrong, housework is not something I consider *fun*, but I do feel great once I have the house cleaned, the laundry done, and the rest of my weekend to enjoy the lack of clutter and piles of junk from the week and dust bunnies running around the wood floors. While we were remodeling it drove me crazy having entire rooms’ worth of stuff packed into other rooms (i swear we didn’t get to use our dining room as an actual dining room for a good year at one point), plaster dust all over the joint, and certain uninhabitable areas of the house in general. But now that we’re all put back together I do love seeing clean dust-free furniture, crumb- and dirt-free floors, and shiny tile kitchen counter tops. Call me crazy, I can take it.
So what are things like in your household? If you’re married or live with someone do you have a similar divide and conquer system, or is one or the other of you responsible for the brunt of the chores? Any of you feeling like you need to go on strike yet?
I guess to answer my own original question, I can’t really think of any good reason that I would tow the picket line at home in this regard. Our cook/clean division of power is a well-oiled machine, so I’ll stick with it. Plus one of these days I’m sure R will teach D how to find her way around the kitchen and I’ll show her how to help Mommy use the dusters. 🙂 R is notorious for turning his closet area into a massive clothes monster, but instead of striking and refusing to clean it up, I just go in there every so often and put the pile away. And just remind myself that I could have much worse things than a husband who throws his clothes on the floor. 😉
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I got to thinking about my previous post this evening, and I just wanted to clarify something. Although I love D unconditionally and can’t get mad at her when she’s miserable and screaming in my face because it’s my job to fix whatever’s causing the misery, I wasn’t trying to imply that every day of parenthood is rainbows and unicorns. Some days it is, but others it’s really really hard work. In fact, about 7 weeks after D was born, I announced that I had had all I could take and I was done being a mommy. Remember that lack of patience with which I was blessed? Yeah, it had kicked in big time at that point, fueled by broken sleep and lack of a newborn instruction manual.
