Household Chores

[ValleyofVision]

I am curious to know how you and your spouse handle household chores

My wife is a stay at home mom so right now, she handles basically everything in the house : grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.


I work from 8:30am-5:30pm everyday, come home, eat dinner with my family, have an hour of family worship, help bathe and put to sleep my daughter and them finally spend time with my wife.


She is planning to begin homeschooling our daughter within the next year and I'm wondering if I should be picking up some of the chores to help her out and lessen her duties?

 

[Pergamum]

I think the Bible demands a general pattern of the the wife being a "keeper at home" and focused on the home/kids while the husband is focused outside the home to provide and protect the family. Even the Proverbs 31 woman has home-based industries while the husband sits at the gate with the elders (i.e. the Proverbs 31 woman was not a career woman). To run the home or think big-picture sometimes a man needs down-time to come home and think.

However, a husband also leads. And this means pitching in to help where help is needed.

Also....here are some questions: Why aren't the chores getting done before 5:30pm? Is anything being neglected? Is she overwhelmed? Are there unrealistic standards of cleanliness in your home? Is she working hard enough? Can you simplify your home to reduce the workload? And how demanding is your job? How tired are you when getting home? It sounds like you are booked up every night until about 9 or 10pm. Can that pattern hold? I've seen men run ragged with home stuff after a full day of work and it seems to hurt their health and marriage quite a bit (I've also seen lazy oafs of men who don't really work that hard at work and never work at home). It sounds like you have 1 daughter? That is not a huge amount of kids. Homeschooling can be demanding, but not greatly with only 1 daughter homeschooling. If you picked up slack would you be denying your wife growth in the areas of juggling her own responsibilities?

I think this is probably a husband-wife decision and not a PB decision. What does your wife think?

 

[Edward]

Universal rules are going to lead to near universal unhappiness. Schedules change, workloads shift, machinery breaks, health issues come and go. Figure out what works and adapt as needed. And figure out what doesn't need to be done as often.

 

[Jack K]

We start by figuring out what we each care about, have a knack for, and believe should be done well, and those are the first chores we each take on.

 

[jwithnell]

Families differ, and seasons in life change. Roll with the punches.

I happen to like painting walls and building projects, but I won't touch electrical repairs. There's almost always housework, food prep, etc. that needs to be done, and no, that rarely can be finished before 5:30 -- unless you're willing to forego dinner, children's baths, or leave the mess till morning.

Perhaps, as head of household it's healthiest to believe that it is all your responsibility. Then figure out what delegation works best for your family with a healthy respect for changes (new baby, home schooling, etc.). And it is important to organize this work around a weekly culmination in the Lord's day.

 

[ZackF]

<singing> Put another log on the fire... <singing>

 

[OPC'n]

Happy wife happy life. I'm not a wife, but I listen to wives. Their jobs are never done whereas you get to leave your job. Even if there's nothing she wants you to do when you get home, remember she needs a break from her job and needs to be taken out once a week (or whatever you guys decide) on a date with you.

 

[bookslover]

It's simple for me:

Since my wife's death in 2013, I cook (meaning: I nuke), I do the laundry, I try to keep the house as clean as I can (not as clean as it can possibly be!), I do the grocery shopping, etc.

So, I've got a real simple division of labor going on!

 

[ValleyofVision]

Thank you for the wisdom. My wife and I discussed and figured it out.

Everything is done before I come home, she never complains or asks for help, and with her starting homeschooling, I was trying to take some off of her.

Thank you again.