housework
As part of his book, The Guinea Pig Diaries, author A.J. Jacobs did everything his wife told him to.
From The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs. Copyright c. 2009 by A.J. Jacobs. Reprinted by permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc.
In the course of all the life experiments I do for journalism, the most common theme of the e-mails I get sent is that my wife is a saint. These e-mails are sent by readers who are in awe of Julie for putting up with my biblical beard, or for tolerating the endless stream during my year of reading the Britannica. Often, they'll say that I owe her something for the suffering I've inflicted—precious stones, perhaps.
But a … Read More
When he says, "I had a bad day," do you say, "Mine was worse"?
When your spouse comes home from work and tells you his boss yelled at him in front of three colleagues, do you one-up him with a story of the client who reamed you out in a meeting—and later spilled his coffee on your shirt? When you tell your date you need to check out early tonight because you have a 6am conference call tomorrow, does he tell you that he's getting up at 5am to go to the gym? If this sounds familiar, you may be getting sucked into "misery poker."
In a new relationship-focused Wall Street Journal column called Read More
Advice on how to divide housework. First tip? Get him to do man chores!
In today's piece "13 Male Habits The World Could Do Without," number 13 includes "pleaning," defined as "cleaning something so poorly we're prompted to say, 'Man, this was a piss-poor cleaning.'"
Love Buzz is quite familiar with this phenomenon: man says he'll clean his mess in the kitchen. Man spends some time with Windex and paper towels and proclaims said room spotless. When you go in five minutes later to retrieve the hummus from the fridge you find grease on the stove, crumbs on the floor, and pieces of… something, stuck the counter. When questioned, man says, "It looks … Read More
What busy woman wouldn't want a man wife? Find out what happens when one gets her wish.
Many a busy woman with a jam-packed schedule has daydreamed about having a nice, cozy man-wife, with bulging biceps. After all, who wouldn't want to end the day with a home-cooked meal hot off the stove, a neatly made bed and a stack of freshly scented laundry....that's been pristinely ironed and folded. In Annie Sanders' new book, Busy Woman Seeks Wife, one woman gets just that.
But in this entertaining beach read, a man-wife wasn't exactly on career woman Alex Hill's wish list. Rather, she comes home one day expecting to find a woman caring for her aging … Read More
Okay, so we are both highly educated intelligent people. When we got...
Okay, so we are both highly educated intelligent people. When we got married we were all "yay, partnership of equals!!" But sometimes, like on cleaning day, my life feels like some really horrible sexist sitcom. When it's me whining at him to vacuum the floor and he is rolling his eyes like a teenager. And I am like, MY FOREBEARERS DIDN'T BURN THEIR BRAS SO WE COULD FIGHT OVER YOU VACUUMING! Those are the moments I whip out my "We are both adults" speech. Which makes things soooo much better.After almost four years of marriage, things have gotten better, he … Read More
Hint: You'll need a feather duster.
When you become a mom, you acquire mommy friends. Sure, you may scoff now, but when you need to commiserate about sleepless nights and the endless breast milk versus formula debate, other mothers are the only ones who will listen.
My new moms group continues to meet, even though our class has since ended. We gather at the park or in coffee shops—you know, the irritating gaggle of strollers and pools of drool that stands between you and your latte? That's (unfortunately) us.
We talk about all sorts of stuff, and this week, sex came up. The consensus? If your husband wants … Read More
No duh!
The results of a 40-year-long study on housework were recently released from the University of Michigan. Can you guess who does more? No big surprise here: Women do, in fact, know the broom, mop, and feather duster more intimately than their husbands, but the clincher is post-nuptials.
On average, single women did about 12 hours of housework a week, while married women did about 20. Women with three or more kids: roughly 28 hours a week. That’s not raising the kids—that’s simply cleaning up after them. Ack!
It has improved, though. The study … Read More
The pipe dream of men equally sharing household labor is slowly coming true.
Yes, you read that correctly. American men today are indeed taking a more active role in household chores, especially when both members of the house work full-time.
The report from the Council on Contemporary Families, a national network of familial experts and researchers, states: "Men share more family work if their female partners are employed more hours, earn more money, and have spent more years in education."
Not surprisingly, the report references a “general association between sharing housework and healthier marriages.” The more equal the division of labor, the less likely a couple is to divorce.
How do you learn to be a better wife? A class, of course.
Shortly after getting married, I bought dozens of books on how to be a good wife. Marriage was a mystery to me, and I wanted to make sure we got off to a good start. One book in particular, Helen Andelin's Fascinating Womanhood, a 1973 bestseller, jumped out at me. Not only was the author still alive, but she offered online, interactive classes, taught by her trainees.
Part of me was scared to sign up and skeptical that her approach would work for me. It seemed designed for women living like 1950s housewives, where the husband was the boss and … Read More
