"women's" work

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Sounds to me like your current approach is more flylady than when you were doing flylady. She didn't say to polish your sink or wear high heels - she said to shine your sink (which I basically just do dishes so it's empty) and wear shoes (not heels - but shoes you can do chores in).



Everything is more interesting than cleaning. I have to fight the temptation to go overboard and burn out, or simply ignore everything. Finding the middle way has been very hard for me.

Glad your new method is working better for you.

I know she was being sarcstic, but I remember something about putting on your nicest clothes to get the job done... a chore unto itself!! !

It's not so much that cleaning is boring to me, it just feels totally overwhelming.

If I recall correctly flylady also has things on a schedule... another thing I am not good at following .

I'm going to try to keep this from being long-winded and whiny, but...
I'm getting to the point where I realize I have spent a good potion of my life cooking for and cleaning up after people who don't appreciate it.
I don't want to sound like I want to bash men, because I know plenty of men who do not expect women to do all the grunt work. But if I am working a job and the man is not employed, I don't think it is fair to expect the woman to do everything around the house. I have had a hard time getting men in my life to see that it is unfair to expect this at times.
Why is this? They have seemed startled that I bring it up.

Who is flylady?

Lae, if a man can't understand that it's a stupid idea for you to try and do a job while he is unemployed, _and_ do all of the housework while he does none, then he's not worth your time. I'd tell him that if he didn't start figuring it out, he'd be soon up for replacement.

What I'm trying currently is going on strike. No cooking and no certain other things. And it is working to a degree. Still a work in progress.

www.flylady.net

Flylady is a woman (she's into flyfishing so flylady was her handle on CB and later on Bulletin boards and the net) who started a coaching group on housecleaning. She emphasizes babysteps, using a timer, doing things 15 minutes at a time, and avoiding perfectionism. For me, it's been incredibly helpful to have her actually make it clear exactly what is involved in keeping a house clean, so that I don't get overwhelmed.

I like to tell people that I'm not married to the house. There are more important things than getting neurotic over a messy house. Sure, it gets cleaned, but it certainly isn't spotless. The kids do their own laundry, everyone picks up after themselves ..sometimes. And if they don't, it lays there. And yes, it can be overwhelming, what I call the procrastinator jobs. But I don't do all those in one day or even the same week.

heh. I know the thing to do would be to complain about housekeeping chores, but... I sort of enjoy them. They're one of my newest fixations I've been using as a guide the book "The Art and Science of Keeping House" which has been helpful to me because it is very explicit about what needs doing and why (though I don't follow her instructions exactly), and what order to do things in.

Possibly the difference is that nobody is requiring me to keep house. I don't have a family to look after, and my mother didn't teach me any of the housekeeping stuff, so I get to learn it from a book, like everything else (which somehow makes it more interesting and less drudgery).

I think, though, that I also like it because I have had a couple of janitorial-type jobs in the past, and always enjoyed the late-night sweeping and mopping. It's very meditative.

i personally think this man you mention is a selfish ding dong.. no its not all the womans work.. when I went in search of a mate I made sure that he had a quality that I needed.. someone who was not a male chauvenist and thought that woman are the only ones who clean.. my husband and I share the chores.. he is not employed but is home raising 2 children and one of them is a very clingy 7 month old cutting teeth.. I do not at all expect my husband to get the cleaning done because a lot of times his attention is focused on the kids.. he gets more annoyed with himself that he does not get what he thinks should be done.. so on weekends he gets to do the huge jobs he can not get to during the week.. and I take care of the 2 kids.. we have unspoken jobs that I cook and he cleans up.. it jusdt fell in that order.. the one thing I request is that he does not do laundry.. or at least mine.. i end up with a ton of shrunken clothes.. the one thing I do try to get thru to him is that he needs to take out something from the freezer.. but he always forgets.. his punishment.. take out.. hmmm maybe he likes to do this more often than i thought...

keep shopping for a good man who will meet you 50-50.. they are out there really!

I am 42 and was raised in a household with very "traditional" roles.The women wait on the men and do all the shopping,cooking and cleaning.This may have made since in a society when women did not work outside the household but it does not fit our society today.I think it is irrisposible of parents and schools not to require these skills to be learned by both genders.My 50 year old boyfriend never learned these skills and it has taken four years to incorporate some of the simplist tasks into his daily rutiens(sp?)He is still overwhelmed with things like shopping for food and cooking and I have to be in the right mood to do either,so we eat alot of chinese takeout.

Point being...we are responsible as a society to teach these tasks to males so that they can live more independently.The same goes for stereotypically "male" jobs like mowing the lawn(for NT who dont hate the noise), or changing a tire...Then two people can bring full skills into a relationship and make their own decessions of how to share the work load...if it falls into traditional roles...thats fine, but it should be based on a choice not a lack of learning.

Something on tv said women exercise as much as men cleaning the house.

I hope no one minds to hear from a male perspective. Being a musician or at least a music freak, I have had several jobs that are not typical manly jobs. Now I only work part time and keep house full time (with 2 PDD kids to care for, maintaining the house is Full Time work!) while my wife works full time. I'll admit to being disorganized (I sometimes run out of whites and never ever finish dusting the house) and I'm not detail oriented where cleaning is concerned (I tend to make little piles of stuff to deal with later and leave them in the corners), but I'm painfully annoying when it comes to sanitation of our eating and food storage areas or anything that might create a smell.

I fail (in my wife's beautiful NT eyes) to do a very good job, but our kitchen is safe, our bathrooms are spotless and fresh, and the kids are clean. Laundry can pile up, but everyone always has something clean to wear, although both kids have their favorite clothes and sometimes they have to change their dressing plans on laundry days, but 'adapting and rethinking' is like therapy as far as I'm concerned. They need to learn to do that, too.

If I spent the time that would be required to have a perfectly organized and prestine house (not sure I'm capable, anyway), my kids would not be nearly as far along as they are and I would be a total basket case at the end of the day, instead of a cheerful and considerate partner, anxious to welcome home our "breadwinner", with a home cooked meal, after her rough day at work.

You ladies who are having to deal with a man that won't pull his weight have my sympathy. You guys who don't help with housework are NOT being a true partner, but rather a severe drain on your mate's emotional and physical resources. You BUMS (I don't care if you work hard, you're still a bum if you don't help out around the house!) should try a role reversal for a week or a month or two and see what this so-called 'women's work' really involves. You probably couldn't handle it, either.


EDIT: I added "either" at the end, just to be fair and honest.

Last edited by DirtDawg on 21 Aug 2006, 7:53 am, edited 3 times in total.

thanks dirtdwag. you had some very powerful insight!... my husband can totally relate to you... he has a 4 year degree in graphic design but chooses his family 1st. i really don't think he would trade his life at home. i met so many men who thought of the house stuff as womans work. needless to say i never gave them much time after i found out avout the real them....

My NT ex cooked, cleaned and cared for my kids while I worked. Good thing too cuz I wasn't capable of it.

I can do a particular cleaning task. I can cook a particular dish. But - keeping a house, or cooking for the week? I failed, repeatedly, because I didn't realize that it wasn't merely laziness or carelessness (just as no one around me realized). I finally figured out what "executive dysfunction" is and realized that, no matter how much I care, I'm not going to be able to keep hte house and meals using the same methods as an NT.

As an Aspie female, I think that this is one of those things that's often overlooked - and that's why I brought it up. It's not that I'm lazy - I'm not. It's not that I can't clean a toilet. I can. It's that I get totally lost and overwhelmed when I try to figure out how to "clean the house" and "keep the house clean". I can't do those things. But I *can* follow a schedule that gives me specific instructions of what to do when. (Like flylady, or the book someone else mentioned.)

I think it's something to keep in mind for diagnosing Aspie females. I'm wondering what other areas are hard to notice that Aspie women do/don't do that get overlooked.

I would rather have my energy for more importantt things like SEX.

I can manage things that i know should be a priority like dishes or laundry, but as for a clean, tidy house....forget it. Often i just wont notice mess unless i'm physically tripping over it, honestly i just look right through it. Other times, i just can't bring myself to consider it important and so it doesn't get done. Unfortunatly my other half is as bad as me, so the house is just a mess and thats that!!