Ever heard of "Choreplay"?

Parent Cafe
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<p>*Maybe your house is a lot bigger, mine is around 2400 square feet with 2.5 baths and a large kitchen. 9 hours seems extreme to me.</p>

<p>*</p>

<p>notrichenough…I do have a very large house. I can’t thoroughly clean it in a few hours. It takes over an hour just to vacuum and we don’t even have carpet downstairs…however, both sets of staircases are carpeted (big mistake that was…LOL)</p>

<p>bTW…I wasn’t the one who made the 2 full time job claim. But, I would say that a full-time working mom with little children who has an H who doesn’t help much is working two jobs. </p>

<p>And, if you do an equal share of household chores, equally share child responsibilities, and equally share other domestic responsibilities (gift shopping, gift wrapping, card writing, entertainment planning, vacation planning, etc) with your wife, you are the exception, not the rule. </p>

<p>My H readily admits that he does nothing household chore related except for taking the trash down to the curb. When I have to work a lot, his answer is to eat out everyday. LOL</p>

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<p>Many women who work outside the home do not have a cleaning service, Me, for example. I clean my (3100 square ft) house weekly.</p>

<p>I did not say that I myself have 2 full time jobs, but many other women DO especially if they have young children.</p>

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<p>My husband does so much around the house - cooking, laundry, food shopping, gets the kids off to school in the morning. (I go to work early). I do the after school activity shuttling, get them dinner, etc. since he works late. It seems pretty equitable.</p>

<p>And I will admit, I can’t really maintain my standards of what shape i would like the house to be in most of the time. But I won’t make myself, or my husband crazy about it. </p>

<p>We are respectful of each other’s needs and workloads, and things seems very much harmonious, if hectic.</p>

<p>My first marriage was nothing like that. It devolved into score keeping of who did what or did more or didn’t do things right. A lack of communication and respect.</p>

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<p>Yep! When H cleans the kitchen, he might as well be lighting candles!</p>

<p>"I would argue that the other way around would be 10x more effective.</p>

<p>Try initiating sex with your husband 3 nights in a row, and then ask him to do something around the house. IMO that will work far more effectively than dropping hints about being “too tired” because he’s not doing enough. "</p>

<p>Not sure where this comes from; was there something about dropping hints? Or that this was something folks were “doing”? That WOMEN were doing?</p>

<p>Oh! Maybe you are referring to post #4.</p>

<p>PS That’s quite on exchange rate!</p>

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<p>I’m a guy (not married, but I live with family) and uh… I will do almost anything but wash the dishes, and I usually do stuff without being asked to. :P</p>

<p>20-something ladies are you listening? Yea. :smiley: </p>

<p>As for the dishes, there’s always paper plates. :D</p>

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<p>

Certainly not every chore is divided down the middle. And there are whole classes of chores my DW never participates in - yardwork, snow shoveling, taxes (our tax return typically runs to 20+ forms, plus I do the kids’), I take care of any insects that get inside, I’ve got 250+ maintenance hours logged on our rental properties this year. If it’s dirty, smelly, sweaty, or involves heavy lifting, it’s my job. </p>

<p>On the other hand, she makes the phone calls, because I have this thing about phones. I really hate phones. It’s a fair trade-off. :D</p>

<p>I have always helped with the kids and doing homework and what-not because I like to, not because I see it as a chore to get done.</p>

<p>My goal is to not be like my father, who got home every night, plopped in his recliner, held out his hand for his cocktail, expected dinner to be ready, and watched tv all night. He saw his job as bringing home the bacon, and it pretty much began and ended there. My mother never worked outside the home, so maybe it was a fair trade-off. It’s a pretty low bar to exceed, though. I don’t think doing better than this is exceptional, and I don’t think I am exceptional. I know lots of guys of my generation who are the same.</p>

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<p>

Post #1 - this whole thread started with the premise that women can get men to do more around the house if they hold out more nookie as the reward.</p>

<p>I think if you ask a man to help out while he is still on a big endorphin high, the chances of success are better. But that’s just my opinion as a male. :cool:</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>I could never reduce parenting and running a home into a series of tasks with minutes/hours attached. It does not take into consideration any of the emotional toil and wake ups during night with sick child, making appointments, running errands, homework time, sports, school actvities, church, PTA, rehearsals, doctor time, etc.
I suspect this post was made by a man. No offense but very evident. Most of us do not have cleaning services to help with some of the tasks.</p>

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<p>“Post #1 - this whole thread started with the premise that women can get men to do more around the house if they hold out more nookie as the reward.”</p>

<p>Interesting! Couldn’t one also have read it as men can get more nookie if they hold out more help as a reward?. But then I didn’t read the original article.</p>

<p>“I think if you ask a man to help out while he is still on a big endorphin high, the chances of success are better”</p>

<p>I’m having trouble visualizing the logistics of that…</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>I, too, knew this was posted by a man when I read it. I agree, it doesn’t take into acct all the extras that you mentioned. And, most chores cannot be done consecutively to get them done with a total set number of hours. Just like a real job, there’s down time that you can’t avoid, but it the total time is still there. When I worked in sales, we’d sometimes have hours where no one would come into the store…we’d piddle around with minor stuff and maybe chat…however, we still considered ourselves “working” for the full 8 hours. </p>

<p>*Certainly not every chore is divided down the middle. And there are whole classes of chores my DW never participates in - yardwork, snow shoveling, taxes (our tax return typically runs to 20+ forms, plus I do the kids’), I take care of any insects that get inside, I’ve got 250+ maintenance hours logged on our rental properties this year. If it’s dirty, smelly, sweaty, or involves heavy lifting, it’s my job. </p>

<p>*</p>

<p>I never said that each specific chore would get split. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>I was speaking overall. And, yes, you are one the exceptions. We have a lawn guy, a pool guy, and I take care of our rentals and I’m the “handy” one. My H readily admits that he’s a “go to work, go to the gym, go golfing, watch ESPN, kind of guy.” He does pay the bills (which are now mostly automatic online) and does our taxes…but he’s not a “chore person” nor is he handy at fixing things at all. When the kids were little, he would change diapers, but 95% of childcare was my responsibility…which is why (for us) it was better that I didn’t work much when the kids were little (he didn’t like seeing the gross inequity and readily admitted it…LOL). If I had to work when the kids were little, it would have been an awful time like what Martina described of “keeping track” and stuff and my H would have been the very sore loser on that end (which, again, he would readily admit). I doubt we would still be married if I had to have worked full-time when the kids were small because I would have been working 2 full time jobs…easily…while H was enjoying his downtime at the gym, golf course, etc. And, believe me, more children could never have been conceived because I would have been way too tired. LOL</p>

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<p>

Yes, I have never gotten up with a sick kid, never helped with homework, or ran an errand, or drove a kid to soccer practice or a rehearsal, etc. I cannot have any idea of the time demands or the emotional “toil” involved with raising a family and running a house, and therefore any opinions I might have on this subject can just be dismissed. Because I am a man.</p>

<p>:rolleyes:</p>

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<p>I had to visit someones house for my job once and his wife answered the door and said he is next door. When I said I would wait she told me he lives next door. They were still married but found it easier if each had their own house. My in-laws were looking at some over 55 houses in Arizona and most of the homes had a small home in the back for “elderly parents” but the agent told my FIL that most of the men moved into them.</p>

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<p>notrichenough; you can do better than that. We are “grown-ups”.</p>

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<p>Notrichenough, I guess I was right. You never mentioned any of this in your post about running a household . You divided running a household into a series of tasks. It is nice to know that you do all of the things that women take into account in running a household.</p>

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<p>the point of the topic of “choreplay” is that many women find themselves up late at night still doing family/home related tasks while the men have long found the couch and the remote control…and then when it’s bedtime, the men are upset/frustrated that they aren’t getting sex as often as they’d like because their wives are too tired. </p>

<p>So…the point would be…Men, if you want more sex, and you find that you’re sitting in the evenings while your wife is still running around doing chores, help with those chores so that your wife can have some downtime as well and be more rested for nightplay. </p>

<p>Since Notrichenough insists that he does equal work around the house and his wife has to spend very little time doing chores around the house, then she must always be well rested and he must have no complaints about getting enough sex.</p>

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<p>

Never said that.

Never said that.

Really? She “must”?

Oh yeah, baby. Bow-chikka-bow-wow!</p>

<p>I split out the “chore” portion of running a house, and gave estimates for how long is spent on these things in my house. Obviously your household will be different.</p>

<p>I deliberately left out the child-centric activities, I was hoping some people might actually estimate how long they actually spend doing this, as opposed to chores. I wanted to see if it actually came close to “two full time jobs” as was the original claim.</p>

<p>No one has volunteered a number. Instead, we get “what does a man know” and “you can’t break parenting down into a series of tasks.”</p>

<p>Well, yes you can. If you want to. Divide your day into 5 minute chunks and record what activity was primarily done in that time. My guess is most people don’t want to know, because they will discover the majority of their time is spent sitting around, whether at home or at a soccer practice or whatever. And it is absolutely possible to become more efficient in getting stuff done, see dmd77’s post, it’s brilliant.</p>

<p>And I totally agree that when the kids are babies, it is a lot more work. I do remember those days. But as my kids have gotten older, and especially when they hit high school (which I presume is around the age of most of our kids, considering what forum we are on), they have required less and less actual hands-on parenting time. Especially once they got their drivers’ licenses. It is certainly nothing close to adding up to a second full-time job - for my family.</p>

<p>I’d like to hear about what happens in other families. But if you just want to put words in my mouth and make stuff up about what you imagine my life is like, that’s ok too.</p>

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<p>*Since Notrichenough insists that he does equal work around the house </p>

<p>Never said that.
*</p>

<p>Maybe I misunderstood your earlier post. I thought you said that you tracked you and your wife’s home-related work and when your wife complained that she felt that she does more then you brought out your trusty list that proved that you and your wife’s effort was found to be nearly equal, but she still “felt” like it wasn’t. </p>

<p>*My W and I used to fight about this when our kids were younger. So for a period of about 3 months I created a list, with times down to the minute as best I could, of how long we each spent doing stuff around the house. Then, during one of our arguments about how I don’t do enough and I’m not carrying my share and everything falls on her to do, I pulled out my list. And surprise - it turned our cumulative times were within 10% or so of each other.</p>

<p>Her response was essentially “I don’t care what the facts show, this is how I feel”. Tough to argue with that.*</p>

<p>Oh wait…you did say that. </p>

<p>And, since you say that the chores around your home take about 10 hours per week (split by 2 people), you have implied that your wife doesn’t have to do much around the house. After all, I think most wives would say that if they only have to split about 10 hours of housework per week that they don’t have to do much around the house.</p>

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<p>“…especially when they hit high school (which I presume is around the age of most of our kids, considering what forum we are on), they have required less and less actual hands-on parenting time. Especially once they got their drivers’ licenses.”</p>

<p>Oy. You may not be washing diapers anymore, but parenting a teen, IMO, is a much harder job than parenting a baby or a toddler. The work may be less physical in nature, but the emotional and mental toll is far greater (just like being a stock broker or lawyer vs being a carpenter). And I’m not even counting the x number of hours of volunteering for athletic teams, band or PTA… :slight_smile: So the work burden shifts from the laundry room to the community. I hope you contributed as many hours towards those activities as your wife did, and your kids’ PTA and team volunteer boards were 50-50 male-female.</p>

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<p>Yes, for us, a LOT of the time I spent parenting our kids came when THEY came to me (since I was the one most available) at THEIR convenience and chatted, whether it was just after something upsetting, when I picked them up from activity, after school, late at night, early in the am, or some other time. I know I was privy to a lot more of these conversations because I was physically there and to me, this was a very important part of parenting that I could never plan but happened because I was the available ear/shoulder and they could talk on THEIR schedule.</p>

<p>I feel blessed that hubby has never tried to document every minute/hour of the chores each of us does in a day, week or year. </p>

<p>When I was pregnant with S, we agreed that I’d take maternity leave & then he’d take 6 weeks vacation, working only part time (half-days M, Tu, Th & F with full day on W). He assembled a huge stack of “stuff” that he planned to do with all his “free time” while he was home with our S. By the end of his 1st week of watching S while working part-time, he said it would be great if I would be willing to quit work & raise our S for a while. He didn’t even make a small dent on his stack of “stuff” and said that raising an infant was a LOT more than he had ever imagined! He was so happy to go back to work full-time!</p>

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<p>Yes, I have never gotten up with a sick kid, never helped with homework, or ran an errand, or drove a kid to soccer practice or a rehearsal, etc.</p>

<p>I am just speaking for myself- and my husband-
Yes he has driven on field trips- even taken days off work to do weeklong stays.
He goes to the grocery store, does his own laundry etc.
But I do notice a distinct difference in our parenting style.
I am the one that makes the dr appts or even keeps track of them- of what the kids & the family is eating & I do most of the cooking & am in charge of everyones health- although that has gotten less hands on as they have gotten older.</p>

<p>I am the one who does research of what they need in their K-12 school & college, who looks into what is available, and who keeps close tabs on how they are doing- which includes spending * a lot of time, thinking about it, reading things that will help me, and talking to others*</p>

<p>While my husband was so freaked by our 18 yr old daughter going off to India by herself that when I got a concussion the next day, he didn’t take me to the dr & I had to walk to the emergency room myself( I was afraid to drive & I wasn’t thinking clear enough to call anyone), he also was not the one who had checked out her plans and made provisions for emergencies.</p>

<p>There is a LOT more to parenting than running errands. It is the planning & decisions & thought that come before that, , that takes so much time & energy.
That I think just depends on personality, not sex.</p>