Don’t split tasks evenly, explains Noah Berlatsky, writing in Scientology puff-magazine the Atlantic:
 Housework isn’t a debt wives owe to husbands, nor one husbands owe to wives. It’s not a gift you give to make a slave. Rather, it’s the quotidian stuff of which the relationship is made. We’re married, so we help each other. And the helping isn’t to protect the marriage, or to keep the people in the marriage happy. The helping is the marriage itself.
Yeah, no kidding.
What if we tried to split all the tasks up equally? Â She’ll breastfeed half the time, and …… what? the other half of the time. Â I’ll hold the steering wheel, you shift the gears. Â You go to your office Monday, Wednesday and come to mine Tuesday, Thursday…
Or maybe: sure, go to medical school — but make sure you’re home on time every day to take care of your twelve hours of the parenting.
Shyeah, right.
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Of course tasks won’t be split equally. But as long as both people are pulling the cart, you’ll make headway. Sometimes he does more, sometimes she does; and they may well contribute in different fashions based on their skills and preferences. C’est la vie, alors, vivons!
Stop being sensible and fight a gender war already.
Yeah, the key is that BOTH people are pulling, not just one, and that there’s mutual respect for the different jobs done, and that neither person’s sole reason for NOT doing something is that they can’t because of their gender.
(except in the very limited cases of gender-based physical impossibility…I think giving birth and breastfeeding are just about the only ones on that list, though…)
I really tried to do my part with breastfeeding. While I didn’t mind it, my kids really didn’t seem to like it so much. Lukewarm reception at best.
Certain actions actually turn into gender-based physical impossibilities, but ONLY when said person becomes married to someone of the opposite gender. Killing spiders larger than a penny, for example, or purchasing baby shower gifts. What was previously possible becomes decidedly UN-possible at a basal X and Y chromosomal level.
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