Another full day at work...

[odanu]

and little time for "fun" stuff. I got home this evening and saw immediately that while his father and I were working and earning a living, our youngest son had not done any of his assigned chores. I didn't yell. I just got him started on his chores, and added some for good measure. He doesn't know it yet, but tomorrow he will be deep cleaning the downstairs of the house.

I simply don't understand parents that raise their children without a conception that they are expected to pull their own weight at home. As a feminist mom, my sons have household responsibilities, now that they're old enough to handle them, equal to mine and their father's. The only part of household management my sons don't participate in is the executive stuff: the budget, the planning of long term goals, etc. And yes, they have some input on those as well, they just don't participate formally.

This summer I had a minor surgical procedure, and have not felt physically able to work full time and then do housework and gardening on top of it. That means that my boys have had to pick up some of my slack. I fight hard against feeling guilty. It's summer vacation, and even with the chores, both of them have broad swathes of their days free of responsibility (or would if they didn't dawdle over their chores). Still, I'm a product of my environment, and my environment has drilled it into me since I was a small child that a mother that sits on the couch typing or sewing or knitting or spinning while her husband and/or child are cooking and cleaning is simply being "lazy".

On the other hand (and I remind myself of this often) our egalitarian marriage works incredibly well for my husband and I, and we each have approximately equal responsibilities in the domestic sphere (which are divided more along interest and time availability lines than anything else, and are constantly shifting). My sons are learning how to be participative romantic partners, who don't see the domestic sphere as "women's work". I've already been thanked for this by a couple of my oldest son's girlfriends over the years, and when he realized it made him more marketable as a partner, my oldest son (reluctantly) thanked me himself. Doesn't stop the grumbling, though. It also doesn't stop the deeply ingrained guilt.... but I endeavor to persevere.

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[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Our kids are currently being raised by two families -- ours (two adult women, neither of whom are presently working for pay and both of whom do at least some household tasks, though mine are limited by health issues) and their father's (a heterosexual couple, both of whom have part-time jobs and ostensibly both of whom do housework, though I suspect their father passes off his on his girlfriend as he used to do on me). I don't know if they have chores at their dad's house, but they're only there on weekends; the bulk of their "workweek" time is spent with us. And here, they've been taught that everyone does what they can and everyone helps cover the shortfall when somebody can't.

The kids are only six and four, so there are limits to what they can do, but they are regularly asked to help with various tasks, and they like to. Joseph lights up when he's offered a chance to help, and trots back and forth carrying things with great eagerness and reasonable skill. Grace has occasional issues complaining about having to do something when it's assigned by Callie. When it's assigned by me, her desire to please Mama kicks in, and she falls all over herself to be helpful.

Both are still at the age where the supervision necessary to get them to do a job right costs us more energy than just doing it for them, but we consider it worthwhile. It's investing in both our future and theirs. They need to learn the domestic skills involved, and they need to learn the concept that everyone in a household has to work to keep it running smoothly. If that means I spend more spoons on talking Grace through the process of a new kitchen skill or helping Joseph sort his clean laundry so he puts it in the right drawers than if I'd done it for them, that's all right with me.

The concept of anything, whatsoever, being "men's work" or "women's work" just hasn't come up around here, except in that Grace is very proud of the fact that women can build babies and feed them from their bodies and men can't. I point out to her that men can help a woman start a baby, and that's something women can't do; and that there've been a few men who, with medical assistance, have managed to feed their babies from their breasts. Just to keep her from getting overweeningly smug about her own sex.

Both our kids consider the notion that anything unrelated to making babies or breastfeeding them is properly a job for one specific sex to be self-evidently absurd. We have encouraged this attitude.