I was brought up to be a house drudge. I don’t mean a housewife, which is more of a job than it is a state of mind. No, I just mean the sort of gal who’ll do the housework despite the lack of reciprocity on the part of any resident males because it’s just her duty as a woman to keep things clean. But, through sheer pluck and some lucky encounters when I was still in my formative years, I escaped that ugly fate.
My deliverance came in the form of four male housemates during my second year in college. At the start of the term, we had a household meeting to decide how to divide up the housework equitably. These were, after all, enlightened males, and it was the 1980s. They didn’t expect me to be their house drudge, oh, no.
One of the guys came up with the nifty idea of making a little wheelie device with all five of our names on it as well as all the major housekeeping chores. In theory, every week we’d spin the wheel and get our housekeeping assignment, and no one would get stuck doing one miserable job over and over.
The guys took great pains to make this little wheel of fortune. They were beside themselves with pride at their solution to a sticky problem. We put the wheel up in the kitchen, and then…nothing. They never used it. They were happy to spend time coming up with an elaborate method for doling out work, but when it came to doing any of it, well, they seemed to feel that their contribution was already complete.
I used the wheel of work just long enough to discover that the guys ignored it. Then I decided to follow suit. Since then, I have insisted on mutuality of all things domestic. Whatever I do, you darn well better do next time, is my motto.
My stand on chore sharing does have a down side. Since my husband K— has never shown great enthusiasm for stepping up to the plate cleaning-wise, I’ve had to step down. As a consequence, my house is an absolute mess. It used to bother me, but you’d be surprised how easily you learn to lower your standards with a little practice.
Nonetheless, I still manage to amaze myself with how much of my childhood training I’ve forgotten. Take, for example, the Swiffer Incident. K— and I have a nephew, C—, currently 3 years old. One day, C— was visiting with his mother, my sister-in-law. At one point, I walked into the living room to find C— pushing something around and around. “Hey C—!” I called out. “What’s that you’ve got?” Dutiful little boy that he still is (not for long!), he came over to show me. The enigmatic object had a long wooden handle and a cottony Medusa-like pad at one end, with lots of little snaky fibers exploding out of it.
The curious thing was, the snake-stick (I didn’t know what else to call it) looked vaguely familiar. “Where’d you get that?” I asked C—. From the corner of the room where she’d been sitting unnoticed by me, his Mom piped up: “He found it in the broom closet. I hope you don’t mind. I don’t know why, but he’s become obsessed with pushing a Swiffer around. It’s weird, but at least we always have clean floors!”
“Ah!” I said in fake comprehension. The truth was, at that moment I had no idea what a Swiffer was, but a lightbulb had just lit up in my head. The snake-stick had been in the broom closet when we moved into the house. Its purpose a complete mystery to me, it had resided there, undisturbed, for nearly 9 years. It was, I discovered later, the old-fashioned version of a Swiffer, but it was only when I heard the words “clean floors” that I finally understood what it was for.
With this as background, you can see why I was genuinely interested one day when K— shared with me his idea for a robot that would clean the house. Trying to be a positive and supportive mate, I said, “That sounds great! What would you call it?” Without hesitation, he answered “Wife!” I digested this for a second before asking dryly, “And what does that make me? The Anti-Wife?” The silence was deafening.
Now, some wives would have found this little slur a bitter pill to swallow. They are house drudges. But I decided to embrace my destiny. I am an Anti-Wife, darn it! And what’s wrong with that? My house may not be clean, but at least I haven’t wasted the hours and days of my life memorizing which cleaning product to use for every “tough cleaning problem.” In fact, I consider it an accomplishment of sorts having remained ignorant of the existence of Swiffers as long as I did. I can list a host of things I did with all the time I could have spent cleaning, ranging from lounging shamelessly in the hammock to getting a motorcycle license, and I have no regrets.
So, ladies, if your husband doesn’t shoulder his half of the cleaning burden (and assuming that keeping house isn’t your full-time job), don’t fret and don’t nag. Just follow his example and don’t clean. He’ll either come around or he won’t—odds are not in favor of the former, so be prepared for the latter—but either way, you’ll have more free time!
Declare your freedom and join me in The League of Anti-Wives (aka The L.A.W.). I just started it. It’s a worldwide network of women who’d rather lounge in hammocks and get motorcycle licenses than lean over toilets checking for germs. Maybe someday, if we get big enough, we’ll have a Men’s Auxilliary. God knows what they’ll do, since as far as I can figure the function of ladies auxilliaries in fraternal organizations is to clean up after the men, and we already know we can’t count on the men to do that for us. Maybe we could all just lounge around in hammocks together and find out what it’s like to be on the same wavelength with our spouse for a change.
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