HOUSE HOLD AND MEN

Lifestyle Parenting, Household Affairs and Cuisine corner
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cleaning - everyday
cooking food, washing dishes, putting away left overs - everyday
laundry, ironing weekly
checking mail and email & responding to both
returning calls & returning them as well
grocery /shopping - depending on needs

lawn mowing & gardening once per week

men are obviously very capable if they make a plan to finish all of this house hold work, according to a set easy routine.

something which can be of help is planning ahead of time and getting things done simultaneously.

ladies, how does your better half or brothers, take care of these when they live by themseleves?

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Nothing done by him, all house chore are my duty, now we are in rental home so no lawn mowing other wise it is my duty half of the time. Now he did once a month chicago trip with me for grocery, and almosty 3 times walmart shopping of accessories. No laundery, no ironing, may bw one dress a month. No cooking al all.

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Re: HOUSE HOLD AND MEN

i suppose he works fulltime and you dont?

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Our chores are shared, but i do more when im not working. When both working, we both share whatever needs doing. I wouldn't say we have a set schedule or defined chores for him and for me.

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i do the dishes and cooking, he has his own bidness so is always working long hours, so his only task is to clean the cat litter. and drop off/pick up the laundry mainly cos the laundromat is close to his work.
i'm A-OK with this- the poor boy- the last thing i want him to do when he comes home at 9 is worry about housework! i'm home by 6 the latest so i have plenty of time to do whatever i want and get the house in order.
the rest of the cleaning the maid does as in the dusting, bathrooms, floors, vacuuming, windows etc., i just maintain it between her visits.
and erm, what else... groceries i do as well, or we both do on weekends if we're out and about anyway.

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^the maid idea is good. How often does she visit u?

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SGC

you have a logical approach. I mean it really has to be something along the lines of equal distribution of total effort. What really gets me is when stay at home types, sometimes those who dont even have kids start crying about how much they have to do.

I mean really, if a newly wed couple is living in a rented one bedroom with den sort of apartment, exactly how much work is it on a daily basis to keep it tidy and cook something for dinner.

I think it stems from princesses who have never eally had responsibility and when they get it they see it as a chore rather than part of their responsibility in running a household. Now it def does not mean that the mama's boys some women have to deal with can throw their stuff around all over the place, not take any responsibility etc. It means..if the dude is out workign 40 hours a week then the chica should not complain if her effort is less than 40 hours a week.

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how can you say that the unpaid time and work in house hold labor, is less than your 40, Fraudia bhai?

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Dushwari

a few things

1) 40 is just a number, most pl work more than 8 hrs a day and with commute and all included it is easily 55-60 hours. I really really doubt that it takes that much time to run a household..and if it does then the amount spilling over should be the amoutn shared, so if a guy is away for work 60 hrs a week, and the wife takes 70 hrs a week to maintain teh house then guess what, he should contribute 5 hours a week to make it equitable..not 35 hours..

2) if it takes a newly wed woman with no kids living in a small apartment 40 hours a week to run the house then she needs training. massive training. a couple of hours cooking and maybe a couple of hours cleaning each day..is all that is needed.

3) How can I say that? I have two kids, and I also do housework. begum is out on a weekend with friends thing, I have fed the kids breakfast, snack and lunch, and since 8:30 this morning completely cleaned the master bedroom...making the bed, changing sheets, pillowcases, cleaning windows and mirrors, dusting and wiping nightstands, dressers, vacuuming. doing the same in guest room, cleaning the family room and living room, and the kitchen (minus dishes) which included cleaning the hood ..its one of em glass hoods on top of the range which takes time to clean throughly, countertops, appliances, the powder room, master bath aqnd guest bath which included cleaning the sinks and tub, plus I did recycling, took trash out, organized some stuff, rearranged some furniture, oh and played with the kids while doing all this. talked to friends..including a 40 minute call with Azkar.. and its only 1:30. This was a deep clean, the place in general had been ignored for a few weeks because begum had been hospitalized and in that time I did not clean the place and whe she came back we just coasted, and planned to do it when we had some time. Now tomorrow she has a day off, but I decided what the hell..let me really give her a day off where she does not even have to do much in the way of the deepclean. anyhoo..so lets really not make maintaining a house more than it is.

somedays when I work from home, i clean up, just during lunch break or coffee break, sometimes even when I am on conf calls, phone is on mute and I am walking around with a floor duster. if i am in a mood I will even start dinner. I really really dont see what the hoopla is about.

In the end I think many people are simply unorganized, clutter bugs and pack rats, with closets and cabinets spilling over..yeah that then can be problem to manage, but then there are bigger issues there.

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my husband helps me out a whole lot but i really do not expect him to. im home by 2 and have tuesdays off.. he gets home by 7 or 8.. to expect him to then vacuum, or clean up or do laundry… iron clothes.. i would havta be on dope.

aaj kul ki shezaadiyo ka buss chalay tho bachay bhi shohar se paida kerwaye. :rolleyes:

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:>

you're the best, fraudia bhai. such attention to details, seriously.

these little things matter when both people are able to help each other in keeping the household up to date, neat and clean as well as comfortable.

please consider opening an academy of how to train good household students.
:>

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WOW!!!

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X2 you've got it down pretty good. masha'Allah.

my brother used to help my mom around the house when I started university out of town. And then when my mom was extremely sick and hospitalized for a long time, him and my dad took care of the household during the week days and I and my older sister would do the major cleaning and cooking part on our weekend trips home. Now that all is well again, Allhumdullilah, and that I've moved back in, he doesn't lift a finger. I don't understand, ab tou apna room hi saaf kar le to bari baat hai. maybe he's going through the teenage phase, who knows.

Baby name Mikal or Mika'il ?
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Dushwari/rupat/pyazi

It was just the way I was brought up, we had chores, we took care of our own stuff, ironing our clothes, organizing our closets cleaning our rooms ever since I was a kid, and was safely able to do that stuff. This helped tremendously when I moved for uni because I had the discipline and ability to live ineendently and not be a slob. Believe me growing up it was no picnic and I did not always like doing the stuff, but realized later on how much it helped.

while in uni I saw how some other guys lived, their places were not just messy, they were filthy..god only knows how they lived in such atmosphere..dirt clothes and clean clothes mixed in a pile in a corner, layer of gunk in the tub, a toilet bowl that was no longer white..washbasins that had never been cleaned, filthy stovetops..sinks overflowing with dirty dishes, half full pots..filthy fridges with fungus growing in half finished chinese food boxes..I really do wonder how they live now.

The biggest challenge is for folks who did not have any responsibility with mom and/or servants taking care of everything especially in Pakistan, and then moving abroad. I know a few cases where the stay at home ladies are overwhelmed with everything and go home to pakistan all summer for a break..:rolleyes: I guess there they cooked as a hobby and did not have to do much in terms of cleaning, and here if you dont have a maid service, you have to do it yourself.

What would you like to thank Tofi for?
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im in school 4-6 days a week, husband is home these days so he does quite a bit, he always takes care of the garbage, sometimes sweeps and does most of the dishes, even though i never ask him too...honestly doing these things is not hard, for me tho its a matter of laziness...

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.....

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your mama raised you good X2.

when I was living in residence, I and my roommates took turns cleaning. The fact that we had monthly inspections by our don was another motivation to keep the place clean. If it was nasty, they fined you. But I have seen the filthy types as well, and it totally doesn't make sense how they stay alive.
I don't get when people especially pakistani guys boast about how they don't even know how to boil water, or don't know how to vacuum because they have lead such royal lives. I feel sorry for them because these are basic life skills.

Gemini I totally agree that doing household chores in west is considerably less work than back home, mainly because of the technological devices easily available to us here.

Apny mamool k mutabiq hum......
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sweetmoi, the maid comes once or twice a month, depending on how social we’ve been :slight_smile:
its a really big help - you should consider it!

X2, you were raised well! kudos to your mommeh! the hubs moved out when he was 18 and his mom was really strict too when they were growing up, so he’s pretty disciplined. more than myself, actually. i’m embarassed to admit it, but i had that ludicrous princess mentality when i first moved out and it was not pretty! we weren’t living together at the time, not being married and all that, so i found it extra difficult to manage things, even though it was just me! i didn’t even know how to plan a meal and grocery shop for it :rolleyes: silly, silly, SGC, i know!

thankfully, a lot of time and patience on the hubby’s part and a lot of learning on mine, and now i’m a pro at the cooking, cleaning, organising and staying on top of things! :slight_smile: also when theres two of you plus two cats, there is simply not much opportunity to get messy or let things slide beyond a day or two-- its entirely too chaotic.

my point is, these are things that can be learned- its absolutely not a situation of “my mother never taught me, so therefore i refuse to lift a finger for the rest of my life”. all it does is cause damage to your relatioship, IMHO, and i think the girls who are complaining, need to stop complaining, accept the reality of the situation, and get with it already.

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I dont mind cooking and cleaning but hubs has taken it on himself to clean the bathtub, laundary every 2 weeks and vaccuming once a week. Now its just the two of us and usually the messes are bearable. But with kids, i think i will be doing more vacuming and laundary more than once every 2 weeks.

The only thing that peeves me off is when men dont pick up after themselves, leave clothes lying around and dont even take the dishes to the sink after they are done eating.

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I'm the messy one in the house. Hubby is pretty good about putting things away. So I do the cooking and he usually cleans up. However, when something needs really thorough sifting, organizing, and clearing, I'm usually the one to take initiative, but he'll help. It's the same with the laundry -- I'm usually the one that gives in when it needs to get done. But he'll help taking loads up and down, etc.

I'm the visionary :D

When we first got married, he was working from home, so it developed so that he took care of paying the bills.

We also have a maid service that comes every two weeks to scrub floors, bathrooms, counters, etc. It became too overwhelming for us, with both of us working, and neither of us has the interest or energy to do that kind of cleaning. It's been a real relief to have the maidservice come.