I do work part-time but not every week, more as and when. However, I don't expect my OH to do anything around the house and view that as my job. He works hard enough as it is without having to do stuff when he gets in. He does however, do the ironing now, not because I ask, but because he knows how much I HATE it. He also does the gardening because he likes it. When we want work done in our new place, including decorating, then we will employ someone to do it, because he needs the r & r at the weekends.

I work full time and I always have since before the kids and after (worked part time till they were about 1 year old)

!st hubby did bugger all - and I mean bugger al in the house aside from taking kids to school and back again and preparing their evening meal (limited at that too).

My 2nd hubby is ok I suppose. He does the majority of the cooking but makes a mess as he goes (I always clean up if I cook), and if pushed he will hoover up. He helps make the bed and on the odd occasion he has helped me to put up new curtains. We always do the food shopping together too.

But that aside everything else is done by me and the kids- which I feel is unfair at times. We both work the same amount of time - and I suppose his job is more manual so more tiring - but I would say that % wise it would be

Me 65%
kids15%
OH 20%

I'd say we split it 60:40 in favour of the missus. I do all the outside stuff (hedges, lawns, pool etc), plus I hoover, do the washing and occasionally battle through a mountain of ironing whilst watching a few DVDs. I've never dusted, but I have been known to clean the bog. I'm also the official picker-upper, for which I get little thanks - spend half my time putting stuff back where it belongs - my missus will festoon the house in dirty coffee cups, damp towels and dirty underwear, which she seems oblivious too, but is more than happy to dust. Go figure. Be starting a new job soon and she'll be working out home on her own - be interesting to see how that pans out.

I did imply in my original post that this is not gender based. There are guys looking after children out there too, and female partners working full time.

I was wanting to hear from guys too...

My view was - if I'm home alone with the kids, then it's my job to do what's needed. If we're both home (mornings, evenings and weekends) then it's shared.

Mine was pretty good with the chores (after a solitary -er- argument after a nightmare day with a small baby when I totally lost my cool). From that point on he took on the job of ironing - all of it.

20 years later, he STILL does all the ironing. I outsourced the cleaning as soon as I went back to work (the first $50 of every pay I've ever earned goes on a cleaner. If I ONLY earned $50, it would be spent on a cleaner).

He basically got the kids up in the mornings (I'm not a morning person) and organised them all ready for pre-school/school. As well as the ironing he also looks after the garden, bins, cars etc. Don't think I've had to put petrol in my car for years. I did the evening shift (being more of an evening person) - sorting out the kids homework and mostly get them to bed.

I've always done all the shopping and cooking. Cleaner does the cleaning and he does the ironing. Works really well - no arguments on the subject of housework for 20 years.

I work full time while OH looks after our son part-time two days a week (son goes to nursery three days a week). He also does most of the major outdoor work as well as the cooking. Cleaning is a tradeoff between who has the energy to do it, although most of the time it is mostly me who does it.

Mostly I guess we try to split things 50:50, although I do get frustrated when he has a day where our son is at nursery and I come home to a complete mess - good thing he is an excellent cook!

When we both worked full time we split the duties about 50-50. His hours were much more flexible than mine so usually he would pick the kids up from daycare when they were little. Then I went down to part time work and it became more me doing the housework. My husband is much fussier about how the house looks, so he did the vacuuming laundry and dusting. The rest was pretty much mine. He's always been good about the lawns (I'm very allergic to grass, so it would make me ill to cut the lawns) and taking the bins out. Since we've been here and I'm working full time while he stays home he's done about 90% of the stuff around the house. Now he's gone I guess I better train the kids to do some stuff around here.

John works long hours at the moment and as im not working yet i do all of the housework,shopping, cooking etc which is fair !

Johns jobs

Puts the bins out
sorts the pool
does the gardening
ironing ( occasionally, he is much better than me at that )
will hoover if asked ! ( which he does a really thorough job of, pulling out settees etc & putting different attachments on )
sometimes cooks sunday breakfast !

the only job he will not do is dusting !!!! ( must be a man thing ! )

Nicky

Yeah right!! Hes australian no chance.

Your average aussie bloke is (to put it politely) unreconstructed. Went to a kids birthday party a month ago and all the women sat at one table and all the blokes gathered round the barbie sucking beers and talking about sport. I took over some grub to my missus and all the women went 'ooooooh, isn't he gooooood'. Cracked me up. I shall subvert from within...

ok i'll try again
this is how it works chez gedge, i think it's reasonable
cooking, ironing, shopping are shared 50:50
i'm not so good at the washing and cleaning, it's usually done before it reaches my threshold (you know what i mean don't you?) so that's a more 80:20 split
i do do more of the bills and paperwork and of course all of the blokey stuff - car & garden maintenance, bins, window & gutter cleaning

I do agree with Gedge though - if you're a bloke doing the house-cleaning, it's never good enough. My missus says there's boy-clean and girl-clean, blokes are happy to zip around with the hoover doing the obvious areas but girls get 'anal' about it and obsess over every hidden nock and crannie.

I'm tired reading all this.


So, are any of your roles based on 'gender beliefs' (I'm a bloke so I do bloke things.... ) or is it 'It needs doing and I'm there so I'll do it' sort of format?

You've been trained well ain't ya



My hubby is much more 'thorough' than me

Because I'm not working just now I do most of the cleaning etc, but when I worked and hubby worked we shared everything 50/50. My hubby does lots of cooking, cos he say's it tastes better

it's about how "bad" it needs to be before it bothers you enough to act
i guess too, it's about priorities