How to divide and conquer chores
Everyone’s participation is necessary to keep harmony,
It’s been really difficult lately to do anything besides scroll through social media and wait for updates from various levels of government, as COVID-19 pandemic news has us all in its grip. For those of us practising social distancing, we are experiencing the sort of enforced family time that, for me, only happens once a year during Ramadan.
On the upside, there has been plenty of time for the things I usually put off. Baking, catching up on paperwork, playing board games, watching movies, cleaning. Every family member is also helping with meals and my kitchen is quickly running out of quarantine snacks. Who knew a bag of tangerines could disappear in a day, with bottomless-pit Ibrahim at home and bored?
All of which means there is plenty of housework to go around. Thankfully, we employ chore parity a la maison Jalaluddin. My kids have had regular chores for years — they vacuum, clean bathrooms, load and unload the dishwasher and do their own laundry. They also help in the backyard, are expected to shovel the driveway when it snows and help with grocery unpacking.
I’ve written about this in the past and most of the credit goes to my husband. He decided years ago that he didn’t want his sons to turn out as domestically challenged as he was — he learned to cook and forage only after marriage — and that our kids needed to be trained from a young age.
Of course, there is plenty of work required to keep a household running efficiently. In total, my children’s chores probably add up to something like one hour per week. My husband and I handle the rest of it — running errands, buying groceries, cooking, organizing schedules, mopping, etc.
Things weren’t always like this. I remember early on in our marriage, I was stuck doing most of the household chores on top of child care and working as a teacher and I felt a lot of resentment. It took many arguments, reeducation and negotiation for us to arrive where we are right now — not perfect chore parity, but a huge improvement from where we started.
Both my husband and I had to first recondition our minds. Our mothers were mostly stay-at-home-parents, largely responsible for all domestic chores, which is a pretty standard arrangement for South Asian immigrant families. That sort of gendered modelling stays with you, even though when we first married, we both vowed to share the load.
On top of educating my husband and sons on personal household responsibility, I’ve also contributed by engaging in a war of attrition.
For instance, if I make dinner, I won’t do the clean-up. Instead, I’ll walk out of the kitchen with a cheery, “You got this, right?” to my sons and husband and head down to my basement office. And when my husband asks what we’re eating for dinner this week during meal planning, I’ll offer to cook one dish and then ask him what he’s making. He’s gotten pretty good at making dhal and rice, chicken pesto, and packing lunches.
I once refused to clean the TV area of the basement for months until my elder son finally cracked and tidied up so well my mother would be proud.
Sometimes I slip up and we resort to old patterns — I start cooking every meal, or empty and load the dishwasher while my kids loll on the couch. But we eventually snap out of it, usually when I start to feel overwhelmed. The key for us has been planning — coming up with a meal plan together, forecasting chores that need to be done during the week, and then assigning tasks.
As a family, we have realized that parity starts at home and first of all in your head. It is not fair to expect one person to shoulder the enormous burden of keeping a family going. Everyone’s active participation is necessary to build a happy, functional family.
When my kids move out, they’ll know how to do their laundry, cook and clean up after themselves … whether they actually do it will depend on the way they choose to live their lives, but at least they will know what to do when they run out of clean underwear.