Not when it comes to household work, and it’s the opposite of what you think

A feminist politician in my country recently had a child. It was surprising, because for many years, she was vocal about her choice to be childfree. Naturally, the papers had a field day. Learning nothing from experience, I made my usual mistake of reading the talkbacks. Many were misogynistic, obviously. They talked about what a terrible mother this career woman is going to be and how she’ll undoubtedly “abandon” her child in the care of others. 

It made me sad to think about how our culture makes it so difficult to have a demanding career and be a parent at the same time. In a double-income household, it’s usually doable only with extensive external help, either from extended family or paid help. Paid help, in most cases, means that women still take care of household chores and childcare, only they’re not the owners of the home. They are poorer, less privileged women.

To clarify, I don’t think that having help means that you’re a bad parent. Not at all! I do think, however, that current levels of complexity in maintaining a home and family for working parents are simply not manageable. 

When I was growing up, both my parents worked full time. However, my mother – a university associate professor – was home every day at 4pm. She put in another 1-2 hours after we went to bed. My parents also had less to do around the house. We simply had far fewer possessions than families today! We were middle-class, but there simply weren’t so many toys, clothes, gadgets, equipment and knicknacks. My brother and I walked on our own to friends’ houses and to most of our afternoon activities. There was less traffic, and very few parents worked in a different city, so they all had very reasonable commutes. And obviously, there were no cell phones or emails. My parents rarely got a call from work after they were home. 

By contrast, one of my kids recently had 3 friends over for dinner. One was vegetarian, one allergic to gluten, and one just didn’t like cheese. Oh, and mine is a super picky eater. My mother never made such a complex dinner for my friends! Even accounting for some nostalgic bias, life for working parents seems to have been way simpler when my generation was growing up.

My reality, and probably yours as well, is very different. Our standard of living has increased, and with it the sheer amount of requirements, scheduling, sorting, organizing and remembering. Unless you’ve made a very conscious choice to live off the grid in some way, managing two full time jobs and a few kids requires more than two adults. There’s just no way around it.

Has it always been this way?

This reminded me of a fabulous book that made a great impact on me when I read it nearly 20 years ago: “More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave” by historian Prof. Ruth Cowan.

Yet around 1860, as the Industrial Revolution began to influence the systems of production in the home, things began to change dramatically. Cowan describes how consumer goods replace the tasks of men at home while at the same time increasing the effort and expectations of women’s traditional tasks. 

Consider baking for example. Pre-industrialization, the entire family worked together to plant and sew wheat and mill the flour. Women baked simple breads and little or no pastries. The introduction of mass-produced flour and sugar, and the introduction of ovens and stoves, created an expectation that women bake sophisticated breads and pastries at home. Elaborate meals require more dishes and utensils, which in turn require more cleaning. Meals today are very different from the one-dish stew and flat bread that families ate 200 years ago. In the process, the responsibility of men and children decreased dramatically, while that of women increased.

Similarly, not many decades ago, the industrial production of fabric was more advanced than that of ready-to-wear clothes. Women were expected to sew elaborate clothes from patterns, a process which requires time and training. 

More recent transformations in the fashion industry have made this work obsolete for the vast majority of women, but dramatically increased the time required to wash, dry, fold and sort our many clothes.

(Sewing pattern from Etsy)

As the industrialization process accelerated, “work” became synonymous with paid labor outside the home, performed mostly by men. Later, children were expected (and then required by law) to study in schools. This left women isolated, alone in their homes, surrounded by appliances and tools, tyrannized by increasing expectations of what was required to be a good homemaker. 

Cowan makes it clear that the pre-industrial time wasn’t perfectly egalitarian; there was still a difference in the roles and responsibilities that men, women and children played in the household. But the sharing of effort was much fairer. 

Interestingly, some of the technology and social expectations did reduce tasks for women as it did for men, most notably caring for the sick and the elderly. Other tasks, such as laundry and partial childcare, were centralized to an extent and could have developed differently. We can make technology work better for women as well. 

To me, it’s striking to realize that the romanticized, nostalgic image of the suburban home, with the full-time stay at home mother who bakes, cooks, cleans and sews meticulously, is only a brief moment in the history of humanity. It was a reality for only about 100-150 years. I also find it liberating to remember that our standards for “good homemaking” were promoted by companies aiming to sell more products. Even more liberating is the realization that women were rarely expected to shoulder that burden on their own. It’s not some radical feminist ploy to change what was “women’s work” from time immemorial. 

So think about that and feel empowered when you remind your partners and kids what your great-great-great-great-great grandmother knew all too well: it’s their turn to do the dishes!

Do you feel like you’re doing too much? In addition to actual tasks, you could be dealing with too much mental load – the invisible labor involved in managing a household and family, which typically falls on women’s shoulders. I’m currently working on a new mini-course that helps you reduce mental load and regain your sanity. Want to try it for free as part of my beta group?

Barn image by StockSnap from Pixabay