𤯠INCRĂVEL: âI Donât Want To Be His Motherâ: Man Wants To Move Straight From Momâs House Into GF’s Without Learning A Single Chore, Gets A Reality Check đ˛
Letâs start with something that sounds obvious, but apparently isnât: running a household takes work. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, remembering whose turn it is to take the trash out⌠the list goes on.
And yet, even today, itâs surprisingly rare to find heterosexual couples who actually share these chores evenly when living together.
More often than not, itâs the woman in a relationship that does the majority while the man occasionally fixes a leaky faucet.
Then thereâs a whole other category of people who donât even bother pretending.
If I had a nickel for every time a man my age proudly announced that scrubbing a sink is ânot for themâ or that they never learned to cook because âtheir mom takes care of it all,â Iâd honestly be so rich.
A woman turned to the internet with a similar frustration, sharing how her boyfriend refused her request to learn âbasic life skillsâ before moving in together.
He even ended up trying to get out of it by making her do his share of chores.
A man wanted to move in with his girlfriend, but refused to do household chores
Image credits: wirestock / envato (not the actual photo)
His girlfriend asked him to live alone first and learn basic life skills
Image credits: Getty Images / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: anon
Women still shoulder the bulk of housework globally, while men only âhelp outâ
Household chores are not just physical work, they also include emotional labor, coordination, time management, and planning.
Even today, when more of us are talking about gender equality and when most women have joined the workforce, they still carry the bulk of domestic labor.
In Europe, around 79% of women regularly do household chores and cooking, compared with just 34% of men.
Recent research also shows that women across the world work longer and earn just a third (32%) of what men get per hour â when you add up paid and unpaid labour, such as domestic work.
Even if you ignore the unpaid domestic labor, women only earn 61% of what men make.
Bored Panda spoke to Helen Kowalewska, a lecturer in social policy at the University of Bath, whose recent research revealed that the âmental loadâ of managing households still falls mainly on women, even when they work full-time or out-earn their partners.
âWomen are still more likely to do most of the household chores, especially the daily, most time consuming, and least enjoyable ones, like laundry and cleaning,â she says.
âWe see similar patterns in childcare: when men do more, they often do the more enjoyable activities, such as playing with children, whereas mothers remain responsible for things like school runs and meal prepping.â
She says that women carry the bulk of the domestic mental load â all the remembering, planning, anticipating, and organizing that keeps family life running.
âThe gender gap in the mental load is even larger than for physical chores, with mental tasks âstickingâ to mothers and remaining their load even when they are employed full time or earn more than their male partner,â Kowalewska adds.
One of the reasons for this inequality is that across households, across relationships, the expectation often remains the same: men âhelp outâ when convenient, while women do the âbare minimumâ since house chores are still not considered labor.
And when one person refuses to do their share, itâs not just dirty dishes but inequality, frustration, and stress piling up in the sink.
âWhen one partner â usually the woman â does all or most of the household work, it often leads to burnout and resentment. It can also have negative long-term consequences for career progression and earnings by forcing women to reduce their hours or pass up opportunities to cope with the workload, in this way directly contributing to the gender pay gap,â Kowalewska says.
How can couples negotiate shared responsibilities fairly?
Kowalewska says couples should clearly name what needs doing, split the chores, and then do them at the same time. âIt can help prevent an imbalance and support recognition of each otherâs contributions.â
She notes that it is also important to challenge beliefs that label unpaid labor as âwomenâs work.â
âFor instance, when the school calls mum as the âdefault parent,â remind them to call the dad. Even if certain tasks are usually done by the partner and feel difficult to do at first, persevere so that it is not always the other partnerâs job,â she adds.
At the same time, what people choose isnât just up to them â itâs shaped by social norms, laws, and workplaces that donât always make it easy.
âFor instance, âdaddy quotasâ â periods of paid parental leave that are reserved for the father â can increase menâs uptake, leading to lasting, positive effects on the division of unpaid work and family relationships,â Kowalewska says.
Workplaces that are flexible and support both mothers and fathers are also key to making a fairer split of chores and family duties possible.
Some people do grow up in households where they have someone else, for example domestic help, doing the work and they might not learn these basic skills early on.
But if your first instinct â just like the man in this story â when moving in with your partner is to pay them to do your work, thatâs a big red flag.
The professor says that trading money for chores is not a neutral, âquid pro quoâ swap.
âFinancial contributions are visible and easily recognized, whereas unpaid labor is often unseen, undervalued, and taken for granted.â
This is especially true for mental tasks like organizing appointments or keeping track of the grocery list, which often only gain recognition when something goes wrong, like a missed appointment or nothing to cook for dinner.
âPaying more rent is a one-off, bounded contribution, whereas doing the chores is time intensive, endless, and often means being constantly available and carrying ongoing responsibility for noticing, planning, and fixing things,â says Kowalewska.
She believes gender inequalities in unpaid work are linked to inequalities in time for rest, leisure, and even sleep.
Women donât come out of their mothersâ wombs with a manual on how to clean and cook⌠so the next time you find yourself watching TV or resting, take a look around the house first and see what needs to be done.
The woman gave some more updates about her situation
Many people praised the woman for standing her ground, and asked her not to move in with him
The woman shared how the situation finally came to an end
Image credits: Getty Images / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Netizens criticized and mocked the boyfriend, and some even shared words of wisdom
Thanks! Check out the results:
Total votes ¡
Newsletter
Subscribe to Access
Exclusive Polls
By entering your email and clicking Subscribe, you’re agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Privacy Policy.
Thank you! You’ve successfully subscribed to newsletters!
đ˘ Gostou da notĂcia? Compartilhe com os amigos!
Este artigo ĂŠ uma tradução automĂĄtica de uma fonte original. Para ler o conteĂşdo na Ăntegra: Clique aqui.