Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Female Scientists Do More Housework

Another very interesting article about the work/life balance challenge from the Chronicle.  Basically women spend more time doing house work than men, even when they spend the same number of hours per week working.  Interesting...  We always thought this was the case, so nice to have some numbers behind it.

At my house, we have fairly equitable division of labor.  There are a few things we quibble about from time to time but generally pretty equal in most regards.  However, I will say that the mental division of labor is another story.  Who worries about schools, activities, gifts for birthday parties, etc.  That would be me.  My spouse is great about doing things, taking the kids to the doctor (when sick), making dinner (notice I didn't say cooking), meeting a repair/delivery person, etc.  However, he doesn't schedule doctor's appointments, research the best pediatric dentists in the area, find out where to go for swimming lessons, birthday parties, etc.  So this is where I feel the inequity lies.  Time I could be spending thinking great scientific thoughts instead goes into, when will I remember to get all the forms together to register for school or where should we hold kiddo's birthday party.  I always thought I would avoid mommy brain, but the truth is that I do think about kid stuff at work and talk to people at work about it rather than science, not all the time be sometimes.

It's easy to hire people to do stuff for you, relatively speaking.  We have a house cleaner who comes every other week.  We've had one since we started faculty positions.  I hate scrubbing toilets and with 2 incomes, we can afford it.  It's a lot harder to hire someone to worry about all the little things and chit chat with other moms to get the details.

I'm grateful to have a job that is flexible so I can leave early to take the kids to the doctor or stay home when they are sick.  Our solutions is that one of us teaches Monday/Wednesday and the other Tuesday/Thursday. This was when things come up, it is usually the one who isn't teaching that has to cover that day (e.g. sick kids).  It's not perfect, but it works pretty well.  As one colleague told me, "just don't teach at the same or adjacent times" or you will be passing sick kids to each other in the hall between classes.  This was sage advice.  I'm not really sure what lawyers or physicians do with sick kids, since they often can't cancel court or patients.

3 comments:

  1. Totally agree. You wrote the post in my head.

    "At my house, we have fairly equitable division of labor. There are a few things we quibble about from time to time but generally pretty equal in most regards. However, I will say that the mental division of labor is another story. Who worries about schools, activities, gifts for birthday parties, etc. That would be me. My spouse is great about doing things, taking the kids to the doctor (when sick), making dinner (notice I didn't say cooking), meeting a repair/delivery person, etc. However, he doesn't schedule doctor's appointments, research the best pediatric dentists in the area, find out where to go for swimming lessons, birthday parties, etc. So this is where I feel the inequity lies."

    These other intangible things take up a huge amount of time.

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  2. This is very closely mirrors how labor is divided in my house, as well, though I had never put it into words. I am responsible for the "research" that precedes "implementation" for doctors, schools, etc. It has never been explicitly stated that it's my responsibility, but I'm not sure that as much "research" would happen if I didn't do it. I wonder if there's a reason that this task tends to fall on mothers rather than fathers.

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  3. Not sure why all the mental work has to come from mom. It may be that some of us are more natural planners. I really like things to be mapped out ahead of time (especially when I am in new territory). It may be that mom's talk about these things with each other more or that we feel the need to find the best "x", which then translates to kids stuff too. I was really obsessed with this in the beginning. Finding the right bouncy chair, etc. After awhile I realized, I needed to let go of the little stuff for my sanity. As long as it was good enough, it didn't have to be the perfect diaper, sippy cup, etc. Too many years of picking out lab equipment, I guess.

    Now a little rank from last night... I was gone at bedtime (for a parenting class) and spouse was putting both kids to bed. Not thrilling, but he can/has done it before (as in last week). He forgot to put a onesie and a night-time diaper on the younger kiddo, which I observed when I got him up in the AM. Oh, for our heavy wetter kiddos, normal diapers don't cut it at night. The diaper exploded with over-swollen gel (filled with urine), which thankfully was contained by the blanket sleeper, but did get as far as the feet. So clean up required a bath and bedding change/wash. Hopefully the lesson on why the details are important was learned by spouse. I'm trying not to say too much. Not really on my list of things to do at 7AM today.

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