9/26/2023 0 Comments Simply being mommy blogIt was obvious that the box was in the way, that it needed to be put back. “All you have to do is ask me to put it back,” he said, watching me struggle. In order to put it back, I had to get a kitchen chair and drag it into our closet so I could reach the shelf where it belonged. I stumbled over the box of gift wrap he had pulled off a high shelf two days earlier and left in the center of our closet. Which is why he was frustrated when I ungratefully passed by, not looking at his handiwork as I put away his shoes, shirt and socks that had been left on the floor. In his mind, he was doing the thing I had most wanted-giving me sparkling bathrooms without having to do it myself. I was gifted a necklace for Mother's Day while my husband stole away to deep clean the bathrooms, leaving me to care for our children as the rest of the house fell into total disarray. "But who is really solving the bulk of the world's problems at home and in the office?” As the household manager for my husband and three kids, I’m fairly certain I know the answer. “The gendered assumption is that ‘men are the problem solvers because women are too emotional,’" she explains. Michele Ramsey, Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State Berks, emotional labor is often conflated with problem solving. That’s why I asked my husband to do it as a gift.Īccording to Dr. I knew exactly how exhausting it was going to be. The reason I hadn’t done it yet was part guilt over not doing my housework, and an even larger part of not wanting to deal with the work of hiring a service. I had wanted to hire out deep cleaning for a while, especially since my freelance work had picked up considerably. What I wanted was for him to ask friends on Facebook for a recommendation, call four or five more services, do the emotional labor I would have done if the job had fallen to me. He told me the high dollar amount of completing the cleaning services I requested (since I control the budget) and asked incredulously if I still wanted him to book it. Disappointed by my unwavering desire, the day before Mother's Day he called a single service, decided they were too expensive, and vowed to clean the bathrooms himself. My husband waited for me to change my mind to an "easier" gift than housecleaning, something he could one-click order on Amazon. The real gift I wanted was to be relieved of the emotional labor of a single task that had been nagging at the back of my mind. I would not have to make the calls, get multiple quotes, research and vet each service, arrange payment and schedule the appointment. The gift, for me, was not so much in the cleaning itself but the fact that for once I would not be in charge of the household office work. Bathrooms and floors specifically, windows if the extra expense was reasonable. For Mother's Day I asked for one thing: a house cleaning service.
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