Let’s talk household chores. I love ‘em, myself. I am constantly amazed by the number of other things I get done by simply thinking, “Well, it’s this or do the dishes.”
Even as a child, though, I resented all the folktales which suggested that if men and women switched jobs, the women would do perfectly fine while the men would be lost at the outset and and be nothing but a puddle of muddle by lunchtime. And the majority of fine old postcards follow this trend. Laundry, especially, was considered a suitable reason for getting married.
Given the laborious sequence of steps involved in doing laundry before the invention of washing machines, detergent, and dryer sheets, it seems foolish to feel that women had a natural talent for the job. It was ore an understanding that a man, by natural right, got to work an eight hour job while a wife was on the job twenty-four hours and could handle little chores that involved a tub of hot water (prepared on the stove a kettle at a time) a tub of cold water, a tub of bluing, a quantity of starch, a wringer, a mangle….
Let’s consider something simpler. Washing dishes involved a mere sink full of hot water, some kind of soap, and elbow grease. This was the second greatest running gag of those on KP during World War III, after peeling potatoes. Interesting how women going out to the assembly line in the absence of men was heroic, while men having to do women’s chores…hey, it’s that same old folktale again!
And yet, for a generation before that war came along, it was acknowledged that getting married did NOT excuse a man from washing dishes. At the very least, he was expected to dry as his wife washed. (This is another issue, by the way, which has divided our nation for generations. The dishcloth families sneered at the lazy louts who simply put the rinsed dishes in a dishrack to dry, while the dishstrainer folks sneered at people who wiped every dish and spoon with a dirty old dishrag. Where did YOUR family…oh, you were a paper plate clan? I see this is a whole nother blog.)
In most cases, postcard cartoonist regarded the poor chap who had to wash the dishes after supper as not so much inept as overworked. (How much does his family rt, by the way? The sink is almost as bad as the one confronted by that chap in the Army two paragraphs ago.)
No wonder some men just let things go until the usual laborer came home. (In spite of nagging from the feline section of the family.)
While men who moved straight from the house where Mom took care of these little details to their own establishment, where their Dearest expected them to help out greeted this revolting development with a plain old pout.
As time went by, some husbands became experienced in the ways of the household, and found a way to time their volunteerism carefully.
And wives found ways to express their gratitude for all the help. As many a husband in the kitchen pointed out, “I don’t object to the words you use, my dear, but I don’t like the axe sent.” (Look, it was either write that joke or take my lunch dishes to the sink. Be reasonable.)
Blogsy Babbles 