Challenging traditional roles
If there's so much riding on this, why do women still wind up with the burden of housework? It's a complex subject, involving traditional family role models. As Glossop points out, the division of labour involving men bringing home the bacon and women cooking it, then cleaning up afterwards, harks back several generations. The tables turned when more women began bringing home the bacon too.
But it's clear that changes on the domestic front haven't kept pace with changes in the workplace.
Some women simply find it easier to do the drill on their own instead of rallying the troops with the same old list of instructions. In other cases, husbands and children who weren't taught early on how to clean, cook and wash are happy enough with the Mommy Maid service.
Self-saboteurs
Betty Ann Habig, a network resource producer for www.momsonline.com , a massive North American website, chat room and poster board, says that women sabotage themselves. She hears the same story about housework again and again from all over the continent. Teaching kids to clean up after themselves is one thing. But a grown man? "We look at them as equals: they are mature, they are grown adults, they should be able to read our minds and unload that dishwasher," she says.
To be fair, though, men are getting better. Doris Anderson, a former editor of Chatelaine magazine and a veteran in the war for social change says, in previous generations "most men married expecting to get a maid and a housekeeper. I think my generation has done a much better job on their sons. Consequently, most men now aren't looking for housemaids; they're looking for partners."
Anderson has probably struck the key to the solution. To make any progress on the housekeeping front, we have to keep teaching our sons, and teaching them well. If we keep teaching them with patience and diligence perhaps letting up a tad on the criticism who knows, the next generation of men might be perfect.
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