Why Division of Labor is Your Most Important Household System (and how creating a fair one might save your relationship)
Are you at your wit’s end with your to-do list? Constantly feel like a nag? Ready to run away from home? We’re going to talk about how those feelings are related to your household’s division of labor and why figuring out how to split chores fairly might just save your relationship.
Contents
Your Most Important Household System
You Know What They Say About Assumptions
The 5 Characteristics of a Fair Division of Labor
Benefits of of Sharing Chores Fairly
How A Fair Division of Labor Saves Relationships, In a Nutshell
In this post, we’ll be generally referring to partnerships between heterosexual couples. The dynamics described do play out in other relationship makeups, as well as different social settings. Adapt as appropriate to you.
Systems, Systems, Everywhere
Our goal at The House Shuffle is to create practical, comfortable homes that work. Organization covers the practical, design makes the comfortable and household systems are what make your home work. Every household requires tons of different systems. A system for how to do laundry, a system to feed everyone, systems to transport the people where they need to go, a system to manage paperwork and bills. Running a household is all about systems. Without them, things simply wouldn’t get done.
There is a household system that very few people want to talk about. In fact, people will go to great lengths to avoid discussing this system even though it is fundamental to happily running your home. What is it?
(Ok, it’s in the title of the post, so you know, but humor us…)
It’s your household’s division of labor.
Why is division of labor so important?
How responsibility is shared among the members of your household affects every single thing that happens (or doesn’t happen) in your home. Division of labor is the big kahuna of household systems. When it’s out of whack, nothing else will work optimally.
And yet, 99 times out of 100, household members have not discussed or agreed to a specific division of labor. They are running their household based on assumptions. And we all know what happens when we operate on assumptions…
They make an ASS out of U and Me.
Why Are We Making All These Assumptions?
A little thing called socialization. We all learn how things work by observing what’s happening around us, beginning before we can even speak. There’s so much to learn as a human that it would be impossible to be explicitly taught everything we need to know to get along in society. We observe, we generalize, we adapt our behavior to fit in.
Our assumptions about how households work and our roles within them are based on what we observe growing up. If you’ve grown up in an english speaking country, odds are that the division of labor you observed was deeply gendered. Those observations form the basis for the assumptions we make when we build our own households as adults.
We decide who does what work at home before we even start school. In Pink Brain, Blue Brain, neuroscientist Lise Eliot describes how parents and society unintentionally indoctrinate children to perform traditional gender roles. As elders, we unconsciously teach, just as children unconsciously absorb. We perform gender at our children literally from birth.
The trouble is that our society has changed in the last 50 years. Women and men (to a lesser degree, at the moment) are no longer strictly held to traditional roles of homemaker and breadwinner. We desire egalitarian partnerships based on friendship and mutual support. We enter adult relationships with the intention of sharing our professional and domestic responsibilities 50/50.
Why Your Division of Labor is Probably Nowhere Near 50/50
The majority of people have never tried to articulate their deep down beliefs about household responsibility. Often, our feelings about how to do things the right, proper, natural way run counter to our conscious beliefs about how the world should work. Sure, we say people can be anything they want, but is that stay at home dad really pulling his weight?
People don’t want to talk about division of labor because reckoning with your actions when they don’t reflect your stated beliefs is very uncomfortable.
Our feelings and assumptions about how households ought to be run are subconscious and held by both men and women. There’s variation among socialized beliefs - they’ll depend on how each person’s world operated during their formative years. Differences in opinion are guaranteed.
We don’t have the words to negotiate these differences because the necessary discussions have not been widely modeled for us. We don’t have the social skills we need to make our egalitarian values line up with our actions because early socialization hasn’t caught up with the changes in our adult expectations. Families still generally operate along the same lines they did before women joined the workforce en masse.
There is an exception to this. Households with same sex partners more successfully navigate division of labor discussions to create agreements that both partners perceive as fair. When a household doesn’t fit traditional stereotypes, partners feel freer to negotiate what works for them as individuals and a unit.
What Happens When You Don’t Discuss Division of Labor and Rely on Assumptions?
You default to a division of labor that unintentionally reflects traditional gender roles, with women carrying more than their share of the household burden. Women do three times more unpaid care and domestic work than men.
And that sucks. Especially when it isn’t how you meant for things to work out.
Unfortunately, the easiest person to blame for that faulty division of labor is your partner.
But whose fault is it, really? Almost always nobody’s.
It’s socialization’s fault.
Head butting, commence!
What Do You Get with a Division of Labor Based on Socialized Assumptions?
A Whole Lot of Invisible Labor
Differences in socialization mean that most men have been raised to be oblivious to huge amounts of the work required to successfully manage a household. Frankly, they simply are not taught to see tasks that are considered women’s work. If something is invisible to you, you’re not going to notice that it needs to be done.
Result: He doesn’t do anything.
The same holds true for the social costs women face for not living up to unspoken standards. Society judges and shames women who don’t meet expectations around home and family care. Men aren’t aware of or held to these same standards and are often praised exuberantly for their minimal involvement.
Result: Her standards are ridiculous.
Imbalanced Division of Responsibilities
When one person doesn’t know that there’s work to be done and the other will be scrutinized for it not being completed to expected standards, the natural result is a division skewed towards the partner who’s going to be held to account socially. Women are going to do what they need to do to not get in trouble.
Overwhelm
The majority of American women work outside the home. When professional work is combined with an assumptive division of labor, the result is an overloaded schedule. House and care work literally never ends and with many tasks needing to be completed at specific times of day, opportunities for extended rest, relaxation and creativity become rare. A fragmented schedule takes its toll over time.
Result: All she cares about is the house and kids. She’s not very interesting anymore. He does whatever he wants. I never get to do anything for myself.
Inefficiency
When one person is left to complete or direct more than their fair share of chores, things begin going awry. Stuff falls through the cracks, some jobs get done twice, others not at all. Deadlines are missed, important relationships go unnurtured. When the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, you end up with nobody there to pick your daughter up from play practice and 8 bottles of mustard in the fridge.
Nag, Nag, Nag, Nag, Nag
It’s no fun to be nagged OR to feel like a nag. But when tasks are invisible to one partner and society is shaming the other for not getting them done, the result is often constant nagging.
Infantilization
Without the benefit of a lifetime spent practicing care work, men often don’t have the skill base necessary to competently execute household tasks. House and care work is skilled labor, even if it isn’t valued by society as such. This can result in frustration on both sides, as men feel belittled and criticized for their honest efforts and women are aggravated by the amount of handholding necessary to complete basic tasks.
Result: He has no common sense. She’s just better at this stuff.
An express ticket to Resentmentville and Contempt Town
Between the unacknowledged performance of invisible labor, the nagging, feelings of incompetence, and schedule overwhelm, it’s little wonder when partners become salty with one another. Neither feels valued for their contributions and both question the other’s motives. It’s not a happy place to be. A division of labor based on assumptions makes for a disorganized, harried home that doesn’t work for anyone.
She may be blind, but watch out! because Justice also has a sword.
How Do You Solve This Problem?
Getting your division of labor right is challenging. There is no one correct way to divide household responsibility between partners and it’s really hard to talk about without the conversation devolving into an argument. Much of the advice out there is frustratingly vague. A lot of it boils down to “Make a list and choose the chores you each like!” or “Hire a cleaning service and never fight again!”
Okay… great. We both hate chores and will the cleaning service go pick up our sick 8 year old from school? Because we’re fighting about who’s going to leave work to do that right now…
The 5 Characteristics of a Fair Division of Labor
There are a million ways to create a division of labor that’s fair to all parties. No two will be the same, but a successful division will share the following 5 characteristics.
1. It’s Explicit
You can’t keep operating on assumptions. You need to actually talk about the work. Your partner isn’t psychic. The bones of contention need to be named. If your partner hasn’t been socialized to see skeletons, they aren’t going to know to look for them in closets or that the closets probably want a good vacuum after they’ve been cleaned out. A fair division of labor spells everything out.
2. It’s Comprehensive
Household responsibilities involve a lot more than cleaning. There’s making sure the diaper bag is stocked with supplies, researching health insurance options, discussing holiday plans with extended family, taking off work to take the dog for his annual bordetella vaccine (and remembering to make the appointment at the vet on time so he doesn’t get turned away at doggie daycare when you are supposed to be leaving for vacation), arranging child care, stocking up on toilet paper, figuring out where to properly dispose of an old printer…ad infinitum. A fair division of labor needs to cover all the labor.
3. It’s Organized
You want to keep track of everything listed in #2 in your heads? How do you think that’s going to work out? A fair division of labor needs systems in order to work for the long term.
4. It’s Equitable
The gold standard is not 50/50. Tit for tat score keeping doesn’t work out for anyone. An equitable division of labor is one where no party is overburdened and each has opportunities for rest, relaxation, and creativity. There are seasons of life where the burden is heavy and those opportunities aren’t plentiful; equity is achieved when everyone contributes to the best of their ability. Maybe you do need a cleaning service, but outsourcing doesn’t let anyone off the hook. A fair division of labor balances the full spectrum of personal and professional responsibilities between parties.
5. It’s Agreed By All Parties
One person can come up with a comprehensive and organized division of labor, but if the other parties don’t sign on to the plan, it’s not going to solve any problems. A fair division of labor is a group effort, agreeable to everyone involved.
Look! They are washing peppers and not hating each other! Carrots too!
What Happens When you Create a Fair Division of Labor
Things Start Running Smoothly
There’s clarity about who does what and to what standard. When all responsibilities are visible and divided equitably, the load feels lighter. What needs to get done, gets done without a whole lot of hassle.
Less Conflict
An assumptive division of labor doesn’t only make assumptions about who does what, it also makes assumptions about how things should be done. Unspoken expectations that go unmet are a huge source of daily irritation. When you hash out a division of labor that reflects the 5 characteristics, you’ll resolve the source of those little annoyances. Nagging isn’t necessary when everyone is pulling their agreed weight. Exchange your express ticket to Contempt Town for one to Contentburg.
Everyone’s Empowered
Redistribution of the second shift allows everyone to get a little more of what they want. Men learn the skills they need to be fully engaged partners and parents. With practice, their sense of ineptitude goes away and they can enjoy their home and family on a new level. Americans say that men feel significantly more pressure to support their families financially. Provider angst might lessen as their partners have more time and energy to pursue their professional and creative goals. Everyone wins when all parties feel empowered in all areas of their lives.
Time for Fun and Connection
When household labor is shared fairly and performed efficiently, it takes less time. Fun wife might come back when she no longer has an anxiety laden to-do list running through her head 24 hours a day. You might even get laid more often. To be clear, women are not slot machines where you insert chores and sex comes out, but if your wife is exhausted and resents the shit out of you because she does the lion’s share of care work, odds are good you aren’t doing much connecting on a physical level. Improve your odds with a fair division of labor.
Maybe You Won’t Get Divorced
A 2018 Harvard study reported that 25% of divorcing couples listed disagreements over chores as the main reason for their break-up. Sorting out your division of labor so that it works for both of you could prevent major heartache. A fair division of labor saves relationships.
That nut contains a summary of this post.
How A Fair Division of Labor Saves Relationships, In a Nutshell
Division of Labor is your most important household system because it affects how every other task in your home is carried out.
Our divisions of labor are usually based on assumptions that reflect traditional gender roles due to early socialization.
These assumptions lead to imbalanced divisions, with women bearing more than their fair share of household responsibilities.
Imbalanced divisions of labor lead to inefficiency, conflict, and disempowerment of all parties.
Building a fair division of labor is challenging, but vital to avoiding bad outcomes.
A fair division of labor has 5 characteristics. It’s explicit, comprehensive, organized, equitable and agreed by all parties.
When a fair division of labor is established, partners experience less conflict, have more time and energy to pursue their individual interests and professional goals, and are better able to connect with one another.
A fair division of labor can even head off an oncoming divorce.
That all sounds great, but what does a fair division of labor have to do with organizing?
At The House Shuffle, we aim to solve the root cause of what’s not working in your home. If you don’t have a fair division of labor, we are not going to be able to achieve our goal of creating a practical, comfortable home that works for you because it won’t function optimally without one.
In the next few posts, you’ll learn more about how we incorporate The Fair Play Method into our approach to optimizing your household systems. The Fair Play Method helps us navigate creating a fair division of labor that reflects all 5 characteristics together. It’s beautifully simple and can save your relationship.
The House Shuffle’s System Shift Process is almost ready!
The process will help you rebalance your division of labor and improve your household systems.
Learn more about the process and join the waitlist here or get in touch & chat over email.