Cindy DiTiberio I really do find this so interesting to muse upon when I consider how my husband and I divide chores and how the rest of the married people in my life divide chores. There are certainly roles we all fall into. My mom has been the primary cook in their marriage of 37 years. My dad (inexplicably) loves to load the dishwasher, so he’s always taken on the dishes. In recent years, he’s started being the primary one to do the laundry which my mom loves.

My coteacher Arianne has 3 kids and is unquestionably the preferred parent when it comes to their 4 year old. Her girls are 11 and 9, so they are more independent. I know she finds it wearing to do bedtime routine every night after she’s been with me taking care of babies all day. Her husband splits chores well (whoever gets home first makes dinner and whoever’s not cooking cleans the kitchen), but that daily grind of doing so much of the child care tasks can get so wearing.

Elizabeth Heydary’s husband and my husband both do a lot of house projects, are the primary grocery shoppers/cooks, take care of the cars/yard, and take care of the trash. Being the primary ones in charge of groceries/dinners especially is huge! But despite what many of our friends say to us, they don’t deserve a parade for cooking dinner so often. They are participating in the running of the home as they should. My sister and I both feel like we tend to take the lead on childcare tasks because we believe we’re the ones doing all the work to read up on parenting (and in my case my literal job description has been to help preschoolers navigate their feelings because I have been a preschool teacher since 2016, so I of course think it’s one of my strengths). Our husbands simply haven’t done as much work to identify how to improve their parenting, but no one could ever dispute that they are both good fathers. Her husband is silly with the kids, and with my daughter she thinks he is her most fun uncle. My husband also has very sweet moments with our daughter, and he clearly enjoys spending time with her and reading to her. I am extremely grateful he doesn’t need his hand held on how to take care of her for the night if I go out and can easily take over for me to go away for the weekend as I plan to do in March. I have coworkers who would never feel comfortable doing that because their husbands are not invested in their children’s care in the same way as mine.

Looking at these issues is so interesting and important when considering how marriage is being set up and how people are handling navigating these patriarchal norms.