Advice from the Professors

Room 2-22

From: Eugene- Greenville, SC

Question

Professors,

I have been reading a number of articles about how Mommies will do 20 hours of housework, and their husband 2 hours. The implication is that this is grossly unfair and that Something Must Be Done.

Now if the man and woman lived separately, would this mean that the man would do 22 hours of housework? Of course not! He would do 2 hours and be content, and she would do 22 hours and be equally content.

My take is that men just don't see the need for so much cleaning/ironing/re-arranging. However, Mommies will impose their standards unilaterally, and then be upset when the husband consistently under-performs.

What Happened??

Comments

Eugene,

You nailed this one. Our research shows that it actually takes 2.5 hours to correctly perform “housework”. Now that’s with “hospital corners” on the bed and dusting with something other than the palm of your hand.

Also of note: True Mommies are completely competitive. The unilateral imposition of standards you mention is an abstraction of Mommy-based competition as to who has the cleanest house, highest earning husband, most weeded garden, best Christmas card, most expensive vacation, shiniest SUV, biggest DIAMOND, and most effective speed-bumps.

Boy, can they ever go at it!