Yes, you can win the chore wars – here’s how

a man and women seperated by height gender issues in business including equal rights and pay gaps conceptual vecor illustration
Win the chore wars – here’s how solarseven - Getty Images

Sometimes, I construct a pop quiz in my head. The questions don’t concern current affairs or general knowledge, but subjects such as “what size shoes does our child currently wear?” and “where does the wrapping paper live?” You are heartily invited to join me. If you need some prompts, may I suggest: the names and dietary requirements of your friends’ children, your diary commitments for this coming weekend or what’s being eaten for dinner tonight.

The pop quiz is for my husband, although I’m yet to spring it on him. It’s at best, a gag I have with my (female, fellow-working-mother) mates and, at worst, a coping strategy for when I’m feeling resentful of the imbalance of domestic, mental and emotional labour inside our home.

As most heteronormative, cohabiting and co-parenting women go, I’m relatively lucky. My husband does the ironing, shopping and nursery drop-offs, alongside many other household tasks. He’s with our son now as I write this. But I still think he’d struggle to score more than 50% on the pop quiz, because when it comes to the thinking – about what our child wears or eats, about his dental health or social life, what my sister-in-law might want for her birthday or where take our rambunctious toddler on a wet winter afternoon – it’s nearly entirely on me.

In December, a joint study from the University of Bath and the University of Melbourne showed that women bear the brunt of mental labour, managing seven out of 10 household tasks.

The study’s participants were individual parents, rather than couples, so the findings reflect one parent’s perspective rather than a combined point-of-view, which is probably why the study also found that fathers “overestimate their share”, and saw household mental labour as equally shared.

The study also spoke with a wide range of family types, including LGBQT+ and single parents, the latter of whom take on a far greater load – mothers or fathers – than anyone in a couple.

Still, the researchers found that, while on average, mothers take on 71% of tasks that require mental effort, fathers manage 45%. When it comes to the practical, daily grind of tasks, such as cleaning and childcare, fathers manage less than half (37%) of what mothers do (a dispiriting 79%).

This is unlikely to be news to many of us, but it might offer some kind of relief: we’re not making it up and we’re not alone – we really are doing far more than our fair share.

Now we are in the promising days of a New Year, I crave balance in my household even more. Perhaps this year, I will reach a Sunday evening without feeling vaguely like I’ve sat a GCSE maths exam while doing an obstacle course.

This won’t happen by idle wishing: we need to add “rebalance domestic labour” to our ever-lengthening to-do lists. But one woman has the tools to help. Fifteen years ago, Eve Rodsky decided enough was enough, specifically when her husband sent a text concerning blueberries while she was attempting to work, pump milk and do the nursery run simultaneously.

It spurred Rodsky to create Fair Play, a research project, book and practical, card-based tool to making sure the household tasks are shared – fairly, if not equally. “We have to sit with the fact that this is a lifestyle change,” she tells me, explaining that women – and yes, if we want change we have to make it – need to maintain their boundaries, improve their communication with their partner and create expectations of them.

An example: the boundary of taking a bath, instead of cleaning the kitchen after dinner; and the communication of the fact this will happen, and there is an expectation that your partner will clean the kitchen, instead. End result: you get to have a bath, and the kitchen gets cleaned.

“Everything I’m saying is a practice,” says Eve. “People wish that they can have one magical conversation with their partner and automatically, it’ll be like, poof, we’re going to get to this amazing place. But the secret formula is a practice of three things. It’s a practice of boundaries, systems and communication. That’s what works.”

A key difference Eve has observed in her work is the different way men and women’s time is viewed – by society and ourselves. “We view men’s time as finite like diamonds, and women’s as infinite like sand. What if we didn’t give our time away for free to others?”

She admits it’s a “boundary that’s much harder to implement in practice, because everyone forces you to do the opposite”. But the only person who can hold that boundary is you. After speaking with Eve, I stopped automatically replying to other (female) friends on WhatsApp groups my husband was also in, when it came to logistics, and made him do it instead. A few minutes more divided fairly.

Eve suggests check-ins to discuss how to do the work more equally – her research has shown Sunday afternoons or Friday nights to be good times, but any where “emotion is low and cognition is high” between you, ergo, not when you’ve reached your wits’ end over clearing out the fridge.

She sees the household as an organisation, “and when you’re an organisation, you bring back two things: accountability, and trust. You approach your partner and you say, ‘I want to live with accountability and trust’.”

Of course, many of us have tried to speak to our partners about shouldering the load, only for our requests to be interpreted as “nagging” or ignored completely.

In the end, we resolve, it’s just easier to do it ourselves and so the cycle continues. But Eve maintains that since she started this work, she has witnessed “a lot of change”. Boundaries and communication can form a practice that, in time, leads to shared ownership over domestic chores.

Chances are, you already expect and trust your partner to do certain tasks – that 37% has to consist of something.

What if, during a calm, thoughtful check-in, you raised those expectations or that accountability?

Perhaps add a meal plan or organising a social occasion to the list. If it seems impossible, think about what you might do with that time instead, not just once, but every week.

Surely, we’re worth it.

Klaus Vedfelt - Getty Images


How to share the work

Share the comms

Many men avoid the work of school, childcare and social commitments because they aren’t on the relevant WhatsApp group. Make sure they are, and encourage them to take the lead on arranging activities and liaising with friends.

Share a calendar

A family calendar on the wall is handy but it’s useful to have one in your pocket, too – with notifications that flash up when another adult puts a commitment in. Both Google and iCloud allow sharing. No more childcare clashes, and a swift reply to the question: “what are we doing this weekend?”

Check out Fair Play

Eve’s website fairplaylife.com is a treasure trove of information, research and resources to bolster your resolve, including her books, Fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space, and the Fair Play cards.

Joint shopping lists

A shared phone note – or even a chalkboard in the kitchen – that you can both write on when things run out makes everything easier.

Talk about it

If you’ve managed to avoid a row about housework, then you can skip this one. For everyone else, having a conversation really can start the ball rolling. Choose a moment when everyone’s relaxed and in a good mood, and start with the small stuff: could you compromise, for instance, by your partner taking on at least one meal over the weekend?

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