Why I Hate Housework

Like many women, I don't have a domestic bone in my body. No Martha Stewart DNA here. I grew up in a family of 7 and our homes were never clean. Which means I never learned to clean house. I make no apologies for it. I think housework causes the biggest rift in relationships there could possibly be.

I was married 16 years and I've lived with a man for nearly 10 years after that. In any relationship, I am fine as long as the housework is balanced. That means he does his laundry and I do mine. It means I wash dishes on odd numbered days and he washes them on even numbered days. This balance usually crashes and burns within 2 weeks of any relationship. Men seem to have housework amnesia. They can't remember if they vaccuumed 2 weeks ago or 2 months ago. It just doesn't cross their mind.

So if you are a mom who does every single thing for your loving son including iron his underwear, stay away from me least I strangle you within an inch of your life. Do me a favor and teach your son to use a washing machine, a dishwasher, a sewing machine and a mop. And while you are at it, teach your daughter to use a hammer, a screwdriver and a wrench. They may well be the ones fixing the toilet when their husband is too busy advancing his career to get around to it.

I seriously had to bite my tongue when my newly married daughter told me her husband expects her to work 40 hours a week in her home since he works at his job 40 hours a week. I said, "What happens when you have babies and find yourself working 60 hours a week while he reads the paper and watches the game after dinner?" She said, "Oh then he said I'd be doing way more than him, so he'll spend the rest of his life trying to catch up."

Men, if you want to have sex more, do half the housework. An exhausted wife and mother of your children does not a spry temptress make. Cook her a nice dinner. Toss a TV dinner at her and she may toss her coffee cup at you. Yes, we all notice when you let her do all the housework or foist it off on your daughters while you and your sons go out and play hockey.

I hate the automatic blame factor. It works like this. When I had 2 babies in diapers I told my husband he would be ironing his own shirts. He said he was cool with that. So a few days later he wears a long sleeved yellow button down shirt with more wrinkles than a Sherlock Holmes novel. All day long at work all he heard was, "Gee, your wife doesn't love you. She is too stinking lazy to iron your shirt." Not one person said, "You're a grown man. Don't you know how to use an iron?"

This weekend someone from where my boyfriend works is coming over to fix my computer. I'm mortified over what he'll think of my house. I know I'll get blamed for the mess, even though both of us live here. My boyfriend used to do half the vaccuuming. I can't even remember the last time he vaccuumed anything.

I'm an artist and a writer and work out of my home. Which means people expect my home to be spotless, because after all, all I do is sit around all day and have so much free time, I could hand polish the silver every day. When a man is a writer, he shuts himself into his den and the children are told not to interrupt daddy, as he's doing something important. Never is daddy nagged to quit writing that paper and get out there and throw in a load of laundry.

I used to iron my boyfriend's shirts. One day he flew into a rage over me not doing the collars right. That was the last time I ironed anything for him. I've seen him go to work in shirts 10 times worse than that.

I read about an asian woman who cooked a complicated meal for her new American husband. He whined and complained about the whole dinner. Finally she said, "You no like. me no cook." Can I have that on a sign please?

I guess I'm done. Someone has to go do yesterday's dishes. And it won't be my boyfriend. He can't seem to empty the sink without giving me the stink eye like somehow he's mortally wounded that he might have to wash a dish. When he told me he left his wife because she never cooked or cleaned, I should have asked him, "Why didn't you." And then I should have run the other way.

Cleaning products are almost always marketed to women. I am sick to death of seeing some ditsy housewife dancing around with her mop in euphoria. (Probably inhaled too much bleach and ammonia). And that commercial with the automatic shower cleaner that shows the shower full of maids really ticks me off. Note: all the maids are women. Obviously that's what women are for...scrubbing showers. Or how about the guy watching a show with the winning lotto numbers while his wife scrubs the kitchen with lemon scented cleaner. Why isn't she resting while he's cleaning the kitchen? They never end.