Approaching the division of chores in a businesslike way could be the key to domestic harmony
In my house, obviously, we don’t need Fair Play, a recent book by the Harvard lawyer and organisational expert Eve Rodsky on the perennial question of how to get men (in heterosexual relationships) to do their share of household chores. That’s because I already do my share. Or I genuinely think I do – and will assert it, with the tiniest hint of bitterness, if challenged. Then again, how could the matter be definitively settled, without hiring a team of clipboard-wielding consultants to monitor my partner and me around the clock for a month?
Even that wouldn’t resolve things, really, because it all hinges on expectations. The reason I don’t vacuum as much as my partner is that I’m fine with less-vacuumed floors; meanwhile, a significant portion of the domestic labour I pride myself on doing consists of tidying that she, a non-neat-freak, considers unnecessary. Who is right? It’s a question as unanswerably profound as any philosopher might ponder, if she didn’t have so much damn laundry to do.
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