...existed on TV.

So in recreating June Cleaver's life and comparing it to today's woman's life, you're displaying, uh - nothing.

Believe it or not: Housework and raising kids and taking care of the domestic side of things is (drumroll, please) actual work on parity with a career, and (at least the kids part) far more rewarding in the long run.

Peace,

XY

My husband works from home; I work outside of the home (albeit 4 blocks away). As a self-employed person, my husband is sometimes swamped, but most of the time not. I know this because he has plenty of time to go shopping online to purchase things for me, such as a pasta crank, a bread machine and a yogurt maker.

When I get home after working 9+ hours, the sink is filled to capacity with dirty dishes, cat litter is strewn all over the place because the litter box has not been cleaned out and a hungry husband is expecting dinner, preferably something made from scratch, since he purchased me that hand crank pasta machine and all. Sometimes he calls me during the day to ask if I can come home for lunch and clean because he can't stand how messy the house is. It's too distracting for him to work with all the mess.

At the end of all this work, I am exhausted and resentful as hell that I do ALL of the work (and I make more money, too) and he gets to play with the cats and surf the internet half the day. Yeah, if he did more work, more sex would definitely happen.

because it implies that

(1) women withhold sex for reasons like "you didn't do the house work"

(2) sort of restating, women use sex as a reward for when men do things for them

(3) women some how find men doing housework in itself sexy

i think women who do (1) and (2) are despicable and stupid. You can't really argue with three, if that's what turns you on, but it certainly doesn't turn me on.

I can sort of understand the whole "it's not doing housework that's sexy in itself, it's that he's showing he cares about you" angle, but the underlying assumption there is that housework is the woman's job and when a man pitches in, it's like he's doing the woman a favor, sacrificing himself on her behalf. And that's BS too, if you believe in housework parity.

I don't mean to be rude or judgy, but how did your situation get this way? Why do you put up with it, instead of telling him, "look, buddy, things is going to change now"?

It's not so much that women are so appreciative of men's housework that they want to have sex. I think it's that couples in which one partner (usually the woman) is running herself ragged with a career AND a full load of housework is not going to be generally too frazzled for sex. So when a man starts to pull his weight, the woman is going to be correspondingly less frazzled and thus more likely to be in the mood.

I agree with xychro that doing all the housework IS a full-time job. I grew up watcing my mother constantly keeping up on the dusting, mopping, scrubbing, straighening, mowing, repairing, laundry, cooking, dishes, and shopping, and there is no doubt that these tasks take effort and time, and have value. Trying to do all this on top of a full-time job is a nightmare. And that doesn't even include childcare.

(Of course, I disagree with Xychro that housecare and kids are necessarily more rewarding than other endeavors. Raising children can be great, but there other aspects of life that are extremely rewarding too. Also some people are made VERY unhappy by their children. Why do we insist on trying to rank the rewards of child rearing in relations to the rewards of career?)

You pick up "His" drycleaning? Do you have any? If you do it costs a lot more. Does he cook "Your" dinner? What he doesn't eat? I have to take my kid to the dentist in the middle of the day and tomorrow I have to take time off to pick up another kid from college. And those car inspections and flat repairs? Yeah those are "Boy" jobs too.

Basically you're talking about mopping 2-3 toilets, running a vac or Swiffer across the floor once in a while and doing a few (too many - see below) laundry loads.

Grocery shopping? check and done. Outside work (except for YOUR garden)? check and done.

BTW, since when is being the bleach tornado so great? I mean what's up with the 20 loads of laundry a week? There's only 3 of us living here now. Maybe you have some other issues that my doing chores won't fix.

If me doing more (and you don't have a paying job, I do) means you won't physically reject me 100% of the time like you do now, then it's not worth it. Thanks, but as I said, I already have a job. Feel free to contract an illegal Mexican for that too.

This sentence in my comment should have read:

I think it's that couples in which one partner (usually the woman) is running herself ragged with a career AND a full load of housework are generally going to have less sex because the partner working more is going to be too frazzled.

Over the years the division of labors has evolved in our household. For on thing I was divorced for over 7 years with 2 kids before I met my current husband,and I have more own career.

Division of house hold duties eases resentment, thus probably makes for better love making. Besides it supports equality. At various time over our life we have had a housekeeper. We have always believed that the children, both girls, needed to help out. I would have done the same with boys. Now my daughters do with their sons. One of my daughters husband does most of the cooking. They share everything equally which shows I did a good job teaching the value of equality.

My husband and I just fell into our chore division naturally over the years. There as o you must do this or that and I always refused to irno his shirts, He did it until I convinced him he was dong a bad job and he finally stared taking them to the laundry. He takes them and picks them up. I cook, then he cleans up after me. I do most of the house cleaning, he does the laundry, (except I hide my very good cloths from him). I love it on Sunday might when we get into the clean sheets he has laundered and put on the bed. He loves it when I cook, he either cleans up or we do it together. We both do gardening, I do as much heavy stuff as he does. Best of all he gets up in the morning and makes the coffee, so it is ready for me. We takes turns pouring each other a glass of wine.

We are now in our 60s and could afford to hire a house keeper and a gardener, but we prefer to do it our selves. We hire out the heavy stuff..tree trimming & window washing. Almost every younger couple in our neighborhood even those stay at home moms have a house keeper, a nanny, a blow & go gardener, then belong to a gym to exercise. Over the years off and on, I have hated housework and sometimes resented it, when I was working. Now that I am retired I find it relaxing and meditative. Besides it is exercise!