The Honey Do List

I am looking for the book.  The one about who decided which chores were “hers” and which chores were “his”.  I know it has to be out there, because (at least in my household) there is a perfect delineation as to what I end up doing for the well-being and redemption of our home and what my spousal unit feels is in his domestic domain.

The book, I would think, probably has honest origins based on necessity.  It could have started in prehistoric times, being etched in stone tablets as the cave people, for purposes of survival, decided that the men should go out and hunt and the women should skin the hides, tend the garden, do the harvesting, cook, give birth and clean the latrines.  This equation probably worked fine until the time the garbage needed to be taken out and the women put their foot down that they were not going to be handling this particular chore and thus, created the perfect assignment for their manly man.  The men accepted this task as theirs, prided themselves on their garnering skills and formed crucial alliances with others of their species.

This was further accentuated as the evolution of the unwritten designated chores decreed that men handled the external upkeep of the house, including the yard, and the women were relegated to all that was inside the house.  Men flocked to the bright lights of the hardware and home improvement stores and bonded with the power tool guy in aisle 6.  Women found camaraderie in numbers and basked in the serenity and discussion of coffee klatsches, took on the PTA and reveled in whipping up the perfect dinner (with recipes clipped from her women’s magazine) for her family.  It was a simpler time, when “Leave it To Beaver” was on our black and white television tubes and dressing up to fly somewhere on an airplane was the norm.  Back to our roots as hunters, nurturers and gatherers…

Things have fast-forwarded… With the hectic pace of today’s families – add that both parents may work and each of the 3 kids has an average of 13 places to be in the course of an afternoon, it may be time to add chapters to the book, ease the burden of the primary caregiver and give the opportunity to others to learn new skills.  Some thoughts on information that could be included in the updated and revised edition are: “Let’s all have fun unloading the dishwasher!”; “No, this can’t be your science project! When something turns a funny color, toss it!”; “Clothes like to be with their own in the drawers, they get cold sitting on the floor.”; “Straighten out that aim and the toilet can be your friend”; “Leave no evidence behind… clean up after yourself!”; “Goin’ my way? Take me up the stairs with you!” Given alongside the speech that “we are all in this together”, progress and success are within reach.

I know we all will have to reverse some age-old, instinctive habits and it probably will be quite painful in the beginning.  But imagine the thrill of a clean, empty sink or the ecstasy of your betrothed knowing where all the items in the dishwasher go (after only 6 short years of living in the same house).  Envision a place where everything has a place and they actually end up there.  Visualize a oneness with the toilet, where there isn’t a misplaced shot to be found.  We are all in this together, to make a better world that we all are responsible for ourselves.  When we throw off the shackles of our predecessors and folks do the chores they choose and not the ones that were predefined, we all end up winners with some extra time to spend doing something we may have always wanted to do.

Cynthia A. McClelland, curious observer of the obvious with interpretations of the oddities of daily life.  Mother, wife and lover of the furry, resides in the north Lake Tahoe area.           

Cynthia A. McClelland © 2003-