I started this blog on 26 Jan 2018 – 9.58pm. It was a Friday night. Obviously it was important to me on this Friday night who was doing the housework in my household. I’m trying to think back to 2018. In fact, I’ve just checked out the photos on my phone from January 2018 to see who was living here at home. Noah, Indy and Zeb were definitely at home. I feel like Shahni was as well but being January, there weren’t many photos of her. My guess is she was off on adventures. She had been at RnV. Then I’m guessing the next music festival – unsure! Anyway, there were 6 of us at home. So, no doubt, a lot of house work to be carried out. Everyone needing to do their part … and … at a guess, I was feeling particularly frustrated about the chores and how they got divvied up between the 6 of us – or not! Could I just add that in January 2018 I was also in a moonboot, after an unfortunate incident / accident where I stepped down off a curb and broke my ankle. Only at the time that it happened I was told it was sprained. So, I walked around with an untreated broken ankle for a very long time. I’m wondering if this may have also had something to do with some household chore frustration?! Who would know?
It is an age old dilemma though isn’t it? Women are no longer immediately expected to be the “home makers”. Thank goodness! Households look so different to “back in the day”. Whānau is made up of many different members nowadays. Households are no longer mum, dad, 2 kids and the family kuri. They are so much more. But who vacuums? Who feeds the cat? Who cleans the wharepaku? Who gets those pesky cobwebs? Or cleans the fly shit off the ceiling? What about the oven cleaning? Who is the lucky person that gets to do that job? What about the hair that gathers behind the bathroom door? The crumbs that gather around the toaster? Who separates the colours from the darks and whites in the washing machine? Do you separate your towels and clothes? We do! Always! Mmmm … penny for your thoughts!!!
Fast forward to the present. There are 3 of us living at home. The housework load isn’t as heavy as it used to be. However, the questions still remain. The biggest one of all – housework – who?
I didn’t ever get an answer for any of the questions though I did start to realise the more I do, the less everyone else does. Sad, but true. I tried to keep doing everything for everybody but eventually I realised that it then becomes expected. So now I do for me. I do enough and no more. It seems selfish but it is all part of my self-preservation journey. (I should probably blog about that one day.)
If you’re reading this, perhaps let it become a lesson of sorts;
Golden Rules for Living