Sam and I take a fairly “traditional” approach when it comes to who does what around the house.

We’re not sure why this is or how it comes about. It could be that it’s the way our parents did things, so we just automatically fill those traditional roles as part of our natural course.

For example, I do (most of) the cooking, cleaning and washing. Sam mows the lawns, fixes things around the house, maintains the pool, chops the wood and builds anything that needs to be put together (no, we don’t try to assemble flat-packs together, everyone knows how that ends!)

Sometimes, Sam cooks and I maintain the pool.

Sam also has a tendency to leave stuff around the house, and I have a tendency to just pick it up, put it away (or as he says, “hide it from him”) and move on.

I know some people would have a problem with that. I also know that every female I’ve ever met has a man in their life who they pick up after.

Some of us whinge about it, and others just accept it for what it is.

I can’t remember who said it to me, but it’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard, and I often share it with my girlfriends

The sooner you accept that you have to pick up their stuff, the easier your life will be.

You can disagree with me and say it’s sexist and all of that stuff, and that’s fine (I wouldn’t disagree with you!) but once I heard that statement I asked myself “would you rather squabble about something that isn’t going to change or just accept it and move on?”

In saying all of this, Sam and I don’t actually think that the male and female should automatically assume traditional roles within the household. Ultimately, we think it doesn’t really matter who does what around the house so long as there is an equal distribution of tasks (e.g. if one person works more than the other, the other person picks up more of the slack around the house) and we really think that’s the way it should be.

In an ideal world, we believe it should all be evenly shared (and that’s what we’d really like to try to teach our kids one day when they come along…)

But the thing is, we don’t live in an ideal world, and all the stuff isn’t evenly shared (how apparent was that when you had to answer the census question about how many hours you each spent doing non-paid work around the house!?).

Although, since no-ones keeping score (except the ABS, apparently!) it doesn’t really matter – and we’re ok with that.

How about you?
Do you share the workload evenly in your house?
Do you automatically fall into the “traditional” male and female roles around the house?
Does picking up your partner’s stuff drive you nuts?
What happens if things aren’t done in your house?

Let us know in the comments below 🙂