Finding Harmony in Household Chores

How do you divide up your household chores?

I think it partly comes down to who's playing what role in the household. Are you the kind of family where everybody does an equal amount of chores? Are you more maternalistic or paternalistic? Do both of you have jobs, or is it one of you doesn't? Do you both run a business or work from home? Do you have other help or anyone else living with you? These factors really affect how household work gets divided up.

For example, having a maid is a personal choice. It's quite standard where I live. Most middle-class families have maids; it's pretty accepted. Whether it's a live-in maid or a daytime maid, when you have one, that's the answer, right? All the housework gets outsourced. But when you don't have a maid, who does the work?

My husband and I discussed having a maid before our little lion was born. I was all for it because I thought, who's going to help with all the baby stuff and housework? My husband, however, was against it. His reasons were that the maid would need management and there might be differences in how they would raise a child compared to our way.

Most maids have experience with children, so they might not really listen to first-time parents like us. We've seen it happen since the daycare we used to send our little lion to employed maids as carers. There were times we didn’t agree with their practices, like swaddling, but the daycare manager would just say, don't worry, the maids know what they're doing. It felt like if you send your child here, you need to trust how they do things.

That’s totally a valid point because I take the same view with my business clients. They want us to solve their problems, and they need to trust our methods. But at the time, we didn’t like it, so we moved him to another daycare that didn’t practice swaddling. It's a personal choice, right? There are different ways to achieve the same objectives.

Housework can be another point of argument. When my husband and I first lived together, we took turns with chores. One of mine was sweeping the house, and I often got criticized for not sweeping properly. He’d say, you need to get into the corners. I thought as long as the surface is clear, it's fine. We had several arguments about that.

Even things like taking out the bin; I might think it should go out when it's full, while he thinks it can wait a bit longer. So, these little things can be tricky.

I've realized different people have different standards. When I hear friends complain about housemates' hygiene standards, I understand. It's one of the main challenges of living with others, including parents. Moving back in with my parents or in-laws was difficult because of differing cleanliness standards.

So, how did my husband and I find peace with housework? Eventually, we found cleaners because we're at a stage where we can afford it. But before that, we had a sit-down. After many arguments, we both agreed we don’t like arguing over household stuff. It's petty to do but too important to ignore.

We decided to take chores we felt strongly about. My husband does the sweeping, and I handle chores that matter to me, like washing up, because I don't like how he doesn't wash the bottom of plates properly. It’s the same for him with my sweeping. By assigning chores based on our preferences, we found peace.