Organizing Chores

When my husband and I were first married (many moons ago), he once complained that he felt I was asking him to do what he felt was a unfair amount of chores. At the time we were both working full time. I worked days, he worked swing and weekends, so I would do what I considered my fair share of cleaning when he was not home, then leave him a note asking him to do chore x or y when he got home.

After we talked, I realized that since his mother stayed home, took care of the house (and to be painfully blunt, had a different standard of cleanliness than the home where I grew up), he really had absolutely no idea what chores were involved in keeping the house clean. Since he didn't see what I was doing when he wasn't there, he apparently had the impression I was sitting around eating bonbons all evening and leaving him the majority of the chores (I kid!).

My solution was to make a list of all the chores that I had to do to keep our little apartment clean and then since we were both working the same number of hours a week, I asked him to pick half. He chose to vacuum, sweep, and mop and I took cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms. We split the laundry (I would start it, he would finish) and we went to the grocery store together.

These days I work from home full time and teach 12 hours of classes and my husband is a school teacher. We have three kids, but we still use the chore list. The kids are now involved and each have their chores assigned (occasionally they trade). The rule is that you can do your weekly chores on whatever day works best for you, but they must be completed by bed-time on Sunday (I chose to do one a day and nothing on Saturday). During the school year I do more of the chores since I'm at home during the day, and my husband coaches the boys' soccer teams after school. During the summer, since everyone one else is on summer vacation and I'm still working, the chores get redistributed.

The chores for the kids are appropriate for their age. My oldest cleans my small master bathroom (because my standards are high). My middle son cleans the upstairs kids' bathroom, and my youngest has been cleaning the little half bathroom downstairs since he was 4. They also get extra chores as needed, but this has worked for now and if anyone complains, I can point to the list and show them that everyone in the house does their part (and if they want fair, they can take on a couple of mine - lol!)

In addition to the chores on the list, I dust and my husband deals with the cars; and of course he deals with a lot of honey-do projects on the weekends. It's not always perfect (you'll notice my husband has to be told to put his laundry away, and my son "assigned" me an extra summer chore), but at least we don't argue about cleaning anymore and we can enjoy those bonbons together.