Male roles and Female roles?

Is there such a thing as male roles and female roles in a household?  Well, that depends on what we are referring to.  If we are talking about the “little house on the Prairie days” kind of roles, then no, I don’t think so.  Not anymore, not since the woman works outside the home and contributes financially.  I've been a stay at home wife and mom for almost 20 years.  Although I have worked on and off, here and there, my husband has always been the primary source of income for our family.  We pretty much share all the household chores being that he mostly works on weekends.

He doesn't mind doing the laundry, unloading the dishwasher or pretty much anything I ask him to do.  

However, I realize that is not the case in all households.  Most of my friends work full-time and so do their husbands.  I often wonder how they manage to maintain a house.  Laundry in itself is a never ending job, not to mention cooking, homework if there are kids involved, and maintaining the house half way decent.  There are days that I work a full day and when I get home I just want to put on my PJs at 6:00pm and go straight to bed! Lol

When my parents were growing up, the roles were pretty much laid out.  The man goes out to work, and the woman stays home to mind the children and the house; plain and simple.  It isn’t so simple anymore; now most households are double income households.  Sadly, there are still some people that have not been able to transition their mentality to keep up with the times.  These are the ones that expect “some” of the “laid out” roles to stay in place while still enjoying the benefits of a double income.  The female is expected to run the household as well as a fulltime job.   Then we wonder why our women are “running away from home” lol.  

There are some women that might take this as a challenge; they work outside the home, get home in the evenings, cook, do homework with the kids, clean, put the kids down to bed and then stay up late doing the laundry.  I’ll tell you right now, in my house, “aint nobody got time for dat” If we both work outside the home… then we both work inside the home! LOL

The children are most definitely a shared responsibility; they need both parents equally involved.  In my house it has taken a while to get into the swing of things but I think we finally have a pretty effective system going on.  School days, hubby wakes up the kids, makes sure they make their beds and get ready.  While he is doing that, I’m preparing their lunches and making them breakfast; hubby drives them to school.  In the afternoon, hubby picks them up from school while I make them an afternoon snack.  When they get home I make myself available for one and hubby for the other one to help them with homework if they need it.  I’m the designated school project parent and their dad  is the designated field trip parent. Lol While I make dinner, the kids play outside with dad, sometimes with friends.  After dinner, the kids shower and we both tuck them in.  That’s how we have been doing it for the past few years.  This works most of the time, unless there is a meltdown, sibling fight, family madness etc. ….. LOL

During the week, there isn’t much cleaning and laundry going on.  Mostly work, kids & blog. LOL On Saturdays it’s cleaning day; kids replace their bed linen, clean their bathroom (tub and all), fold and put away their clean laundry and take turns matching everyone’s socks.  I have the downstairs; kitchen, bathroom, both living rooms and dining rooms. Hubby has our master bedroom and bath and the vacuuming.  I do all of the cooking, only because I love to cook; I ‘am however teaching the boys how to cook.  So there you have it, I figure, this way no one feels over burdened and everyone learns responsibility.  

This is what works for us, I’m sure many of you have great ideas on how to distribute household chores and such.  Bottom line, the responsibility should not fall on someone just because of their gender.  We all live under the same roof; therefore, it is all of our responsibility to maintain it.  I don’t want my kids to grow up depending on other people to do things for them.  I want them to understand the value of things and what it takes to take care of them.  So are there male roles and female roles when it comes to household chores? I don’t think so.  The only thing different in my house is, they all lift the toilet seat and I don’t. lol