Naj Citrowske
SOC 308,  Homework Assignment 2
Until a few weeks ago, I was having a difficult time coming up with an idea for this project.  I am already married and my kids already have last names.  I don’t shave in the cold weather anyway.  And our household responsibilities are pretty even.  I tend to do more housework and cooking but mostly because I am home more often.  My husband enjoys cooking and has no problem doing laundry, dishes etc without being asked or told.
 
During the two weeks around mid-terms, I was very busy with preparing for exams and writing papers for my classes.  My husband had to go to work out of town for a few days, and the kids and I stayed home.  In addition to attending classes, studying, and working everyday, I was the only one home to pick-up the kids, feed them, bathe them and put them to bed everyday.  Needless to say when I weighed these responsibilities against housework, the mess began to pile up.  So much so, that when my husband returned home, the sink was full of dishes and the laundry room was so full you could barely get through the door.  He immediately set about getting our house back in order.
 
I spent the next three days finishing my school projects and then stayed holed up in the office getting caught up on the work that had been pushed aside all week.  I had very little time to spend with my husband or my children for most of those two weeks.  The day before my last final, I had gone to bed late after studying most of the evening.  My husband chose that time to ask me if I had some problem he should know about.  I explained that it was the usual stress I have around mid-terms and finals and that everything would be fine after that last exam.  He then asked me if we needed to find someone to replace me in the office so that I would have more time for other things.  At first I thought this was a kind gesture, then I realized that by other things he was referring to housework, not school and the kids.   I asked when the housework had become my sole responsibility and why it was suddenly so important.  He said he didn’t expect me to do it all, but that there was no excuse for the mess he had come home to.  I was shocked and confused and didn’t make a very good case for myself at the time because all I could think was “couldn’t this wait till after my exam?”
 

 Several days had passed and though we didn’t discuss the matter, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  That weekend I got together with some of my family, and an idea for this project hit me.  I decided that I would tell my husband I wanted to be paid for housework.  I would run the idea by my mom, sisters and aunt and then, armed with their support, I would approach my husband.  One morning at breakfast I told everyone about our argument.  As I expected, they were all upset and disappointed in Shane.  Then I told them my solution.  At first everyone laughed and commented on how great that would be.  Then I told them that I was quite serious.  I couldn’t believe the change in their moods.  They started telling me how ridiculous I was being and how I was his wife and it was our house so I should help keep it clean.  I explained that I agreed that I should help, but that he was suggesting that it should be solely my responsibility.  And that if this were the case then I felt he should pay me.  That way he could make demands about how and when things should be done and have every right to complain when I didn’t meet his standards.  My family went from thinking I was funny, to thinking I was silly, to being down right furious with me.
 
My mother said that since I quit work and went back to school, Shane was supporting me and by being the breadwinner he deserved to have a clean house and clean clothes without having to pay me for it.  It was my duty as his wife, my aunt and mother said, to care for the house and children and that if I couldn’t do it all, maybe I should quit school.  My sisters thought that I should still be able to finish school, but that I should hire a maid service and pay for it out of my measly paychecks myself.
 
The more they spoke the angrier I became.  At first it was a joke for me, I thought they would all laugh and agree that I should tell my husband these things.  But they were outraged by what I thought was a sound solution to a ridiculous problem.  I realized the proposal wasn’t normal, but I didn’t think it was so extreme either.  We had always shared the work fairly equally, and now he wanted out of the work.  If we weren’t married he would have to pay someone else or do it himself so what was the difference?

But my mother, and sisters, with their traditional beliefs about marriage did not see this as logical but as an abuse of my husbands kindness in letting me quit my career for school.  Now keeping in mind that my mother and both sisters were divorced 5 times between the three of them, I tried not to take them too seriously.  My aunt however is in her late fifties and has been married to the same man since she was 19.  She is also the mother of 6 children so I was sure that she would see my point.  While she agreed that women should be paid for the work in the home, she thought it was silly to expect that pay to come from a husband, but maybe the government.  I tried to reason that it was he who demanded the house be cleaned and that I be the one to do it so why shouldn’t he be the one to pay for it.

I finally told them all that this had begun as a project for a class.  Rather than calming them, this made things worse.  Now not only did they think I was being self-righteous, but also that my husband was paying for me to take classes that were putting horrendous ideas into the heads of young women.  It started as a joke, and I didn’t take myself seriously, but the more angry people became at the idea, the stronger my convictions became.  I found I was getting angry at their emotional responses to what I thought was a sound proposal.  At first I didn’t really believe that I deserved to be paid either, but I listened to their reasons why not, and realized that they didn’t make any sense and that what I was proposing did seem perfectly logical. I know that my mother and aunt grew up in a different time and society than I, but my sisters grew up in the same environment as me.  Yet for all the talk of a generation gap, here were two generations of women who still agreed that a woman’s place is in the home no matter what else she is doing with her life.

I am happy to say that my husband was much more receptive of the idea.  When I did approach him with the subject he immediately apologized and explained that the fight had little to do with housework and more to do with the fact that I wasn’t able to spend time with anyone in our family and that the effects of my absence were felt in everything.  He explained that he did not expect me to do everything and that sometimes he is jealous of my dedication to school.  It was the fact that I wasn’t spending time with anyone that sent him looking for a fight.  I continued on the subject asked if he would be willing to pay me if it were solely my job. We discussed the matter for a while and decided that it was a non-issue since he wouldn’t be able to sit back and watch me do all the work anyway. The next day he told me he had called a maid service to find out the going rate and that if I was interested in paying him, he’d be happy to take over all household tasks.