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"The tasks I do that my husband doesn’t appreciate... because he doesn't have a clue that I do them."

Mums, do you ever feel that no matter how helpful your husband/partner is, you end up doing most of the work at home?

For parenting blogger Karen Alpert from Baby Sideburns, this is certainly the case.

“I have an awesome husband. If I ask him to do something like pack a lunch or toss the laundry into the dryer, he’ll do it without complaint,” Alpert wrote in a hilariously relatable recent post.

“But that’s the problem. I have to ask him.”

Hear that? It’s mothers across the world cheering in agreement.

“I end up doing like 99% of the shit around here (I’m totally exaggerating, it’s more like 95%) just because lots of stuff occurs to me that never even occurs to him,” Alpert continued.

Alpert goes on to list the 10 essential family tasks she does every day without her husband even being aware of it. Here are a few of our favourites.

Buying and sorting the kids’ clothes.

Alpert wonders if her husband thinks that their son still fits into the clothes that they bought before he was born, because he has never brought home new ones.

“It’s a miracle! Our kid had a growth spurt and grew seven inches but his clothes still fit. Ummm, yeah, not a miracle,” she writes.

"I cleaned out his entire closet last night, returned the old hand-me-downs, sorted the new hand-me-downs, and restocked his closet."

Preparing meals.

Like many women before her, the simple question "What do you want to do for dinner?" really grinds Alpert's gears.

"I want to shove an apple in your mouth, lay you across a big ass platter and then decorate you with a few sprigs of rosemary to feed to the kids to eat while I go out with my friend for sushi," Alpert wrote.

"If I didn’t think about meals ahead of time, our family would either starve to death or overdose on Domino’s."

Watch: The last text we received from our mums. (Post continues after video.)

Birthday parties.

Alpert estimates that she spent 37 hours on birthday parties last year.

"Not AT birthday parties. RSVP’ing to them, planning them, shopping for presents, and schlepping my kids back and forth," she clarifies.

"Could I leave this all up to my husband? Sure. But then my kids would never go to birthday parties anymore."

 

Dealing with the never-ending pile of school forms.

Alpert is willing to bet her husband is blissfully unaware of the existance of annoying, school-related paperwork.

"This is what I sound like every year in a pathetic attempt to let my husband know the hell I’m going through.

ME: Uggghhh, I have to fill out allllllll of these school forms. These school forms are so painful. And now I have to bring these school forms to the doctor’s office to get these school forms filled out. Ugghh, I HATE school forms.

And this is what my husband hears. ME: Blah blah blah yada yada yada I want to have sex blah blah blah."

Listen to This Glorious Mess, the podcast for imperfect parents. Post continues below.

Schedule appointments.

When you are caring for little people, there are suddenly a lot more appointments to organise. From medical check-ups to the humble haircut, life admin starts at a young age.

Alpert thinks her son would quickly resemble Cousin Itt from 'The Addams' Family,' if it was up to her husband to schedule her son's haircuts... or any appointments, for that matter.

While Alpert feels she does "almost" everything at home, she is not afraid to give credit where credit is due. For example, her husband always puts the bin out... when she reminds him about bin night.

Feature image: The Weinstein Company. 

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Top Comments

Amy 8 years ago

Hubby and I aren't parents yet but we have this struggle on who does the house work.
There is plenty that I think my husband doesn't appreciate but if I don't do it, then it won't get done.
My hubby does help with renos or with things that I can't do on my own, but other than that, I pretty much do it all. Cook, clean, wash, mow, weed, pick up the dog poo, do the bins each week.
Some people have different priorities than others.
It's about compromising

Lily 8 years ago

How does hubby compomise?


Ally 8 years ago

Firstly, I suspect some husbands could just as easily write a list about how their wife assumes that the lawn magically gets mowed, the dog gets cleaned up after, the lightbulbs get changed, etc etc.

Secondly, if you're in a relationship where you're both basically working the same hours and you're doing the bulk of the tasks, why the hell are you putting up with that? I have two friends who are both intelligent, confident women that earn more than their husbands and work roughly the same amount of hours. Yet both do the lionshare of house/child tasks. One husband is yet to look after his kids by himself for more than a few hours without the help of his mother and the eldest is nearly 5.

Hot tip: if they don't do housework when they live by themselves, they're sure as hell not going to do it when they've got your there to do it for them. Adding kids isn't going to make things any better, either.

FLYINGDALE FLYER 8 years ago

Just remember that some of these men have had everything done for them by their MOTHERS so remember if youve got sons, teach them to do all those domestic chores.