Saturday Was Split Evenly and We Were Both Worn Out

On Thursday around two-thirty David came in from the front room for his Diet Coke and asked what Saturday looked like, and I told him without turning from the onions: Caleb's game at ten with David on the bench for it, straw to change in the coop, Ben's only shoes that fit still in the van, Lily's field trip slip due Monday, and no eggs because Penny and Waffle have both quit for the fall. He stood there holding the can and asked how long I'd been carrying all that around. I didn't have a number.

I'm leaving that there, because the list isn't what I want to write about. Our Saturdays had been split evenly for years, with about five jobs each. By nine at night we were both flat on the couch, for reasons that didn't look anything alike.

Why does an even list still leave one person more tired?

The list had to be written by somebody, and somebody noticed the eggs were gone and that the coop smelled and that a slip existed, and somebody decided the straw could wait until after the game. When one person writes the list and the other receives it, the task count can come out at five and five while the thinking sits entirely on one side. The person with the finished list does their five jobs and feels, fairly, that they did their share.

Some research points the same direction, and I'll say up front that it's relationship research on mostly everyday couples and not a ruling on anyone's marriage, ours included. A University of Queensland study of 235 couples sorted housework into physical work, emotional work and the thinking and planning kind. The women in it reported doing more of every one, and the biggest gap was in the planning and scheduling, close to a quarter more than their husbands reported. A separate study this summer, 452 people and then 156 couples, found that how much of the mental load was shared predicted women's satisfaction better than how many hours of housework they did. I'm reading summaries of both, so take the numbers loosely. What caught me was how much it matched a Thursday afternoon at the stove.

David's Saturday night tiredness is in his shoulders and his back from hauling lumber or mowing. Mine is behind my eyes. He can't look at me and tell I've been running a schedule since breakfast, and I can't look at him and tell what his shoulders have been through by noon.

Neither of us gets sympathy.

What's the difference between doing a job and owning it?

I used to hand out tasks the way I handed out classroom jobs when I taught third grade. You're the line leader, you're the paper passer, thank you, here's the list. A third grader doesn't need to know why the papers need passing. A husband does.

"Can you rake the leaves Saturday?" sounds like sharing. I still decided leaves were a Saturday problem. I noticed the lawn bags were gone and I knew the rake handle had a crack. All he got was the part with the least thinking in it.

Owning the yard would mean the yard is his to read. He decides whether it's the leaves this weekend or the next, buys the bags and replaces the rake and is also allowed to decide the whole thing can wait. That last permission is the one I'd have skipped without noticing, because if he can't drop it, he's a helper with a title.

So Thursday night after the kids were down we sat at the table and did it for the first time. David took the yard and the garage and, since he's at the field anyway, everything that touches Caleb's game. I kept the kitchen and the family calendar. Tomorrow is the first Saturday under it, so I can't tell you yet how it goes. I can tell you I've already wanted to remind him about the straw twice today.

Does the Church say anything about this?

I went looking for a chore chart and didn't find one. The Family Proclamation gives fathers the work of presiding in love and righteousness and gives mothers the primary responsibility for nurturing the children, and then it says this:

"In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."

The Family: A Proclamation to the World

I read the word obligated more slowly than I used to. Helpful or generous or willing would have been easy words to choose, and equal partners comes right behind it. I do think "help" can quietly turn into a trap, though. If I own the list and he "helps" with it, the list is still mine and I'm collecting favors against it. When I ask what equal partners looks like on an ordinary Saturday, I come up with David knowing why the water bottles are in the van and me not being the one he asks.

Handing over an area without hovering

Start with whatever the calendar already fixes. A Saturday ball game is a block of time that belongs to one parent no matter what anyone says, so whoever has it can own everything around it: the snack schedule, the water bottles, whether Ben comes along or stays. Then give a whole area, not a pile of tasks out of it, and say it out loud on a weeknight and not on Saturday morning when everyone's already late.

Ten minutes.

The harder part comes after the handoff, when the thing gets done a way you wouldn't have done it. If the shop shelves get rearranged so I'd never find the glue, that's where the glue lives now. I know this one from our conference weekend setup, where I'd assigned the muffin tins and the blankets and kept every decision about the day to myself, and it was the decisions that wore on me, not the tins.

The noticing needs somewhere to go, like a note on the fridge or a list in your phone that anyone can add to and the owner of that area reads. Otherwise "we're out of something" turns into an announcement to whoever's nearest, and the nearest person is usually the one who was already doing it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if one of us actually likes planning?

Fine, as long as the other one isn't paying for it in resentment and you've both said so out loud. Check by asking, because a person who has done the planning for ten years often can't tell anymore whether they like it or just got good at it. Liking to plan the menu doesn't mean liking to plan the entire weekend for six people.

What does the Family Proclamation say about who does the housework?

It doesn't assign housework to anyone, and what it does is describe presiding and nurturing as responsibilities and then says fathers and mothers are to help one another as equal partners, and it allows that disability, death or other circumstances may call for adapting. If someone hands you a chart saying the husband does the yard and the wife does the kitchen, that's their habit and they're borrowing the Church's name for it.

Do we need a spreadsheet?

No, and I'd run from one. You need a short conversation about who owns what and an agreement that the owner is allowed to drop things.

What if my husband works long hours and I'm home all week?

Then the hours are different and the weekend is still the weekend. I wouldn't say the person at home all week owes every Saturday decision too, just because they're the one who knows the house best. Knowing it best is a reason to hand some of it over on purpose, since otherwise he'll never learn where the straw is.

What if the other person says they don't know where to start?

Make finding out part of the area, because I expect the first couple of weekends to be slower and a little worse, and the hard part will be leaving them alone while they are. On Sunday night, when nobody is trying to win, ask each other what you each had to decide the day before. The count of jobs will come out close to even and tell you almost nothing.

with love, Melissa