DumbFunnery

The only catchy thing about this post is the title. Here is my alternate title: Laundry, Gender-Based Household Chore Expectations, and Other Such Trifling Concerns.

A while ago I read a blog post (I can’t find it or I’d link to it) where a woman talked about her husband would do things to ‘help around the house’ and then she was frustrated with herself for feeling like he was ‘helping around the house’ while when she did the same things she was just doing what needed to be done.

Did that run-on sentence thoroughly obfuscate my point?

Let’s try again. When a fella does laundry, wow, what a good husband helping with the laundry. When a woman does laundry, well, yeah, she did laundry, what else is new?

You have cheapened my name. – Charles Dickens (probably). Source: Wikipedia

See the double standard?

I’m reminded of this every time I go out with the kiddo (don’t get me wrong, I love the awww cute baby! comments). But I feel like I might garner more than my wife because you know, low dad expectations).

And I definitely am a culprit and guilty of applauding myself when I shouldn’t be applauded. Today my wife felt incredibly ill in the morning, I woke up with the kiddo at 5:30 am (hello, pre-dawn day, great to see you again) and then I unloaded the dishwasher and did loads of laundry. I didn’t think anything of doing these things because of … bum, budda bummmmm! … chastising myself internally! Hooray! Before reading that post I would ‘help’ around the house by doing laundry and think, ‘man what a stellar husband I am.’ Post-blog-post I would think, ‘why am I applauding myself for helping to care for my wife and I’s home? Do I say, “hey self, top notch job of feeding yourself!” No, because I know there are certain things you just take care of.’

Fellas, ladies, don’t fall victim of silly sexpectations. (Get it!? Like sex as in gender and … ahhh man, I’m too clever.) Fellas, the only thing you don’t have is the built-in potential food source, so get cracking you lazy bums.

(But, I’ll be honest, it’s awesome my wife breastfeeds for a lot of reasons … these days reason number 1 is I get more sleep. Also, you know, benefits for the child and all that.)