Love & Cleaning Supplies: How to Manage Chores When Both Partners Work

It’s almost Valentine’s Day and this year, I wanted to discuss some practical advice that affects most couples that work outside of the home: gender roles and household duties. As in, when you both have demanding careers who is in charge of cooking and cleaning and must it always fall onto the woman? Yeah, definitely not romantic, but practical.

I see many articles that cover this topic-two people suddenly cohabitating and then face an impasse when one is made the de facto cleaner. Or another assumes that because (s)he makes more money (or will make more money) they don’t have to contribute to the household in the same way. And let’s keep it real here, the person that usually ends up taking this “second shift” is the woman.

I think this is especially interesting for us to go over because within many Latino cultures and families, women cook and clean, punto. Right? I’ve actually have had multiple clients tell me they have smart daughters that love to read, but consider them lazy because they don’t like to clean (UGH). This isn’t to say that only our communities have this gendered bias because we most def don’t have a monopoly on that, but it’s important to discuss how certain standards imposed on us just because we’re women affects us and our careers.

Yes, these added hours of work (be it cooking, cleaning, childcare) impact our careers and ability to advance because the added housework takes its toll on us in a way that doesn’t affect our partners. By doing most or all of the chores, we lost time. We face a difference of spending three-four hours of cleaning counters and toilets instead of being able to use those hours of leisure in a way that could reenergize us or be put to use in other productive ways. And that is time that men do get to use for themselves because they aren’t shouldering their half of the household duties.

If you’re working outside the home and also taking care of most of the household duties, it’s important to stop and assess if this pattern is actually working for you. We may feel guilty or obligated to cook/clean because we’re women because that is how we’ve been socially trained. However, the truth is that there’s no reason we should feel guilty or responsible for doing the majority of the household chores. We’re not genetically predisposed to cook and clean-the idea that we have to do it just because we’re women is a racket.

Now of course, you are an adult and adults do have to clean their homes, that’s a given. But if you’re living with a partner, is there are a way to work it out so that things feel more even and fair? I think so. You could divide the chores equally with your partner. Maybe you can do the kitchen work one day, while your partner does the house cleaning.

Having said that, I know all these readers are beyond intelligent and so they have or will have selected supportive partners. I think that’s key. Once you have a partner willing to really hash out issues and doesn’t simply rely on tired gender roles to get his way then that allows you to have real and honest conversations.

You need to be able to tell your partner what you want to be responsible for and ask for him to take responsibilities for other chores as well. And then you both need to own your responsibilities-even if that means that you have to do a lot of reminding. I know, we’re not supposed to ask our partners to do things more than once because otherwise we’re labeled as a nag-but I’ll be a nag if that means the work will get done! A real supportive partner may require some nudging, but eventually they should get on board with a schedule that suits both your needs. It’s just a matter of getting used to a new routine. Finally, when you’re both working outside the home it can be really tough to fit cleaning into your schedules in a way that doesn’t impact the demands of your career. When this happens there’s a risk that one person (you) will end up taking on the burden of all the housework even though you also have a demanding job with ambitions. In those cases, I recommend considering a cleaning service that comes once a month for a deep cleaning.I know this can sound super extravagant, and relatively speaking, it is, but if you’re in a dual income relationship and can spare it-it may really be worth considering to splurge on this because not only will you gain some time back, which is priceless, but you also don’t risk feeling bitter towards your partner because you slowly start to resent all the work you have to do. It is really a luxury worth considering!

Once you started practicing, what did you do in your relationship to ensure things were equal? Have you found it difficult to stray from gendered-roles or feel guilty when you do don’t do most of the cleaning or cooking?