The Housework Wars

It's such a cliché. Lazy husbands toss their dirty socks on the floor and expect their wives to pick up after them. After a long day in an office (or taking care of kids), their wives must cook, clean, and take care of the housework.

So it's not so shocking to hear that in most married households, this scenario is pretty commonplace.

A story on CNN.com (via Parenting.com) reports that although wives do half as much housework (including cooking and cleaning) as those a generation ago, they still average 16 hours a week -- four times more than our husbands, according to a study from the University of Maryland.

The article provides some advice for getting your husband to help out more around the house (no, nagging or withholding sex aren't viable options):

1. Be direct. Simply put the clean laundry basket in front of him. Hopefully, he'll get the hint.

2. Don't criticize the way he cooks and cleans.

3. Make a list of the most important chores and create a schedule.

4. Respect your partner's time, needs, and preference of tasks.

5. Stop worrying and make peace with your pigsty.

Personally, I find it a bit irritating that the article suggests that wives show their appreciation and thank their husbands for helping out around the house. I'm all for expressing gratitude, but it's a two-way street. In other words, husbands need to thank their wives for cooking and cleaning too.

How Clean is Clean Enough?

When my head hit the pillow last night at around 1 a.m. my last thought was that yet another day had passed without changing the sheets.

It's a dirty secret. I don't remember the last time I changed the sheets on my bed.

In my new Bible "How to Clean Practically Anything," the authors write that "frequent, systematic light cleaning has advantages over periodic upheaval."

Their suggestion: Make a list of all tasks that need to be done during the year and group them under frequency headings -- daily, weekly, monthly, semiannually, and annually. Sounds reasonable enough in theory.

I understand the rationale behind doing dishes daily, but cleaning under and behind furniture weekly? Now that seems a bit excessive. I sort of like leaving the dust bunnies alone long enough so that they grow big enough for my kids to consider them pets.

Strangely, there is nothing in the Consumer Reports schedule about changing sheets. Perhaps they mistakenly assume that people have an innate instinct for knowing when it should be done.

Apparently, I'm not the only one wondering about this. A few years ago, a survey found that the majority of people change their sheets anywhere from once a week to once a month.

How often do you change your sheets?

Most domestic experts recommend changing the sheets at least every two weeks. So, in other words, I've still got some time.

Tomorrow, I will draw up the master plan. Doesn't that sound ominous?