Today while toasting my son's waffles I had a thought: I wonder how many times in my 17 years as a mother I have toasted someone's waffles? How many sandwiches have I made? How many eggs have I poached? How many loads of laundry have I done? How many grilled cheese sandwiches have I cooked, how many socks have I matched, how many times have I emptied the dishwasher?
And I realized the answer is THOUSANDS. Thousands and thousands and thousands of times.
My kids, as they get older, are getting better about helping around the house. My daughter will at least start her own laundry. My son will bring his snack dishes up from the TV room and put them in the dishwasher. So there is, finally, a light at the end of the tunnel. But still, there is no escaping the endless drudgery of housework. And when you start nearing the 20-year mark of the voluntary slavery that is parenthood, you begin to understand those women in their 50s who simply stop cooking and refuse to do any more housework. If I never toast another waffle, poach another egg or fold another basket of laundry, I'll die a happy woman.
Still, cooking is far from my most despised chore -- most of the time I quite like it, especially yesterday when I made a carrot cake with cream-cheese icing that would crush the competition in any bake sale, and I didn't even think I liked carrot cake.
To me, the absolute most despised household chore is folding and putting away the laundry. Nothing depresses me more than seeing two huge baskets of unfolded clothes staring back at me malevolently. Even cleaning bathrooms and scrubbing the fridge seem like a breeze by comparison.
But I know some people who love doing laundry, all aspects of it, like the cheerful mother and daughter above. So I am curious to hear what your most hated household chores are. Dusting? Vacuuming? Oven-cleaning? Tell all.
16 comments:
I don't mind the washing and drying, and folding. It's the putting away part I hate, and I'll put it off until I realize that it's taking more time for me to dig through the basket for something, than it would to just put the whole thing away.
I hate doing the dishes. Hate it. And for some reason, even though there are only two adults and one child in this house, some days it seems like every glass or cup from the cabinet ends up in the sink. We have a dishwasher, but it's usually full of clean dishes I don't want to put away (sense a trend here?). Sarge likes to "help" by artfully stacking all the dishes in the sink, with the utensils usually in the bottom or in a pan of soapy water. So when I reach in, I usually encounter an unexpected knife or something else sharp. He must hate the dishes too, because he'll clean the whole house, and leave a huge sink full of dishes alone.
I used to get really mad that I'm the only one who does dishes in the house. Sarge can't even be bothered to put a dish in the dishwasher on the rare occasion that it is actually empty. And then I made a New Year resolution that whenever I was pissily scrubbing my 100th cup or glass of the day I'll remind myself that I'm just lucky I get to be a stay at home mom for my daughter, and doing dishes seemingly all the time is just one of the prices I have to pay. And even though he won't do the dishes, Sarge also won't roll his eyes when I come home with yet another bag of new fabric that I just had to have.
Yeah, it's not really working that well, I still get pissed off.
A thirtysomething friend has cultivated wonderful relationships with her nieces but is refusing to have children because she has seen what the "voluntary" drudge has done to her fortysomething sisters who also work outside the home.
They are exhausted, bitter and sad that the promise of equality failed in the home. "They complain all the time," the thirtysomething said. "Why would I want to do that?"
Yours truly works from home most of the time, so I do the laundry, cleaning, and most of the cooking. And you know, the indoor stuff doesn't phase me. In fact I kind of enjoy the laundry folding. Very soothing, especially in the summer when can stand in the sun and do the job as I pull them off the clothesline.
The outdoor tasks are the ones I resent, especially the lawn mowing. Better Homes and Gardens? Bite me you mother#&*@%$! You know the Sisyphus myth? All wrong. He was condemned to mow the grass. Honestly, what is the point, apart from conforming to stupid societal norms? I could happily put an old couch in front of the house and sit there, drinking beer all summer while the weeds grew waist high.
I've partially solved the problem by buying one of these bad boys and ripping the bejasus out of the backyard. I've got about a third of turned to vegetable cultivation now, and hope to add another third this spring. The neighbours think I'm a hillbilly ("What does he do for a living?"), but I'd rather grow tomatoes than eff around like Hank Hill.
Can I say that I hate ALL housework? :)
I refuse to move into any home without a dishwasher, and I buy pots and pans based on their ability to survive the machine.
I force my husband to clean the bathroom.
I do the laundry, but only because I don't trust anyone else to do it. If I could figure out a way to outsource this work, I definitely would.
A tie between vacuuming and oven cleaning.
While I am amazed by Easy Off, it scares me to death.
I also love my dishwasher and consider unloading it a small price to pay.
Oh! Easy Off is horrible, yet amazing in it's cleaning power. Once I was using it, and a little blob of it fell off my sponge onto my foot. I didn't think anything of it, and hardly even noticed. Well, I sure as heck noticed 15 minutes later when I went to wipe it off and my skin came off too. It left a scar on my foot that looks like a small cigar burn. GAH! OW!
If only I could teach my cats how to wash the dishes ...
Easy Off and commercial oven cleaners are umweltfeindlich. Biohazard goop! I'm going to die 23 months before my time because I didn't wipe thoroughly after using that stuff to clean the oven.
I turned it on and the air in the apartment turned blue - it was like the Second Battle of Ypes. I now swear by Nature Clean and a copper scrub brush.
Ypres... you know what I mean.
Ja, stimmt, Funnypants.
Lord, Funnypants, who are you? You're a neat freak now, in addition to being a handyman, a witty intellectual and a man with fine musical taste? Every time you show up in here you reveal yourself to be some kind of WunderMann.
Please come visit more frequently. We aging old hausfraus enjoy your company.
I'm serious about the Nature Clean, people. Go down to Grassroots or your nearby hippy freak shop and buy some tomorrow. Your respiratory system will thank you.
Noooo, not a neat freak. Far from it. More like a domesticated animal.
I'm going to try it Funnypants. I only hope it's as good as the Vichy Normaderm Jacy recommended.
Now that was a Wunderprodukt!
Hippy freak shop!
My laugh of the day
Cheers FP
Vichy Normaderm: Isn't it??!!??
It's like getting a facelift every time you use it!
35 years of dishes,nasty bathrooms, and dirty clothes-I use paper goods,don't clean my husbands bathroom,and refuse to deliver the clean ones.
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