Evaluate this married couple's division of labor

[Anonymous]

Division of labor has recently become an issue in our marriage. Before losing my mind, I want unbiased opinions on whether either spouse has a legitimate gripe. I've tried to be fair in putting together a list of each spouse's responsibilities to see if either of us are overreacting. Neither of us seems to feel like our contributions are appreciated.

Are we both stuck in our own silo. Is this a fair division of labor or does either Spouse A or B have the right to complain? Are there any areas I may be missing? Any recommendations to minimize the headbutting. For context we have two elementary aged kids (3rd and 5th grade).

SPOUSE A
* Works in office 5 days a week; contributes one-fourth of household income
* Responsible for managing family calendar to include scheduling kids activities, camps, etc.
* Does the holiday gift shopping
* Prepares the weekly grocery list for grocery store pickup
* Washing and folding of kids laundry
* Schedules house cleaners (they aren't on regular schedule)
* Shops for kids clothes
* Prepares school lunches
* Picks up kids from school
* Shuttles kids to evening activities with occasional help from spouse
* Responsible for daily dinners every other week (mostly cooks packaged meals like frozen dinners)
* Coaches/leads two kids sports/activities

SPOUSE B
* Works in office 2-3 days per week with great flexibility; contributes 3/4 of HHI
* Responsible for family finances including budgeting, retirement planning, bill pay
* Plans family vacations/trips
* Responsible for house and yard maintenance and upkeep including planning and coordination of contractors for large projects and hands-on work for routine maintenance and repairs
* Picks up and puts up groceries
* Cleans house in between cleaners visits to include vacuuming/mopping, bathrooms, dusting
* Packs school lunches and feeds kids breakfast
* Drops off kids at school and is the primary at-home parent (watches kids on no-school days, picks up kids when sick or early dismissals)
* Primary shuttle for kids weekend activities with occasional help from spouse
* Responsible for daily dinners every other week (mostly cooks from scratch meals)
* Coaches/leads two kids sports/activities

[Anonymous]

I think we all know Spouse B is doing more.

[Anonymous]

Spouse B is definitely doing more.

[Anonymous]

Sounds reasonably fair, don’t destroy this part of your lives nit picking chores. Remember you two are on the same team.

[Anonymous]

So spouse B, do you have an automated scoring system or is it still manual? Do you think if you go to your spouse who doesn’t agree and present a majority vote of internet strangers *that* will turn the tide? Do you just need to hear “you’re right”?

If so, you’re right, spouse B. Congrats. You’re the winner.

Better now?

[Anonymous]

Explain to me how the split of income is relevant here, Spouse OP. I mean B.

[Anonymous]

This feels pretty even to me. I don't tend to think this kind of careful count is helpful, but if you're doing it, let's be systematic:

Spouse A
* Works in office 5 days a week; contributes one-fourth of household income
SPOUSE B
* Works in office 2-3 days per week with great flexibility; contributes 3/4 of HHI

Spouse A is spending more time on work and has less flexibility in work. I don't think the HHI contribution matters because we're talking about dividing up labor not income.

SPOUSE A
* Responsible for managing family calendar to include scheduling kids activities, camps, etc.
SPOUSE B
* Responsible for family finances including budgeting, retirement planning, bill pay

This seems like similar levels of labor to me.

SPOUSE A
* Does the holiday gift shopping
SPOUSE B
* Plans family vacations/trips

Spouse B is probably doing more work, but both of these intermittent obligations.

SPOUSE A
* Prepares the weekly grocery list for grocery store pickup
SPOUSE B
* Picks up and puts up groceries

I find planning to be a lot more work than picking up, so I'd vote that spouse A is doing more work.

SPOUSE A
* Washing and folding of kids laundry AND
* Schedules house cleaners (they aren't on regular schedule)
SPOUSE B
* Cleans house in between cleaners visits to include vacuuming/mopping, bathrooms, dusting

Cleaning is more work than laundry and scheduling, but it really depends on how much you're actually cleaning if you have cleaners.

SPOUSE A
* Prepares school lunches
Spouse B
* Packs school lunches and feeds kids breakfast

Feels fairly evenly matched unless breakfast is a major undertaking. Each is preparing one meal; packing a lunch someone else prepared isn't much work.

SPOUSE A
* Picks up kids from school
SPOUSE B
* Drops off kids at school and is the primary at-home parent (watches kids on no-school days, picks up kids when sick or early dismissals)

Spouse B is doing more here.

SPOUSE A
* Shuttles kids to evening activities with occasional help from spouse
SPOUSE B
* Primary shuttle for kids weekend activities with occasional help from spouse

Even unless there's a huge difference between weekend and weekday activity burdens. Weekday activities are a little worse on average because of traffic, to my mind, but it's a minor difference. Both get occasional help.

SPOUSE A
* Responsible for daily dinners every other week (mostly cooks packaged meals like frozen dinners)
SPOUSE B
* Responsible for daily dinners every other week (mostly cooks from scratch meals)

This is even. Spouse B's decision to cook from scratch is a choice which can be abandoned if this is too much work.

SPOUSE A
* Coaches/leads two kids sports/activities
SPOUSE B
* Coaches/leads two kids sports/activities

Obviously balanced.

That leaves two which aren't well paired

SPOUSE A
* Shops for kids clothes
SPOUSE B
* Responsible for house and yard maintenance and upkeep including planning and coordination of contractors for large projects and hands-on work for routine maintenance and repairs

Spouse B has a much bigger job here.

Most of those paired obligations are balanced. Where they're not balanced, Spouse A has one big extra obligation (work) and Spouse B has 2-3, but Spouse A's extra obligation is more constant (you work/commute much more than you organize big projects or deal with days off school). I'd find that balanced from either side, I think.

[Anonymous]

It looks very equal to me
House and yard maintenance is important but is not the same mental load as some of the other stuff, its not as frequent.
Also, I dont see how the HHI should be a factor. Ive seem that before on DCUM. How much you make is not a factor in the division of labor.

[Anonymous]

are they kids eating two school lunches? You have it under both. but how is this even a question spouse B is doing much more work. spouse A needs to do more around the house and with the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:are they kids eating two school lunches? You have it under both. but how is this even a question spouse B is doing much more work. spouse A needs to do more around the house and with the kids.

I think packing and preparing are two different tasks. Preparing is more labor intensive

[Anonymous]

Since most people consider the mental load to be far more taxing then the physical load, I would say Spouse A is doing more. They have the mental load of holiday gifts, the calendar and more scheduling.

[Anonymous]

How does one of you "prepare school lunches" and the other "pack school lunches"? And one creates and places the grocery order but the other picks it up? I think this is unneccesarily complicated. I would put the cleaners on a schedule, move groceries entirely to Spouse B, and call it square.

I feel like this was written to make us feel sorry for Spouse B, but I personally make more money than my spouse while working from home and handle the finances/investing, but I don't consider those things as mentally/emotionally taxing as dealing with kid and holiday stuff. But of course if holiday stuff is overwhelming you can decide to cut back.

If you have a lot of afterschool shuttling and weekend shuttling, it's possible you've just put your kids in too many activities. And I don't actually understand how you're each handling weekend/afterschool stuff solo without dividing and conquering with 2 kids in presumably different activities. It's also not clear to me when/if you do things as a family, since everything is written as Spouse A "with minimal support" and Spouse B "with minimal support."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Division of labor has recently become an issue in our marriage. Before losing my mind, I want unbiased opinions on whether either spouse has a legitimate gripe. I've tried to be fair in putting together a list of each spouse's responsibilities to see if either of us are overreacting. Neither of us seems to feel like our contributions are appreciated.

Are we both stuck in our own silo. Is this a fair division of labor or does either Spouse A or B have the right to complain? Are there any areas I may be missing? Any recommendations to minimize the headbutting. For context we have two elementary aged kids (3rd and 5th grade).

SPOUSE A
* Works in office 5 days a week; contributes one-fourth of household income
* Responsible for managing family calendar to include scheduling kids activities, camps, etc.
* Does the holiday gift shopping
* Prepares the weekly grocery list for grocery store pickup
* Washing and folding of kids laundry
* Schedules house cleaners (they aren't on regular schedule)
* Shops for kids clothes
* Prepares school lunches
* Picks up kids from school
* Shuttles kids to evening activities with occasional help from spouse
* Responsible for daily dinners every other week (mostly cooks packaged meals like frozen dinners)
* Coaches/leads two kids sports/activities

SPOUSE B
* Works in office 2-3 days per week with great flexibility; contributes 3/4 of HHI
* Responsible for family finances including budgeting, retirement planning, bill pay
* Plans family vacations/trips
* Responsible for house and yard maintenance and upkeep including planning and coordination of contractors for large projects and hands-on work for routine maintenance and repairs
* Picks up and puts up groceries
* Cleans house in between cleaners visits to include vacuuming/mopping, bathrooms, dusting
* Packs school lunches and feeds kids breakfast
* Drops off kids at school and is the primary at-home parent (watches kids on no-school days, picks up kids when sick or early dismissals)
* Primary shuttle for kids weekend activities with occasional help from spouse
* Responsible for daily dinners every other week (mostly cooks from scratch meals)
* Coaches/leads two kids sports/activities

Just putting it out there that income should not matter if you are both working FT. Its division of labor.

[Anonymous]

Picking kids up from school is more burdensome if it’s harder for that spouse to leave by a certain time (something that both my spouse and I struggle with). Also, with younger children, pickup potentially takes longer (need to go into school to pick up kid
Etc).

Drop off is a piece of cake. You probably don’t even need to get out of the car or go into the school.

Scheduling kids activities and appointments takes more energy than bill pay/ budgeting / investments (most of which is likely automated).

Driving around in the evening is also more exhausting than weekends.

What are the biggest pain points for each spouse?

[Anonymous]

This sounds pretty even to me. My one beef would be that Spouse A should do everyone's laundry. If they are really leaving Spouse B's laundry for them to do, that's a reasonable beef. Laundry person should Laundry.

The other X factor I would say is how much between-cleans cleaning is done. For us, we have a monthly cleaner and in between we do very little, basically just nightly kitchen duties (spot sweep, wipe counters, load and run dishwasher, etc). If you also have a monthly cleaning person and you're essentially cleaning the whole house 1-3 other times a month, that is a ton of work. But my answer would be... don't do that. You can live with a toilet that's cleaned monthly, really. We do. If you both agree the house needs significant additional cleaning, then I would say Spouse B has a bit too much. If they're just doing the occasional spot-clean at the half way mark (<1 hr total) then, yeah, I think this is pretty even.

And you didn't mention nightly kitchen duties - I'm assuming that you're somehow splitting dishes/kitchen cleanup/dishwasher unloading. If Spouse B is doing this, then yeah, this is unfair and Spouse B is doing too much.

Otherwise, I see two people who work full time, each taking about half the kid shlepping and about half the food/meal work. One is taking on more of the logistical labor (spouse A) while one is doing more at home labor (spouse B). One does all the laundry, one handles the home maintenance/repairs. I could see an argument for handing Spouse B the vacation planning (since they're in charge of the calendar anyway). But that's pretty small.