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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I do: scheduling doctor/dentist appointments, planning birthday parties, buying gifts, buying clothes, planning summer camps, scheduling activities, laundry, managing day-to-day finances

My husband does: primary dog care, trash/recycling, big-picture/long-term finances, outside maintenance, all things structural/electrical, bug killing

We both do: attending doctor/dentist appointments, attending parties/recitals/performances/competitions, bathing/feeding kids, cooking/cleaning the kitchen

We have a full-time nanny who runs errands, including grocery shopping, while the kids are in school, helps with food prep, does the kids' laundry, and does the majority of dropping off/picking up.  We also have a maid who cleans.

We both work full-time jobs, and it's a toss up as to whose job is more demanding at any particular point in time.  We both make approximately the same.  He travels more than I do and will often be on base or at a secure location with no phone, so because of this it's easier for me to do things that require being on the computer, including emails.  I also like that stuff - I enjoy planning birthday parties and working on the summer calendar and searching for clothes, and he doesn't.  So we try to split our separate duties along the lines of who does what better or who enjoys something better.  The other stuff just gets divvied up.  He could probably name as many kids in our kids' classes as I could, although I know the parents' names more from being a room mom.  He's been to every back to school night, every parent/teacher conference, etc., so he knows a lot about their school.  We've probably been to equal doctor's appointments, either together or separately.  I love our dogs but he deals with them more.  We each generally handle our own cars because it's just easier that way.  I do think our roles are somewhat gender-typical, but that's not because we do the stuff we *think* we should, we just do the stuff we like or don't mind.  I'm also super anal retentive about laundry and how things are folded, so I handle that.  I do take the kids for more weekends away than he does but he does do it as well.  He also takes care of them on his own if I'm gone for work or pleasure.  As far as the kids are concerned, I think we're basically interchangeable, in that there's nothing one of us can do that the other can't.  There are things one of us likes to do more than the other, but we can both do everything, which I appreciate.[/quote]

This is a really good example of the woman doing *significantly* more and more time-consuming stuff than the man but considering it "essentially even" and/or not minding because "I like to do those things [I was socialized to do] anyway." I'm not really knocking that, by the way-- it's really common and totally understandable and not necessarily immediately or completely solvable. But also worth examining.

It reminds me of a nonfiction book where an uber-feminist polled her uber-feminist friends with ostensibly uber-feminist husbands and found that they would say things like "I take care of the house, and he takes care of the garage/yard, so it's basically even." When maintaining "the house" included tasks and responsibilities that took 10x the effort of maintaining "the outside." [/quote]

I'm the PP you're responding to.  I totally appreciate the point you're making, and while I do spend more time on tasks outside work than my husband does, it isn't as big of a divide as you are imaging.  For one thing, we have twins, so I only plan one birthday party a year (if we even do one).  Scheduling dentist appointments takes 30 seconds while you're there getting your cleaning, and doctors appointments do take a little more time but it's something I do on my commute in the car.  Of all the things I do, laundry is by far the most involved.  As a result, he spends more time tidying the house and cleaning the kitchen than I do.  And I hear your point about being socialized to do certain things, but I have some female friends who hate the summer calendar planning or clothes buying and their husbands do it instead.  I actually do like that kind of stuff - I'm super Type A, so anytime I can get a spreadsheet going I'm happy.  My mom worked out of the house at a pretty high-powered job (she was the only female she ever worked with), and my dad cooked way more than my mom did growing up.  And I took wood shop at school but never Home Ec.  So I don't disagree with you that there are certain things that people are socialized to do, and I see those gender norms play out to a shocking extent with some of my friends, but I don't really see it in my family, although perhaps I'm too blind to see that.[/quote]

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