I had a really hard time sleeping when I was a child. I was so afraid that I would forget something that I would toss and turn all night in an effort to remember all the things I felt like I had to do the next day. I worried about forgetting to feed the cat and the livestock. I panicked about forgetting to take my homework and books to school. I was afraid that Mom would get mad at me for making her late to work. Finally, I started making to do lists and I could sleep at night.

It amazes me now that I felt so stressed as a child. Relatively speaking, what does an 8-year-old child have to worry about? And yet, back then; it felt like the world would come to an end if I didn’t do everything I was supposed to do.

I’m sure there is a psychological label for anxiety, but I think the issue is much deeper than my twisted psyche. I think the roots of my anxiety are, at least in part, gender related. I recognized early on that being female meant that I was expected to do more and be better at it. My grandmother once told me, “Man works from sun to sun. A woman’s work is never done.” When I asked her what that meant, she explained that my grandfather (a cotton farmer) got up at 6:00 to work in the fields, came in for lunch around noon, and then worked in the fields until dusk. In contrast, she got up when he did, fixed his breakfast, worked either in the fields with him, in the garden, or in house, fixed his lunch and supper and did the dishes, and then waited on him while he watched “Gun Smoke” on TV and then got everyone ready for bed.

It was also pretty clear that my mother always did the lion share of the cooking and housework even though she was a teacher and always had papers to grade after she got home from school. My brother and I were required to do chores to help out, but I never once saw my father clean a bathroom or vacuum the floor. His contribution to the running of the household was making breakfast and every once in a while he did the dishes.

While my mother was frantically cooking dinner, my father would be sitting in the reclining chair reading the Wall Street Journal. While my mother was sewing clothes for us because we couldn’t really afford nice clothes otherwise, my father was relaxing or sleeping. Sure, my father did the yard work early on. But once my brother and I got old enough to help, that became our job. He was also in charge of the household fix up projects. Unless there was an imminent disaster, he usually put those off for months.

People argue that things have changed, but research from around the world seems to indicate that perhaps they have not changed much. Research on the division of household labor in Australia shows that married women do an average of 43 hours of domestic labor while married men do an average of 16 hours. Australian men do less than half the childcare. Moreover, the division of labor is very gendered with women doing most of the indoor tasks such as cleaning and cooking while men tend to take responsibility for lawn mowing and maintenance projects*. Recent research in the U.S. indicates that women still do most of the labor but that the extent of the disparity varies by race. White wives and partners do 70% of the housework while Black wives and partners do 60% of the housework***.

Based on the fact that women pull the major share of housework, I suspect that lots of women feel stressed about getting the seemingly never ending list of things done. It seems that getting our partners to share more of the load is one way to reduce stress in our lives. I know that this isn’t always easy. Men can be reluctant to give up their relative freedom. More importantly, women have been socialized to “do it all” and it’s hard to let go of this expectation. I have struggled with this expectation in all the relationships that I have been involved in. Still, the more I let go and ask for help, the more sleep I get and the better I feel about the relationship.

Take a look at your own life. Are you stressed out of your mind by the mind-boggling number of things that have to be done? Is there someone, a partner or spouse, who could reduce some of that load by pitching in a bit more? If so, what’s keeping you from asking for help?

Sources:

*Baxter, Janeen, and Mark Western. 1998. “Satisfaction with housework: Examining the Paradox.” Sociology 32: 101-121.

** Berk, Sarah Fenstermaker. 1985. "The Gender Factory: The Appointment of Work in America." Plenum. And Demo, David H., and Alan C. Acock. 1993. "Family Diversity and the Division of Household Labor: How Much Have Things Changed?" Family Relations 42:323-31.

*** Wilson, Melvin N., Timothy F. Tolson, Ivora D. Hinton, and Michael Kiernan. 1990. "Flexibility and Sharing of Childcare Duties in Black Families." Sex Roles 22:409-25.

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