by Judy Zabriskie

Created on: July 24, 2009   Last Updated: December 30, 2009

Unfortunately there is no clear cut way to delineate household duties in today’s society. What, with layoffs, job changes, hours worked and such it is nearly impossible to assign one task to one person. So…  I have found that delineation of duties is best discussed prior to marriage and general ground rules agreed upon at that time with flexibility built in based on situations of daily living. 

In our household, prior to marriage my husband decided that my washing of floors, vacuuming and bathroom cleaning did not meet his standards – well Okay by me, these were now his duties to perform or forever hold his peace, so to speak. The grocery shopping, cooking, kitchen clean up, dish washing, laundry, ironing and dusting were all left to me.  Again, fine by me.  Then before you knew it, there was a child involved.  As we had never planned on having children and this child was what could consider a miracle of God or an oops child, he was nonetheless, a part of our everyday life and had to be dealt with. So, came the next discussion. My husband was absolutely unwilling to participate in diaper duty, so that chore became mine.  He did, however, agree to formula preparation and bottle production and night time feedings (not the midnight but the last one before his bed time). I, in turn did the day time feedings (taking time off from work to raise this child and telecommute) and the midnight feeding.  He was more than agreeable to walk the child in the stroller but feeding, now that was OUT!  So, I prepared (homemade baby food – no jarred stuff for my angel) and actual feeding came down to me.  He tried it once and I agreed that this  action was definitely not his forte.

As my child grew deliniation of duties changed as well.  School work in the lower grades was my domain. It was me who made sure all homework was completed in a timely fashion and that all projects were done on time. My husband, being the more creative of the two of us, did the sewing – yes that’s right when sewing in a project was needed that became his duty and all art work was his domain.  As he went through middle school English, Spanish, History and Science became my areas of expertise and I was the “go to” person while math was left strictly to my husband. 

Now my child is in college and still in need of guidance from time to time. I still proof read some of his papers prior to his

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