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My month long endeavor to be less of a lazibones has concluded.
For the whole month, I fairly consistently did whatever little chores needed to be done, as soon as I noticed they needed to be done. That was mostly laundry, making the bed, and (un)loading the dishwasher, plus lots of random cleaning up after the dog and kid.
Even with focusing less on getting steps, my steps were up about 15% from the previous month (which had nicer weather, btw). These were less empty steps, too. I was actually being productive.
I'm not sure any of the JBP-esque room cleaning type benefits materialized, but it was good for me, so I'll try to carry some new habits forward.
Was your wife pleased?
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Not noticeably. She can get pretty absorbed in her own stuff and I don't think she really noticed that there were fewer undone chores than normal.
The first couple of days she did ask if I was trying to send some sort of message about the state of the house.
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hahaha, yeah I've reflected on this before... it seems utterly asymmetrical and, thus, a little pointless: one party's efforts are costlier than the other party's perceived benefit.
I remember living in a shared house many years ago and felt like I was always emptying the dishwasher. I was thinking that, too, while I observed my housemates empty it.
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This is why I think score keeping is such a toxic practice. We notice and care about all of the things we do more than the things the other person does. The result is everyone being bitter and resentful.
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No good deed goes unpunished. Haha
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I mean, that was quite a message about my normal level of helpfulness.
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37 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 3 May
Does your little one try to help with chores. My daughter loves helping. She gets mad at me if I empty the dishwasher without her “I wanted to do that”
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She does like helping with lots of stuff, but she inherited my wife's lack of situational awareness, so she seldom notices when I'm doing a chore.
You must be loving these chores, ain't you? All these chores except for the dog one aren't meant to be done by men in our society traditionally. Men are just not allowed to enter the kitchen or do the cleaning stuff in India. However I occassionally cook some chinese fast food for which my mom and wife allow me. I don't forget to tease them by calling hypocrites. Haha .
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That kind of rigidity and essentialism doesn’t appeal to me.
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Doesn't appeal to me as well but it's just a tradition. I don't think it is essentialism because I see this is not a trend in families where women also work for living. The people living in cities have broken this tradition and enjoy doing household work.
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Specialization and division of labor are good, so having clearly defined roles within a household makes sense to me. I just think it should be idiosyncratic to the relationship, rather than socially determined.
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I think you're definitely right. In India it's actually socially or culturally determined aspect.
But I also want to add that it's so much in the roots of our culture, women generally love this division even when they are working. I've seen many examples of working women who manage to keep their husbands out of kitchen because they pride in cooking for the family. The relationship between wife and husband are generally idiosyncratic here and the lowest level of divorces intensify this. I think living with other family members certainly has a big role in making it happen without any fuss.
My sister and her husband both are working and they have two kids - 5 and 8 years old. But because my sister too lives with a combined family - a family of 4 men with three already married - the household work is divided between everyone. The kitchen however is exclusive to women. Because my sister is a teacher and her kids go to school as well early in the morning, the breakfast is cooked by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. They also cook the lunch for the entire family. And my sister cooks in the evening and both the other women help her.
That's how it all works. It's amazing to see every household role clearly defined and divided. I think it's very specific to indian subcontinent and rest of the world takes it otherwise. I hope you now understand how amazing an essential system can be if it's sorted like we have here.
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My ideal is a society that makes generally helpful suggestions to people about how to go through the different stages of life, but also has the flexibility to accommodate people who don't fit the mold.
India's definitely on the other side of the distribution from the West and I think the West should make more suggestions to people about how to live.
I love how "lazybones" is a Stacker term now. #970678
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You've added to the lexicon
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Time for Mancave May
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I'm definitely not cashing in any relationship capital on that. There's a bunch of bitcoin crap I still want, plus just more bitcoin.
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You're gonna have to wait for Stacking September for that
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Every month is Stacking September.
September is Sugar-Free September and it’s the worst.
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Too much Bitcoin is never snough
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