Week Twelve: The Domestic Division of Labor

After doing some reading of the text and filling out the Family Duties Chart I realized that after looking at my imidiate family and the families of my parents we all fit nicely into what was discussed. My grandma on my dads side who would have been largely a perent in the 50s and my grandma on my moms side as well both stayed home and took care of the kids for the most part. My dad's mom didn't even have a license to drive, so she was always at home. They both had large families with children closer together in age as they were younger in line. Then looking at my family my mom was a working woman when she started out, and then had children, took a pause from work, and then went back to it later after we had grown up enough to take care of most things ourselves. Looking at the list of duties though, I find that while my mom and dad do assume some stereotypical tasks that man and woman seem to classically do, many of them overlap evenly and the tasks are split up. I feel like with almost all of them my parents switch off on the duties, where my mom used to cook more and do the grocery shopping my dad now does it because he is the retired one and my mom is working. The only things that seem to be set in stone tend to be yardwork or handy work that my dad does because he used to do some plumbing and carpentry tasks, and is more physically able and knowledgable. My mom has always done the laundry, but I'm sure if there was a time when she didn't have time my dad would step in. Sometimes he would do the folding... Anyway I think ultimately as time has progressed these separations will become less evident in most families.