Growing up, girls are often asked to do more chores than boys. How did this shape your experiences?
How did being expected to do more chores as a girl affect how you see responsibility and fairness at home ?
r/AskWomen
Growing up, girls are often asked to do more chores than boys. How did this shape your experiences?
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I now have a chip on my shoulder and my relationship with my brother is poor, bordering non-existent if we didn’t live together.
I spent years compensating for him and also asking him to be more considerate otherwise the burden is on our mother. Years of being ignored and mum not doing anything to support me when I do ask my brother to help out around the house, I have become extremely resentful.
When I have my own family, this shit won’t go down. I’m sure there will be some unconscious bias that will slip out so I will have to be extremely mindful not to let it be apparent overtime. Bare minimum is clean up after yourself if you can’t clean for others, do your fucking dishes at the leave.
See, I was raised in a household with no boys, so I internalized the responsibility but not the lack of fairness. I just assumed that every household cleaned the house to my mother’s standards, if you don’t you’re a lazy slob with no self respect. And either couples split that work, or there’s a homemaker and a breadwinner, and I’m obviously the breadwinner because everybody’s been talking to me like I’m just like my father since I was a little kid. And obviously since I’ve struggled to be as clean and tidy as my mother, I’m an absent-minded lazy slob who needs to marry somebody like my mother or else I’ll be living in filth.
Imagine my surprise when every relationship I ever got into for my entire goddamn life, I was the one doing the vast majority of the cleaning and the breadwinning, arguing with my partner that “if you’re the one who cares so much about the bathroom being clean, you can do it” isn’t how adults live their lives.
I think that someone raised with that unfairness would have an easier time taking on that extra responsibility and going on to live a happy life. But I think I’m just destined to be single until I die. I feel such internalized disgust at the laziness that I’ve struggled so hard to overcome that I just can’t respect a person that I have to teach that it’s important to clean a toilet, especially if they’re not earning the kind of money that lets them pay a cleaner.
Grew up in a Hispanic household and I’m the oldest daughter…it’s always been an unfair balance all my life lol. Since I was kid I’ve been expected to do more than my brothers and most times I do more housework than my own dad! It’s such a cultural issue that a lot of my friends understand as well. Especially my friends that are oldest daughters and are also from Hispanic household. I get resentful towards grown men that just expect women to do everything for them. Weirdly enough though, I feel guilty when I don’t do expected household things…like I don’t feel like a “good woman” which SUCKS. But it’s the way I was socialized 🤷🏻♀️.