Men who do more housework have better sex lives

For the married woman, housework is foreplay!

He who has ears, let him hear!

The Chore Wars

Before having children, most couples find it easier to maintain a neat house and to keep bickering about unmade beds at bay. But having kids means having more clutter to clear, loads of laundry to do, and more meals to make, and it's moms who bear most of the burden: Working women spend about twice as much time as working men on household chores and the care of the children, according to a recent time-use survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Not surprisingly, the housework gender gap is a common source of friction: A recent BabyCenter survey of more than 12,000 readers revealed that 63 percent of couples with children at home argue over cleaning. And nearly half of respondents say they resent having to do more housework, cooking, and laundry than their mates.

Not only do dust bunnies lead to marital dustups, but the responsibility for housework can also have harmful effects on women's health. A study by sociologist Chloe E. Bird published in the March 1999 issue of Journal of Health and Social Behavior found that women who do twice as much housework as their spouses have greater anxiety, depression, and worry. The least depressed people in Bird's study, both male and female, were those who split household duties down the middle.

Are men slackers?

If women are clearly doing more around the house, what are men doing? Guys don't appear to be totally slacking: American men in dual-income families handle a third of shopping and meal preparation. Men do roughly 15 percent of the laundry, and while that may not entitle them to bragging rights, it's an improvement over the measly 2 to 5 percent they did back in 1970. And men today are more involved parents: One in four preschoolers with working moms are watched by their fathers. "In general, men try to compare their contributions to their fathers, and compared they look very good, doing four or five times more than their fathers did," says sociologist Scott Coltrane, author of Family Man: Fatherhood, Housework and Gender Equity.

According to several studies, men with a higher education are more likely to pick up and pitch in. Coltrane suggests that more educated men may be more likely to put women on equal footing and assume a balanced role in the household. Interestingly, research also shows men who delay fathering children until their late 20s or early 30s, move away from the neighborhood they grew up in, and have less frequent contact with their parents, or who have been divorced and remarried, are more likely to do housework. Coltrane points out that these men have had to fend for themselves, so it makes sense that they'd continue to help out.

Still, "compared to their wives and partners, men do a lot less," says Coltrane. He points to a range of explanations for the battle of the sexes on the chore front — from cultural expectations about gender roles, to a greater emphasis on a husband's career if he's the primary breadwinner, to some women's difficulty delegating work. Practically speaking, though, the broom stops with whomever spends more time at home, says Coltrane, and that's usually Mom.

Psychologist Joshua Coleman, author of The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework, suggests that men's resistance to housework may start in childhood. From an early age, men are preoccupied with power and status (just look at any boy playing with an action-figure hero), and they may assert their independence by refusing to do something they've been asked to do. And while men feel they look pretty good compared with their fathers, they fail to factor in that their wives are also doing a lot more than their own mothers did, notes Coleman.

Men who do dishes do better in the bedroom

If only men knew what they were missing: Men who do more housework have better sex lives and happier marriages, according to a study by John Gottman, a psychologist who for more than three decades has been researching why relationships succeed or fail. Further research by Gottman suggests that harmony over housework may also yield happier children. His findings reveal that men who do housework frequently have kids who do better socially and academically.

Nine ways to get your partner to do his fair share >>> Full article


Source: babycentre.com

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