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Home > Archive: January, 2011

Archive for January, 2011

Can your spouse do your job?

January 2nd, 2011 at 06:25 am

You know those shows where some TV host comes into a house where the wife is so "underappreciated" and sends her off to a spa weekend and the husband has to handle the house, kids and her job?

Those are complete crap.

First of all, my husband could not do my job. I doubt many of you could either Smile Of course, this is after 6 years of college including a master's degree in theoretical algebra and 10 years of experience in the field. My boss can't do my job, no one else in my company can, and they would be hard pressed to find anyone who would move in to this small town part of Kansas that could.

However, and this is where the tv shows are always lacking: I COULDN'T DO HIS JOB EITHER! I wouldn't be able to fix a tractor. Or pickup. Or swather. Or be able to weld. Or know when to pull a cow into the barn to help it have its calf, and when to leave it alone. I couldn't stay out in all weathers and fight through the heat and the cold and the wind. I can't. I've tried.

What does that prove? If someone with a camera followed my husband to my job and expected him to do it, he would pretty much look like an idiot. If someone with a camera followed me out to our farm and expected me to do it, I would look like Paris Hilton or that other anorexic girl I can't remember the name of. All it proves is that each of us are good at our respective jobs and each of us are using our skills to support our household.

These shows always show how the dad can't handle the kids, either. Or house chores. And they make the man look like a douche and incompetent. I take exception to these, because wanting someone to come in and take over a responsibility they haven't been doing will naturally cause some upheaval. Expecting someone who hasn't been doing a chore to do it flawlessly the first time actually means that that chore has such low skill level that any idiot could do it. I don't know about you, but I think someone who can manage a household and children (and work outside the home, if that is applicable) has a great skill set that needed to be polished before it got to be the well oiled machine it is, and throwing someone into that position with no support isn't really fair. (Remember, the wife is off for three days of pampering).

When I was on bedrest for 10 days, the house did get a little dirty. Ok, it got pretty dirty. But, we didn't starve, we had clean clothes to wear and when he was home, whenever I needed food or water or help up so I could go to the bathroom, he lept right to it. Just because he did things differently than I did them didn't mean he did them wrong.

Thoughts?