Supporting your loved ones means more than just telling them that you appreciate them. You have to show it. Appreciation often means getting your hands dirty, quite literally, to help out around the house. But the sad reality is that in many families, when it comes to chores, even in this day and age, men don’t step up enough.
One frustrated mother vented online about how her husband and son never help with the housework. Things got so bad with the dad enabling his son’s (and his own!) laziness that the mom finally decided that enough was enough. She threw them out of the house right before Christmas. She then asked the AITA online community whether she was too harsh. Scroll down to read the full story and the internet’s opinions.
This woman was sick and tired of her husband and son viewing her as their maid
Image credits: Jason Leung (not the actual photo)
So in a last-ditch effort to teach them a lesson, she kicked the two out of the house just days before Christmas
Image credits: Craig Adderley (not the actual photo)
Image credits: anon
When someone is unhappy about the allocation of household chores, the stress level in their home can increase tremendously
In the past, the division of housework was generally attributed to differences in the labor force; men were more likely to work full-time outside the home while women were more likely to manage the household.
Nowadays, however, the situation is different. Women make up 47% of the workforce in the United States. Yet, as this Reddit post illustrates, they are still often expected to shoulder much of the unpaid labor at home.
What may matter more than an equal 50/50 split is how each person feels about the division of duties.
Research tells us that the unfair distribution of housework is one of the top stressors in many relationships. For example, one study discovered that wives whose husbands were minimally involved with these responsibilities were 160% more likely to be distressed, 296% more likely to be uncomfortable with their husbands, and 269% more likely to be unhappy.
Image credits: Jason Abdilla (not the actual photo)
The majority of the time, women are the ones who take on most of the holiday responsibilities
It's understandable why the author of the Reddit post resorted to more radical measures during this particular time of year. According to new research by Starling Bank, women are primarily responsible for 19 of the 23 Christmas tasks.
The survey suggests that men take the lead in carving the turkey (they do this exclusively by themselves 51% of the time compared to 26% of women), washing up after the festive dinner (31% vs 26%), untangling the fairy lights (41% vs 28%), and getting rid of the Christmas tree (51% vs 16%).
Women, on the other hand, buy presents (57% vs 8% of men), wrap them (58% vs 10%), plan Christmas dinner and buy the products (51% vs 12%), cook it (49% vs 19%), attend the children's nativity play (28% vs 6%), write holiday cards (62% vs 10%), clean the house for guests (42% vs 12%), and much more.
With all of the preparation on the horizon, no wonder the woman behind the Reddit post wanted her husband and son to step up.
Image credits: Dan Gold (not the actual photo)
Most people said the woman did nothing wrong
But some thought she could've been less harsh on the boy
