Marriage & The Division of Labor
Aaron Sharp | February 6, 2021
One of the toughest parts of marriage is sorting out the division of labor. As a newly married couple this is often simple, but that doesn’t mean that it is always easy for new couples. Figure out who does how much of what can be a challenge. Who pays the bills? Who keeps the schedule? Who does the laundry? As life continues and things inevitably get busier and more complex which makes the task of determining the division of labor all that more challenging.
Of course, when you add kids to the mix the difficulty dividing the labor multiplies exponentially. There are lunches to fix, rear ends to wipe, boo-boos to kiss, rooms to clean, homework to do, and on and on the list goes. Even the best of couples can experience large amounts of stress and strife trying to divide the ever-growing to-do list.
Which brings me to our family’s viewing of the new PBS television show All Creatures Great and Small. The show revolves around James Herriot’s adventures as a veterinarian in 1930s Yorkshire. The four Sharpnadoes are big animal fans so we thought this show would be some great family viewing, and it was – until the vet was about to castrate a cat.
One thing about the Sharpnadoes is that they like to ask questions, lots of questions. It became apparent to the Wonder Woman and I that the plot line was going to involve a cat being neutered so we began to quietly whisper about who was going to handle all the questions that came up about the cat. The conversation didn’t last long as the Wonder Woman said, “Well, you’re a guy, and you have those parts, so you have to answer the questions.” And as so often happens in marriage, that was that.
We watched the rest of the show, nervous for the cat because the vet was about to neuter the wrong one, and dreading the questions that were sure to arise, but then a small miracle happened. The vet didn’t fix the wrong cat, and somehow we avoided the questions. We breathed a collective sigh of relief. Then, came the scene where the vet was having to help birth a calf. The Wonder Woman and I exchanged nervous glances, and then I told her, “Well, you’re a woman, and you have those parts, so you have to answer the questions.”
Personally, I think we’ve finally found our groove on the division of labor.