His or hers?

To each his own, most couples discover when laboring to evenly split household chores.

— She cooks. He cleans.

She washes. He folds.

It’s the sort of complementary relationship one might expect from an interior designer (her) and an intern architect (him).

“We’ve always both done a little bit of everything,” said Natalie Biles.

“We” being she and her husband, Ryan.

As their jobs might suggest, she’d rather focus on the inside of her home and leave the yardwork to him. But aside from that, the tasks they tackle hardly fall into traditional male-female roles.

The Lonoke couple, both 28, had their first child, a boy named Graham, Jan. 25. Since then Ryan has pitched in even more around the house - he doesn’t mind vacuuming.

“It’s a full-time job taking care of this little guy,” Natalie said of her son. Of the housework, “if it’s left up to one person it’ll be overwhelming.”

Once mostly woman’s work, chores are more of a household venture these days. While women still do a larger share, they no longer do the lion’s share - at least statistically. (On an average day, women spend about 2.6 hours on housework - laundry, cooking, retrieving socks, finding a pacifier, rescuing the occasional dinner plate from under thecouch - while men spend about two hours, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s American Time Use Survey released in June.)

Researchers say that while men are more involved, they’re also still more likely to mow the lawn or change the oil than clean a toilet or change a diaper.

“Things have changed, but things still fall along gender lines to a great extent,” said Paula England, a sociology professor at Stanford University.

Successful couples learn to strike a balance, but domestic parity doesn’t always mean splitting chores 50-50, therapists say. Those who don’t see household work as a sticking point are less likely to come unglued.

What’s more, those who respect their spouses, appreciate their contributions and, by god, put their dirty dishes in the sink, are more likely to be happy and have happy spouses.

“You have to talk about it as a couple,” said Howard Turney, director of the School of Social Work at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. “If you let it go and let resentment build, you’ll argue.”

Turney, who’s also a marriage and family therapist in Little Rock, said couples shouldn’t rely on honey-do lists but know what each other’s responsibilities are. In other words, ifit’s on a tab, it may seem like one’s keeping tabs.

“It’s not about keeping score,” Turney said.

Maybe not, but men in the church-based Dynamic Marriage program ranking their top five emotional needs tend to put “domestic support” - keeping the home fires burning - high on the list, said Tim Ashberry, a facilitator for the “marriage enrichment” program at North Little Rock’s Somers Avenue Church of Christ.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean the need isn’t being met,” said Ashberry, who’s also the laboratory director at Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock.

The eight-week program that’s offered at a number of area churches was created by Family Dynamics Institute, a nonprofit marriage and family ministry founded in 1994 with headquarters in Franklin, Tenn.

“We give them the tools to make their marriage better,” Ashberry said of the program. “If a couple can’t communicate, they can’t make their marriage better.”

In other words, the program won’t tell your husband to stop ignoring the pink ring in the toilet or your wife to learn to iron without leaving black marks on your dress shirts.

Terry Northcutt, director of marriage enrichment programs at Family Dynamics, said that whatever the behavior is you’d like to change, “You can’t cajole them. You can’t ridicule them. You can’t shame them into making themselves better. You can only make yourself better.”

He said to-do lists are useful not only to keep track of one’s chores, but as a way to see what one’s spouse is doing. “It cuts out a lot of guesswork.”

“If you have kids, they should have a part in that listtoo,” Northcutt said.

“One of the suggestions is if it’s important to you, that will be at the top of your list,” he said. “There are very few chores that I’d call fun.”

Fighting over chores is no picnic either.

Joshua Coleman, who has a doctorate and is co-chairman of the Council on Contemporary Families, said that in many homes “women are still the gatekeepers about how the kids should be raised and the house should look.”

Coleman said society expects that of women. No one tut, tuts Dad when Junior has peanut butter on his face.

The council is a “nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families,” according to its Web site. It was founded in 1996 and is based at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Coleman said couples have to be “willing to negotiate standards.”

“Typically, it means men raising their standards and women lowering theirs,” said Coleman, who’s a psychologist/therapist in the San Francisco Bay area.

He wrote The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework.

But the advice within can be useful to men, too. “A lot of strategies are strategies that are good in any marriage,” Coleman said. Be respectful, don’t name-call, have discussions when you’re in a good mood, otherwise, “He won’t listen. He’ll shut down.”

Don’t send mixed messages or “follow him around with a paper towel.”

Ashberry, who’s been married to Faye since 1967, said if there’s something he wants done, he knows harping to his wife about it won’t work.

MORE APPRECIATIVE

“Through the years I’vegrown to appreciate her more,” Ashberry said of his wife, who on many weekdays watches some of their five grandchildren.

“When we first got married, she did more than I did.”

The couple lives in Jacksonville. They have two children, a daughter, 37, and a son, 40.

While he’ll pick up the toilet brush without being asked, he said, “I could probably empty the dishwasher more than I do.”

His best advice to other couples is to compromise and not have a mind-set of “’That’s yours. This is mine.’You’ve gotta share responsibility.”

With two busy schedules, they tend to balance chores or outsource them. When they can’t get around to yardwork, they hire someone. If she doesn’t have time to cook dinner, they go out.

Such outsourcing is evidence that “women have decreased housework more than men have increasedhousework,” said England, the Stanford University professor and a researcher with the Council on Contemporary Families.

“There is some evidence that houses are dirtier and people have lowered standards,” England said.

Or perhaps someone else is now responsible for meeting those standards.

Often, a reduction in housework comes when a woman earns more, she said. “There is some power that flows from money.”

SALARY-HOUSEWORK LINK

A 2007 study by a University of Massachusetts professor found that for every $7,500 in additional income she made, a woman did an hour less of housework aweek.

England said that society in general is more accepting when a woman takes on traditionally male roles than when a man, say, breaks out the feather duster. “It’s still slightly stigmatizing.”

Since 1986, when shewrote the book, Households, Employment and Gender: A Social, Economic and Demographic View, England said men are doing more housework and spending more time with the children. And those increases have happened not only for men whose wives are employed but also those with stay-athome wives.

“The norms changed so there was a lot of expectation for men,” she said.

Fawn Rechkemmer, a stayat-home mother, says she’s glad her husband “doesn’t have that mentality that my job is my job and the house is your job.”

“I decided to stay home for my kids, not my house,” Rechkemmer said.

“I don’t get any satisfaction out of cleaning the house. I’m not good at it. It doesn’t come naturally to me,” said Rechkemmer, whose blog is called “Instead of the Dishes.”

The self-described nondomestic does her share of chores, cooking and pickingup after 3-year-old Carina and Callen, who will turn 2 Saturday.

She and her husband, Craig, both 31, have been married 4 1 /2 years and moved to Little Rock in September 2008. He works as a dentist at Arkansas Children’s Hospital four long days a week, affording him a longer weekend.

‘HANDS-ON DAD’

Rechkemmer said that her husband understands when she needs a break to write or work out - she’ll be training for a sprint triathlon later this year - and is a “pretty hands-on dad.”

Craig Rechkemmer said that he and his wife have more chores to tackle in general since having children. Not only is their home three times as large, but the frequency of chores has increased - vacuuming andsweeping, in particular. “It’s nice to walk around and not step on frozen peas,” Rechkemmer said.

He’s from a military family and likes having chores out of the way. One he does leave to his wife - laundry, due to too many shrinking mishaps early on. “I joke we have a magic hamper. I put clothes in and they magically reappear in the closet.”

He said couples should figure out a routine early on and “not wait until after [having] kids.”

Biles, the new mom from Lonoke, said that her husband can’t wait to pitch in more as a father. Their infant is still fairly needy with mom these days.

She plans to return to parttime work this summer and knows the couple may have to do more household planning as their family grows.

These days, “it’s a day-byday process” for the couple who’s been married six years. Her advice to other couples is to be appreciative of your spouse and “find a give and take on everything.”

Family, Pages 33 on 03/03/2010

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