When Helping Isn’t Helping
Sometimes my way is the right way!
I just read another article online about exhausted moms. This one focused on how mom’s brains are weary because we not only have to figure out how to get everything done, but we also worry about each job until it is done.
An “expert” gave advice on how we can become less exhausted physically and mentally.
“Share the workload with dad. Moms often say that dad doesn’t load the dishwasher the right way and she can’t trust that he will take care of the kids the way she does. Learn how to relax and realize that your way isn’t necessarily right. Be okay with a different way.” This is not an exact quote but you get the idea.
WHY is this always the answer? It’s infuriating.
Like all moms, I WANT my husband to help…I NEED my husband to help but there are times when his help actually causes me MORE work and stress. I’m sick and tired of women having to accept the half-done ways of the bumbling male. I’ve also heard the term “Weaponized Incompetence.” Hell yes.
Men are capable of being great at tons of things! I’ve seen my husband build an entire deck - he’s not a carpenter, he has a desk job. I’ve seen him hang twelve small mirrors perfectly level in a grid-like pattern with exactly two inches between each mirror with museum quality. He can do things well with his hands and his mind. He’s a lawyer and a professor, he’s a smart guy.
Yet he chooses to be unable to load a dishwasher without glasses upside down and cereal bowls stacked so tightly together that NONE of them get clean. He puts ladles on the top rack with the scooper end hanging down in a way that stops the water sprayer from rotating leaving the entire top rack still dirty after a wash cycle.
I have very kindly and supportively shown him the error of his ways. I have tried in a really nice voice to explain the mechanics of how a dishwasher works and why his loading leads me down the path of psychosis. Yet he CHOOSES to continue to load it “his way.” Yes, it is 100% a choice.
The next morning I have to scrub crusty cereal bowls that now have been baked at a million degrees in the dry cycle. I re-load cups that have sat full of scummy, cloudy dish water overnight, and at least once a week I have to take a toothpick and pick out pieces of corn from the drain holes in the bottom of the dishwasher even after explaining exactly 371 times that our dishwasher doesn’t have a garbage disposal hidden in it.
So when he loads the dishwasher to “help” me it is, in fact, not helping.
I do think there are some areas in which one can accept a different way and every chore doesn’t have to be done perfectly. There are some things that a mom needs done in a certain way and there are other things we are cool with just getting done no matter how it turns out. Dads, I am about to give you a million dollar tip. Find out what the important things are to your wife and care enough to learn how she likes these things done and DO THEM THAT WAY.
If we know you like sugar flakes cereal you can bet we will buy it for you. We tolerate your mother and we clean the pee off the floor around your toilet and your shit off the back of the seat. We give you the privilege to live in a home where you ask, “Where are the crackers.” So it’s about time that you do a few things the way we like it, not just your way or no way at all. You can’t be terrible at sweeping if I’m coming after you with the mop, but if you want to sweep AND mop I’m willing to overlook the crumbs you’ve missed. You aren’t “helping” when you do the grocery shopping and buying nine different types of meat and one box of cereal.
I just wonder why the “experts” aren’t saying that the answer to moms being exhausted is for men to learn how their wives do the important household chores and then do them that way so that she actually feels helped instead of “you should just be glad he’s willing to do anything at all.” The right way is to care that your spouse feels like you respect them by doing some things in a way that means the job is all the way done, not just half done. And let’s be honest here, sometimes the right way is my way so call me when you get there.