Married men say they do less housework than unmarried cohabiting men, according to a new international study published in the Journal of Family Issues. Cohabiting women, however, report doing less housework than married women, and cohabiting men still do less than cohabiting women. The lead author of the study, according to USA Today, says “the institution of marriage seems to have an effect on couples that traditionalizes their behavior, even if they view men and women as equals.”

Oh, great. So as same-sex couples are allowed to marry, gay men will start living in squalor while we gals will begin channeling June Cleaver?

The always-useful Lifehacker has had a number of posts about kids and home lately. Here’s a roundup:

• How to set a homework schedule. Also useful for us bloggers and writers.
• Kids Freeware Bonanza. From games to education.
• Copy TV shows to your iPod. Perhaps good for car trips, waiting at the doctor’s office, and other moments when you’ve exhausted all other means of entertainment.
• Teach kids valuable lessons with free Sesame Street iPod videos. Over 35 years old, and still going strong.

And for busy parents:

• A guide to freezer cooking. No, not actually roasting a chicken in your freezer, but rather how to cook and freeze a month’s worth of meals in a single cooking session.
• Can I freeze that? A guide to freezer do’s and don’ts. A link to information from The National Center for Food Preservation. (I didn’t even know there was such an organization. I wonder if donating a few things from my fridge would get me a tax write-off.)

The first in what will hopefully be a short-lived series on our house selling and buying experience:

Tip #1 for keeping a house clean for buyers yet tolerable for pre-schoolers: Buckets. Lots of buckets. I favor the 35-pound cat-litter pails from our local warehouse store. (In truth, I’d been saving the empties for a while without knowing exactly what to do with them.) Sort out all your child’s toys into the buckets and stash in a closet. We’re using the bottom of our kitchen pantry since the kitchen is where most of the daily play occurs. You can take out a bucket at a time and quickly throw things back in if a Realtor calls with a prospective buyer.

We even took his precious Thomas train set and put it into a bucket. The train table went into the basement for the duration, but we kept a train play mat rolled up in the pantry. It’s easy to set up a track layout on the mat and break it down in a jiffy.

A few things don’t fit into the buckets. We have a temporary fire station set up in the bottom of our coat closet, with two hook-and-ladders and a pumper truck. So far, our son doesn’t seem to mind the rearrangement too much, and in fact seems to enjoy rediscovering his “hidden” toys. Let’s hope we sell the house before the excitement wears off.

Appliance maker Whirlpool is launching a promotion with dating site Perfectmatch.com, in which they invite singles to join them at
special “Spin Cycle” singles parties in cities around the country. “Besides potentially meeting your perfect match,” they say, “you’ll get to check out some new, premier laundry products perfect for your lifestyle.”

Not my lifestyle, apparently. Whirlpool asks those who are interested in attending to “email your first and last name, email address, gender, phone number and whether you believe you are a ‘washer’ or a ‘folder,’ to the appropriate address below.”

Presumably they’re asking gender so they can make sure the number of men sitting around looking awkward matches the number of women doing the same. Shouldn’t they also ask sexual orientation, though? Or don’t they believe lesbians and gay men do laundry? Oh, that’s right. We dykes don’t wash our flannel shirts. They look more rugged that way. And gay men send everything out to be dry cleaned.

Overall, combining appliance sales pitches with dating seems like a bad marketing idea. But for a company that rated a perfect 100 in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index last year, the assumption of heterosexuality seems an oversight. Or maybe their research that “washers” tend to seek out “folders” (and vice versa) didn’t wash (!) for the LGBT community. Any insight from the audience? (I wouldn’t peg my partner or myself one way or the other.)

Regardless, if any marketing reps from Whirlpool want to advertise to a community of lesbian moms who do a lot of laundry, give me a shout.

(Thanks to Marianne Richmond at Blogher for the sighting.)

I went to our local warehouse store today and bought toilet paper, diapers, tampons, and cat litter.

I spend entirely too much time taking care of my family’s nether regions.

There’s been some buzz around the blogosphere today about moms who are either bored by their children, or (less controversially) by the domestic tasks accompanying motherhood. Both Blogging Baby and MotherTalkers already have good comment threads going on the subject (and opinions are strong), so I thought I’d take a different approach, and share some ideas for avoiding boredom with domestic tasks.

• Engage your children in household chores. You’d be surprised how early you can do this—pretty much as soon as they can walk. Having your non-boring child help with boring chores is one of the best ways to make an old task seem new. Play train as you drag the laundry basket down the hall; play basketball as you shoot the clothes into the washer. Have them help in the kitchen. This takes more time than doing it yourself, but it’s a whole lot more fun.
• Start a blog. If it’s not about motherhood, then you’ll have an excuse to think about something else during naptimes and in the evening. If it is about motherhood, then every domestic chore becomes blog fodder. View them as a reporter, not as a worker. Find points of broad interest. Find funny angles.
• Switch tasks with your partner once in a while. If you usually cook and she cleans up, have her cook one night. A change in perspective can fend off boredom.
• Find a new way to organize your tasks. Lifehacker is full of good ideas for time management, electronic to-do managers and other productivity tips. While much of it is geared towards those employed outside the home, a lot is applicable to stay-at-homes as well. More organization means less time spent.
• Take a day off. The world won’t end if you don’t do laundry for a day (though I recommend making sure you have an extra pair of underwear first). Take your child to the park, do a special art project, or find something else you enjoy doing together. Step away from the clutter and remember that parenting isn’t about how many loads of laundry you do, but about how many games you play, books you read, and birds you see together.

Ever wonder what your work as a mom is worth in monetary terms? Blogging Baby today highlighted the Mom Salary Wizard (MSW), a calculator that determines salary equivalents for the “mom job” of both working and stay-at-home moms (SAHMs).

I took a look, though I was peeved the site wasn’t gender-neutral. I never like the assumption that all the housework (in straight families) is done by the woman, nor when gay dads are completely invisible.

What really surprised me, however, was the app’s list of “typical” hours per week that moms spend on various tasks. Read more »

The LA Times had a nice story about Oxo tools a couple of weeks ago. (Thanks to FOOD Blog for the sighting.) I’ve been a big Oxo fan for years, and was glad to see the coverage. (I’d own all of their products if we weren’t a lesbian family with one stay-at-home-mom, paying federal taxes on the medical insurance my partner’s employer provides me.) Oxo develops kitchen, gardening, and hardware tools that are not only good-looking, but also offer functionality that goes beyond that of other brands. Every time I visit my parents and am forced to use their old pull-cord salad spinner, I’m thankful I have an Oxo push-top one (which also doubles as toddler amusement). A few of their products, like the Mango Splitter (see image above), seem on one level superfluous, but on another, cleverly solve a tricky kitchen need.

I’m not employed by Oxo or in any way affiliated with them. I just admire smart design. (I’m also a sucker for IKEA.) As a mom, I’m all in favor of anything that’s faster, safer, and more efficient. Now if Oxo would put their minds towards diaper pails and strollers, we’d really have something.

Lifehacker reports today on a new cooking trend: “make and take.” The idea is that you go to a special store and purchase pre-prepped (washed, chopped, etc.) ingredients for several specific recipes, which you then simply have to assemble at home. The going rate seems to be about $200 for twelve four-person meals, which works out to $4.16 per person per meal–very reasonable.

While the overall concept is a good one–allowing people to use fresh ingredients but cut down on shopping, prep, and cleanup time, I’m skeptical about the time efficiency. Both major national chains of “make and take” meals, Dinner and Dish and DreamDinners, say it takes two hours to assemble the twelve meals in their kitchens. Let’s assume it also takes the average customer ten minutes each way to travel to the stores. That’s about twelve minutes per meal. I can easily prep a meal at home in that time, especially if I’m doing it the make-and-take way of prepping several meals in advance and freezing what I won’t use right away. (As I’ve mentioned before, it helps to have a good sharp knife, and practice your chopping skills. ) If you’re worried about cleanup, there are plenty of one-pot meal recipes out there, not to mention a “pots and pans” setting on most dishwashers. As far as reducing shopping time, I still have to go to the store to buy diapers, toilet paper, and toothpaste, so I might as well throw some food in the cart at the same time. Yes, it saves a bit of time having someone else do it, but not that much, especially if you think through your meals in advance and make a list.

I realize I’m a bit of a cook-it-yourself snob. It’s probably an overreaction to our prepared, pre-processed, pre-cooked culture. I also think it’s useful for kids to be involved (in an age-appropriate way) with all the steps of food preparation. It gives them a better understanding of what’s involved, and teaches them useful skills for later in life. (And yes, take them to a farm, too.) I do see value in make and take during the holidays or at other times when getting the food prep done and keeping the house clean is of the essence. And for those of you who simply hate chopping and might find make and take useful, I’m happy to pass along the information. Happy cooking, however you do it.

Toddlers can wreak havoc on our to-do lists. They have their own agendas, their own pace, and their own counterproductive actions (e.g., pulling all the books off the shelf after you’ve just replaced them). In order to increase the odds of actually completing my to-do list, I divide it into categories as follows:

1. Things I can involve my toddler in, like putting laundry in the dryer, cleaning up his toys (which also teaches him good habits), and watering the garden. Activities may take a little longer this way, but they become part of our playtime, rather than extra tasks for which I need to find time.
2. Things I can do while he’s around but occupied, such as folding laundry, prepping dinner, and making phone calls to the cable company.
3. Things I absolutely can’t do while he’s awake, but can manage while he’s napping. This includes anything involving hazardous chemicals, such as cleaning the bathrooms, as well as things that require quiet, such as writing this blog. (It’s hard to craft coherent sentences when there’s a small child pestering you to play online Elmo games with him.)
4. Things I can’t do at all without someone else to help watch him. The vacuum cleaner noise scares him, and it’s too noisy to run while he’s napping, so this falls into the “when my partner gets home” category. Depending on how our respective days have gone, one of us will play with him outside while the other vacuums.

Once I’ve made this list, I try to adhere to it as much as possible. I don’t do Category 1 or 2 items while he’s napping, even though I could. This give me the most time possible for Category 3 items, which include the “save me from becoming Donna Reed and losing my sanity” activities like this blog. Obviously, items will shift categories over time, as my son’s habits and capabilities change. Soon, I’ll even be able to delegate tasks to him. Hopefully, he’ll see me coping well with housework and not getting stressed about it, and will view his tasks in a similar fashion. Dealing with our to-do lists isn’t just for our own purposes anymore, but sets an example for our children. I hope these hints help you with yours.