New Study Finds Moms Are More Exhausted Than Dads No Matter What They Do
This new study by the Pew Research Center is sort of hard to make all inclusive because it doesn’t mention same sex parents, so I am going to say this, the person who spends more time with the kids gets to be the MOST FOREVER EXHAUSTED IN ALL AREAS OF LIFE REGARDLESS OF SEX FOREVER AND EVER AMEN. Take that research study! So read the following from the LA Times with that in mind:
Dads devote much more time to caring for children and keeping up the house than they used to, but they still lag far behind moms, who spend almost twice as many hours on those tasks weekly, Pew found. Fathers still spend more time working for pay, on average, than mothers do.
Pew also found that when dads pitch in at home, they don’t always do the same work that moms do. On average, moms spent much more time cooking and cleaning, while dads chipped in a few more hours doing household repairs and maintenance, such as mowing the lawn.
In addition, ”dads spend almost the same amount of time as mom in terms of playing with kids, but they do less in other areas of child care,” said Wendy Wang, a research associate at the Pew Research Center.
Print this out, hang it on your ‘fridge, post it on your partner’s Facebook wall, email ’em it, because what this means is someone in these houses better be getting some delicious takeaway and some damn foot rubbing tooooonight.
It’s great that more men are helping care for kids, but it sucks that women are still doing more. The article also states how more women, when they do have free time, use that wonderful free time to do even more chores so they can get ahead of the never-ending pile of stuff moms do. Instead of going to bed early or relaxing. Women are more exhausted at work, caring for the kids, or engaging in “leisure” activities, which for me always means folding laundry while watching DVR’d episodes of Scandal because I’m so damn tired by the time it comes on I can’t even stay awake to watch it.
The study also states that parents called 62% of childcare activities ”very meaningful,” versus 36% for activities at work. This is probably because my own boss has never made me a strip club out of Legos. This is all great for me because I’m going to use this study as fuel for my favorite argument that I always have with my own spouse, which is the “Let’s Play The Who Is More Exhausted Game.” He works outside the house, so yeah, he has to look sexier than I do and deal with more people in person than I do, but that also means he gets to have lunch on occasion that doesn’t involve grabbing a handful of Goldfish crackers, a Diet Coke, and working while tossing that back. He also gets paid vacation time. And when he comes home he always has a nice cocktail waiting and does anyone do that for me? Nooooo. Yes, he is great at helping around the house and he is awesome with the kids but I still end up doing many things he doesn’t have to, mainly because he is not here. It’s not like he has a cat at the office who pukes on the carpet on occasion or a dishwasher to unload.
There is no solution for this, but maybe dads who read this will realize that moms do have it rough and offer to help out more or suggest we all crawl into the bathtub with a nice glass of wine after a hard day of work. At least we can hope so.
(Image: Tumblr)
