Dad Blogger Snaps Back at His Mom After She Criticized His Wife on the Cleanliness of Their House

It’s 2017, but there are still people who believe in the division of labor based on gender. Yes, that’s right. Some folks still think it’s a woman’s job is to clean the house and raise the children. They think that a man’s job is to go make money. These people are clearly still stuck in the 1950s, which is why it’s important for those of us living in the now to explain why these ideas are wrong. Like this one dad blogger did who just schooled his own mother on why cleaning is not just a woman’s job. It’s actually everyone’s.

Clint Edwards is a blogger at No Idea What I’m Doing. In a recent Facebook post, Edwards gets real about a conversation he had with his mother.

“A few weeks ago I was chatting with my mother over the phone when she said, ‘Doesn’t it bother you that Mel won’t keep a cleaner house?’,” the post begins.

Edwards admits he wasn’t sure how to react at first, and confesses that his home is anything but tidy. In fact, he attests that he’s sure his home is nowhere near as cleanly as his mother’s. But he also recognizes that his marriage is a partnership.

“…cleaning is as much my responsibility as it is hers,” he says. And it’s true. While there is still a lot of work to be done in getting men to recognize that cleaning is everyone’s responsibility, I think the first step is to have more men outwardly admit that they know the onus of cleaning is not just on the women in their lives.

Why some folks don’t get that cleaning is not just a woman’s job

Edwards goes on to explain that he believes his mother and her way of thinking are really just a product of the era she grew up in: the baby boom generation. He also mentions that his father had the same line of thinking.

“I didn’t know my father all that well, but I do remember him giving me this advice about picking a wife: ‘Stop by her house unexpected. See how it looks in there. You can tell a lot about a woman by how she keeps her house.'”

Edwards tells his followers that he never once thought about a clean house when he married his wife, but that he focused on her many other qualities, like what she had to say, how she made him feel, and how he thought he’d like to start a family with her.

Eventually, Edwards found a way to reply to his mom:

“After a few moments of struggling to find the right words, I finally said, ‘I didn’t get into this marriage for a clean house. I got into it because she seemed like someone I could spend my life with.’

Silence.

https://www.facebook.com/anecdotesrantsandoccasionalessaysclintedwards/photos/a.327353694088865.1073741830.240570189433883/851665488324347/?type=3&theater

I put some dishes in the washer. Eventually mom said. ‘Well… that probably is more important than a clean house.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I think so too.'”

Yeah, I think we all do.

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(Image: Facebook / anecdotesrantsandoccasionalessaysclintedwards)

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