Search Results for: blog whose job is it anyway

Whose Job Is It, Anyway?

These days many women in are in the workforce with full time careers yet, statistics in the UK show in a number of cases women are still doing the majority of household chores. The same applies in USA. I’m sure it’s no different in Australia. I listened to a woman in the supermarket complaining the other day about her man. ‘It’s like he doesn’t even see anything needs doing.’ ‘He’s a man,’ her friend said, as if that explained everything. According to this report the allocation of household chores is a major stress factor. In your partnership are their certain … Continue reading →

On Work and Life

As an unschooling-leaning parent, I believe that life is my work. Sometimes it is hard to articulate this. I hope that my daughter grows up with an understanding of the whole of her life as a masterpiece. This began as a letter to my daughter. In my work, I am a mother. I am an educator. I am a volunteer. In all of these, I work in professions that are undervalued and misunderstood by many. Parenthood is probably the one that is the most fraught with angst. Anyone who has been a parent knows that it is hard. It is … Continue reading →

Renovating and Your Marriage

Could renovating be detrimental to your marriage? It’s something I’ve been thinking about after hearing a couple of stories recently from couples who have gone down this route. Let me say at the outset that Mick and I have never had any major renovations done. The most we have ever done is knock out a wall or minor cosmetic renovations like tiling, wallpapering and painting and we’ve done it ourselves. When I’ve listened to other people’s tales of renovations it sounds more hassle than it is worth. It seems to have the knack of turning people into something they really … Continue reading →

Knowing What’s Needed

No matter what the situation is whether it’s work, sport or marriage you need to know what’s needed. For example at work you need to know what you have to do and what the boss expects of you before you can do it. On the tennis court you need to know what your partner expects, which balls you will go for if they come down the middle of the court and which they will take and you know you’re expected to play to the best of your ability. Why then do we think it should be any different when we … Continue reading →

Accepting Help

Someone brought up an interesting point in the comment on my do it together blog about accepting help. It’s as important to be able to accept help graciously as it is to give help. Years ago I had a dear friend who would do anything she could to help others. Whatever you needed she was there to help. But the sad thing was she found it hard to accept help and always felt she had to do something in return for any help given. Since we were good friends who could talk about anything I had a chat to her … Continue reading →

Do It Together

There are always two ways of doing things. One is to complain and grumble and take as long as possible to do it. The other is to make it fun. One is to do things on your own. The other is to do them together, turn them into a game and get them done more quickly. This is the attitude I have seen at work recently with a young couple I know. Whether it is shopping for groceries, doing the dishes, cleaning the house or whatever it may be, they do it together and turn it into a game that … Continue reading →

Attitudes and Expectations

So Christmas is over and the presents all unwrapped, family often gone back to the respective homes or maybe more arriving. How do you feel after the hype of the last few days? Do you feel still on a high after the excitement of Christmas? Do you feel thankful things are back more normal and back to your usual routine? Do you feel depressed because family has left or you’ve had to leave them behind or simply because there’s nothing to look forward to any more? Do you regret that it’s all over for another year? Or are you relived? … Continue reading →

Would You Let Your Husband Iron His Own Shirt?

Would you let your husband iron his own shirt? Even as I write those words I can hear some woman, particularly of the older generations, reel in shock at the mere suggestion of such a thing. I have a friend around my age, who has the theory if it needs to be ironed it doesn’t get bought. She only buys clothes which can be washed and hung up and then put on or put away in the closet. Okay, I admit I don’t go quite that far. But I am a big fan of skirts that only need washing, twisting … Continue reading →

The More the Merrier?

How would you feel about sharing your spouse with another? I know for a fact that I wouldn’t like it and neither would Mick like being part of such an arrangement. Yet that is apparently what Keysar Trad who is president of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia suggested recently as guest speaker when talking at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney. He doesn’t see why bigamy or polygamy should be a crime. Others, undertandably, didn’t agree. On Monday 5th October the Sydney Morning Herald ran a number of letters picking out a few of the flaws in his … Continue reading →

Prejudices in Marriage

I came across this quote and I thought it was appropriate. ‘The less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudices.’ The quote is by Clint Eastwood and is from what I think will be a fun book called ‘The Best Things Ever Said in the Dark. – the wittiest, most provocative quotations from the movies.’ It struck me that there’s a lot of truth in the above quote. How often do you hear a man say, ‘I’m not going to see that! It’s a chick flick.’ This can be especially so when it’s an … Continue reading →