March 31, 2008
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Sandra Tsing Loh admits that housekeeping isn't her forte.

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This is Sandra Tsing Loh with The Loh Life. Today's topic: Mrs. Mr. Mom. Part Two: Keep House Like A Man.

Perhaps you are a woman sick to death of doing more housework than your husband, even in this post-feminist 21st century, and if so, Blogger Bitch Ph.D. knows your pain.

She doesn't advocate the traditional quote-unquote "housework strike" to get your man to shape up, oh no. She says:

"Go ahead and do what needs to be done. But let him know what you are doing every damn step of the way, and let him know that it pisses you off. 'I've just gotten home from work, it's nice to see you're home earlier than I am. Oh, and I'll pick up your coat from the floor and hang it up. I see there's no dinner started, I'll just get on that, shall I? First, though, I'll clear the mail off the dining room table where you seem to have dropped it.

OK, now I'm going to go into the kitchen to get a sponge to wipe off the table, which I see hasn't been wiped since breakfast.'"

What always draws my admiration is she's not just clearing the mail away, but actually wiping the table! Radical feminists are always so impressively and tragically tidy.

Whereas I myself think the solution for today's frenetically multi-tasking women is so simple. The family, the work, yes you can have it all if you keep house like a man.

The truth is, my musician husband is a much better homemaker than me; he cooks, shops, does the laundry. He's from South Dakota. He even makes jam! Sadly, Mike is away, so at home it has just been my latchkey children and their distracted writer mom who parents like a dad – or as I like to call myself, "Mrs. Mr. Mom."

When my brother and I, two Mr. Moms, were briefly tending five children between us, I'd toss the laundry up to the landing and the children would fish out and place their own laundry in grocery bags with their initials on them. Or not. Each kid also got one plastic, color-coded Ikea plate per day. If a plate has just got toast crumbs on it, it's doesn't technically need a rinse. Save the planet, man!

But now I'm in a one story house – even easier! Now I just take the laundry 15 steps to the living room, hurl it on the couch and have my kids fish out fresh undies from their horn of laundry plenty every morning. Indeed, a really smart mom would just fling all the clothes into the minivan, so those kids could self-dress on the way to school. Chests of drawers, why do we have these? It's an oppressive capitalist plot, by the makers of, of, of, of furniture! Socks, too. Do children really need all these? Just a question.