“What do you use to clean the kitchen floor?” That sentence actually came out of my mouth earlier today. With the baby sleeping, my four-year-old coloring and my husband mounting the TV in the living room, I took the opportunity to deep-clean the kitchen. I suds up and wiped down the counters and every surface of the stove. I put vinegar and baking soda down the drain of the sink (so satisfying!) and swept the floor twice. The last thing to do was mop the floor, but we don’t own a mop.
Mop, Mop, Who Has the Mop?
How did the kitchen floor get clean? I knew it must since we have two young children who drop as much food as they eat and I wasn’t standing in sludge.
As I’ve written about before, my husband spends more time at home with the kids than I do. He used to be a full-time stay-at-home dad, but he’s been attending college full-time for a little over a year now.
When Luke was exclusively at home, I admit I did very little housework. Luke said his job was to maintain the house, and he did so diligently. So diligently, in fact, that I lost a lot of my edge. I could go weeks without doing the dishes or wiping down the bathrooms, or, you guessed it, mopping the kitchen floor.
Since his classes have been especially demanding this semester, I’ve been trying to step up my efforts with our housework. I load the dishwasher, clean the toilets regularly, and even sweep the floor at least once a week. But I had yet to mop.
As the question left my mouth, I thought about how annoying I must sound.
Out of the Loop
I lose my mind when my husband doesn’t know about something very regular in our house or doesn’t listen when I’m talking. Surely he’s told me about cleaning the floor before this moment, but I just couldn’t remember. And this isn’t the first time I’ve been out of the loop about household happenings.
While I do handle most of the administrative work like planning birthdays and scheduling extracurricular activities, I still miss out on many day-to-day things. I’ll be confused about a joke between my husband and daughter. Or not realize my baby boy has gained an affinity for playing with empty bottles. It’s not because I don’t care, it’s simply because I’m at work 40 hours a week.
Traditionally, dads get a bad rap for not knowing these little, or sometimes big, details.
I think a lot of people attribute it as a male trait. Maybe that’s true to an extent, but I also think it’s simply because they’re often working in a different building than home!
As a working parent, I would love to spend more time with my kids. (Although I’ll admit I do enjoy going to the bathroom by myself and getting to eat one meal a day in peace.) But, not to sound cliche, someone has to pay the bills.
When I was on maternity leave and my husband had a little lighter workload with school, I couldn’t imagine either of us being at work full-time, day-in and day-out. It seemed as though our entire family should be together all of the time. (I’d probably bite my tongue if that actually became our reality).
The Reality
While this is a lovely thought, at the end of the day, at least one parent often has to be at work a lot. Because of that, that same parent won’t have a total grip on the latest favorite snack, nap time routine, or even how the kitchen floor gets clean. We’re sorry, but we’re trying.
By the way, apparently we don’t use a mop. We use a Swiffer!