It Feels Like No One Else Sees Messes But Moms, And We're Sick Of This Sh*t

Times are definitely changing, friends. If you peeked into windows of households across America today, you’d see men vacuuming, folding laundry, and cooking dinner far more than in generations past. (Only don’t peek into other people’s windows—that’s creepy. And illegal.) But the point is, the 1950s June Cleaver mentality that it was “women’s work” to do all the scrubbing and dusting and tidying while the men came home from work at 5, put their feet up, and were “done for the day” is archaic and dying out.

That ludicrous image just isn’t the reality for today’s households (and tbh, it wasn’t the reality for lots of families back then either). Today’s moms are bringing home the paychecks, alongside their partners. And today’s dads are changing diapers and emptying the dishwasher more than ever before.

However.

We still have a long way to go, don’t we? Even though we aren’t expected to cook a roast while wearing lipstick and heels and keep our homes spotless anymore, women far too often still take on the lion’s share of the household chores. Whether it’s because we don’t know how to ask for help, we’re ignored when we do, or our family members simply don’t “see” the mess, it can drive us to the brink when we scrub the kitchen clean at 10 p.m., only to see it trashed by 8 a.m. the next morning.

The truth is, we need our families to step up in a big way and help out more. It shouldn’t still fall on women to be the primary when it comes to cleaning chores. We’re doing it all (in case you somehow missed it)—working, raising the children, managing the household, and over the past year, we’re also teachers since kids worldwide have been attending school virtually. So we’re gonna need you, fam, to pick up a dust rag, put your dirty cup in the dishwasher, and hang up your damn coats.

We’re fucking tired.

Unfortunately, lots of husbands out there still don’t see the value in helping with household chores. It makes us feel invisible, taken for granted, and frankly, bitter AF.

When our families expect us to do it all and don’t help out around the house, it make us feel like servants, rather than appreciated, hard-working moms and partners.

Knowing that everyone else walks past the mess all damn day, but none of them “see it” (conveniently) makes us spit fire. And then they have the nerve to ask why we’re mad.

Because the truth is, we’re burnt the fuck out. This pandemic has sucked every last bit of life force from us, and we are running on fumes. Seriously, the next time I trip over someone’s shoes because it was too much to ask for that person to put them on the shoe rack, and instead, they’d rather risk Mom spraining her ankle while she carries an overflowing laundry basket, I swear I’m going to get in my car and drive to a faraway land where all the shoes are put on the shoe rack and all the coats are hung on coat hooks and there are no dirty spoons and cereal bowls and cups left all over the counters. I don’t know if that place exists (it probably doesn’t), but I’m gonna look reeeeeeally hard.

Seriously.

I’m going.