ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606170011
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
AMERICAN couples with kids are relatively enlightened nowadays, in theory anyway, about the importance of greater equity between the sexes.
Few people would admit to believing that women should be barefoot and pregnant, responsible for doing virtually all the child-raising and housework. After all, a majority of American women now are in the paid work force. A lot of households couldn't get by otherwise.
If both spouses are working outside the home, then, all things being equal, they should expect to share the domestic responsibilities more or less evenly. Right?
Well, a recent Newsweek poll shows couples with children agreeing in their expressed support for the idea of more equitable sharing of parenting and housework. But considerable disagreement surfaces when it comes to the actual amount of sharing that goes on.
For example, 54 percent of fathers surveyed say they contribute equally to child-raising in their household. Yet only one-third of mothers say they and their spouses share parenting equally.
Another 24 percent of the fathers say they do more parenting than their partners. Yet only 3 percent of moms say the fathers do more. Half the women say they do more parenting.
With regard to housework, 67 percent of fathers say they do as much as their spouses. But 57 percent of women say they do most of the housework.
We have here, at the very least, a communication problem.
In the big picture, the survey doubtless underscores a dramatic shift from days when women were expected to rear the kids and clean the toilets. In this era of the nurturing father and sensitive husband, men in most two-parent households are doing more parenting and housework than they used to. On this day of all days, such progress warrants celebration.
The Newsweek poll, however, did not survey women who are, in increasing numbers, heading households without benefit of a spouse.
And the gender gap evident in the survey responses makes one thing clear: Even though men in two-parent households may agree on the need to share domestic chores, they are sharing them to an extent still more evident to themselves than to their wives.
In some cases, wives may be failing to appreciate the full scope of their husbands' efforts. In other cases, definitions may differ as to what it means to parent or to do housework.
Responsibility is, for example, a consideration. It's one thing to help with various activities, another to be responsible for them. Doing dishes is nice - but who routinely makes sure dinner is on the table?
Another possibility is that some of the gender gap in the survey mirrors a credibility gap. Maybe some married men need to bring their walk into greater conformity with their talk - need to realize that taking out the trash isn't enough.
We're not saying domestic life should be a set of negotiated political arrangements bound by written contracts and requiring exact equivalence in duties. If a man likes to cook and his wife doesn't, whose business is it but their own?
At the least, though, this survey suggests the need for more parents to discuss what's involved with responsibilities around the house and how they should be apportioned. In these harried times, as men, women and households are besieged by conflicting demands, sharing is not only fair. It's a necessity.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 linesby CNB