January 24, 2019 - The second shift is you getting the shaft.
     Q. The second shift in 2019? When Iâm 23? My boyfriend and I live together and weâre incredibly happy. Weâre in our early 20s and live in New York with two full-time jobs and side hustles. Weâre both equally ambitious and serious about our future, both professionally and as a couple.    Â
     I typically beat him home from work, and while I admit I tend to be the neater roommate and more inclined in the kitchen, we have fallen in the habit of me taking over the cleaning and cooking. My boyfriend vocalizes that heâs appreciative of everything I do but groans and drags his feet when I ask him to help out too. Weâve had the conversation multiple times, both light-heartedly and seriously. It does take a toll on me. I enjoy both activities of cooking and cleaning (being a neat freak and vegan home chef will do that to you), but I canât help but think this might be a red flag down the road. If Iâm 23 and already dutifully showing up for the second shift as we build our life together, what will happen when weâre 43 (hopefully with kids) and still in this pattern?  Â
Red flag? Okay, this is me waving you off the runway with giant fucking red flags!Â
Look, division of the labor in the home should always be equal between two working partners. If you were unemployed, then I would say that cooking and cleaning should be your job since we all gotta work.Â
As a vegan chef and someone who likes to clean how I like to clean, I feel you, I completely do. But Mr. Bitch is always asking if he can help and never complains.Â
It sounds like someone didnât raise your boyfriend right.
This sounds like the man who calls watching his own kids âbabysitting.âÂ
If you stay with this man, youâll end up the house bitch. Youâll work all day, come home, take care of everything, and heâll be watching the football game, and then playing video games when it comes time to bath the kids and put them to bed. Youâll ask for help, heâll sigh and make a big show out of how much he hates it - teaching that behavior to your kids btw - and then eventually heâll move into the classic, âBut I worked all day, I just want to watch the game!â excuse. Youâll yell back that you worked all day too and youâre still working and that itâs not hard.
And then youâll either put up with it and his dismissal of you as a person and a woman, youâll separate and heâll be shit on his own with the kids and youâll still have all the work, or heâll start seeing another woman complaining that âyou donât treat him like a real man,â and youâll break up where you get stuck with the kids and the bills while he fucks off with another woman whose life heâll ruin as soon as she figures out his game.
Any man worth his salt knows two things -
1. Women still do the majority of all work in the home and itâs bullshit.
2. He better fucking ask to help and do so cheerfully so long as heâs only being asked to do his equal half. You cook, he cleans, and we can both complain about chores, but not to blame the other.Â
You think I like to mop and Mr. Bitch likes to vacuum? Hell no. But we do it, then sit down together and go, âFucking adulting, right?â And thatâs it. Be blah about your home work together, not in opposition to each other.
Leave him, he wasnât raised right and itâs likely if he does change, itâll only be temporary. Certainly make sure you donât breed with him.Â
