How’s the housework and child-care divvied up in your house? Is Mommy rocking an old-school June Cleaver impression? Is Daddy pulling a Mr. Mom? Or are you working together to land somewhere in between?
Well, according to research published just last month, division of labor actually has a major impact on the happiness of your entire household.
This new study analyzed data from hundreds of families and found that life satisfaction was greatest in those families where men pitched in more. Specifically, the researchers found that following the birth of a child, men who did more housework and participated more in caring for the new child experienced a boost to their overall life satisfaction. Guys who were less involved? They experienced no such boost.
Add this study to an already existing body of research showing that men who do more housework have happier wives and better marriages, and you have a pretty good argument for sharing the chores.
In our family, we do a pretty decent job of each pitching in. Amber has some specialties that she usually takes care of, like dusting, shopping and making sure the kids don’t starve most days. Andy’s areas of expertise include vacuuming, nail clipping and removing both baby and cat poop from the house. We both change diapers, put the little ones to bed and pick up now and again.
From our experience, this setup leaves us both pretty darn happy – and only occasionally results in our house looking like an episode of Hoarders.
We can live with that.
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[…] that big of a deal. Andy is a pretty modern, participating dad, and we know how important it is for dads to be involved in raising the kids and all […]