Thursday, September 9, 2010

Gestapo? Me?

Today, I am thinking about the defining roles that Eric and I carry in our house.

He is the person that takes care of all the breaks, leaks, grass mowin, animal feeding, tire kicking, and big furniture moving. You know all the big male stuff that little ole' me can't handle.

I do the women's work. I know its sexist but my dad calls it that. Eric insinuates it. E is already jumping on the bandwagon with, "Hey Mom, what's for dinner?" and "I need clean socks!" Even the baby totally knows who to turn to when tummy is empty or boo boos need to be kissed. I do what I can to keep the house somewhat presentable. I am no Martha Stewart, but I am what they were given and I think they are satisfied for the most part.

And you know what? I totally love it. Sure, I may act offended sometimes when I come home and they are laying across the bar barely able to lift their limp, malnourished bodies because between the two of them (Conner is still totally innocent here) they can't figure out that a (made by them) pb&j will totally take that hunger pain away until mom can get in here and make dinner.

The real job I am questioning, is the one of the financial planner.

The money distributor.

The bill payer.

The financial. decision. maker.

I don't wanna do that anymore.

I have always been the one to pay the bills, calculate the budget and keep things rockin along.

We have had to make some drastic cuts these last couple of months and since I handle the money, I kinda feel like I am the bad guy handing out the meager allowances and cheep stipends for our weekly needs.

Eric refuses to keep up with the balance of the checkbook which makes ME have to tell him what is in there when he wants to make a purchase.

I kinda hate it.

We work so very hard and I just don't wanna be the doom and gloom of spend thrift all the time.

Sometimes I want HIM to give me my allowance and let me skip off freely while he handles the cable bill. HMMPH

1 comment:

kate said...

Yeah, I do a bit of the "woman's work", but mostly just the cooking, because I like to cook and plus it gives me time away from the boys (gosh that sounds awful, but you know what I mean). H has always done the cleaning, but now, we argue over who gets to do it, because then the other one is responsible for taking care of both boys at once (which I do all day every day and which he practically cannot do without freaking out).

Back in the day when we were both working, we had separate accounts, and he would pay the mortgage out of his and I would pay everything else. And since I'm the one always pushing to spend money on "fun" things, it was my account that was emptied at the end of every month, and so it was me who had to calculate all the expenditures. But now that it's just H's income, he does the calculating, and he suuuuuuuuuuucks at it. He's constantly mildly pissed at me for spending money, but he doesn't know enough about the state of our accounts to be able to tell me that we don't have enough money to spend like that. So. Not my fault, and now with the twins, I am SO not going to take on that responsibility, too!