Growing up, did you get to see Dad helping around the house, especially around the kitchen? But let’s be real, those dads were probably out there hustling to provide for the family.
Fast forward to adulthood, and now you’re the mom, juggling a million things while dad’s MIA. It’s not that he’s not working hard, but his absence can pile up the workload on you. And let’s face it, some dads are a bit clueless when it comes to household chores.
So, you find yourself doing it all—cooking, cleaning, wrangling the kids, and still trying to keep your sanity. But hey, it’s time to get Dad helping out around here!
How to Get Dad Helping According To Research
People believe that dads do more work since they have to combine both financial workloads with house chores but that’s for the dads that do house chores anyway.
If you are overwhelmed and need to get dad helping then read through the article to know how to get your man to help with the work around the house.
When it comes to a man and woman relationship, especially when it comes to you thinking of marrying someone, you should, by all means, settle with a man you can easily approach when it gets too much for you instead of confiding in other random people or friends who shouldn’t even be aware of what’s going on indoors.
Before kids come, it will be quite easy to live with your spouse, at this point it’s just the both of you, the dishes are small, the laundry doesn’t need so much time and energy and then the kids come and the workload is double if not triple of what it used to be.
Furthermore
When living together and raising kids there should be what everyone can do and what they can’t do. You should know your spouse’s strengths and weaknesses and know how to approach him for an adjustment that you desire.
Your work as a woman right from creation has always tilted more towards house chores. But with the way things have turned, women aren’t just sitting at home to wash and clean anymore, they work too.
According to a survey by BabyCenter, a large number of couples with children have disagreements over house chores. You don’t want to turn into that grumpy wife so brooding with resentment and anger. You can go for a better solution for you to get what you want.
If you have office work or business to attend to and need help around the house, there are ways you can get Dad helping around the house.
How To Get Dad Helping Around The House
1. Have a conversation on how to get dad helping
The first way to sort out any misunderstanding is having a conversation. He is human and this is why I established above that marrying someone you can approach to air out how you feel about a thing is very important.
He is seeing what you are doing and seeing the part where you can’t meet up and might have just settled to live with it that way. Explain to him that your house is unkempt and you will need him to join you and keep the place clean enough. Tell him how exhausting it is doing it all by yourself.
According to Coleman nagging is a very wrong approach to get someone to listen to you and see things the way you want them to see that thing so choose a friendly and calm approach. Show appreciation for whatever he might be doing right at home and then present your concern to him.
A dad who cares about his home and family will certainly make some amendments on how to get dad helping
2. Let him choose
Give him the options available. Ask him to choose what he can help you with comfortably. It could be laundry, clearing the table after each meal, or taking out trash.
If you are going with this choice and he chooses to do just one out of all the chores then you will have to live with the fact that he is not a chore-loving person and you live with this imperfection.
3. Don’t pile up chores
It gets exhausting and boring when you have to do a lot at the same time. You can share the chores and do them bit by bit throughout the week. He will feel less stress doing it than when all is piled up.
Dads don’t believe anyone should be stressed doing too much, especially not them. After all, daddies already do a lot by providing a roof and food.
4. Teach him
If you observe that his weakness is that he doesn’t know how to do it, you can teach him how to do it. He might not even open up to say he doesn’t know how to do it. You will have to be observant enough to know what his real challenge is.
Start with doing it with him. Invite him to join you in the kitchen when you want to cook. Lure him the best way you can give him onion to chop or carrot or veggies and playfully direct him on how it is done.
Try to teach him anything you would want him to help with that you know he will like, be it cooking doing dishes, or separating clothes for laundry. You might have married a man who probably had someone who did everything for him while he was unmarried. You have to be patient with him and pamper him till he learns.
5. Don’t try to boss him around
Men don’t like to be dictated to, especially not being dictated to by a spouse. If you want to get a positive result from him then even when you taught him what he is doing you have to maintain that he is a boss.
If you taught him how to do a chore, let him do it himself when he wants to. don’t try to tell him how to do it over and over. Or order every step he takes. It can be a turn-off and he will likely not attempt to do it again.
6. Give him an easy task he will enjoy doing
Everyone has a chore that they hate doing. Find out the chore he would like to do and give him that chore to do. If he hates cooking, don’t force cooking on him, you will not get any positive results.
Both of you should agree on what can work for him. and encourage him to stick to what he chose as his work.
Advice For Moms on How to Get Dad Helping
When marriage has turned mostly to an obligation, and the two parties are acting like familiar strangers living under the same roof. It could affect how they are even working together.
- Take out time with your partner and reconnect.
- Hang out together and have some fun.
- Build friendship once again.
In a home where there are true friendships, one person will not be acting ignorant of the other person’s suffering because he will be aware, fully aware of what is going on. When there is true friendship in marriage, you will get the offer from the man and not beg a grown adult to do what he is supposed to do.
If getting him to help will cause trouble at home, you can save yourself the trouble and get someone to help out with the chores that you can pay. You can even talk to him to add paying them to his budget since he can’t be of any help.
At least his money should do the work for him. You can schedule this person or people for the cleaning to come once a week, probably weekends when you will likely be home for supervision.
It’s not very healthy to have to do all of that work by yourself. It’s not just healthy but you will also need a healthy environment at home to live.
If he refuses to pay those to clean and will not help with the chores then you can come out hard on him.
Sometimes, you have to shout to get someone to hear you. Threaten to do or not to do certain things that you know will affect him if you do or don’t do. Maybe this will show him that you are serious and get him to sit up.
Last Words
No good dad will want you to do all of the chores yourself. Look at his schedule and see if he has intentionally ignored you to do all of the chores alone. If his work is so demanding and he doesn’t have that extra time for that house chores then both of you should agree on what to ease the burden on one person.
You and your partner must approach it peacefully by having a conversation first about how you are feeling. Sometimes you might think he knows but he might be too caught up in his world to even have noticed.
If your partner however is not bothered about a clean environment and doesn’t mind living in the house the way he sees it and you are the one insisting on having a perfect clean environment then you shouldn’t force your desires on him.
It’s only in a situation where he is complaining too about the state of the house that you can insist on both of you looking for a solution to achieve what you want. In this situation, you can then apply the steps you read earlier.
And if at the end of the day, he still won’t do anything you can switch a bit to the hard side.
At the end of the day, do what suits your house and understand that all men are not the same and won’t do things the way another man is doing.
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