so true...

From Confessions of a Slacker Wife by Muffy Mead-Ferro:

It’s different for my generation than it was for generations past… For one thing, women's lives have changed radically in the past couple of generations because so many of us are working full or part time outside our homes. So we're out there taking care of bosses, clients, and customers.

But too often, when we get home, it feels like we're supposed to take care of everything there too... Case in point: My husband exasperates me sorely from time to time by asking such questions as "Do we have bread?"

I realize from an intellectual standpoint that this is nothing to get irked about. I am aware that from my husband's straightforward viewpoint, "Do we have bread?" is a yes-or-no question as to the status of a simple material fact. "Do we have bread?" does not, in his mind, warrant a reply such as the following from me:

"Do we have bread? Am I to understand, from your question, that you do not know, after the five-and-a-half years we have spent in this house where the bread is kept? Or should I simply infer that you are too lazy to look in the bread basket? And is it also the case, since you would never be expected to keep abreast of what the bread supply is or, God forbid, actually go to the store to replace the bread that we've eaten or let get moldy, that it is my job and my job alone to know what the bread inventory is and to do what's necessary to make sure it is maintained at a level where you can eat bread whenever you feel like it? Or is this just your irritatingly indirect way of asking me to get up and get you a piece of bread??
...
But it's not just the number of wifely chores I have--and the fact that I don't have my own wife to unload them on--that chafes me. It's also the "invisible" nature of my household tasks that makes them a little more onerous. Of course, it's only reasonable for the workload in any operation, including a household, to be divided according to who does what best, and I'm in favor of that. Even if it means the work ends up being divided along somewhat traditional, what some people would call sexist, lines.

The fact is, my husband is far better at hanging light fixtures, and I'm far better at folding laundry... [so often our chores are] unequal in terms of their visibility.

You hang a light fixture up there, and it's up there for everyone to see. "Wow, that looks great," I can be expected to declare before my husband is finished putting the last screw in the ceiling plate. And even other people, when they visit our dining room a week later, might say, "Hey, you got a new chandelier." That sort of recognition is nice payoff for the person who hung the light fixture. Or planted the tree. Or built the fence. Or installed the new stereo. It would tend to make that person feel like they were valued and appreciated. That, I can only imagine, must be nice.

But who's there to say how well my husband's clean underwear were folded? Do the dinner guests, a week later, remark on it? No. The symmetry, consistency, and precision with which I can fold and stack a half-dozen pairs of boxer shorts is completely lost on the person who unfolds them, so it's hardly surprising if the people who came over to eat dinner don't take notice.