Remember Inland Empress? (Here's a previous mention in this very blog.) Well, she left her empire several years ago and is now...um, across the border in Arizona. Disguising her imperial character under the name Anne Boles Levy, she was recently quoted in a piece in Raising Arizona Kids entitled Voices from the Village: Domestic responsibilities. Alexandra Muller Arboleda introduces the article with the following:
Should you let your spouse do the laundry even if your favorite yoga pants might be ruined?
Sometimes the key to balancing domestic and childcare responsibilities is as much about giving up control over how you want things done as it is about equality. Perhaps balance falls somewhere in between holding on and letting go. Six local couples share what works for them.
Levy's portion begins as follows:
Ever since Henry Ford powered up the first assembly line, Americans have embraced the idea of dividing labor into bite-sized pieces. Sadly, anyone who lives in a house of any size—particularly one with children—quickly realizes the unlikelihood of keeping it functioning in any systematic way.
My husband and I have worked out a plan for keeping the house somewhat habitable. He does the dishes, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, dusting, mopping and general repair. My job in all this is to apologize profusely.
Read the rest here.
