I heard this study that was published this May on the radio today. The headline is:
Men relax best when wives are doing housework chores!
My first question was: How is it possible that I did not hear about this until now?! Is the Universe conspiring to keep this earth-shattering news from me?
You are probably thinking: “I need a study to tell me this?” I know. But it is always nice to have your suspicion confirmed by rigorous scientific research.
For starters, the researchers “measured stress hormones and daily activities”, specifically, they “sampled saliva repeatedly to measure cortisol, which increases in stressful situations”, a most objective measurement: so there is no arguing that women only feel more stressed because they bitch about everything and they CARE MORE about whether the dishes are done, the laundry is folded, and the floor is not covered with random objects.
The study was done with researchers observing “30 dual-earner couples in Los Angeles, each with at least one child ages 8-10. Most had two or three children. The average marriage was 13 years and the average age was 41… Over four days, two weekend days and two weekdays, researchers tracked activities at 10-minute intervals.”
And here are the highlights of their findings:
- For women, healthier cortisol levels resulted when their husbands spent more time pitching in on housework
- For husbands, more leisure time was linked with healthier cortisol when their wives spent more time doing house-related work and less time in leisure.
- Men, when they come back home, tend to be alone in a room.
- Women, when get back home, tend to be with one or more children doing childcare.
- When women are alone, they tend to be doing housework; When men are alone, they tend to be relaxing.
(Note that none of these families have YOUNG CHILDREN. I can only imagine the discrepancy to be even more skewed between men and women were babies and toddlers present in these households studied)
You know what? All my feminist sisters could throw banana peels at me. I am not outraged by the research findings at all. Nope. Au contraire!
I. AM. ELATED.
Why?
Because I am going to remember this research next time I hear about some other woman talking about how her husband pitches in, 50-50, and then I will not secretly hide in the bathroom and cry.
Because I am normal. I am NOT alone. I am part of the statistics. Part of the cogs that make up normalcy. Like the common stock photos showing a man reading newspaper while his wife vacuums and him lifting his legs up for the vacuum out of consideration.
Kapow! Woohoo! I am doing a happy dance while I survey the disaster zone that is our house and also my weekend project. (If you call housework a PROJECT, you feel more accomplished and less housewifery…)
It is truly a relief to know I am simply part of the normalcy.
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