Tips for Young Wives: Set the Bar for your Husband Low

As the world falls to pieces around us, some things remain constant. Lori Alexander, for instance. The patriarchal blogger has posted a list of Homemaking Tips for Young Wives, gleaned from the women in the chat room she runs.

Let’s have a look at some of these, shall we?

“Don’t expect your husband to do half of all the household chores. Plan that you are responsible for housework and be grateful when your husband helps you. Entitlement leads to disappointment and conflict. If you assume it’s your job, you will feel gratitude for the help rather than checking to see if he did all of his half.” (Lindsay)

Talk about setting the bar low! If you don’t expect your husband to ever help you with anything, of course you’ll be surprised and gratified if he does! How kind of him, to be a decent human being! Wow!

Maybe try not having such low expectations of your husband?

The thing about advice like this is that it mixes the bad with some not so bad. People see the not so bad, and they think it’s reasonable, and accept the whole thing, including the bad. What am I talking about? I’ll explain with a story.

During the early years of my marriage, my husband and I agreed to take turns washing the dishes. I did them one night, he did them the next. The problem was that he frequently didn’t do them. Somehow we fell into a system where I and only I did the dishes. When we discussed it, he’d cite something like a dish drainer system he didn’t like. But if we fixed that, he still didn’t do the dishes. And that made me frustrated! Because he was supposed to do the dishes!

The thing is, though, I don’t actually mind washing dishes. Sure, it’s a pain! But if you line up all the chores, well, I’d rather do that than laundry, or cleaning the bathroom! So finally, after years of built up frustration over the dishes, I proposed to my husband that I be the one who does the dishes, and asked if there was a different chore he’d like to own, since he clearly did not like doing the dishes. We made a list, and he picked laundry, which, it turns out, is a chore he doesn’t mind, much like I don’t actually mind doing the dishes.

So here I am, today, washing all the dishes myself, but unlike the early days of my marriage, I’m not frustrated by it at all! The solution, though, wasn’t to set the bar for my husband so low that anything he did at all would be a special surprise. No, the solution was communication. And collaboration and cooperation and compromise!

One thing I’m learned in general is that if I’m constantly being frustrated by something—my children’s inability to hang up their coats, for instance—I have two options. I can try to get the behavior to change, or I can change the conditions within which the behavior occurs. The coats, for instance. I finally asked my kids why they were apparently incapable of hanging up their coats, and they pointed out that the child-level coat hooks were under the adult coats, and hard for them to reach. They were right! I moved their hooks and their behavior improved.

I mean, do they still leave their coats on the floor? Yes. They’re children. We’re working on it. But do they leave their coats on the floor as often? No, they do not! Making their hooks easier for them to access had changed the background in which they operate and affected their choices. When I’m getting frustrated with a behavior I don’t like, whether it’s my husband or my children, I try to ask why it’s happening. Sometimes changing the background in which the behavior takes place is enough. Sometimes it’s not, and in that case we go back to communication.

But we’re getting a bit far afield here! Let’s return to Lori’s post.

“Have a written daily list of chores to do. Make a separate list of deep cleaning items and rotate through them regularly. Do laundry at least once a week and up to daily as your family grows. Find the most frugal ways to do everything you do.” (Debbie)

I have no problem with this one.

“If you see something that needs to be done, do it right away! Have a place for everything and teach everyone to put everything in its place. Make beds every single morning. Teach your children to make their beds. It makes the room appear cleaner and instills the daily discipline which translates into other areas. Plan meals ahead to save money on groceries, ensure you don’t waste food, and cuts down on the grocery bill/eating out. You will eat much healthier this way too!” (Danielle)

Again, cool! This one is great advice!

It strikes me again that one reason patriarchal writers like Lori gain an audience is by mixing genuinely good advice in with very, very bad advice.

“Do all things for the glory of God and respect your husband.” (Nancy)

Uhhh … see what I mean?

“As the great Elizabeth Elliott has wisely said, ‘Do the next thing.’ Don’t focus on all your tasks, just do the next thing.” (Jennifer)

And with that, we’re back to good advice!

“Make your home as lovely as you can afford while keeping it simple and minimal. This will help make cleaning and keeping it tidy manageable.” (Beth)

Cool! (Although I do wonder how advice like this will make those whose homes don’t live up to this standard feel. Maybe it’ll give them ideas or motivation, but it could also be just plain discouraging.)

“Greet your hubby with a cheerful heart and kiss as soon as he walks in the door no matter how hard and busy your day has been.” (Yrena)

So, full confession, I actually try to do this, for both my husband and for my kids when they return from school. But I don’t see it as fake. No matter how busy or hard my day has been (including my paying gigs!), I’m always genuinely happy to see them. So, I set aside what I’m doing for a moment, and I greet them with a smile! It’s not about fakery. And guess what? They generally have a smile for me too!

“Be in a constant state of decluttering. It’ll prevent things from becoming overwhelming. Go through the mail daily and throw out the junk and extra envelopes and what not. Take ten minutes to straighten the linen closet before it becomes a black hole that ends up taking hours to reorganize. Find joy and freedom in minimalism.” (Brook)

Man, I wish I took this advice more to heart than I do. I do try. But the clutter, is it ever an unrelenting despot!

“Believe, study, and apply God’s truths on the importance of homemaking (not being idle, attitude/temperament, being a wise woman, etc.) On the days that I don’t feel like homemaking, remembering God’s word helps me to stay the course!” (Nisha)

I … okay. Yoga can help too. Or turning on some upbeat music. Or a warm cup of tea with a scoop of sugar. Or some quiet relaxation and meditation. While Nisha’s suggestion here may work for women who view the Bible as a guide, it also risks injecting guilt. We all have down days, days where things just don’t go as planned, days when we can’t get out of a funk. Sometimes we need a day to just chill. Injecting guilt over “idleness” sounds unhelpful.

I’m pretty sure there are also Bible verses about resting.

“When you get something out and when you’re done, put it away. When you do the laundry, as soon as it’s dry, fold it and put it away. When you get home from the grocery store, put the groceries away. A non-junky house is much easier to clean.” (Rebecca)

While this is definitely something I aspire to, it’s a work in progress. So much of this advice is good advice, but also somehow … obvious? Like, thank you, you have identified my problem! The solution is harder to implement.

“Stay home. Be a keeper AT home. You already have a job in the home. You don’t need one outside of the home.” (Stephanie)

Annnnnd back to this.

“I’m not a wife yet, so I will mention something my father said once to me. He said that he was always happy to come home, because he was greeted by children running to him to welcome him home. My mother was usually in the kitchen already, putting on the finishing touches on supper. They always kissed after we kids finished greeting father. My mother would help by calling out, ‘Daddy’s home!’ if we kids got too distracted to hear him walk in. We kids literally dropped whatever we were doing to run and greet him! He said he loved going straight home after work!

Do you know what I realized some while ago? This is true for kids coming home from school, too! In fact, it’s true for anyone coming home after being away! We all like being treated by the people we love. We all like having a treat waiting. My husband brings me coffee in the mornings, and even though he’s been doing it for a long time, it still makes me smile. I feel seen, cared about, and appreciated. We all like to be seen, cared about, and appreciated.

“My father also said he had coworkers who literally did things like going to bars to avoid going home to chaos, messy homes, loud children, grouchy or indifferent wives, etc. In other words, it was not pleasant to go home.” (Genevieve)

Yeah, and I read a book titled Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There that’s about men who would go to bars after work and drink away their money, leaving their wives hard-pressed to feed the children, and then they’d go home drunk and beat their wives. I get that this book was written as a temperance propaganda piece—in 1854 no less—but I’m not so keen on chalking up men going to bars instead of home after work to the supposed faults of their wives.

“Start your day in the Word! It sets the tone for the entire day.” (Ashlyn)

Or yoga. Or meditation.

“You are in God’s will. Focus on Him and trust that He sees your diligence and heart. He sees the effort, even when no one else does, and He will reward you.” (Paige)

This sounds to me like a wait o make yourself feel better if your husband doesn’t appreciate how much you do around the home, or the amount of effort you put in with the kids. And that makes me sad.

I’ll reiterate what I said earlier—the mixture of generic, generally good advice with toxic ideas like not expecting your husband to lift a finger is fascinating, and helps explain why this sort of content appeals to a certain group of (white, evangelical) young married women.

I’ve often wondered whether this demographic of women needs more content that feels geared toward them that isn’t written from a patriarchal perspective. I’m thinking of both working women whose husbands aren’t particularly woke and women who are homemakers. Women in this demographic have legitimate frustrations with their husbands, and may have few tools to solve these frustrations, leaving an opening for patriarchal teachers like Lori, who are happy to explain that this is just how husbands are, and that their role is to accommodate them and accept that.

Maybe I should create a post gleaned from readers’ tips for women, similar to Lori’s post above … except not similar. If you were to make suggestions for young married women a la Lori’s post, what would your suggestions look like?

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