The Hardest Job in the World? Domestic work and its challenges

When we hear “the hardest job in the world”, we expect something heroic and uncommon, someone making a research breakthrough in cancer or flying to another planet. However, when looked at closely, domestic life and its challenges easily win the title.

This is surprising because we don’t consider household management to be difficult. Why? Two reasons: Romanticism & Capitalism. Romanticism with its fixation on the “happily ever after” never considers that bickering over bathroom manners or having kids would be a problem. 

Similarly, Capitalism dismisses the domestic by suggesting that machines have solved the domestic strife - the dishwasher, the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner have together allowed us to focus on what really matters - paid work. 

At best, domestic work is boring and unavoidable drudgery that we all take our turns with. It is surprising then that such routine effort - doing the laundry, keeping the fridge stocked, cleaning up after meals - causes us everyday frustration.

This is because when we expect something to be easy and it turns out not to be, there’s a particular kind of struggle and bad mood that follows. The same is with domestic labour - decisions around taking out the trash or choosing the right curtains suddenly becomes painful. 

Instead of sympathetic discussion, domestic concerns lead to nagging - a hasty attempt to force someone to do something they’re resisting, which causes passive avoidance and shirking.

We give up trying to talk and, without sympathy, simply snarl and grab the remote, or get up suddenly and slam the window shut, or go outside and start the car – all symptoms of deeply serious issues that over time causes dissatisfaction & dejection in our relationship. 

This is where the classical view can help. It demands that for starters, we consider the challenges of sharing a space (with all the financial & practical responsibilities) as being just as important as any other concern. It's a mindset shift. 

The second thing we do is communicate and negotiate: what works, what does not, what we can compromise on and what is important to us. Through this periodic communication, we’re not overidentifying with domestic life, we’re just according it the importance it demands. 

Bottom line: Each of us is forgivably weird around our domestic habits; thus it is imperative that (1) we acknowledge the role domestic life plays in defining our relationships and (2) we communicate how it affects us us instead of diminishing domestic concerns as merely “chores”