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Comment by anon4242 | Hacker News Reader

I guess you have some solid data to support that statement?

I unfortunately only have anecdotal evidence that 60h is not implausible.

Me and my wife have two kids and share most of the household work, it's not an even split (she does more). I would say that on average we both work from the time we get back home from work until the kids sleep, ~4hrs later. In addition to that, one of us probably spends some 30 mins each morning getting the kids ready for school. Saturdays and Sundays typically involve two cooked meals per day plus any bigger household work that the weekdays won't fit. So I guess we spend some 60h/week on chores.

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Are we counting all time spent with children as a chore?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a father of two. Like you, our work is not split evenly, though I like to think I take on a higher share than most similarly situated men. There are times when my time with my sons can be trying, and I can get behind counting some fraction of that time as work.

On the other hand, just today my son and I spent three hours going to and from a playdate with a friend of his. I'm also friends with the dad. It was a pleasant time for all involved, and we got some sun and some exercise. This is not an atypical way for us to spend a Sunday afternoon. If this is accounted for as "work" then I would say the statistic is a bit misleading, as that is not something most people I know would consider labor.

And I also had a 3 hour meeting today with co-workers that I enjoy working with, solving a problem we all care about. That was work.

I'll be commuting home for an hour. That is work.

Tonight I'll be putting the kids to bed, then tidying up the kitchen. That is also work.

I think it is fair to say, that as an adult with kids, much of your time that you aren't doing something just for you, will to a degree be work. And that is OK. As long as you and your partner are happy with the split you have, then that is OK too.

It's a fuzzy area. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. When we do something together that I also enjoy, then it isn't. When it's about something he wants and I'm just there because I need to be while I'd rather be doing something else, then it's a chore.

I don't think there's any way to objectively measure that.

It's tricky is distinguishing between necessities, expectations, and personal preferences.

For example, it is undeniable that you've got to eat. You can get some tolerable food on the table in 15 minutes (e.g., ramen, Kraft Dinner). Adults, especially with kids, are usually expected to serve a wider variety of foods, especially healthier ones (~45 min to prepare?). Of course, you can also spend all day in kitchen making beef wellington and homemade bread. In the latter cases, some of that time is a "chore", but some of it is also essentially a hobby. Likewise for gardening, auto maintenance, and even keeping the house absolutely spotless strikes me as a kind of (odd) hobby.

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