Columns
Talk of the Town: More housework for you and me!
By Regina Ford
Now, don’t be shocked, loyal readers.
This certainly isn’t rocket science, but according to a new study reported by livescience.com, having a husband creates an extra seven hours of housework each week for women. For men, saying “I do” saves an hour of weekly chores.
“It’s a well-known pattern,” said lead researcher Frank Stafford, an economist at University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. “Men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labor.”
He points out individual differences among households exist. But in general, marriage means more housework for women and less for men.
“And the situation gets worse for women when they have children,” Stafford said.
Overall, (as Bob Dylan sang), “the times they are a’ changing” in the American home.
In 1976, women scrubbed and dusted an average of 26 hours a week, compared with 17 hours in 2005. Men are pitching in, more than doubling their housework hours from six in 1976 to 13 in 2005.
Stafford analyzed time-diaries and questionnaires from a nationally representative sample of men and women over a 10-year period between 1996 and 2005. The federally-funded study showed that, compared with the single life, marriage meant more housework for both men and women.
“Marriage is no longer a man’s path to less housework,” Stafford said.
Single women in their 20s and 30s did the least housework, about 12 weekly hours, while married women in their 60s and 70s did the most - about 21 hours a week.
Men showed a somewhat different pattern, with older men picking up the mop more often than younger men. Single guys worked the hardest around the house, trumping all age groups of married men. (The showoffs. Wait a few years when the honeymoon’s over.)
Having kids boosts house chores even further. With more than three kids, for instance, wives took on more of the extra work, clocking about 28 hours a week compared with husbands’ 10 hours.
I celebrated my 13th anniversary this week and I must say, “I’m a lucky girl!”
My husband is tidy in the house. His car is immaculate, though. We should both live in it.
Anyway, after 13 years of marital bliss, I still worship the ground he walks on—even the path he’s made from the refrigerator to the sofa. This path is often littered with crumbs of some sort, or tiny splashes of whatever he’s drinking.
I call it the “Hansel and Gretel Syndrome.” Just like the fairy tale children who dropped bread crumbs to find their way out of the dense forest, my dearly beloved drops crumbs, too, so as not to lose his way back to the fridge.
He has one up on Hansel and Gretel though. No birds eat the crumbs he drops—only my Oreck vacuum cleaner.
Mind you, he’s a resourceful one. Just in case there are no crumbs to follow, he can always look under the sofa cushion, where, like a squirrel who’s hidden a stash for later, there’s usually a mixed nut hiding or a few Cheetos.
The Santa Cruz Shoestring Players, a community theater in Green Valley, will present Moliere’s “The Impostures of Scapin” at 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday, April 25 and 26, and at 2 p.m., Sunday, April 27, at the Community Performing Arts and Learning Center at the Green Valley campus of the Pima Community College, 1250 W. Continental Road.
Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door and may be purchased at the Green Valley Sahuarita Chamber of Commerce and The Community Performing Arts and Learning Center.
Tickets may also be ordered by visiting the group’s Web site: www.scshoestringplayers.com.
Directed by retired drama teacher Susan Voorhees and assisted by Ray Hathaway, actor, director and retired advertising executive, “Scapin” is the group’s first production.
Following the traditions taken from the commedia dell’arte, Moli¸re developed the one-act, “The Impostures of Scapin,” around the character of the wily servant, Scapin. Modern audiences might recognize the play as Scapino. It’s a rollicking production of a classic farce with witty dialogue and choice acting.
The show features actors age 15 to mid-70s including: Jerry McAllister, Jerry Schultz, Michael Guzman, Brian Downing, Jordan Noble, Marisa A. Acosta, Brandon George, Laura Acosta, Ray Leiter, Mary Lee Taylor and Hal Streib as Scapin.
Backstage crew includes director Susan Voorhees; Ray Hathaway, assistant director; DD Jay, stage manager; Phil Wenstrand, technical and sets; Susan Ford, house manager; and Bill Dannhauser, creative consultant.
Check out a rehearsal video of the show at gvnews.com.
Get your tickets and help support our community theater!
The Green Valley Concert Band will present its “Farewell to the Snowbirds” concert at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday at the Sahuarita Auditorium, 350 Sahuarita Road.
Directed by John Snavely, the concert will feature the music of George Gershwin, Scott Joplin and John Williams, including “American in Paris,” and “ The Entertainer.”
A special musical selection will be “Schindler’s List,” featuring a performance by Michael Fan of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.
Tickets are $10 at the door and $9 in advance. Students under 18 are free. Tickets may be purchased at the Green Valley Sahuarita Chamber of commerce, Nancy Pantz and Xcapes Salon in the Continental Shopping Plaza, The Book Shop and The Answer in Gifts in the Green Valley Mall, Second Look Books, American Hair Family Cutters in the Bashas’ Plaza or from any band member.
Visit www.greenvalleyconcertband.org or call 520-300-6265.
The Green Valley Chamber Music Society’s monthly program will start at 9:45 a.m. Monday in the Parish Hall of St. Francis-in-the Valley Episcopal Church, 600 S. La Canada Dr. The concert is free and open to the public.
This month, the group will feature a cantata for soprano and basso continuo written by Vivaldi and called Amor, hai vinto performed by Helen Hanselmann, soprano; Judy Pottle, cello; and Sharlyn Matthews, piano.
Bob Murray will play a Beethoven piano sonata and Three Piano Puzzlers by Bruce Adolphe.
Judy Pottle and Mary Ann Tyrell will perform the largo movement of a Chopin sonata for cello and piano and the scherzo movement of a Beethoven sonata.
Anneke Mattson will play Melodie in G major by Robert Schumann. She will then be joined by Cal Turner to play Fantasy and Rondo for clarinet and piano by Carl Maria von Weber.
rford@gvnews.com | 547-9740
This certainly isn’t rocket science, but according to a new study reported by livescience.com, having a husband creates an extra seven hours of housework each week for women. For men, saying “I do” saves an hour of weekly chores.
“It’s a well-known pattern,” said lead researcher Frank Stafford, an economist at University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. “Men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labor.”
He points out individual differences among households exist. But in general, marriage means more housework for women and less for men.
“And the situation gets worse for women when they have children,” Stafford said.
Overall, (as Bob Dylan sang), “the times they are a’ changing” in the American home.
In 1976, women scrubbed and dusted an average of 26 hours a week, compared with 17 hours in 2005. Men are pitching in, more than doubling their housework hours from six in 1976 to 13 in 2005.
Stafford analyzed time-diaries and questionnaires from a nationally representative sample of men and women over a 10-year period between 1996 and 2005. The federally-funded study showed that, compared with the single life, marriage meant more housework for both men and women.
“Marriage is no longer a man’s path to less housework,” Stafford said.
Single women in their 20s and 30s did the least housework, about 12 weekly hours, while married women in their 60s and 70s did the most - about 21 hours a week.
Men showed a somewhat different pattern, with older men picking up the mop more often than younger men. Single guys worked the hardest around the house, trumping all age groups of married men. (The showoffs. Wait a few years when the honeymoon’s over.)
Having kids boosts house chores even further. With more than three kids, for instance, wives took on more of the extra work, clocking about 28 hours a week compared with husbands’ 10 hours.
I celebrated my 13th anniversary this week and I must say, “I’m a lucky girl!”
My husband is tidy in the house. His car is immaculate, though. We should both live in it.
Anyway, after 13 years of marital bliss, I still worship the ground he walks on—even the path he’s made from the refrigerator to the sofa. This path is often littered with crumbs of some sort, or tiny splashes of whatever he’s drinking.
I call it the “Hansel and Gretel Syndrome.” Just like the fairy tale children who dropped bread crumbs to find their way out of the dense forest, my dearly beloved drops crumbs, too, so as not to lose his way back to the fridge.
He has one up on Hansel and Gretel though. No birds eat the crumbs he drops—only my Oreck vacuum cleaner.
Mind you, he’s a resourceful one. Just in case there are no crumbs to follow, he can always look under the sofa cushion, where, like a squirrel who’s hidden a stash for later, there’s usually a mixed nut hiding or a few Cheetos.
The Santa Cruz Shoestring Players, a community theater in Green Valley, will present Moliere’s “The Impostures of Scapin” at 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday, April 25 and 26, and at 2 p.m., Sunday, April 27, at the Community Performing Arts and Learning Center at the Green Valley campus of the Pima Community College, 1250 W. Continental Road.
Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door and may be purchased at the Green Valley Sahuarita Chamber of Commerce and The Community Performing Arts and Learning Center.
Tickets may also be ordered by visiting the group’s Web site: www.scshoestringplayers.com.
Directed by retired drama teacher Susan Voorhees and assisted by Ray Hathaway, actor, director and retired advertising executive, “Scapin” is the group’s first production.
Following the traditions taken from the commedia dell’arte, Moli¸re developed the one-act, “The Impostures of Scapin,” around the character of the wily servant, Scapin. Modern audiences might recognize the play as Scapino. It’s a rollicking production of a classic farce with witty dialogue and choice acting.
The show features actors age 15 to mid-70s including: Jerry McAllister, Jerry Schultz, Michael Guzman, Brian Downing, Jordan Noble, Marisa A. Acosta, Brandon George, Laura Acosta, Ray Leiter, Mary Lee Taylor and Hal Streib as Scapin.
Backstage crew includes director Susan Voorhees; Ray Hathaway, assistant director; DD Jay, stage manager; Phil Wenstrand, technical and sets; Susan Ford, house manager; and Bill Dannhauser, creative consultant.
Check out a rehearsal video of the show at gvnews.com.
Get your tickets and help support our community theater!
The Green Valley Concert Band will present its “Farewell to the Snowbirds” concert at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday at the Sahuarita Auditorium, 350 Sahuarita Road.
Directed by John Snavely, the concert will feature the music of George Gershwin, Scott Joplin and John Williams, including “American in Paris,” and “ The Entertainer.”
A special musical selection will be “Schindler’s List,” featuring a performance by Michael Fan of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.
Tickets are $10 at the door and $9 in advance. Students under 18 are free. Tickets may be purchased at the Green Valley Sahuarita Chamber of commerce, Nancy Pantz and Xcapes Salon in the Continental Shopping Plaza, The Book Shop and The Answer in Gifts in the Green Valley Mall, Second Look Books, American Hair Family Cutters in the Bashas’ Plaza or from any band member.
Visit www.greenvalleyconcertband.org or call 520-300-6265.
The Green Valley Chamber Music Society’s monthly program will start at 9:45 a.m. Monday in the Parish Hall of St. Francis-in-the Valley Episcopal Church, 600 S. La Canada Dr. The concert is free and open to the public.
This month, the group will feature a cantata for soprano and basso continuo written by Vivaldi and called Amor, hai vinto performed by Helen Hanselmann, soprano; Judy Pottle, cello; and Sharlyn Matthews, piano.
Bob Murray will play a Beethoven piano sonata and Three Piano Puzzlers by Bruce Adolphe.
Judy Pottle and Mary Ann Tyrell will perform the largo movement of a Chopin sonata for cello and piano and the scherzo movement of a Beethoven sonata.
Anneke Mattson will play Melodie in G major by Robert Schumann. She will then be joined by Cal Turner to play Fantasy and Rondo for clarinet and piano by Carl Maria von Weber.
rford@gvnews.com | 547-9740
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