so interesting how many women and commenting they do all of the cooking/shopping/planning and their male partner does the cleaning. I would say while they both take time, the execution piece has a MUCH heavier mental load than doing dishes, which has almost none.
Sep 4Liked by Katherine Goldstein, Lindsey Stanberry
My husband does most of the grocery shopping, some of the cooking, and ALL of the post-meal cleaning. It's funny, I was just thinking the other day that it might be helpful if we swapped full cooking weeks versus my husband cooking here and there whenever I ask for a break. I'm OK with the idea of us completely owning the shopping/cooking during our weeks, but I'll happily let him always do the dishes. :) I'll report back if we try it!
We are also a no kids household and have a split similar to most (I do the planning /shopping/cooking + he cleans). I get so exhausted thinking about what to eat each week and get so frustrated sometimes. However my big issue is my husband does not habe the cooking skills or the food knowledge to do a “good job” (in my book) of doing a week of meals. I get very exasperated and tell him to watch YouTube videos to improve his cooking skills and read cookbooks but it does not help. He also is fine with picking the world’s ugliest head of lettuce at Kroger where I prefer farmers market / Whole Foods. All this to say, I really struggle with relinquishing control and finding an agreed upon minimum standard of execution. Has anyone else solved this conundrum?!
part of getting a break from the mental load means giving up control. I would say historically I've been the better cook, but through this project, my husband has improved his cooking skills. Sometimes if he makes something I don't love, I shrug and think, "At least I didn't have to cook it or clean it up!" and then just think about what I want to cook the following week. It gives me a lot more energy for cooking.
Really interesting idea. It might be interesting to also know how a solo parent approaches this area of life. Hell, I’m thinking that I (a solo parent) should think more reflectively about all that it takes and that I thus do without ruminating on it too much, if for nothing else than to make sure my son understands all that’s involved. He’s into cooking and at almost 11 is doing well with increased household chores, but it’s a journey for sure!
Food Week sounds brilliant! And similar to what we do around here. Also, while I’m not one to suggest it’s possible to consume one’s way out of a structural problem, I will say that Hungry Root has also been transformative for our neurodivergent, dietetically complex family. It tackles the planning and shopping in one fell swoop and allows us to spend way less time label reading.
My partner and I started doing this exact method when I was pregnant 7 years ago and it works perfectly for us!
For awhile we did a “whoever doesn’t cook, cleans” scenario, but someone (me) inevitably used every dish in the house to cook dinner leaving the other party to do a disproportionate amount of cleaning. We both like cooking different things - this solves that. I get to cook vegetarian-ish when I want to, he sticks to meat and potatoes. It prevents the overwhelm feeling I would get having to come up with a meal plan AGAINST week after week. Now we each own everything food-related for the week, planning a Sunday through Saturday meal plan. It works great for us. Highly recommend!
Love this idea! I do all the cooking (and shopping, and planning, of course) in our house, and my husband does all the cleaning. We don't have kids, so it's simpler, but still, it's a big load.
Cooking is always a struggle because we are always so tired. But this might give one of us a break. I do really well in the kitchen when Maya isn’t micromanaging. But I also struggle because I’m not always the best cook. Who wants to disappoint a hungry wife for a week? Maybe I should just be a better cook 😂
This is a very interesting way of doing things! I'll share how it works in my household, in case this helps give people some ideas. My husband is responsible for writing the shopping list, ordering the groceries online for the weekly shop, and he (mostly) picks them up, unless I volunteer. In terms of the meals, we sit down on a Sunday night and plan out who is on dinners for the week (alongside childcare pickups) - so we each have a written record in our diaries of who is doing what. Its mostly someone on 3 dinners and the other on 4. The person on dinner also needs to do the dishes and make the kids' lunchboxes for the next day. Some areas it falls over are remembering what we have run out of in the pantry - I notice these things more so feel responsible for writing them down; and as I work from home more I also try to do breakfast dishes - but I do think this is balanced out by him doing more dishes on the weekend. I am definitely intrigued by your way of doing things and have thought about this method as well.
Another part of the mental load is keeping to a budget!
This is really interesting. I do all the list-making/meal selection, food shopping, prep, and most of the cooking. My husband manages all the clean up. It would be great to try this to see if it lightens the load. I often feel food fatigue because thinking about what meals to eat plus all the other elements feels overwhelming (then I just want to eat cereal but remember I need to feed a child these days and that goes out the window!).
I love this idea, but I'd be overwhelmed doing to all for seven days in a row. In our household, I mostly cook and my spouse mostly cleans up after, but this is because I prefer this division of labor not because he can't or won't cook. On nights when he cooks, I clean. It feels pretty even to me. So curious to hear other family's systems.
i definitely hear resistence to doing all cooking and all cleaning at once. but even shifting cooking to one person doing it all week and alternating cleaning would be a big break from the mental load of planning that a lot of people are talking about.
My spouse doesn’t work and I do, and I make my own lunches* and some family breakfasts per week and clean little (the kids help a bit). Is this fair? Every cell in my body feels guilt but my brain rationalizes it.
* I’ve been in work zooms when a wife brings in her husband’s lunch, so want to state this is not my situation
I hate it when anyone else cooks!! I'm a control freak in the kitchen and it drives me nuts if people use the wrong things on the wrong days as it messes up all the dinners I had planned haha
To be fair, planning dinner is a fine art in my home as I'm vegan, my daughter doesn't cope with certain spices or textures and both my partner and her get ibs. My son doesn't like fish or most vegetables. The dog also has home made food.
I wish my partner and I could handle this kind of a thing. We both work in person, I get home at 7 pm and work Saturdays, and he has ADHD and a very active social life. We mostly handle our own food and occasionally make shared meals. We both experience the mental and physical load of food a lot and have not come up with a good system that helps both of us… I definitely cook and clean more than him though. 😅
Great ideas for sharing the load!! While I'm not sure this would work in our house due to scheduling reasons, I love the idea of each person "owning the whole task"! My husband and I have fallen into some sort of version of that in our own way; sharing in case it is helpful: We each add meals to a shared calendar for the days we'll be able to cook for the coming week (i.e. days when the other may be at the office, or is taking our son to an activity, etc.) and each of us also then adds the ingredients needed to the grocery list. My husband actually likes grocery shopping (I think he's crazy! lol) so he does that most weeks. This divides things pretty evenly and seems to work for us, but it does involve each of us being aware of how many nights the other is cooking, so it doesn't get lopsided. We generally have a "you cook - I'll clean" arrangement, but I really like the idea of "owning the whole task" down to the clean up!
so interesting how many women and commenting they do all of the cooking/shopping/planning and their male partner does the cleaning. I would say while they both take time, the execution piece has a MUCH heavier mental load than doing dishes, which has almost none.
My husband does most of the grocery shopping, some of the cooking, and ALL of the post-meal cleaning. It's funny, I was just thinking the other day that it might be helpful if we swapped full cooking weeks versus my husband cooking here and there whenever I ask for a break. I'm OK with the idea of us completely owning the shopping/cooking during our weeks, but I'll happily let him always do the dishes. :) I'll report back if we try it!
We are also a no kids household and have a split similar to most (I do the planning /shopping/cooking + he cleans). I get so exhausted thinking about what to eat each week and get so frustrated sometimes. However my big issue is my husband does not habe the cooking skills or the food knowledge to do a “good job” (in my book) of doing a week of meals. I get very exasperated and tell him to watch YouTube videos to improve his cooking skills and read cookbooks but it does not help. He also is fine with picking the world’s ugliest head of lettuce at Kroger where I prefer farmers market / Whole Foods. All this to say, I really struggle with relinquishing control and finding an agreed upon minimum standard of execution. Has anyone else solved this conundrum?!
part of getting a break from the mental load means giving up control. I would say historically I've been the better cook, but through this project, my husband has improved his cooking skills. Sometimes if he makes something I don't love, I shrug and think, "At least I didn't have to cook it or clean it up!" and then just think about what I want to cook the following week. It gives me a lot more energy for cooking.
The control piece is always hard! I always appreciate that Ken doesn’t complain about what I choose to cook!
Hi, Lindsey —
Some great ideas here (if a bit tricky/complicated).
Another great resource for figuring out meal issues is thefamilydinnerproject.com
Help not only with planning but also dinner-table games and conversation starters for kids.
Yes! What a great resource! I need some of these conversation starters!
My wife, Dr. Anne Fishel, is the founding director of thefamilydinnerproject.com
.
Really interesting idea. It might be interesting to also know how a solo parent approaches this area of life. Hell, I’m thinking that I (a solo parent) should think more reflectively about all that it takes and that I thus do without ruminating on it too much, if for nothing else than to make sure my son understands all that’s involved. He’s into cooking and at almost 11 is doing well with increased household chores, but it’s a journey for sure!
Food Week sounds brilliant! And similar to what we do around here. Also, while I’m not one to suggest it’s possible to consume one’s way out of a structural problem, I will say that Hungry Root has also been transformative for our neurodivergent, dietetically complex family. It tackles the planning and shopping in one fell swoop and allows us to spend way less time label reading.
My partner and I started doing this exact method when I was pregnant 7 years ago and it works perfectly for us!
For awhile we did a “whoever doesn’t cook, cleans” scenario, but someone (me) inevitably used every dish in the house to cook dinner leaving the other party to do a disproportionate amount of cleaning. We both like cooking different things - this solves that. I get to cook vegetarian-ish when I want to, he sticks to meat and potatoes. It prevents the overwhelm feeling I would get having to come up with a meal plan AGAINST week after week. Now we each own everything food-related for the week, planning a Sunday through Saturday meal plan. It works great for us. Highly recommend!
Love this idea! I do all the cooking (and shopping, and planning, of course) in our house, and my husband does all the cleaning. We don't have kids, so it's simpler, but still, it's a big load.
Cooking is always a struggle because we are always so tired. But this might give one of us a break. I do really well in the kitchen when Maya isn’t micromanaging. But I also struggle because I’m not always the best cook. Who wants to disappoint a hungry wife for a week? Maybe I should just be a better cook 😂
This is a very interesting way of doing things! I'll share how it works in my household, in case this helps give people some ideas. My husband is responsible for writing the shopping list, ordering the groceries online for the weekly shop, and he (mostly) picks them up, unless I volunteer. In terms of the meals, we sit down on a Sunday night and plan out who is on dinners for the week (alongside childcare pickups) - so we each have a written record in our diaries of who is doing what. Its mostly someone on 3 dinners and the other on 4. The person on dinner also needs to do the dishes and make the kids' lunchboxes for the next day. Some areas it falls over are remembering what we have run out of in the pantry - I notice these things more so feel responsible for writing them down; and as I work from home more I also try to do breakfast dishes - but I do think this is balanced out by him doing more dishes on the weekend. I am definitely intrigued by your way of doing things and have thought about this method as well.
Another part of the mental load is keeping to a budget!
This is really interesting. I do all the list-making/meal selection, food shopping, prep, and most of the cooking. My husband manages all the clean up. It would be great to try this to see if it lightens the load. I often feel food fatigue because thinking about what meals to eat plus all the other elements feels overwhelming (then I just want to eat cereal but remember I need to feed a child these days and that goes out the window!).
I love this idea, but I'd be overwhelmed doing to all for seven days in a row. In our household, I mostly cook and my spouse mostly cleans up after, but this is because I prefer this division of labor not because he can't or won't cook. On nights when he cooks, I clean. It feels pretty even to me. So curious to hear other family's systems.
i definitely hear resistence to doing all cooking and all cleaning at once. but even shifting cooking to one person doing it all week and alternating cleaning would be a big break from the mental load of planning that a lot of people are talking about.
My spouse doesn’t work and I do, and I make my own lunches* and some family breakfasts per week and clean little (the kids help a bit). Is this fair? Every cell in my body feels guilt but my brain rationalizes it.
* I’ve been in work zooms when a wife brings in her husband’s lunch, so want to state this is not my situation
I hate it when anyone else cooks!! I'm a control freak in the kitchen and it drives me nuts if people use the wrong things on the wrong days as it messes up all the dinners I had planned haha
To be fair, planning dinner is a fine art in my home as I'm vegan, my daughter doesn't cope with certain spices or textures and both my partner and her get ibs. My son doesn't like fish or most vegetables. The dog also has home made food.
I wish my partner and I could handle this kind of a thing. We both work in person, I get home at 7 pm and work Saturdays, and he has ADHD and a very active social life. We mostly handle our own food and occasionally make shared meals. We both experience the mental and physical load of food a lot and have not come up with a good system that helps both of us… I definitely cook and clean more than him though. 😅
Love the concept of food week!
Cleaning up is annoying but so much easier than the planning cooking part.
Partners that only do cleanup are not doing their fair share in this very intensive category.
Great ideas for sharing the load!! While I'm not sure this would work in our house due to scheduling reasons, I love the idea of each person "owning the whole task"! My husband and I have fallen into some sort of version of that in our own way; sharing in case it is helpful: We each add meals to a shared calendar for the days we'll be able to cook for the coming week (i.e. days when the other may be at the office, or is taking our son to an activity, etc.) and each of us also then adds the ingredients needed to the grocery list. My husband actually likes grocery shopping (I think he's crazy! lol) so he does that most weeks. This divides things pretty evenly and seems to work for us, but it does involve each of us being aware of how many nights the other is cooking, so it doesn't get lopsided. We generally have a "you cook - I'll clean" arrangement, but I really like the idea of "owning the whole task" down to the clean up!