Worn Out by His Wife’s Weekend

That old refrain “Thank God it’s Friday” has become meaningless as urban life becomes ever more demanding and stressful and we keep putting chores off until the weekend.

Few of us have the time on weekends any more to escape to the golf course, or go on picnics, or just lie about the house catching up on the paper or dozing in front of the television set.

Even at our age, without children underfoot, we are so busy on weekends doing chores that we are glad to see Monday roll around and restore us to a normal schedule.

Hilton Hotels, its interest being obvious, recently commissioned a study of the deteriorating weekend and found that 90% of Americans feel no more energetic at the end of the weekend than they do on Friday.

“Americans spend almost half their weekend time (14 hours) doing chores,” the study concluded, “such as cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, errands, household repairs, paying bills and working at their jobs.

“Despite major strides in equality, women still work over an hour more than men during the weekend; 2 1/2 hours more if you include time spent cooking.”

Kids, of course, make it tougher. “People with children spend 66% more weekend time cleaning, 43% more time cooking and 52% more time doing laundry than those without children.”

Whatever happened to afternoons in the park, fishing trips to mountain streams, days at the beach, drives in the country--all those diversions that used to set the weekend apart from the work week?

Life magazine recently had a spread about a young working mother’s 133-hour work week. It was a horror story. It concluded that working mothers put in from 13 to 15 more hours a week than their husbands (because they have to take care of them as well as their children).

My wife is up every morning at 6:30. She makes coffee, feeds the dogs and cats, brings in the paper and makes her breakfast. I get up around 8 and make my own breakfast, so that’s one thing she doesn’t have to do.

By 9 my wife is off to the office. I read the paper and then go to work in my den. I do some writing and much reading of correspondence. I try to answer some letters, but I am always far behind. At 1:30 I make some lunch. I finish reading the paper and take a nap. In the late afternoon I go back to work.

My wife rarely gets home before 7. She has to prepare dinner by 8 or 8:30, usually microwave. There’s no time for cooking. While we eat we watch a movie on TV while she irons. After the movie she works on our accounts, usually until midnight. I no longer have time to read books until after I’ve gone to bed.

On Saturday mornings my wife gathers up the laundry and drives it to the laundromat, picking up our previous week’s laundry. She stops at the supermarket to shop for the week. She usually spends the rest of the day doing other shopping chores.

In the late afternoon she works in the yard until dark. Then she cooks dinner and we watch television while she irons. Before going to bed she does some more paper work. It is never finished.

Sometimes on Sunday mornings she cooks bacon and eggs for both of us, after feeding the dogs and cats and bringing in the paper. Then, while I read the paper, she washes her intimate clothing and things she doesn’t trust to the laundry. Sometimes she washes a shirt or two of mine, though I don’t like her to.

After reading the paper I go to work writing or answering letters. After lunch my wife goes out to some plant sale or works in the yard. Sometimes I spend a part of the afternoon watching some sports event on TV or taking a nap. That is my recreation. She works in the yard. She microwaves dinner before 9, and we watch television while she irons.

Of course Hilton suggests that you hole up in one of their hotels for the weekend. Get away from it all. But who’d do the ironing? Who’d pay the bills? Who’d do the yardwork?

It’s just possible that I might get away for a weekend; but my wife couldn’t be spared.