Yesterday morning I noticed I had no long-sleeve shirts ironed. It is no big deal, but typically my wife keeps up with the ironing. The holiday and the fact that she is working again this holiday season interrupted the oh-so-fine ironing time. So I figured I’d grab the iron when I got home and flatten some shirts. Well, when I came home, I saw that she had already ironed most of my shirts and they were hanging waiting for me to put in my closet. I still had a few shirts left to iron, so I went ahead and grabbed them. My daughter asked if I could do something with her, so I said “let me just iron these shirts first.”

She looked at me slightly confused and said “But ironing is woman’s work.”

In a moment of parenting genius, I replied “It’s just work, sweetheart, and it needs to be done.” I felt pretty proud of that one.

Now the reason Hope thought is was woman’s work was because her mother pretty much always does it. Similarly she once said “I’m glad I’m a girl so I don’t have to wash the dishes.” Since I usually wash the dinner dishes, she thinks that is man’s work. Same with mowing the lawn. Poor girl is in for a shock when she gets a little older and I won’t have to wash dishes anymore. Yay!

Anyway, around the house there are always jobs that need to be done and typically one person or the other is the one who does it. However, there are times when that job is not done for whatever reason. What is your first response? Is it “I need to do that” or is it “when is he/she going to do that”? If it is the latter, I challenge you to realign your perceptions. Remember, you are a team not two different departments in a company. Jobs need to be done and ultimately, it doesn’t matter who does that job.

I know in my life, it is easy to put blinders on about things that aren’t “your” responsibility. How many times do you step over a toy instead asking your children to put it away? Soon instead of walking over toys, you are trying to just clear a path through the room. At that point, you need to realize you are losing the homecare war. Ignored things pile up, that’s where all that clutter comes from. Your task is to prevent them from piling up.

So take a look around the house and see what needs to be done and just do it. Be a “person of action.”