Oh, how I wish I felt more competent with power tools. This is not a particularly profound article, but it does tap into a major component of singleness that partnered people tend to forget: when you're single, you're responsible for EVERY bit of household management, all on your own: scrubbing the bathroom, doing the laundry, cooking the food, checking the oil in the car, trapping mice, climbing on a ladder to trim the tree branches off the roof of the house, shoveling the snow off the walk and the driveway, paying the bills, fixing the fence... if you don't do it by yourself, it doesn't get done.
"As the country’s demographics shift, more women are making more money
and staying single longer than ever. Consider this seismic shift: There
are nearly twice as many single female home buyers as there are single
male home buyers, according to 2011 data from the National Association
of Realtors. These women don’t have to rely on men to financially
support them — but somebody still needs to rewire that light switch and
unclog that drain. That somebody is them." Read it all.
I often whined to my parents while finishing my dissertation (working 70+ hours a week in the last months) that it wasn't fair-- I had to research and write an entire book AND wash my own stupid dishes and do my own stupid laundry and cook (read: burn) my own stupid meals.
ReplyDeleteBut now that the diss is done, I am glad I only have to do laundry when I myself really, desperately need to (and I'm not gonna lie--sometimes I just go and buy more socks). And while I still abhor washing dishes, no one will get annoyed (except me) if I leave them sitting until Saturday. And maybe it's because I grew up with brothers and we all played with tools, or just that I love to tinker, I actually really enjoy the stereotypically "male" aspects of household upkeep. That's right: I love changing light bulbs, fixing the fusebox, setting up A-V systems, and nailing stuff into walls.
No profundity here: just the usual conclusion that sometimes it sucks to be on your own, but other times it is empowering. E.g., self-sufficient persons are uniquely situated to survive--and perhaps even rise to power--in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Surely that's something.