Evan Esar Quotes

Housewives run the home and sacrifice a lot, but many people forget that.

When I was a young boy, very young boy, mothers didn't work. Women were home, they took care of the house, they washed the dishes and took care of the children. That's what they did, and that's what my mother did.

Many women cut back what had to be done at home by redefining what the house, the marriage and, sometimes, what the child needs. One woman described a fairly common pattern: I do my half. I do half of his half, and the rest doesn't get done.

My parents were liberal intellectuals but even they expected me to stay at home and look after my younger siblings and do the housework.

I'd like us to deliver a little message to all the men still out there who think it's the '50s, and coming home simply means watching television with a beer.

My hunch is that probably men are doing more both outside the home and inside the home.

Why do otherwise sane, competent, strong men, men who can wrestle bears or raid corporations, shrink away in horror at the thought of washing a dish or changing a diaper?

Now, as always, the most automated appliance in a household is the mother.

Just as there is a wage gap between men and women in the workplace, there is a 'leisure gap' between them at home. Most women work one shift in the office or factory and a 'second shift' at home.

When my dad needed a shirt ironed, he would yell downstairs to my mother, who would drop everything and iron his shirt.

'I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes,' she said. So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes.

A woman's work, from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed, is as hard as a day at war, worse than a man's working day. ... To men, women's work was like the rain-bringing clouds, or the rain itself. The task involved was carried out every day as regularly as sleep. So men were happy - men in the Middle Ages, men at the time of the Revolution, and men in 1986: everything in the garden was lovely.

And just as a little thread of gold, running through a fabric, brightens the whole garment, so women's work at home, while only the doing of little things, like the golden gleam of sunlight runs through and brightens all the fabric of civilization.

You have to remember: the wife been home all day cleaning asses and feeding faces. Sometimes the opposite.

Most women work one shift at the office or factory and a 'second shift' at home.

Housekeeping in common is for women the acid test.

To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a 'home' might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation.

It is the woman - nearly always - in spite of all the advances of modern feminism, who still takes responsibility for the bulk of the chores, as well as doing her paid job. This is true even in households where men try to be unselfish and to do their share.

The key to success for any woman who wants to have a really serious career and a family is to marry a guy who is going to take at least half the responsibility for the house and kids - and sometimes more than half.

I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas.

Sitting around the house playing the wife and mother is driving me crazy.

Even cooking at home, the difference between my wife cooking and me cooking is major. When my wife cooks, the kitchen looks like a disaster. When I cook it's completely clean and organized and it doesn't look like anyone has been cooking in there.

My belief is that my wife should be at home looking after my kids and cooking and cleaning. She's a very privileged woman to have a husband like me. Not everyone's in her position, but the ones who are are very lucky. That's my opinion.

I really don't know what it is. He is at home doing the breakfast dishes so that his wife can attend this meeting.

The ability of women is not known because they are relegated to the business of procreation, child-rearing, and breast feeding.