Charles Dickens Quotes

One summer I was made housekeeper to my own family, making menus and shopping lists. It was my mother's idea of teaching me to be a grown-up. The main thing I remember is my father being so delighted to get roast duck.

One night she told me to put out the garbage. I told her "you cooked it, you take it out".

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.

Family dinner in the Norman Rockwell mode had taken hold by the 1950s: Mom cooked, Dad carved, son cleared, daughter did the dishes.

There are practical little things in housekeeping which no man really understands.

Maggie went out of doors to wash the windows and father came out into the kitchen and said he did not know whether he would go down to the post office or not. And then I sprinkled some handkerchiefs to iron.

Someone has to take the garbage out, someone has to cook the food, and someone has to clean the dishes. I want to do all of that.

Cooking for six people every day is like having a cafe.

My husband gave up all his work to stay at home with the kids, and we split all the duties at home. I do all the boring stuff - like pay the bills, and he does all the exercising for both of us, which I'm very grateful for... I thank him for it regularly.

My husband and I have, in some ways, a non-traditional relationship - especially when it comes to domestic duties. He does most of the cooking, dishes, and laundry, while I do most of the yard work. I love to mow the lawn! And I take great satisfaction in planting and pruning.

I need my mom for moral support plus to do the house things.

The mother of a family should look upon her housekeeping and the planning of meals as a scientific occupation.

Cooking can be rewarding when it is a choice and no longer the onerous duty of the housewife, and when a dishwasher can lighten the load at the other end of the process.

My husband is in charge of all phone, email and texting duties at home. He even has to turn on the TV and air conditioning because I'm so hopeless with technology.

Homemaking is whatever you make of it. Every day brings satisfaction along with some work which may be frustrating, routine, and unchallenging. But it is the same in the law office, the dispensary, the laboratory, or the store. There is, however, no more important job than homemaking.

When I was a child, she'd have me wash the lettuce ten times or open walnuts by hand to make a cake. I was like, 'Mom, this is ridiculous.' But now? I run my kitchen the same way.

A woman, then, should not be a busybody, meddling with matters outside her household concerns.

I'm just the same as any other kid, my mum gets me to the do the washing up and help with the chores - nothing much has changed there.

Myself and my two younger sisters and brother were paid for any chores, whether it was washing pop's car, sweeping the lawn or picking mangoes.

I can wash utensils, chop vegetables and can fold beds. I don't think I can do anything beyond it. In fact, cleaning toilet pots is my biggest nightmare.

Cooking is a weird thing. In homes, I'd wager it's still women who do more of the cooking.

I do all the cooking at home and love it.

I have a cheese-shredder at home, which is its positive name. They don't call it by its negative name, which is sponge-ruiner. Because I wanted to clean it, but now I have little bits of sponge that would melt easily over tortilla chips.

Perhaps I should have pointed out more often that without her (mother's) guidance and example I might have gone straight from short pants to Long Bay Gaol, which in those days was still in use and heavily populated by larcenous young men who had chosen their parents less wisely.

Mine doesn't even know there is laundry. It just magically gets done.