Remember maintaining a household used to be considered a full time occupation for 1 adult per household.
We need to bring that idea back and separate it from gendered labor. 1 adult’s full time pay should always cover the cost of a home and family
2 part timers should be able to work also
As long as the math adds up. Right now you need 40 hours a day to do everything yourself
I assume you mean a week but I find what you wrote funnier
No, I meant a day. Like the meme in the post says, there’s not enough hours in one day for one person to take care of everything.
That was also established back before dishwashers, laundry machines, refrigerators (so you can go shopping every couple weeks instead of every day), public school, etc. Modern conveniences streamline a lot of domestic tasks.
I still think a single income should support a family, but maintaining a household isn’t as labor intensive as it once was.
The 1950s had basically all of that and the standard was still the same. Before that extended family households were more common and the labor was spread to multiple adults and children had more expectations
Those were all pretty new in the '50s, plus that’s about when women started entering the workforce in greater volume, and also when you start to see the stereotype of housewives sitting at home eating bonbons.
These conveniences have become necessitates though.
I work to buy a dishwasher to wash my dishes so I have more time to work. It’s trapping us in a consumption cycle
you don’t have to do any of that man. you choose to do it.
you can use paper plates.
you remind me of the people i meet who ‘don’t have time to cook’ but then spend $1000 on food each week, and then complain they have to work more to afford food… it’s not the system… it’s that you refuse to do the responsible and smart thing… which is cook and spend $100 a week on food and work less.
Wild assumptions. I do cook my meals, still doesn’t change the system. Plus I can’t just “work less” my job, like most, has set hours
so you have a ft job that is 35-40 hour a week, and you want to work less than that?
i have a 40 hour job my entire adult life. never felt it was ‘too much’. but then again i don’t think basic adult responsibilities are a horrible undue burden. But I am aware many of my peers think it is.
Not really? You’ll have to wash dishes anyway, and it only takes like 10-20 hours of work to pay it off. It’s not like it’s a consumable or subscription service.
Again, that doesn’t mean I’m pro-consumption, but certain appliances just objectively save time and make your life easier.
You took that too literally. It’s not about the dishwasher per se it’s about the whole lifestyle.
How so? There’s a difference between constant mindless consumption and buying tools that save you time and effort. If you wanna talk TVs and jet skis and designer bags, yes obviously you have a point. But that’s not the same as labor saving appliances.
Instead of that, we now have unaffordable housing, which forces you into serial tenancies. The rent prices are so high you need to live with one or more people. All of you must work to make the rent. Also there’s a deposit, so you must somehow keep on top of the housekeeping, or you will owe money to the landlord. If that sounds unfair and ridiculous, that’ll be because it is. But if you complain, you’ll be the one that’s crazy, because that’s just the way the world works
and as the years go buy, your salary goes up, and you get fewer roomates, and as it goes up more you get your own place, or get into a relationship and get a place with that person.
it’s not ‘ridiculous’ it’s how it’s always been. nobody was living on their own at 18-25.
Not any more matey. Not for millennials like me. I have two kids, I’m in a steady long term relationship, and I still rent, like about 50% of people my age. For boomers, the figure was 23% at this age.
Nice of you to assume I’m a lot younger than I am, I suppose?i’m a millennial. i’ve never not had a raise each year that easy covered my costs. the reason i own is because instead of partying in my 20s i was building savings. i remember being 24, maxxing out my 401K while my peers were calling up mom and dad because they were spend way more than their salary could cover.
all the people i know who don’t own it’s because they chose low paying jobs, or refuse to give up partying. anyone who took their life more serious is doing very well. that isn’t society’s ‘fault’ it’s their own poor long term decision making. but they blame everyone else.
but also, why would you have kids if you can’t afford a home?
I see the difference between you and I. It’s that people talk to me at parties. Look the figures and facts are available to you, you have an internet connection. Home ownership and financial stability have crashed among our generation. It’s just true. You have been lucky, and boring enough in your choices to make that luck count. Most of us haven’t.
I know someone who was made homeless despite working 60 hour weeks for a job at the local council. So “all the people you know”, who you are judging so harshly might not actually be a good indicator of what’s what. I think there is quite possibly a decent level of bias in your thinking, which confirms your firmly held belief that you deserve what you have because you worked for it. Maybe you do. But I know ten people who work harder than you who have less than you have, so…right, i’m a boring anti social asshole. that’s why i’m doing well… and not because i grew up in ‘poverty’ and had to learn to pay my own bills from a young age and now reap the rewards of lifelong responsibility and lack of a entitle attitude towards the world. where i come from nothing was given or expected. i never expected to own a home or get a job, i knew i had to earn it.
If only I had overspent all my money partying and traveling in my 20s, and i was sitting here at 40 with six figures of debt. then i’d be a ‘real’ millennial…
hard work doesn’t mean anything unless you budget. i know people who work 80 hour weeks, making 300K and are still massively in debt. because they spend more than they make.
sadly math doesn’t care about rich or poor or lucky or unlucky. many people in our generation are entitled nitwits who don’t know how math works. and many support the very same policies that are impoverishing them. most of my friends are anti-housing development, despite the fact they can’t afford homes. they cause their own suffering.
Hey, nobody said “asshole”.
Friendly reminder that medieval peasants only spent 20-30 hours per week working the land.
But that doesn’t mean the other hours were just leisure time, maintenance of tools, clothing, house, etc also took up quite some time.
This is not historically accurate. They had 2-3 months of religious holiday where they were not working. Also every Sunday, no work.
Don’t be an ignorant wage slave. It’s cringe.
They had 2-3 months of religious holiday where they were not working. Also every Sunday, no work.
I can only speak for myself, but I don’t work on Saturdays and Sundays. And I don’t have any religious obligations on those days, so I’ve got them all to myself.
So that’s almost two months worth of Saturdays and on top of that I’ve got a month of paid leave and 7 holiday days.
Work-wise I’m not going to day we have it better or that we aren’t being exploited, but I sure know I wouldn’t want to trade places with a medieval peasant.
Additionally, in times when the crops required less care (so not planting or harvesting) peasants were required by their lords to do various amounts of labor. Like “build X feet of fences per year, mend Y feet of fences, serve Z days of conscripted labor”, etc.
So on the one hand, peasants weren’t ruled by the tyranny of the clock like we are, but on the other: work still had to get done, was much less efficient than today (bc technology), and was often unpaid
At the other hand, the lord did have obligations to the peasantry as well. Providing protection is a fairly well known one, but it could also be stuff like providing their people with meat at least once a week. An example that we know of is a case where a complaint was raised by peasants (and won!) because their lord had only provided fish (or maybe duck, as that was considered fish as well) for too long a period.
Go find some billionaire’s balls to lick.
Simping for inequalityand theft of automation-gains, .world, name a more iconic duo
I’m not sure how adding a bit of nuance to the suggestion that medieval peasants might have less working hours than we do is “simping for inequality”.
I don’t endorse inequality, on the contrary. Hell, the party I vote for in my country is so left it makes Bernie Sanders look like a rightwinger in comparison.
a bit of nuance
But only one decontextualized fact that supports my position and not a more robust understanding or anything that would be be genuinely complicated. Not too much.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/medieval-peasants-worked-150-days/
If anyone is promoting decontextualized facts, it’s those claiming midevial peasants only worked X days (with the implication being they had way more leisure time than modern workers). Not only is that claim contested, it does not account for unpaid work, and it only started being true at all after the black death, when economic activity ground to a halt and there were huge labor imbalances. It was not a good time to be alive.
The argument isn’t that it was a good time to be alive. The argument is that they did it and with no tools no modern machinery no fossil fuels no electricity they still had a world and food and shelter.
they also died by 30 and 50% of children died by age 5.
had horrible nutrition, health, and zero education. oh and if you get a minor cut or injury? death.
What is this statistic precisely? I assume that it’s on “average” AKA including people who only do housework.
On average, because it was little labor in winter and more than 12-hour work in spring/summer/early autumn.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/medieval-peasants-worked-150-days/
Here’s some more context, and yes it doesn’t include housework.
Also have three or four children to perpetrate the system, work for tips while studying, consume and save for your own retirement. And if you get sick, your whole family loses everything.
Oh, and be thankful you’re in the best possible economic system and socialism is bad, so bad.
What in OPs post is not applicable to socialism?
We’d have a lot more time for looking after our own wellbeing if we weren’t unnecessarily labouring so much. As time goes on, we are forced to work more and more, despite ever increasing productivity. Under capitalism, record profits are never enough
In Socialism there isn’t as much pressure. That way you don’t need to meditate. Also they cram everything into one day. You don’t need to meet friends an clean your house on the same day.
Half the things you don’t need to do daily.
And there are hundreds of other necessary activities that aren’t listed here. What is your point? The point of the post is that this person (and many others) feel overburdened by the pressures and requirements of modern society. Pointing out that the specific chore of vacuuming doesn’t have to happen every day isn’t astute.
they are overburdened by basic adulthood.
that’s a character flaw. not a society flaw.
none of these things are onerous burdens. they are minimal. nobody is asking them to train 2-3 hours a day for a marathon.
The whole comment would fit into literally any time period.
If that’s true, which I question very much as the pressures of modern society are significantly more encompassing than in the past, that only means we’ve been doing it wrong the whole time.
they aren’t. people just say that to feel good.
living life as a european peasant was less burden some, in that you died by 30-35, and only 1/2 children survived past 5 years old.
or maybe you’d rather be working 10 hours a day in a factory from the age of 10, losing your limbs in an accident, and being a begger the rest of your life? that was life for many pre ww1
You’re right! Why should we try to fix it now?
We should make it even worse and then deny it was ever better than it is right now!
Work all day in the field
Sleep
Am I the only one who finds this impossible?
Which half?
You don’t need to buy food every day, or do laundry, or hoover, clean/tidy. Meditating is not for everyone and for some people even socialising is not a daily necessity.
Cook and wash up 3x daily - this is also crazy. If it is supposedly a workday, you won’t be home for lunch. And you don’t want to or have to cook every time you’re home, and for the dishes, there exist dishwashers (if you don’t have one, make sure you get one, this is the single best thing that happened to us if we talk about chores. We had a 12+people party yesterday, and it only took 2 runs to not think about dishes, over than 30mins for putting them into the washer).
I think the washing machine edges out the dishwasher but they are my 1 and 2. If I had to live on a deserted island and could only take two things with me it’s my washing machine and dishwasher.
Oh, sorry, I both was born in and live in a place where a washing machine is something that is there by default. Yes, this is not given, and in this case washing machine is more important
No, no! Everyone can afford what you’ve always had. They’re clearly just too lazy, unlike the perfect billionaires you’ll never have an unkind word for.
Are you ok? I just humbly confirmed that I considered something I’ve always had a given, where it is not. The billionaires thing: do we know each other?
Also, what I always had, I’ve had in different forms. Like, when I was a kid, we had this Siberia-6 washing machine, which was ok for the Soviet Union that was crumbling into pieces around us, but by the western standards, the technology was like something from the 60s. It was such shit that I washed my socks by hand, does it count?
I also wore said socks until they had giant holes in them, same as my sweaters. I was only talking about this with my billionaire friends, but now you also know.
Even then, you can socialize during a lot of this, too. Cook with friends. Have community meals. Socialize with coworkers. Etc.
Edit: It’s funny, I’ll say ‘Unionize’ and anyone with half a brain will cheer, but the second I say “Hey maybe it would be good to build actual community with people you want to build defenses against capitalism with,” I’m the bad guy
Work.
But, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we need another study about how we’re all actually more productive when we’re required to be at work for fewer hours.
Nope. We just need to have even less time to do anything, don’t you know that rich people can afford to hire servants? Therefore everyone can and the poor are just lazy.
I dream of collective production and consumption of food. De-individualize feasting!
We’re supposed to live communally so you’re not the only one doing all this maintaining. You’re right, and I share your dream!
A better world is possible friend. We will see the world we dream of or live creating it for the people we love 😘
Me too comrade. For a brief time in college I was living in a large family home by myself as the owners had relocated to be nearer to good doctors, and it was so crushingly lonely. That is until I invited a D&D group who had lost their place to play into my abode which somehow turned into them all hanging out there at all hours of the day, all weekend, and occasionally overnight during the week. I loved the feeling of the house being so full. Unfortunately, no one had taught them to care for communal spaces and so it became a mess by the time the owners were returning. At the time I didn’t have the interpersonal skills to manage that conflict, but I think I’d do better given the chance again.
Add kids to the formula to receive your BurnOutTM even faster!
capitalism
Tbf not all of these have to be done daily. I get the point, but yeah.
My mom did when I was growing up. She even scrubbed the unfinished basement floor every day on her hands and knees.
I managed to get over that.
your mom had issues.
my mom did too. she cleaned every day just to give herself something to do, even though it was already totally clean.
You think?
The walking 10k steps is bs.
10k was just arbitrarily picked. More walking is of course healthier than less though.
And traditionally one person (and/or a parade of children) contributed to those tasks full time.
exactly 10k is bullshit, but I don’t see why it still can’t be a cutoff. 3-5k is too low, 20k+ only happens when you are actually hiking or sightseeing all day while travelling (unless you have a work where you run back and forth all day)
The scientifically proven cutoff is 7,500 steps: https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/nutrition-fitness/does-hitting-10000-steps-a-day-really-make-a-difference/
The amount of people who are blaming the poor for burnout in this thread is unsurprising, since this is lemmy.
Liberals view poor as a failure of individuals, not society at large. Liberals hate the poor. Lemmy is liberal.
You need to lookup what liberal means, especially modern liberalism.
You’re describing conservatism and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” bullshit, which is not lemmy in my experience. At all.
Yeah almost like liberals are closer to conservatives. Means testing doesn’t solve poverty, it’s why liberals do it.
Yes, it’s possible, until you have kids.
Well, if you take an 8 hour shift with a typical commute of 2 hours total (there and back), paired with 8 hours of sleep, as well as shower, dress, equip for work, and eat a cooked meal for dinner, you’re looking at 3 hours of free time. 3 hours of life per workday. Paired with the commonality of working adults working 2 hours more, and sleeping up to 4 hours less because of either reclaiming free time, factoring in dating, working secondary and tertiary jobs, insomnia or otherwise, and those 3 hours could be no hours, or exhaustion leading to the time being spent just lounging, no hobbies. That is one reason why I don’t agree with this system.
If you travel an hour each way for work, you are an outlier. A typical commute is under 30 minutes (in the US, at least)
I have a really hard time believing that statement. Do you have a source or is that half hour average a vibe-stat?
Thanks! I guess it’s just hard to believe based on where I live.
Unfortunately, most managers cannot recognize the benefits of letting workers start their commute when said workers start the clock, and eat on the job if necessary reaps such vast rewards in long term employee retention and output.
7.5 hours a day
I’m not sure if this is referring to work or sleep, but something that’s been bothering me about the ‘8 hour workday’ / a ‘9 to 5’ is that’s just not how it is in my experience. It’s 8:00 - 5:00 with an hour lunch break that is certainly less than an hour and at your desk.
I spend about 9.5 hours each work day in work mode.
Yea, we can’t actually just appear at work, and start producing instantly, then be home to enjoy the rest. Our whole lives have to revolve around work. It is the real reason people start losing IQ after a certain age.
Get really good roommates and split costs. Me and mine hire a maid service because between our incomes we have everything we need covered. We also have our backs as far as commuting and food costs sometimes. It takes a village, modern society tries to tell us otherwise to keep us weak. Rigged individualism is not sustainable.
