I am a Generation X individual which I believe has a lot to do with my opinions on this matter of balancing work and family. I grew up in a home where both of my parents worked full time. I witnessed my mother do basically all of the housework when she came home. She cleaned, cooked, and did all the duties of helping the children get their homework done and ready for bed. My dad, on the other hand would come in from his full time teaching job, change clothes, and make his way to the chicken house or the strawberry fields to do yet another full time job. My parents seemed very balanced and happy with their roles in raising our family. This type of situation is also much of what I witnessed in the homes of my aunts and uncles as well. So of course this seemed very normal to me. I married very young and my husband and I have worked together using role compartmentalization (although we never called it that at the time) all of our married lives. We were both in school when we first married and both held part time jobs. As a newlywed I did not mind preforming all the housework duties, as time went by I began to realize that I had been doing the bulk of the work while he was coming home and laying back. We had to have a discussion and sort out our different responsibilities. This very important conversation, I believe, probably saved our marriage. I here friends say over and over again that their husbands just don’t help them out and they resent their husband for that. These friends of mine are having an overload of what the book termed “third shift” the expense of emotional energy by a spouse or parent in dealing with various issues in family living. After reading the text and provided articles, it is apparent that men are doing more housework than they had been in previous generations. I do see a more egalitarian approach to
