Are you ready to do it together with the Big Family Switch Up from Indesit?

I’ve written so many times about gender equality on this blog, what it means to me, what it should mean to everyone for the future of children, and I’ve also written about the roles that I see within our family dynamic.

In the last 6 months, we’ve changed A LOT. Adam’s work role hasn’t changed but mine has jumped from being the very flexible, freelance do-it-whenever job to being the “can you come to this event in Portugal in 3 days” job. I’ve taken the role of primary earner after years old being a vey low earner in part time work, yet my role at home hasn’t really changed in line with my work responsibilities.

Here I am, 9.55pm, writing and Instagramming and editing pictures because I am still doing the school run, dinner time hour and breastfeeding Edith to sleep. On top of that, I’m in charge of the morning school run, the morning rush to get the kids fed, dressed and out the door AND most of the housework, though I do have help with that! It often means that I’m working from my phone while tying to cook dinner, answering emails and losing my shit with the kids while the potatoes bubble away and they shriek at each other, and struggling to sort a million jobs at once.

I don’t want this to come across as a “bash” of my husband, far from it. He leaves the house at 7.30am to go to work, making it physically impossible to do anything helpful or productive in the mornings (apart from put the bins out which he remembers *most* of the time) and he arrives home just in time for dinner at 5pm which would make it pretty impossible to cook it there and then. He does the bath time/shower time routine on a frequent basis or we do it together, something that never used to happen as Adam would take time to “chill” after work, a luxury that has been steadily nipped in the bud over the years by operation family expansion.

We’ve talked before about Adam leaving work, but he has openly admitted that he doesn’t think it would be for him. He would want to relax, chill out and that isn’t the reality of a busy home. I don’t think there is any lack of appreciation from either of us for the other’s role within the family, but I do think it would be fascinating to walk a mile in each other’s shoes. How would Adam cope, washing, cleaning, cooking, school running, managing finances, freelance working and organising anything child or family related? How would I manage, leaving the house when everyone was still in their pjs, working in a physical environment (he works with wine… I know, it’s one of the reasons we are so compatible) and then arriving home when all the kids were wired, only to have them thrust at me and told “Can you just shower these please, I’m going to end up with bald patches if I don’t get these emails sent off!!”

Indesit have launched their Big Family Switch Up campaign to try and encourage people to switch roles for 7 days and walk in each others shoes, become a family that supports each other and takes on an equal share around the home, with respect and understanding for what the other partner does. They are asking other people to join in and #DoItTogether  – share their experience and really think about what it means to DO IT TOGETHER. Did you know that 66% of women still do everything around the house, despite working too? We just can’t have that anymore and I don’t for a second think that the blame for this lies solely at the feet of our partners. I know I will often say to Adam “don’t bother, I’ll do it!” because I’m in the mindset that it is a part of my role… and it’s not. It’s a part of our role.

Do we really not appreciate each other’s roles enough? Possibly, I think that we should all give this a go, switch it up and try it out! You can find out more by watching the Big family switch up video here:

Want to find out how switched up your family is? Take indesit’s survey – the results might surprise you!
H x