Mars and Venus?

I've been thinking about editing yesterday's blog entry to eliminate the somewhat-negative description of my husband's behavior in the second paragraph. But instead, I want to ruminate a bit about it.

DH watched me write most of that blog entry. He explained, in his defense, that the way he was brought up, surprises for things like birthdays were supposed to be magical -- completely mysterious, produced invisibly, and so on. Even to let on that a surprise might be in the offing would be to spoil it.

This correlates with comments he makes about housekeeping sometimes -- comments that really burn my grits. I'll spend all day cleaning the main level, and he'll walk in and say, "Wow, the mess magically disappeared!" He insists that to him, this would be a compliment. I'd much rather hear, "Wow, you really worked hard on this! Thank you -- it looks so much better!" And if he threw in, "I'll be sure to pick up after myself every day to help keep it nice!" well, that would be amazing. And actual follow-through? The stuff of erotic stories, I'm telling you.

But getting back to the main idea here, is this a gender difference? I can't think of a reason men would tend to want to be seen as magicians, at least more than women. Is it a software-engineer thing? DH's work is to design and program the tools other programmers use to make great casual video games. Perhaps the highest compliment you could pay his work is to say that it's totally invisible -- that is, that it makes the game programmer's work effortless because they don't have to think about the tools.

I think the reason it feels like a gender difference to me is that so much of my work, "women's work" (raising the kids, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, etc.) is most noticed when it's not done, or done poorly. Plus, a lot of people who haven't done it look at the life of a stay-at-home mom and wonder what she does all day. So to me, it's a compliment when someone who's not a SAHM notices how much work I've managed to get done in a day with one or more kids to take care of as well. It's really challenging to do the housework and still pay decent attention to the kids, especially with an infant in the mix. I aspire to do both better, and it may be a little easier when the kids are older and can help more.

But a word to the wise: When it happens that the kids are happy and the housework is done, it ain't magic. It's 70% perspiration (skipping the nap is the hard part), 20% careful planning (transitions, anyone?) and 10% dumb luck (no major crises today, thank goodness!).