Man Argues Husbands Should Demand ‘Lists’ From Their Wives For Household Chores — ‘We Can’t Read Minds’
Do men really need lists to understand the responsibilities of their own home?
Odua Images | Canva Pro Being in a marriage means operating as a team and balancing tasks equally. Men may believe they are helpful when they ask their wives how they can help around the house, but what women really want to see is a man who takes initiative the way she does without being asked.
One man disagrees, however. He claims if women want men to help, they should make them lists of specific chores to complete.
A man took to X claiming that husbands should demand household chore lists from their wives, stating they ‘can’t read minds.’
Tyler Todt, a husband and father who shares fitness health habits, recently shared a post on X suggesting a “tip for women.”
“Most of us men really want to help but don’t know how,” he wrote. “Give us lists! Give us list items weekly we can take off your plate and we love to help! Guys, ask her what can I take off your plate today? The key is solid communication around this. We can’t READ MINDS.”
Todt likely aimed to address a solution to the familiar conflict men and women face in relationships regarding the distribution of household tasks, but many women suggested his approach was out of touch. They argued that women should not be responsible for curating lists for their husbands, who should be capable of taking initiative.
“Unless you are blind and can’t see what needs to be done, no one should have to tell you what to do,” one woman commented in the thread.
“The men should have learned this information in their childhood,” another woman argued. “The men don’t need to read minds. The men need to use their minds.”
While forming a list of daily and weekly tasks for your family is a good idea to ensure your kids learn the significance of doing their chores, Todt’s assertion that women need to outline basic responsibilities for their grown husbands essentially implies that men are, for lack of a better word, incompetent.
A woman took to TikTok to address why the husband's list suggestion ‘missed the mark’ on advocating for a balanced partnership.
Paige Turner reposted Todt’s post on TikTok to unpack the controversy and discuss why basic household chores should not solely be perceived as a woman’s responsibility.
“I have to imagine that every woman that saw that tweet had a collective eye roll,” Turner began her video. “There’s nothing we hate more than being asked for a list because I have to assume, Tyler, that you’re a grown adult who at some point has lived on his own, so you know what needs to get done in a house.”
She expressed how men should easily be able to observe what tasks need to be completed, like noticing when the dishwasher needs to be emptied or when the laundry needs to be washed.
“All you have to do is look around, and the list will fill itself out for you,” Turner emphasized. “It’s not just about communication, it is about men having accountability to the things that take place in their house. Stop asking women for a list; we don’t want to do that. We want to be married to grown adults.”
She identified how Todt’s outdated mentality highlighted the inequitable distribution of domestic responsibilities in marriages between men and women. She encouraged men to recognize how helping out around the house isn’t “doing their wives a favor;” it’s their responsibility.
“Please stop asking like you’re taking something ‘off her plate’ — these are things that both people in a marriage, in a home with children, should be owning together,” she expressed.
It’s understandable why so many women felt antagonized by Todt’s post, as it depicted them as the ones who are responsible for domestic chores. They emphasized how no one ever had to make a “list” for them to know what needed to be done.
In essence, women will be so much happier when they know they can rely on their partners to contribute to their collective household responsibilities.
Every child should be taught the importance of contributing to the running of a house, regardless of gender.
Unfortunately, there is a reason why men exhibit so much weaponized incompetence when it comes to household tasks, and it traces back to their social training that began in childhood. Researchers have coined this experience as a "gendered affordance perception hypothesis,” a theory that suggests men and women are trained to perceive their environments and responsibilities differently, particularly in the context of a messy space.
For centuries, traditional gender stereotypes have held women and girls much more responsible for housework than their male counterparts. But in reality, every individual should understand how to meet their basic needs without the assistance of a woman.
According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, 91% of women with kids spend about an hour a day doing housework, as opposed to 30% of men with kids.
Because of this imbalance in domestic labor, men and women have widely different perceptions of household responsibilities, which not only places additional burdens on women in relationships but can also cause men to struggle significantly when caring for themselves.
To avoid this outdated gender imbalance, parents need to raise their kids to always be accountable for their basic responsibilities, regardless of gender, so that they can grow up to be confident, independent, and responsible adults.
Francesca Duarte is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team based in Orlando, FL. She covers lifestyle, human-interest, adventure, and spirituality topics.