[TalBlack]

"For one thing, housework is very hard work. It is physically much more demanding than sitting at a desk 9 hours a day."

That would depend upon what you are doing at that desk. Brain surgery involves standing still and manipulating your fingertips, but I'll guarantee you'll feel like you fought Joe Fraizer afterwards. I have stared at a computer monitor for three hours, trying to make dialog in scene 1 comport with dialog in scenes 2-10 and 12--15. I wrote half a page and felt beat up.

That aside: I have dug 4 foot by 4 foot by 4 foot bell holes all day and THAT is hard. I have cut stone (granite) all day--no lunch as I work for myself-- at 10 degrees with a howling wind, That is hard. I have forman-ed an underground gas crew on a main traffic artery at the height of rush hour and that is hard. I have fed dual parties of hundreds each at the same time in different rooms and that is hard.

House work is NEVER finished so it can be dispiriting but it is NOT physically demanding and it is not tiring. I've done housework all my life and I consider it mild to nothing.

[luckystarmom]

There are only a relative number of men that actually do anything physical in their jobs. These days, most have desk jobs.

Yes, there are definitely physical jobs out there, and I am not denying that.

However, housework is pretty much the same any way you look at it.

If you compare the average physical aspects of running a home over the average physical aspects of working, then I would venture to say that running a home wins.

Now running around chasing toddlers, teaching kids how to ride bikes, staying up most of the night with sick kids are also very tiring activities, then you add housework on top of that and the fact that you never get a break even on weekends and holidays or when you are sick, and it is exhausting.