“Lazy husband’ is definitely not a myth in my house…[Most men] have grown up with a mommy waiting on them hand and foot’

Los Angeles, CA–In my co-authored column Are American Husbands Slackers? (Tallahassee Democrat, 3/22/06), I criticized the “Lazy Husband” myth. My central argument is “When both work outside the home and inside the home are properly considered, it is clear that men do at least as much as women.” Amanda, a reader, takes exception to my column and my views. She writes: “‘Lazy husband’ is definitely not a myth in my house.
My husband has not had a job or done anything beside play video games and take the trash out for the past 15 months. I’ve worked, gone to school, cooked, cleaned, tried to find him a job because he refused. “The laziness has not been limited to those recent months, either. Previously- when he actually did work- he would not lift a finger to help around the house (meaning he would just let the garbage overflow). He thought that he had done his part by going to work all week. The problem with that logic is- I’d also ‘done my part’ and gone to work all week, so where did that leave us? Obviously, it left me with a second job when I came home and a lazy slob husband in front of the TV. This is a trend more than my isolated bad luck. “Sure some of you guys out there are not this way, but most of them seem to have grown up with a mommy waiting on them hand and foot and never expected that to change.”