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February 22, 2005

Bitter Relationship Blogs (metablog entry)

So you'd think that blogs would be a good way to document the ins and outs and ups and downs of a relationship, and you'd be right. Of course people like to blog about their arguments, their sucky boyfriends, divorces, and goodness knows their sex lives (but I'll let you find those yourself). But so far! No blogs about housework. Unless you count our perennial favorite, the boring blog (is that really it? did it really stop in 2003?).

Posted by mary at 09:25 PM | Comments (1)

February 21, 2005

Chore Charts

Simplest chore chart ever!

here's one for kids that would be kind of funny to use on a partner, I suppose.

here are an assortment of Christian ADHD charts for the downloadin'

"adult chore chart" brings me a couple links that I won't link here (it's funny how "adult" has become a synonim for "dirty" or "obscene").

Let it be noted that "chore jar" brings 155 google hits, whereas "chore chart" brings 10,700 (all for kids so far as I've seen), and "chore hat" brings 1,870, thanks largely to Homer.

I'm not having a lot of luck in internet-land. I may have to check out some actual books (especially ones that recommend "moisturizing one's feet with mashed fruit").

I'm really surprised there aren't more people out there with excel spreadsheets for this. I'll keep looking.

Posted by mary at 04:45 PM | Comments (0)

Men don't do as much housework as women

I'm not saying this to be obnoxious, it's just that if you do a google search for "housework + research" it seems like all you get is about a million irate articles on how "the only consistent finding is that women still perform the bulk of household labor" (citing Baxter, 1997), although they are doing more than they did in the 1970s.

There is no antidepressent effect from doing housework. Who said there was? Although it is pretty depressing living in a messy house.

OK -- blah blah blah on the housework front. I'm just frustrated that so far I don't find any nitty gritties on how people are dividing work or what have you. I haven't dug very deep yet, though.

And for men who are feeling hurt by all the man-bashing housework articles, try www.nomarriage.com, which includes articles such as: "Western bitches are panicking that men no longer want to support their fat nagging asses." I wonder if he runs a dating service?

Posted by mary at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)

Heritage Foundation

The Heritage Foundation has a database of abstracts for publications on the family, "The Heritage Foundation’s Family & Society Database catalogs social science findings on the family gleaned from peer-reviewed journals, books, and government surveys. Serving legislators and staffers, journalists and writers, teachers and students, as well as clergymen and helping professionals, the Database makes social science research easily accessible to the non-specialist." The publications themselves look pretty normal, although you do wonder if they use some kind of filter. I'm pretty sure I can just access something like psychinfo through Endnote.

This reminds me -- I had a dream last night that I was in a romantic relationship with another woman. It was kind of a relief, because she was really nice (and I've been feeling pretty lonely lately), but then we went to bed and I remembered that I wasn't really all that into sex with other women. But then it was fun, so everything was okay! And then I woke up to Pica asleep on my pillow.

Posted by mary at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

February 20, 2005

Gottman Institute

You know who has really good google placement for the term, "relationship research"? these guys. Seriously, they are #2 on google, and it looks to me like they are essentially just a married couple with a website. Granted, they have Ph.Ds. And they are still married. And they have a few publications (or he does, anyway). But other than that, what have they got over us? Well, they also have a small stable of therapists certified in their methods, which they then very link to on their flash map, including a therapist who describe himself as, "eclectic, with training in EMDR, hypnosis, and psychodynamic psychotherapy," but it looks to me like these are probably just people who took a seminar and then got themselves linked.

It's not that they don't have some interesting research to report on; it's just that I'd think that publishing a few papers as an individual and offering a few seminars does not an institute make -- but obviously I'm wrong about that! Maybe instead of marrying, patenting, or incorporating as a form of symbolizing our commitment to each other, Chris and I should have formed an institute. Maybe it's not too late? But at this point it would be a platonic institute, and where's the fun in that? I like my institutes sexy, just like I like my germans.

Posted by mary at 08:47 PM | Comments (1)

International Association for Relationship Research

Maybe Chris and I should join? or at least go to their next conference -- I'll bet those are a hoot! Lame website, though. No content. I guess it's kind of interesting looking at the members -- but only kind of.

Posted by mary at 03:40 PM | Comments (0)

Websites with Relationship Advice

Based on google search, “advice for couples”:

loving you dot com

My notes: Wildly commercial! Full of quizzes, advice columns, etc. They do have a guide to living together but it's pretty vague -- just points out questions to ask before you move in.

some BBC site on couples

Similar structure for content, but not much from community. Mostly advice from “experts” (i.e., the website).

Posted by mary at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

Some Research Questions

I don't know what happened withthe formatting of that last entry -- that's what I get for thinking I know more HTML than "a href" etc.)

Anyway, what research questions? I think what I'll do is create a category for the various research questions I have.

Here are some of them:

1) What kinds of resources exist for couples grappling with the kinds of questions we have had? e.g., housework, finances, etc. (see below) How different or similar are they to what we have in mind? That is, is it advice by experts? How much testimony/description do they have from couples versus expert voices.

2) What kinds of quantitative research exists on how couples solve the problems we pose (e.g., "how many couples use a chart of some kind to divide up housework?"). I want to stay away from quantitative research; Chris thinks it would be interesting to have quantitative data. I'm hoping someone else has the data.

3) What DO the experts have to say?

Here are the problem/question areas we've defined so far:

Posted by mary at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)

Another Blog! (What is HOCDI?)

Yay! We have another blog to write in! This one is devoted to documenting research for our new project, "How Other Couples Do It" (known affectionately as "HOCDI" in Wheeler/Higgins circles). Eventually we will add a nice description of the project. For now, I'll cut and paste a section from our proposal below.

Thanks to Chris for setting up the great blog!

How do other couples do it?


These are questions we wanted to ask our friends and family in the first years of our relationship, but for obvious reasons we refrained. Couples could learn a lot from each other, but there are some things that are just too private to ask. How Other Couples Do It is the project that Alfred Kinsey, Studs Terkel and Oprah Winfrey could have created in collaboration to answer these questions.

Kinsey showed us that there is both more variety and more commonality in human sexuality than previously thought. Studs Terkel showed us that the voices of people who have experienced something can be more compelling and more informative than experts and academics. Oprah Winfrey -- well, she's just fun. This project will explore taboo areas of housework, finance, and in-laws to show that couples of all kinds face the same challenges, and develop a myriad of solutions to them.

Eventually it will collect and publish real-life solutions told by actual people in an anecdotal manner rather than obscure quantitative academic analysis or well-meant (but too-often boring) advice from experts, and it will engage rather than lecturing.

HOCDI is envisioned as a multi-stage project. Right now Chris is in the website development stage and I'm in the research stage. This blog will help document the questions we develop and the information we find in the field of relationship advice and related subjects.

Posted by mary at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)