5 Ways to Treat the Ladies in your Life (and household)

What goes around comes around, especially with people that you share your lives and living spaces with. This mother’s day, do yourself a favor and do something nice for the ladies in your life who live under the same roof as you. Trust us, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Make the life you’ve built together that much brighter by making positive changes to manage your home, even if it’s just for show on special occasions.

1. Outsource!

It’s not worth fighting over housework — for the chores everyone truly despises, engage a home helper or a part-time made to ease the load. This mother’s day, gift her a special gift that she can use to find a freelancer to help both of you do the home administration you hate, walk the dog or pick up meals for you. Only you know what you need, and for a price that’s within your budget, you can find an arrangement that helps everyone. She receives a surprise, chores are settled happily and you can spend more time with each other! It’s worth the trade.

2. Negotiate

Or if you handle housework internally, trade a chore you hate for one that you don’t mind so much. She hates laundry, you hate dishes. Swap!

3. Make Plans (in advance!)

Be on the prowl for fun things you can do together in the evenings or on the weekends. Keep a shortlist of places/restaurants/activities that you both enjoy and want to do more often. Your weekends don’t need to be beholden to event listings (here are some of our favourite Singapore resources), but it’s nice to have options. Everyone appreciates the man with a plan.

4. Make time for you, make time for her

Personal time is sacred. So is couple time. It’s 9pm and you want her to Netflix and chill with you, and she answers she has chores to do. Volunteer to help for 15 minutes — 2 people get the job twice as fast as just the one. Binge-watching “The 100” can wait.

Or ask if you can help figure out a way to avoid this in future, by changing your household system, cutting out a step in a multi-step chore. For example, if she’s staying up doing dishes, institute a house rule that dishes must be rinsed immediately after use. Develop a habit of checking that the dishes are dry and clear the dish rack whenever the opportunity arises. Lighten her load and enjoy more quality time together.

5. Learn a new skill

Have you recently eaten a steak so good that you wish you knew how to do it yourself? Do you want to be included in your office water cooler conversations about the paleo diet and how eating like cavemen makes you a slicker, better human? McGyver your way into her good graces by being more useful in the house. Take charge of the grocery list, basic household fixes or a couple of meals a week. Discover your green thumb while developing your very own hanging gardens on your balcony so that there’s always fresh herbs to cook with. Gordon Ramsay would be proud.