Housework is just not my thing. I used to say this all the time – usually when there was housework to be done and I wasn’t doing it.

There’s some pride attached to this, because if housework is just not your thing then:

• You’re probably too smart too clean
• You’re not one of those people who is stupid and boring with nothing better to do
• You can wait for someone else to take care of it.

It doesn’t make sense to claim that housework is just not your thing. Just like if you inhabit a body, you have to feed and water it, if you have a home, you have to take care of it. You might take bad care of it, you might be doing the bare minimum you need to get by, but it’s part of the fabric of life. You can’t just opt out by breezily deciding it’s not your thing. It’s not going to go away.

I started replacing the word ‘housework’ with some other words:

• Life is just not my thing
• Growing up is just not my thing
• Taking good care of myself is just not my thing
• Nurturing my family is just not my thing.

Then I changed my mind. I decided to stop thinking that housework was just not my thing. I decided to make it my thing.