ease daily stress<\/a>, it doesn\u2019t replace communication. Juggling careers and kids takes a toll on families, and housework is often freighted with resentments over who is doing it.<\/p>\n\u201cIf conflict around chores is rooted in something deeper \u2014 like inequity or not feeling heard \u2014 hiring a cleaner won\u2019t solve that,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Couples must dig deeper to address problems with many layers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt opens up time and space, but couples still have to know how to show up for each other in that space,\u201d Hasankhani said.<\/p>\n
Casey Mulligan Walsh, 71, a former speech pathologist and author in upstate New York, said the best part about hiring a housecleaner once a week was that it freed up time for her and her husband to spend together.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy favorite day of the week was coming home to a clean house,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019d go get coffee together instead of arguing about who should vacuum.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIf you\u2019re finding that even the things you used to enjoy feel like a chore, you may be suffering from burnout. And for mothers who have coped with a pandemic on top of the usual parenting stress over the past two years, the struggle is real. Here\u2019s what you can do \u2014 and what your partner and kids can do \u2014 to help get you feeling like yourself again.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
A Valentine’s Day gift that stuck<\/p>\n
Getting started on delegating household tasks isn\u2019t easy for some couples, Whillans said. Besides the cost, “it takes time to find someone and coordinate \u2014 but the long-term payoff is real.\u201d<\/p>\n
And making such decisions together can deepen trust and a sense of teamwork.<\/p>\n
For one Colorado couple, outsourcing started as an act of love.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started dating, my now-husband noticed how hard I was working \u2014 at my job, at home and as a single mom,\u201d said Melissa Jones, a 45-year-old teacher in Pueblo. <\/p>\n
His Valentine’s Day gift? A deep housecleaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was truly amazing,\u201d Jones said. \u201cAfter that, I kept it up on my own for years. When my husband and I moved in together, we decided to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re able to make memories with each other, our kids and our families instead of spending weekends scrubbing floors,” she said.<\/p>\n
Dinnertime can be a stress point<\/p>\n
In Miami, Elizabeth Willard, 59, runs The Pickled Beet, a culinary service preparing customized meals. <\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the people I cook for are trying to invest in their health but don\u2019t have the time,\u201d she said, noting that families often juggle mixed dietary needs. \u201cSometimes the husband\u2019s a carnivore and the wife\u2019s vegetarian, one child\u2019s celiac. They\u2019re exhausted trying to make everyone happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her clients, often families with children and two working parents, are “not fighting over what\u2019s for dinner. It\u2019s one less daily decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether ordering a pizza, paying a teenager to mow the lawn, or calling a car service to save 20 minutes, the outcome can be the same: Buying back time can buy peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It turns out, love may benefit from a little less labor. Couples who spend money on time-saving services…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,971,47,50,49,30743],"class_list":["post-118817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}