Some `expert' blames husbands for 7 hours of extra work for wives

There's not much room to put my feet up after a hard day's work with all the folded laundry on the coffee table.

Few things in life annoy me more than academics and scientists and their bogus studies. For example, a recent study found that bogus biomedical studies with results that were flawed or outright fudged cost the government and private sources $28 billion a year. A billion dollars here and a billion dollars there and pretty soon we're talking about real money, especially considering you and me taxpayers are paying for guys in white lab coats or plaid coats with elbow patches to gin up some pseudo-science.

But what really got me riled up today was an article I found while surfing the net hard at work on my couch with a cup of coffee within easy reach writing really important stuff for one of my company's clients. This University of Michigan study, which I fully expect will be quickly disproved and outed for its obviously flawed research, made the outrageous claim that husbands cause their wives on average an extra seven hours of work per week. While wives save their husbands from an hour of chores a week.

This is just the latest example of husband hate out there. First of all, who comes up with these ideas? What professor was sitting around on his couch in his cushy University of Michigan office while on sabbatical and had a moment of inspiration that led him to illogically think that it's even remotely plausible that husbands specifically, and maybe even men in general, are slobs and quite possibly good for almost nothing around the house?

I brought this bogus article to Julie's attention as she was helping six of our kids with their schoolwork while she was folding her second basket of laundry, right after she helped them with lunch and right before she got them snacks. She could only shake her head! Something doesn't smell right with this research!

According to the highly dubious "science" in this article, women with more than three children spent 28 hours a week cleaning, cooking and washing. If my math is right, that's an average of four hours a day on household work! Can they really be serious?

It was a little frustrating trying to read the article in its entirety to Julie because she kept getting interrupted. Someone had to go potty, there was a question about what to do for dinner and what needed to be fetched from the grocery store, then someone said we had no toilet paper, then one of the boys said all his jeans had holes in them and wondered if he could get some new ones ... all I wanted to do was read her this article! I just can't get a break!

By the time I finally got through reading the article, after she put the roasts in the crock pot for dinner and got one of our little kids some chocolate milk and took a phone call from the doctor's office about one of our kids' recent appointments, I figured out I was going to be late for a meeting for work if I didn't leave pronto. So I really needed Julie to make me a sandwich while I got out of my jammies and got dressed. It was noon after all.

Of course, I couldn't find my shoes. I ran through the house looking EVERYWHERE before Julie finally found them. Someone had put them under a pile of my clothes in the bedroom from the past few days that hadn't made it to the laundry basket in the garage. I'm sure it was one of the kids who hid my shoes. Do they really think that is funny?

As I headed out the door for my meeting with my sandwich in hand, I reminded Julie that she needed to pick up one of our daughters at work and that we needed potatoes for dinner from the store. Then I smiled. Would it be possible for her to make one my favorite cheesecakes for dessert?

As I walked to the car I just shook my head. The study really had me riled up. I think I'll have Julie reach out to that professor and set him straight. Oh, and one other thing. Go Michigan State!