The adult responsibilities need to be shared fairly. If someone is a stay at home partner, they should get more house chores to compensate for the working person. Otherwise the working person gets saddled with work, childcare and house chores and no time for themselves.

I think Fresh Off The Boat probably doesn’t fit either; I only saw a few episodes, but none of them tried to present a nagging wife trope.

Also, I seem to remember the only thing Peggy nagged Al for was sex.

If Peggy wants Al share in the housework, Peggy can get a job.

Basically what I came here to say. Message is good but a couple of the examples might not be the best.

If anything, Al was the "nagging wife" in MwC. Also Jefferson, too lol.

I so recall an episode of her just eating chocolates in front of the tv in a scene. They are awful people mean at least Al worked and kept his job to afford a house with two kids (wait sounds like Simpsons). But both are kinda awful which is why it's a sitcom, otherwise it'd be boring and no one would remember the show. Flushes toilet

Guess the house looked kept well too of course so not just her or anything. Yay for TV sets (not the actual tvs I mean)

SO UNDER RATED!!! I loved that show despite resisting / not getting it when it first came out. It was not very well marketed. But I get it, it is SO subversive and hard to describe in a compelling way. I struggle to convince people to watch it, and when they do they turn it off in like 30 seconds because "it's just another sitcom" NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Keep watching!!!

it's incredibly difficult to write a story with characters that make reasonable and empathetic decisions without it being boring

Nah, not exactly. Yeah ever story needs some conflict or adversity to overcome, but if the characters are healthy and empathetic then the conflict has to be external. But that doesn't work so well for shows that revolve around a small set of insular characters and their at-home relationships. External conflict fits better with adventure stories and crime solving and whatnot.

Dunbing people down into tropes makes it cheap and easy to crank out episode after episode after episode.

Yeah for sure. TVTropes.com has ruined so much of this for me lol (warning if you're not familiar, it's a worse timesink than Wikipedia)

It's also a little scary in retrospect that a lot of the men can be used very clearly to demonstrate what undiagnosed, untreated neurodivergence looks like. Looking at this fucking retard with executive function problems! Isn't he a shithead? He's so lucky that this woman with undiagnosed, untreated neurodivergence manages to mask her way through life and only unload her frustrations on the one person in the world who loves her unconditionally. Let's have an episode where she is unable to contribute to their normally working relationship and watch as his complete lack of support and zero close friends illustrates his utter dependence on structure and routine.

I mean, yes, Hollywood writing for ongoing series is often repetitive. You literally have a "procedural" genre where they go through the same basic structure with almost every episode. Some sitcoms are quite bad. Some are pretty funny (and don't involve laugh tracks). There's a pretty big difference between your average multi-camera sitcom and single camera sitcom. But at the end of the day there's just good shows and bad shows and those don't always correlate with popularity.

That is a good perspective on a majority of hetero marriages. Key take aways is communication is so important in relationship. My spouse thanks me a lot that I'm not "one of those husbands" and actually when I was putting my son to bed last night he said he's glad I'm his dad and I'll quote "because if I was a lazy dad he'd tell me to get out so he could have a hardworking dad like me." He doesn't see me at work, he meant at home.

I know there are other dads out there that do strike a balance in the home. So we (men) are not all hopeless. But I'm not ignorant to not recognize the vast majority are big children looking for a mommy instead of a wife. In the example of what my son said above, parents need to be examples of what is right. He sees me cooking, cleaning, and doing everything around the house. Also participating in his life and being present for him. That's what matters most.

Anyhow everyone with children should be aware of these issues and do better than their "traditional" parents. Break the cycle. I don't want my kids relying on another person to do basic life functions, that's a very pathetic way to be.

"If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus." -Emma Goldman

It is also very hard to have a realistic estimation of how much work your partner is actually doing, because obviously they are doing it and not you. So it is somewhat obscure to you and their share appears smaller to you. If you want to share work equally you should be prepared to do what you perceive as ~70% of the work load.

On another note: I feel like yard work is a strange example because in most cases work in the garden is a rather voluntary thing. Nothing bad usually happens if a garden is neglected a bit, unless you are relying on it for produce. Granted, things can overgrow, maybe a bush is removed rather sooner than later, but the household is just a huge never ending chain of responsibilities and important garden work is rather sporadic. Household work just needs to be done to ensure there is food on the table and clean clothes in the wardrobe.