新奇事件簿 丈夫很少干家务

丈夫很少干家务

New research suggests that husbands do not do their fair share of work around the house. A study from the Ohio State University says that men who do an equal share of housework are a rare breed¹. Researchers looked at the lifestyles of 182 working couples who became first-time parents. Both partners worked roughly² thesame amount of hours in full-time³ jobs. The research team found that men did less housework after the babywas born, even though both mothers and fathers worked the same number of hours outside the home. During the first few weeks of parenthood, fathers did an average of five hours a week less housework, although theyspent this time helping⁴ to look after the baby.

一项新的研究表明丈夫没有平均分担家务。来自俄亥俄州立大学的一项研究称能够平摊家务的丈夫少之又少。研究人员对182对初为父母的全职生活进行了调查。夫妻之间的全职工作时间基本相同。研究小组发现尽管父母在外工作的时间相同，但是孩子出生之后男人的家务量有所减少。在为人父母的前几周里，父亲平均每周少干5个小时的家务，尽管他们会利用这些时间来照顾孩子。

It is a different story for mothers. Becoming a parent added about 21 hours per week to the amount of workshe did, even with her full-time job. Most of their extra work was spent looking after her baby. The researchers explained why new fathers did not keep up with the extra work after a child was born. They said that most men were simply unaware⁵ that the mother was doing so much more work. Another reason is that after ababy is born, fathers tend to follow what happened in their own homes when they were younger. They automatically⁶ accept and follow the 'traditional' roles of the mother looking after the baby and the father working, even though the mother is also working the same number of hours in her job.

而母亲却大为不同。成为父母之后，除了全职工作以外，母亲每周还要增加21个小时的工作量。绝大部分的额外工作都是照顾孩子。研究人员解释了为什么男人在孩子出生之后没有增加额外工作的原因。他们称绝大部分男人仅仅没有意识到母亲所付出的辛勤劳动。另一个原因是孩子出生以后，父亲还是遵循着他们年轻时在自己家所做的事情。他们会自然而然地接受母亲所扮演的传统角色，母亲照看孩子，爸爸在外工作，尽管母亲与父亲在工作上花费的时间相同。

1 breed   

n.品种，种类；vi.繁殖，产仔；vt.养殖，产生

参考例句：

• The parents are trying to breed their son a musician.这对父母尽力要把儿子培养成为音乐家。
• This breed of horses is both tall and heavily grown.这种马既高且大。

2 roughly   

adv.概略地，粗糙地，粗鲁地

参考例句：

• If you treat your coat so roughly,it will be worn out soon.你如果这么糟蹋你的外套，它很快就不能穿了。
• The island is roughly circular in shape.这个岛屿大致是圆形的。

3 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 unaware   

a.不知道的，未意识到的

参考例句：

• They were unaware that war was near. 他们不知道战争即将爆发。
• I was unaware of the man's presence. 我没有察觉到那人在场。

6 automatically   

adv.不加思索地，无意识地，自动地

参考例句：

• The machine cycles automatically.这台机器自动循环运转。
• She had automatically labelled the boys as troublemakers.她不假思索地认定这些男孩子是捣蛋鬼。