On the Origins of *Free* Time

Do you think Charles Darwin spent his evenings slumped over a sink full of dirty pots and pans, scrubbing out caked-on egg residue?

Can you imagine him spending his free time washing and folding multiple loads of laundry on any given weekend?

Is it likely that this most iconic figure of 19th century science actually changed many of his kids dirty diapers? Or rocked them to sleep on a particularly rough night, while making up songs about bumbling firemen, talking trains, or sofa eating sheep?

Yeah, me either.

Darwin, like many other dads of his generation, most likely left all of this work to the mother or other female folk of the household while they tended to other important tasks such as making sure there was enough food procured for the family table. (Read: hanging out all day with other men and drinking ample pots of hearty ale before retiring to the barn to slaughter the lumbering hog. Or, in Darwin's case, perhaps to study one)

I have this theory that over the years (accelerating exponentially in the past 25) women, as agents of Nature, have been choosing mates who are wired to be helpful around the house, bypassing the other males of the species - who were left to handle the alternatively difficult job of enjoying themselves without the weight of responsibility.

Furthermore, over the course of time these chosen males of the species will, it is theorized, reproduce at a greater rate thus producing more male offspring with these inherently helpful traits. And so it goes.

If true, and just suspend reality for a moment and go with me on this one, the next time I am spending an evening at home feeling overwhelmed by endless loads of laundry and stacks of dishes (tonight), I can take comfort in the knowledge that I, Seattledad, am the end result of a process of Natural Selection that has been slowly taking place over eons.

That I am one of the chosen ones.

Yep, that should certainly take the edge off. That and a nice pot or two of hearty craft brewed ale.