STANDING in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor while her three children make a mess of the newly tidied living room, Karla Loft, 32, can’t wait for the day to end.
She still has toys to put away, beds to make and dinner to prepare before the kids’ bath time starts.
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Karla has been up since 7am, working on the daily household chores list, entertaining the children and adapting to the administrative work of a youth project she helps run.
At 6pm, when her fiancé Carl Scott, 42, arrives home, you might expect the pressure to ease on her mother, but Karla is at her “peak multitasking”.
Instead of saying hello and offering help, your partner of eleven years starts huffing and puffing about the state of the house.
“The kitchen tip,” he groans.
“The living room needs to be vacuumed and the kids are already driving me crazy.”
That was the moment the mother-of-three and model exploded, making the decision to give up her household chores for a week, the chaos of which we see unfold in tonight’s episode of Mums on Strike on Channel 5.
“I went on strike for a week to clean my fiancé,” she explains in this exclusive interview with Fabulous.
“Radical action was needed. I left and spent a week in a hotel.”
And radical measures were taken, with Karla even making the decision to cancel her wedding to her fiancé Carl.
“I never stopped cleaning and taking care of the children while I worked and all he did was complain,” says Karla.
“Carl never acknowledged how hard I worked. He never helped with the housework or cooking. We started arguing all the time. Our relationship was on a knife’s edge.
“If we wanted to survive as a family and a couple, I needed to attack. I had to force Carl to step into my shoes and do the work himself.
“It was all or nothing.”
Karla lives in Hastings, Sussex, with her long-term partner of eleven years, Carl Scott, 42, a youth project manager, and their three children, Alfie, 13, Tyler, 9, and four-year-old Maddison.
According to Karla Carl always gave 110% to his work as a Youth Projects manager, but 0% effort at home assuming that housework was easy and he didn’t need help.
“Carl is obsessive about whatever work he does,” she explains.
“Over the years, he lost track of what it was like to run a household, care for children and work part time.”
Carl’s disregard for housework, cooking and childcare got so bad that his long-suffering fiancé canceled their wedding plans.
“We had planned to get married last year, but instead we were arguing all the time, so I felt like I had no choice,” she says.
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Karla says her shock and awe strategy to show Carl she was working as hard as he did started when she signed up to Channel 5’s Mums on Strike.
“I signed up for the program hoping it would help Carl respect the work I did,” she says.
“Our relationship was hanging by a thread. I needed a radical solution that worked.”
When the family was accepted into the TV series, Carl assumed they would film their daily lives.
“I never expected Karla to leave, it was a turn of events I didn’t expect,” says Carl.
“The team filmed us at home for two days and I thought it was a walk in the park.
“Then I came home on the third night and got a video message from Karla saying she was on strike.
“I went into shock: ‘I thought this wasn’t happening, I have a full schedule of work tomorrow’ and I freaked out,” he admitted.
“I felt bad, it wasn’t what I expected or what I signed up for.”
Karla stayed in a hotel for seven days and forced herself to relax while Carl took care of the house and children.
“I was never away from the children for more than a day and it wasn’t easy, I didn’t realize how exhausted I was,” she says.
At home, Carl had convinced himself that taking care of the kids and the house would be “easy.”
“After the first few hours I was a total mess and so was the house”, he admits.
“I can’t multitask, my focus has always been exclusively on my work.
“But taking care of the kids and constantly cleaning up the mess was a shock to the system,” says Carl.
“I took the children to the lunch table and thought I had time to wash the dishes in the kitchen.
“One of the kids spilled a drink and I was left with a mess in the dining room and a mess in the kitchen.
“Within a few hours I realized that I had no idea how much Karla did all day.
“Multitasking and juggling multiple small jobs like vacuuming, mopping, cleaning separate rooms, and having three kids is like making kittens walk in a line.
Cleaning and household chores in numbers
Well Polished carried out a survey and the results are in!
Most hated household chores
- Oven cleaning – 34%
- Ironing – 15%
- Bathroom cleaning – 10%
- Washing the dishes – 5%
- Organization – 4%
Most liked household chores
- Cooking meals – 21%
- Organization – 12%
- Vacuuming – 11%
- Washing clothes – 9%
- Caring for pets 8%
Men x women: who works?
Men spend 7 hours and 54 minutes per week cleaning.
Women spend 12 hours and 15 minutes a week cleaning.
“It’s impossible.”
However, Karla had the opportunity to give her fiancé a list of jobs that he had always refused to do.
“I asked Carl a hundred times to clean the aquarium for me and he flatly refused,” she says.
“When I went on strike, this job was at the top of the list.”
Carl adds: “It was disgusting. I hated it the most. I realized I’m a guy who finds stacking the dishwasher an exhausting task.”
Carl admits that his seven days of ‘daycare dad’ and ‘multitasking Manny’ almost ‘drove him crazy’.
“I would pass out in bed at 11pm and realize I still had emails to respond to,” he says.
“Karla going on strike showed me that I had never understood what it was like to be a working mother.”
When the mother of three returned, Karla said she met a new man.
“He promised to never complain about a little dirt on the floor again and now does 50% of the housework, cooking and childcare,” she says.
“He’s a new man, he’s incredible.”
The couple now have a weekly rotation system that ensures they know who is cooking and who is cleaning.
If I hadn’t gone on strike we wouldn’t have survived
Karla Scott
“It means I know what I have to do and can factor that into my day,” says Carl.
Karla says the arguments have stopped and the wedding plans are back.
“We’re getting married next year, the experience really saved our relationship,” she says.
“He has a new respect for everything I’ve done and do and that’s how relationships should be.”
Karla is now on a mission to encourage all women in Britain to go on strike if their partners aren’t doing their part.
“It really works!” she says.
“If I hadn’t gone on strike we wouldn’t have survived.
“Now I tell all my friends to attack when their partner starts moaning. It was the best thing I ever did.”
Mums on Strike continues on Sunday at 9pm on Channel 5 and My5.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
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