Man's amazement at 'magic' soap dispenser is met by disbelief from his wife

You know how when you were younger, your clothes were always washed after being dirtied, the fridge always restocked when it was running low and the house always cleaned?

Chances are it was probably your mum.

Then you grew up and had to do all these things yourself, because that's how housework works.

There are no fairies or shortcuts. Just elbow grease and boring jobs.

Except one man doesn't seem to have grasped this, as is evidenced by his amazement at a soap dispenser in his flat...

Robin Beth Schaer, a poet, essayist and teacher recently tweeted about something a friend of hers told her about her husband.

"My friend and her husband lived in an apartment that had a soap dispenser installed on the edge of the kitchen sink," she wrote.

"When they moved out after two years, he marveled to her: 'it's amazing how that dispenser never ran out of soap in all this time'.

"Women's work is truly invisible."

Robin's tweet has struck a chord with other women who quickly chipped in with their own anecdotes. It even got one man making a confession of his own.

He wrote: "Was once asked by a friend 'How often do you guys clean your baseboards?' I said: 'It's amazing! We never have to clean them, I think it's something with the paint'.

"My wife promptly smacked me and now I strive to recognise and validate labour that would otherwise be invisible."