This chart! I am 34 weeks pregnant with our first child and have been wondering myself how it’s all going to shake out with my husband. He’s brought up the topic too, which is comforting. I’d like to think we share tasks equally, but really I know we don’t, for many of the reasons you mentioned. I might have to make my own version of this chart, just even as a further conversation starter.
Oct 19, 2022·edited Oct 19, 2022Liked by Molly Wizenberg
One of the things I learned from my time in tech was the discipline of the stack-rank: deciding what to do, in what order, with limited time/resources. You rank things ordinally (first, second, third) and do them in that order; obviously the order can change as circumstances and resources change. One of the temptations when ranking (not when doing) was to say "everything is important!" but of course even when true, some things had to be done before others, and the hard work was in getting people to agree on the order in which things would (not) get done. The other temptation was to label things "and a half," "two and a half" etc. when pride or whatever would not allow you to rank a thing lower than another thing. Overcoming those temptations taught me both to be more honest about what things were more important than others and to get more real about the limits of what I could do, and **to talk about those limits.** It was quite clarifying for me.
I think, because of the social conditioning you describe, your professor's rigid arrangement might be the only way to actually have an even divide of responsibilities in a heterosexual couple.
I've been thinking about this a lot because it's the focus of a chapter of Invisible Women, which I've been slowly making my way through - that women do more unpaid labor, even if they're also doing more paid labor than their husbands. My husband and I have the same job, so there's no default of "the man prioritizes career while the woman prioritizes the home." And we definitely do equal amounts of the care work associated with our two young kids.
And he thinks we split the housework evenly. But somehow I spend a lot more time doing things around the house than he does. And sometimes he thinks it's even because I'm doing chores while he's taking care of the kids - but that means he gets low-stress time to focus on the kids while my time with them tends to be interrupted by my other tasks.
In our relationship, a lot of this comes down to cooking. I'm good at it. Once upon a time, I loved doing it. But planning meals, shopping, cooking dinners, packing lunches, and doing more of the kitchen cleaning is a huge workload compared to, say, taking out the trash. But now we're caught in exactly that cycle you describe - I'm better at it so it's more efficient if I keep doing it, but then he never learns to do it and there's no end in sight.
Oh, I loved this. My parents had a pretty near 50/50 split (down to my dad handling dental, orthodontist, and eye appointments and my mom handling wellness visits, sick call, and haircuts). My dad is also more what society would call “maternal” than my mom is in a lot of ways. I took for granted what this instilled in me about what partnership/marriage/parenthood looks like. It wasn’t until I had my first baby and felt wildly frustrated and burdened by the way more traditional gender roles showed up in my heterosexual marriage that I realized how much effort and intention it takes to resist these societally ingrained and enforced patterns. I want to write about this! Thank you for sharing your experience. It’s important to see.
I have so much to say on this topic, I wouldn't know where to start--as a woman divorced from another woman, now remarried and raising children with a fairly open-minded man from a very traditional culture. Also my husband is a nurse, so, used to hands-on caregiving, cleaning, listening--but still someone who once told me that wives didn't mind their husbands going out every night because they would rather be at home. We actually have by default a sort-of shared custody arrangement because we were not able to find any childcare that worked for us this year. With few exceptions, one of us is at work for 13 hours a day and the other is at home, parenting and housekeeping. Are things shared equally? --well, I think we'd need the perspective of time to see how well. I read something once asking rhetorically why if we women so much want to let go of the mental and emotional load, why if we don't want to have to tell everyone else what to do and when all the time, why is it so hard for us to drop that role? And the person answered herself, because this is one of the few ways women have control in this world, and part of us doesn't want to give that up. That explained a lot about myself to me.
My mind just exploded thinking about how if you are doing a task again and again you are likely getting better at a task over time, so the divide grows even more....this explains a lot!
This really resonated with me as well and was a point I made in a recent discussion regarding how responsibilities are divided at home. I’m good at some things because I’m the one who has always done them but that can (and should!) change.
This chart! I am 34 weeks pregnant with our first child and have been wondering myself how it’s all going to shake out with my husband. He’s brought up the topic too, which is comforting. I’d like to think we share tasks equally, but really I know we don’t, for many of the reasons you mentioned. I might have to make my own version of this chart, just even as a further conversation starter.
One of the things I learned from my time in tech was the discipline of the stack-rank: deciding what to do, in what order, with limited time/resources. You rank things ordinally (first, second, third) and do them in that order; obviously the order can change as circumstances and resources change. One of the temptations when ranking (not when doing) was to say "everything is important!" but of course even when true, some things had to be done before others, and the hard work was in getting people to agree on the order in which things would (not) get done. The other temptation was to label things "and a half," "two and a half" etc. when pride or whatever would not allow you to rank a thing lower than another thing. Overcoming those temptations taught me both to be more honest about what things were more important than others and to get more real about the limits of what I could do, and **to talk about those limits.** It was quite clarifying for me.
I think, because of the social conditioning you describe, your professor's rigid arrangement might be the only way to actually have an even divide of responsibilities in a heterosexual couple.
I've been thinking about this a lot because it's the focus of a chapter of Invisible Women, which I've been slowly making my way through - that women do more unpaid labor, even if they're also doing more paid labor than their husbands. My husband and I have the same job, so there's no default of "the man prioritizes career while the woman prioritizes the home." And we definitely do equal amounts of the care work associated with our two young kids.
And he thinks we split the housework evenly. But somehow I spend a lot more time doing things around the house than he does. And sometimes he thinks it's even because I'm doing chores while he's taking care of the kids - but that means he gets low-stress time to focus on the kids while my time with them tends to be interrupted by my other tasks.
In our relationship, a lot of this comes down to cooking. I'm good at it. Once upon a time, I loved doing it. But planning meals, shopping, cooking dinners, packing lunches, and doing more of the kitchen cleaning is a huge workload compared to, say, taking out the trash. But now we're caught in exactly that cycle you describe - I'm better at it so it's more efficient if I keep doing it, but then he never learns to do it and there's no end in sight.
Oh, I loved this. My parents had a pretty near 50/50 split (down to my dad handling dental, orthodontist, and eye appointments and my mom handling wellness visits, sick call, and haircuts). My dad is also more what society would call “maternal” than my mom is in a lot of ways. I took for granted what this instilled in me about what partnership/marriage/parenthood looks like. It wasn’t until I had my first baby and felt wildly frustrated and burdened by the way more traditional gender roles showed up in my heterosexual marriage that I realized how much effort and intention it takes to resist these societally ingrained and enforced patterns. I want to write about this! Thank you for sharing your experience. It’s important to see.
Lyz Lenz writes a lot about this in her newsletter Men Explain Things to Me! A piece she wrote for Glamour: https://www.glamour.com/story/it-took-divorce-to-make-my-marriage-equal
I have so much to say on this topic, I wouldn't know where to start--as a woman divorced from another woman, now remarried and raising children with a fairly open-minded man from a very traditional culture. Also my husband is a nurse, so, used to hands-on caregiving, cleaning, listening--but still someone who once told me that wives didn't mind their husbands going out every night because they would rather be at home. We actually have by default a sort-of shared custody arrangement because we were not able to find any childcare that worked for us this year. With few exceptions, one of us is at work for 13 hours a day and the other is at home, parenting and housekeeping. Are things shared equally? --well, I think we'd need the perspective of time to see how well. I read something once asking rhetorically why if we women so much want to let go of the mental and emotional load, why if we don't want to have to tell everyone else what to do and when all the time, why is it so hard for us to drop that role? And the person answered herself, because this is one of the few ways women have control in this world, and part of us doesn't want to give that up. That explained a lot about myself to me.
My mind just exploded thinking about how if you are doing a task again and again you are likely getting better at a task over time, so the divide grows even more....this explains a lot!
I love the ball/baby exercise. Clear is kind!
This really resonated with me as well and was a point I made in a recent discussion regarding how responsibilities are divided at home. I’m good at some things because I’m the one who has always done them but that can (and should!) change.
My absolute favorite installment of your newsletter yet! The chart was the true cherry on top. Also, hell yeah June! She’s gonna learn so much.