It’s Not Just About the Dishes: Changing the Division of Household Labor
The Stupid Effing Dishes
So there I was, my palms propping up my head around my temples, staring at my countertop trying to put words to a feeling I’ve become all too familiar with. There he was, staring at me, looking for any possible solution to the recurring “dishes issue”. I say: “You taking on the dishes more evenings doesn’t feel like a solution, that does not feel fair to me, but this [gesturing to the “invisible” household tasks around me] does not feel fair to me either,”. I was overwhelmed, and panicked. I kept coming back to this thought that many families before me have worked out this issue. Perhaps not in the ways I was looking to solve our own imbalance in the division of labor at home, but they at least got somewhere with it. I resign: “It’s fine, let’s just stick to our system, I’ll figure something out,” and I go back to furiously scrubbing a cutting board, quite obviously not “fine” with our current dishes system.
I was bewildered as to how I got here. I’ve made my values of fairness and equity clear to my partner. I’m a feminist, my partner is a feminist, and we had been trying to develop a somewhat fair household chores system since we started cohabitating. So why did I feel like I would one day soon wake up with a doting homemaker apron on with the sudden urge to have a cocktail ready for when my breadwinner husband gets home? Claustrophobic, I was tearing at this role from the inside out. That would never be me, never be us. At the time, my partner and I were inching closer to the altar to say the big “I-do’s” and with each passing argument about the stupid effing dishes I knew we needed a better system of equitably dividing up our household responsibilities. I began my research into how couples and families were dividing up these responsibilities and eventually came across the Fair Play system by Eve Rodsky, and I finally had some validation and then scary changes ahead of me.
The Validating
In her book, Fair Play, Eve starts out with her own story about a household task that sent her over the edge, a text from her partner about the lack of blueberries at home. Eve goes on to highlight the main contributors to the problems many families have been having with the default division of household labor:
Invisible Work: Tasks that require significant mental and physical energy that contribute to unencumbered family functioning, and generally go unnoticed and are undervalued by family members and even by those who perform said tasks. I.e. Weird, every time the toilet paper runs out, more just seems to appear!
Mental Load: The notes-to-self hanging up on the bulletin board of your mind. “Notes” implies a light yellow post-it note, when in reality they’re more like bricks, and to those that struggle with executive functioning they’re more like giant boulders. Too many of these bricks and boulders inevitably leads to some notes getting “buried” or forgotten. I.e. Whose birthday is coming up? I need to get them a gift. What do they like? When I saw them last, what did they talk about? What store would have that? When can I make it to the store this week? Am I even sure they will like that? Shoot, I missed my exit.
Emotional Labor: The maintenance effort in relationships, the support provided for others, taking the time to regulate one’s own emotions to “be there” for someone else, the work of providing care and comfort for others. Honestly, it’s a lot of what I do as a therapist as my paid job, and it’s what is generally expected of women in families at any time, any place, given freely. I.e. The “get well soon” card for the sick extended family member, the attentive listening about your terrible day at work, the reassuring hug after a nightmare.
Mommy tax: The decrease in a mother’s earning power, roughly 5-10 percent for every child she has, due to missed opportunities for promotions, prestigious assignments, pay increases, and bonuses. Additionally, 43% of highly qualified women with children take a career detour from the difficulty of combining work and parenting.
Oftentimes, these factors in combination with one partner (often viewed as the more “maternal” partner) pressured to take on the default parent role, in addition to the natural disappointment, resentment, and burnout from that one partner doing it all creates this tangled mess of an inefficient household responsibility system. This was exactly what I was keen on changing in my own household. I was still very upset that my partner and I, despite our best efforts to make the division of our household responsibilities more equitable, still managed to fall into this tangled mess. The call from the patriarchy was still coming from inside the house.
The Scary
So when I came to the realization that I had to be the one to bring these inequities to my partner’s attention and advocate for systemic change within our family I was a little miffed to say the least. Of course it was not fair that I had to continue to shoulder more of the emotional labor in prompting the very change our relationship needed, but the person benefiting from the way things were, my partner, was not going to suddenly give up what was working for him. I had to decide what was more important to me: change actually occurring or tenderly nurturing my grudges? For hundreds of years our cultural world around us has perpetuated the toxic time myths:
“you don’t work, you have more time”
“I make her life possible”
“Just get some help if you don’t have time”
“I can help later”
“Just write me a list”
Yes, for a time, I did tend to my grudges against these systemic inequities like they were my pride and joy. Eventually, my frustration had run its course and my partner began to notice the inequities I was seeing, and then it was easier to decide that spurring real change in our family was more important.
So what does it take to spur such a change? How do we get there? For us, it started with an invitation for a conversation. I think what is scary about opening up this particular conversation is that it’s not everyday we try to deconstruct systemic labor imbalances starting with our own families. If every week we said “Hey, can we map out our responsibilities for the week?” or “Are you up for going over what tasks we have right now because we have a lot going on this next month?”, it would be as mundane as asking “Do you want to watch Game of Thrones or Love Island tonight?”. Like any other problem to be addressed between two people, start with an invitation to the conversation, and I recommend using “I” statements. Like the following:
“Hey, I’ve been thinking about (one aspect of the larger issue that has been bothering you). I’d like to take some time for us to talk about this and work out a way for us to improve things going forward. The best time for me would be x, what would work for you?”
And remember: Nothing changes, if nothing changes.
The Changes
So I invited my partner to the conversation, now what? Talk about what you both value. While some Fair Players might recommend starting with taking a look at the list/cards of actual tasks a family is doing, I recommend starting with values you and your family ascribes to and uses to guide you. Do you know what your family’s shared values are? Do you know what your personal values are? If you’re unsure, I highly recommend the Quick Look at Values handout by Russ Harris to take a quick inventory.
Why focus on our values? We are more likely to live a more satisfying life, feel more content overall if we are living in accordance with our values. If we don’t have a sense of what those values are or how aligned we are with those values, we might be more susceptible to the influence of external factors that lead us to take on more household responsibilities that we don’t actually care about. For example, you’re scrolling through instagram and you see timelapse video of a parent clean their entire living space within two minutes and you look around your living space and see it’s been..well..lived in. Then you amazon order a bunch of cleaning supplies and organizer bins and a label maker in a heightened sense of #mommyguilt.
Some people really value cleanliness, sometimes it’s for their brains to clear off the mental load, sometimes it’s to de-stress and express some anxious energy, but if that’s not one of your core values because creativity or connectedness is more important to you and your family then you do not need to order a bunch of cleaning supplies and you look #mommyguilt in the eye and say “I do not have to do it all”. So start by…
Identifying your core values
Defining each value: What does this value mean to you? What does this value not include? Just because you value friendship, does not mean you always want to be making new friends.
Prioritize your values: If you have to narrow it down to a list of 4, which would be at the top? What are the most important values to you? Which values are equally important? Which values do you want to be more aligned with? Which values have been over-prioritized?
Once you are familiar with your values and your family’s values, then take a look at each household responsibility card (or list of household responsibilities if not using the Fair Play Cards), and talk about each card with your family based on the following:
Does this connect to my values? Our family’s values?
What would it look like to fully conceive, plan, and execute (CPE) this card?
What would happen when we miss the mark on this card?
Give it the “Minimum Standard of Card” test:
Would a reasonable person (partner, babysitter, parents, in-laws) under similar circumstances do as I’ve done?
What is the community standard, and do we want to adopt this standard within our own home?
What is the harm for doing or not doing it this way?
What is our “why”? Why do we do things the way we do them?
For tasks that align with your family’s values, you and your partner may vary in regards to the level of necessity for these tasks, but you both agree on a minimal level these tasks are important for your family to do. For each of these tasks, discuss with your partner who is best equipped to fully CPE this responsibility all the way through, based on your individual preferences, capabilities, and availability. For tasks that only one person values, be prepared to fully own the conception, planning, and execution of that task.
As my partner and I worked on finding our equitable division of household labor, we noticed less fights about the dishes, more room for grace and patience with each other, and more willingness on both our ends to help each other out with responsibilities. By no means am I suggesting that we had one conversation about it and then the system ran smoothly from there on out, in fact we had to have ongoing conversations about rebalancing our tasks between the two of us throughout the year in order for it to continue to work.
If you are feeling burned out or even helpless from the way your household labor system is running, I highly recommend exploring Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play system with your family. Need more help? Check out the sources below and the Recommended Further Reading, and feel welcome to contact our office to talk about ways therapy can help you rebalance the household labor in your family.
-Krista Mersino, BDAC Staff Therapist
References:
ACT Values Checklist by Russ Harris
Recommended Further Reading:
Emotional Labor: The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives and How to Claim Our Power Rose Hackman