6. OVERWHELM: Is our exhaustion a sign that we’re CareTicking time bombs?

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Speaker 2 I'm not the problem.

Speaker 2 Sometimes things fall apart.

Speaker 3 Hi, it's Glennon. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 3 So the episode we're launching today, we almost didn't air at all.

Speaker 3 We recorded this conversation on a day when my sister was feeling really overwhelmed and kind of angry.

Speaker 3 She was feeling the entire weight of the world and our business and the complicated future of her two neurodiverse kids on her shoulders, and her angry overwhelm was causing a deep rift between her and her partner, John.

Speaker 3 She felt resentment for him, because while she knows he's a deeply good man who loves her and their babies, she also knows he doesn't carry the same emotional load that she does.

Speaker 3 That because she's a woman, she is expected to do endless hours of invisible work that he isn't expected to do.

Speaker 3 And that because her partner John doesn't carry the constant caretaker ticker that runs through her mind all day and night about what everyone in her life needs now and tomorrow and a decade from now,

Speaker 3 he has more free time and energy and space in his day and in his mind.

Speaker 3 Which means he has more free time and energy and space in his life.

Speaker 3 And in the end, that discrepancy

Speaker 3 means he has a fuller life, more time to be human.

Speaker 3 And that pisses her off.

Speaker 3 After we recorded this conversation, we thought, well, that was a good sister conversation, but we won't make it public because this is personal. This is a unique situation.

Speaker 3 People might not understand.

Speaker 3 But then, a couple weeks ago, We aired the fun episode.

Speaker 3 In it, we talked about how how so many women don't know how to play, how to have fun, that often we forget how to play as young girls because fun requires being unself-conscious.

Speaker 3 And little girls are trained to care more about how we appear than how we feel.

Speaker 3 And as we get older, we are further trained to care for others' needs instead of our own.

Speaker 3 We forget how to play when we learn how to constantly please and serve. We don't get to play

Speaker 3 because we have too much damn work to do. And so we end up having less joy and less life than we should.

Speaker 3 And the response to that episode was incredible.

Speaker 3 My sister and I have read through hundreds of your reactions and comments and reviews on social media, on our voicemail.

Speaker 3 Messages from women who are wives and parents and from women who are single parents and from women who don't have kids but are single-handedly caring for aging parents or ill siblings and from women who are not caring for family but find themselves the default caretaker of their offices or their wider community.

Speaker 3 We have sat silently together and listened. We have read your stories aloud to each other.

Speaker 3 And the common denominator has been,

Speaker 3 women are overwhelmed. and a bit angry.

Speaker 3 You want to share the weight of the world.

Speaker 3 You want the world and your work and your families to stop expecting you to keep them spinning alone and invisibly.

Speaker 3 You want some life back.

Speaker 3 You want to get to live too.

Speaker 3 So, sister and I learned once again that the more personal we get, the more universal we are.

Speaker 3 That no life is really all that unique at all, and that one woman's issue is usually millions of women's issue.

Speaker 3 And that we are never alone.

Speaker 3 So let's begin.

Speaker 3 You're bringing us our hard thing today. What hard thing are you bringing to me?

Speaker 2 Okay,

Speaker 2 my hard thing

Speaker 2 these days is, and all days, is that I feel

Speaker 2 like I am walking around

Speaker 2 in work, in my family, in my

Speaker 2 kids, taking care of my kids, in my

Speaker 2 house, life, everything.

Speaker 2 Like on the outside, I look like I have my shit together. Like, I look like I'm just calm, I'm just getting it done.

Speaker 2 But one

Speaker 2 millimeter beneath the surface is like frothing lava. Like, I'm a, I am a dormant volcano.
And God help you

Speaker 2 if

Speaker 2 anything happens, anything at all, anything that's just normal part of life.

Speaker 2 And then I am just ready to just spew and destroy the world. Like it's, that's the feeling that I have at all times.
And I think I realized that

Speaker 2 recently that it's just

Speaker 2 that I feel like my mental space is

Speaker 2 the equivalent of that like lava at the very top of the volcano. That

Speaker 2 my, there is no breathing room in my mental space. And it's just like this constant, it's like a CNN ticker that's like, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Speaker 2 Here's all the things you should be doing right now. And while you're doing those, please do these, all these other things.
And by the way, you need to call the kids' therapist on the way.

Speaker 2 Have you worked on the 504 plan?

Speaker 2 And don't worry, because you have to ask your neighbor if she can get you in that uh one soccer team for the kid and you've got to and that there's like all the kid list then there's the work list then there's the home list then there's the and there's never it's like

Speaker 2 it's like all of the things that come together to architect a life

Speaker 2 it feels like those are happening through my head all day long.

Speaker 2 And God forbid, the inevitable happens where one thing takes 20 seconds longer than it should.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 it throws me off completely because all of the ticker keeps running, right? Yes.

Speaker 3 Now you're behind.

Speaker 2 I'm behind. I'm always and never not behind.

Speaker 2 And I think

Speaker 2 what I realized recently, and it's been a challenge to me and in

Speaker 2 my relationship with my husband, John, because I realized that

Speaker 2 there there is an unequal distribution of ticker.

Speaker 2 And this is how I realized it because my husband John, God bless him and keep him.

Speaker 2 And he is a good, you know, insert here all the things we say about our kids before we're out to say how they're being assholes.

Speaker 2 He is

Speaker 2 very good and he always wants to help and he's always asking how he can help. So posit how privileged a position that is that I'm in.
However, the asking for how we can help made me realize,

Speaker 2 wait, so if you're asking how you can help, that means you don't have the ticker because I never have to ask what's on the to-do list. I'm the one spending 100 hours of invisible labor

Speaker 2 figuring out what even needs to go on the to-do list.

Speaker 2 And you're sitting there in this very privileged position to just take an item off the to-do list.

Speaker 3 Which means you don't, you're not carrying it.

Speaker 2 So you're not an architect and a co-builder of this structure of our life. You're a handyman.

Speaker 2 Right?

Speaker 2 I mean, and not disparaging handymen. I'm not disparaging.
No, no. But it is a con it's a...
It's a conceptual shift of mental space.

Speaker 2 It's the, when you tell me what needs to be done, I will happily and gladly do it. And again, that's a privilege to have that.
But what, what I'm saying is I don't ever,

Speaker 2 I don't, I'm not ever not thinking about what

Speaker 2 the 10 steps that need to go into one item on that to-do list. And that means

Speaker 2 that I'm jealous. Because I live in my head, right? And so if I live in my head and everything that's in my head is this ticker all day long,

Speaker 2 then that means I'm having an unequal life.

Speaker 3 Exactly. And we're pretending like we're both parenting or we're both building, right? Like we are co-parenting.
We are.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 3 actually, if one person is doing all the building and tickering and list making,

Speaker 3 then what you have is an assistant. You don't, because if you, because if you

Speaker 3 say two people are running a business, business, okay

Speaker 3 What do you what do people that are running a business called

Speaker 2 business owners business owners?

Speaker 3 Okay, say there's two business owners One doesn't walk in each day and be like, oh, I'm so sorry, you're stressed out. What can I do to help?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 3 two business owners are expected to know with equal measure exactly what the business is, exactly what's necessary, and come in each day with their own agenda to keep the business running.

Speaker 3 And we seem to have accepted that on a corporate level, but in co-parenting, in the domestic level, we still allow that, generalization, but true, that one gender

Speaker 3 in a mixed gender marriage is the CEO and the other is just this assistant that pops in and says, what can I do to help?

Speaker 3 And then we're supposed to pat that person on the head for being helpful.

Speaker 2 Right. And I think maybe an example would help.
Like

Speaker 2 the the part,

Speaker 2 so we are equal in that we equally participate in all the decisions for our kids. But

Speaker 2 it's summer, right? With two full-time working people, you have to figure out what the hell you're going to do with your kids for 10 weeks of the summer. So

Speaker 2 the invisible labor that goes into that is

Speaker 2 how do we find 10 camps within budget that we can actually afford? How

Speaker 2 I need to text all 20 parents who we know to make sure there is their schedules align with our schedules. So there'll always be one kid in each camp.

Speaker 2 How I'm mapping out the drop-offs and pickups to make sure that there is that logistically feasible for us to drop off and pick up every day.

Speaker 2 Do they have aftercare? Can we do that? Who's going to be in that? It's just, there's the, the, the hours of invisible time,

Speaker 2 and visible effort that go into the equal sit down and say,

Speaker 2 which camps should we do? I mean, the spreadsheet has taken me 40 hours to build in our equal decision of which camps to do. And I think that's part of it.
I think the invisibility of that time,

Speaker 2 the

Speaker 2 emotional labor of

Speaker 2 all of that

Speaker 2 is part of the problem. It's like I'm walking around with this 200-pound pack on my back all the time that

Speaker 2 no one in my family and my home can see. And so,

Speaker 2 you know, in addition to not

Speaker 2 appreciating that I'm carrying that pack all day, they're actually just actually pretty annoyed that I walk around hunched over all the time.

Speaker 2 So it's double. And then, and then I'm thinking, yeah, I must be doing it wrong.

Speaker 2 There must be something wrong with me that I'm always so stressed and tired, and I have no mental space because I'm the only one hunched over all the time. So I'm the one doing it wrong.

Speaker 2 And I, and it just ends up making me feel even crazier than I've already made myself. Because why can't I be more relaxed and take it easy?

Speaker 2 But then I think if I put down this pack, this shit falls apart.

Speaker 2 Right. Because I'm holding up the sky around here.

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Speaker 3 So what is it? Okay, because we had, I used to think this was completely gendered, and it is mostly,

Speaker 3 but I had the ticker

Speaker 3 in my last marriage, okay?

Speaker 3 And then I got married to Abby, and I thought, since I'm entering the same, the same gender marriage, this is going to be some nirvana of non, like every, nothing's going to be gendered.

Speaker 3 We're going to be so free from all gendered roles inside a domestic partnership, right? It's going to be amazing. And then a year in,

Speaker 3 I just stressed and stressed with the kids' stuff, with the kids' stuff, with the kids' stuff, with the work stuff. And Abby started coming in and saying, Okay, just tell me what I can do to help.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I remember I sat down with her one one day and was like, you asking me what you can do to help is just making visible the fact that you don't know that I am the mental runner of this show and that you feel like your job is just to pop in and ask what to take from the list.

Speaker 3 But the fact that you have to ask, don't you understand that someone had to make, someone has to make all the lists. Right.

Speaker 3 Right? Like.

Speaker 3 I need somebody else who's making lists, not who's just just asking me what they can take from the list, because what that implies is that it's my list.

Speaker 3 But if we're co-parenting here, it's not my list.

Speaker 2 Right?

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 what we did is we actually sat down and said, okay, I don't know anything. Craig's so good at like, we have three parents.

Speaker 3 So that's a huge, huge privilege and blessing because we have a blended family.

Speaker 3 So, Craig, you, you know, all their doctor stuff. You have the medical ticker now, everything to do with the kids.
Like, if they don't go to the dentist for three years,

Speaker 3 that's your jam.

Speaker 3 Abby, clearly, you know all about the sports.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 If these children don't do sports, if they don't go to practice, if they miss a tournament,

Speaker 3 that's your jam. Right.
So it was like the division of the categories of tickers helped us.

Speaker 3 But in order for that to work, two things have to happen. The other co-parent or partner,

Speaker 3 if you're lucky enough to have a other partner, like we talk about the single moms and single dads who have all the tickers all the time, but the other person has to step up and do things well,

Speaker 2 right?

Speaker 3 And then the original ticker, caretaker, has to allow the other person to do things in their way.

Speaker 3 So, have you, what does it look like when you

Speaker 3 do pass over responsibility?

Speaker 3 Or have you ever?

Speaker 3 No, you should, we both have tiny, barely perceptible control issues.

Speaker 2 The tiniest kind, only the tiniest kind of control issues.

Speaker 3 No, it has like it, and

Speaker 2 I have

Speaker 2 successfully transitioned a couple of tickers and they've nailed them. He's nailed them.
But I think

Speaker 2 for me, it's all of the ones, you know, we have two kids who are neurodiverse and it's all of the,

Speaker 2 I can't,

Speaker 2 those kinds of things, like who are going to be the therapists and how do I get the 504 and how can will the insurance cover it and I all, you know, the full-time job that that is,

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 honestly don't see myself releasing that.

Speaker 2 I don't. So I just,

Speaker 2 but so I have to own that, but at the same time,

Speaker 2 I also have to own that I have

Speaker 2 this

Speaker 2 relationship that I

Speaker 2 am, that my frustration at the mental load that I'm carrying is

Speaker 2 obvious. So it's, it's,

Speaker 2 it's this,

Speaker 2 you know, for every

Speaker 2 anyone who's listening and thinking, wow, you must be a damn joy to live with. I mean, correct.
It's not working for anyone.

Speaker 2 And this is what I, this is what I think is happening in, I have to think this is happening in a lot of families.

Speaker 2 Like you're carrying this around because you believe you either have to, because you do actually have to, because the other person is going to do it, or believe, you believe you have to, because you're, you believe that this is so important to your to your work to your kids to your life to your home that only you can carry it

Speaker 2 so you have that load but then you also have this

Speaker 2 this

Speaker 2 exhaustion and anger about having to do that and about this unequal enjoyment of your life that you see the other person having.

Speaker 2 But then they don't actually have a more enjoyment of the life because you're so bitter and pissed as you walk around all day that you're poisoning everything.

Speaker 2 Like, I, I, I think I've noticed lately that my,

Speaker 2 because so much of this is invisible, all of this work is invisible, that I've just kind of made it visible. I just walk around like a ticking.
I'm like, well, I did this and this and this today.

Speaker 2 And I called the whatever today. And I, I did this and this and this.

Speaker 3 It's like, let the record show.

Speaker 2 Like at least least that I

Speaker 2 don't, I'm doing that. And that is not fun for anyone.
It's not fun for anyone.

Speaker 3 And then tell, talk about

Speaker 3 John sends you an article.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 my sweet husband is just always trying to like connect us more and clearly, because of my mental space, I'm not, you know,

Speaker 2 I'm overloaded. And so he doesn't.

Speaker 3 You mean like you don't want to make out all the time?

Speaker 2 Just only every other time.

Speaker 2 So I,

Speaker 2 he does this like precious thing where his love language is like sharing and talking and

Speaker 2 quality

Speaker 2 time of discussing things. So he will,

Speaker 2 like in the middle of a crazy day

Speaker 2 where I haven't like peed in four hours,

Speaker 2 he will text me an article about

Speaker 2 like geopolitical developments in Asia,

Speaker 2 okay? And say something like, this is really interesting. We should discuss.

Speaker 2 And instead of receiving that the way it was given, which is a

Speaker 2 wonderful gesture from someone who's interested in actually talking to you and hearing your thoughts, I'm like,

Speaker 2 you have got to be freaking kidding me. Like you had the time.
How many articles did you read before you got to this one?

Speaker 2 You're telling me you have the time to identify and digest soul and mind edifying content. And then we have the audacity to suggest that we have the time to discuss it

Speaker 2 when I haven't taken a shower in four days. And it just feels like I legitimately receive it as an insult to all that I'm carrying as opposed to an outreach.
of him trying to connect us.

Speaker 2 And that's just what I mean. It's not working.
It's not, it's not working. So I need to figure out, I need to add to my to-do list, figuring out how to make this work.

Speaker 2 Fix your life.

Speaker 3 So if someone is listening right now and saying, because there is, this is not that, but I was talking to a new friend this weekend. She was, she's a single mom.
She's just working her butt off.

Speaker 3 at work, with home with her baby, all the things. And she said, and then I, you know, every night I have to take my dad dinner.

Speaker 2 And I was like, oh, you take your dad dinner.

Speaker 3 And she's like, yeah, he can't, he can't cook. He can't, he can't clean either.
He can't cook or clean. And I said, oh my gosh, what's wrong with him? Like, is he, he's, he's really sick.

Speaker 3 And she said, oh, no,

Speaker 3 he's not sick at all.

Speaker 3 And I said, what? And she said, no, he's 60 years old, completely healthy. He just can't, you know, he can't really cook and clean.

Speaker 3 And I was like, dear God,

Speaker 3 like what these people have pulled off. Like what, and sometimes what we allow them to pull off, right?

Speaker 2 He can't.

Speaker 3 Like, do you mean he won't?

Speaker 3 Because you're a single mom holding up the entire sky of your child and yours life,

Speaker 3 but your dad, who is healthy and living in his home, can't.

Speaker 2 He's never been required to.

Speaker 3 He's never been required to, right?

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 part of this, right, is like, it's hard to decide how much we are enabling and martyring ourselves, right?

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 allowing things not to be required of co-partners, of co-parents, of fathers, husbands, sons.

Speaker 3 So what part do you think you have in that?

Speaker 3 Or do you?

Speaker 2 I think I do have that. I think I also have

Speaker 2 a desire to have

Speaker 2 things be done

Speaker 2 the way I think they should be done.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's worked for me. See, here's the thing.

Speaker 2 Here is the crux of it. It has always worked for me

Speaker 2 and it has always not worked for me. So the outcomes that I get when I do shit myself are amazing.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 2 I have

Speaker 2 that.

Speaker 2 I have the things in my life that I want and I have built them. Yep.
And I am also most of the time miserable.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And this is the theme of all the things. I mean, you know, you're, I would say for sure, the most stressed out person in our family, right? Of like the four of us, my mom, my dad, me, and you.

Speaker 3 And so there's this dynamic, which is the same with our nuclear family, which is the same with our business, which is the same with your little family, with John and Bobby Dallas, which is that whenever shit hits the fan, you're the one who fixes it all.

Speaker 3 Like we depend on you to fix things, but then we also

Speaker 3 really

Speaker 3 worry that you're stressed out.

Speaker 3 So I feel like sometimes I really feel like you in your whole life, you're like Jack Nicholson from a few good men and you're like, you need me on this wall.

Speaker 2 You can't handle the truth. You need me on this wall.

Speaker 3 And like, everyone in your life is like, Get off the wall, you're so stressed out and annoying. Like, relax.
Life is so, should be relaxing.

Speaker 3 But then,

Speaker 3 when

Speaker 3 it hits the fan, we're like, Don't worry, sisters on the wall.

Speaker 3 So, I'm, I hear this.

Speaker 2 I mean, I don't want to get get down off the wall

Speaker 2 because I,

Speaker 2 that's the way I love my people.

Speaker 2 That's, that's, that is the only way I know

Speaker 2 how to love is to

Speaker 2 do

Speaker 2 and to help and to

Speaker 2 solve problems.

Speaker 2 And so.

Speaker 2 I mean, it reminds me of in the episode we did about your anxiety where you said

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 you think at the crux of it, you often

Speaker 2 believe that your anxiety is love.

Speaker 2 And for me, that's the same way

Speaker 2 with

Speaker 2 all of that mental load by carrying that load for my kids, by carrying it for our business, by carrying it for our family. That is,

Speaker 2 I want to take those things and carry them for people because that's how I know I'm loving them as hard as I can.

Speaker 2 The problem is

Speaker 2 the effects of carrying that are often that the people that I want

Speaker 2 to love don't feel my love because

Speaker 2 my effort is in the carrying

Speaker 2 and not

Speaker 2 in loving them the way that they need

Speaker 2 to be loved themselves. And then

Speaker 2 when they

Speaker 2 look at me and say

Speaker 2 with their, not with their words, but with the, why aren't you investing in us? Why aren't you

Speaker 2 giving me what I need

Speaker 2 in my heart and in my mind, I'm like, I am giving more than I have.

Speaker 2 I am giving every ounce of myself, every moment. I have no mental space, no physical space, no hours that are not

Speaker 2 caring for

Speaker 2 all

Speaker 2 of you and loving you.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's just,

Speaker 2 so I feel like I'm pouring that out.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 sometimes I feel like I'm getting back.

Speaker 2 Well, put it down. And I feel like put down my,

Speaker 2 put down my way of loving, I don't understand. Like the way that

Speaker 3 it's tricky.

Speaker 2 The whole thing is tricky.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, I do feel that same way with the anxiety stuff. It's like, I, that's how I know to love is freak out about everything and worry.
I worry, you know, Abby will suggest I stop worrying.

Speaker 3 It'll all turn out fine. So she says, it'll all be okay.
And I'm like, it's not, it doesn't be okay. It be's okay because I made it okay.

Speaker 3 But, but, but, sister, it, it, it'll be okay. You, you make it okay by doing things.
I literally just sit in my house and freak out.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 So, but, but there is a part of me that will always and forevermore, no matter how healthy I get, believe that I am worrying us all into success.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 That the, that if, if it worked out,

Speaker 2 it is partly because I

Speaker 3 made myself miserable.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 So it is a, I don't have a solution for this, but it is an interesting idea

Speaker 3 that I am loving people by being anxious for them. And that often makes them feel unloved because my anxiety forces me to not be present ever.

Speaker 3 And that your way you're loving is by project managing and controlling and staying on the wall.

Speaker 3 And what your people are saying sometimes, fairly or unfairly, is that when you're not on that, when you're on that wall, you're not with us.

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 3 You are not present. And so

Speaker 3 this idea of the way we are deciding to love the crap out of our people

Speaker 2 so much so that they can't feel it. Right.
We're loving them so hard they can't feel it.

Speaker 3 That they are unloved.

Speaker 3 Okay, so on that note, now that we've not solved any problems, we are going to take a quick break and then we are going to answer some hard questions.

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Speaker 3 Welcome back to our segment that we purposefully don't call a Q ⁇ A.

Speaker 3 Because to me, life is just endless Q's and no A's.

Speaker 3 I always say I don't have answers. I have a response.
I probably probably have a story.

Speaker 3 Let's get to our hard questions.

Speaker 3 The first one is from Ashley.

Speaker 5 My name is Ashley.

Speaker 6 And my question is around becoming a mom.

Speaker 5 How can you be a mom and not lose

Speaker 6 your entire self?

Speaker 5 How can you be a mom and be a woman and a wife and

Speaker 6 a worker and a human that is still independent of

Speaker 6 your children?

Speaker 5 I don't know how people do that. Is that possible? Is it just something that you kind of give up when you become a mom? Is that part of the gig? And

Speaker 6 how? How do you do it?

Speaker 5 I guess that's my major question. My name is Ashley.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 Okay, Ashley already gets the QA because she said, she didn't even say, I need your answer. She just said, I need your question.
Ashley, I too have questions.

Speaker 3 First of all, I just love Ashley. I loved her voice.
I loved her vulnerability.

Speaker 3 When you said, is giving yourself up part of the gig,

Speaker 3 it made me think, yes.

Speaker 3 The way it's structured right now, right? The way that our culture presents motherhood to us,

Speaker 3 Part of it, it's like implied that in order to be a good mother, we will bury ourselves, right?

Speaker 3 That right now, the way things are structured, the way the definitions of motherhood are given to us, that yes,

Speaker 3 part of the gig is losing ourselves completely. And the only people who can change the definition of that gig is us,

Speaker 3 one

Speaker 3 woman at a time, right? The only way

Speaker 3 we can change the definition of that gig is if we look at it real, real hard and we say, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 3 My children will do what I do.

Speaker 3 And so my gig

Speaker 3 is to not accept any life, any relationship, any community, any nation that is less true and beautiful than the one I want my child to one day accept.

Speaker 3 That is the gig.

Speaker 3 Yep.

Speaker 2 I love that. And it, as as I mean, Ashley completely nailed it because this, that's the entire question, right? Is this

Speaker 2 what we signed up for?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 is that just inherent in being a mom? And I think that the way she described that is really interesting. And as she said, it is this the gig? I'm thinking of a job description.

Speaker 2 I'm thinking of if motherhood was actually a job description, what you would see

Speaker 2 you are signing up for, if you are signing up for a heterosexual marriage with children as a mother, your job description includes the following.

Speaker 2 You are 10 times more likely than male partners to bear the burden of the child care, the senior care, the chores, the scheduling of your children, the home management, the school volunteering, the staying home when the kids get sick.

Speaker 2 Your job description includes per week, 10 more hours of housework, and six more hours of childcare than your male partner.

Speaker 2 You're twice as likely to manage the entire household and three times as likely to manage the kids' schedules. That's your job description.
Want to sign up? Want this job?

Speaker 2 So we don't, that's literally part of the gig, but we have not as a society

Speaker 2 described it that way. It's just you walk into it, it becomes that gig, and you say, I'm having trouble managing the weight of this gig.

Speaker 2 In addition, by the way, to the fact that I am working just as many hours, if not more, on my paid work outside of the home.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 what

Speaker 2 I think is that half of the

Speaker 2 half of the way to make all of this invisible, unpaid labor that we do on the regular

Speaker 2 not bury us is to name it and make it visible.

Speaker 2 You are not struggling because you are doing something wrong. You are struggling because structurally the way this gig is set up is horseshit.

Speaker 2 You are working outside the home doing just as much work statistically. And you are also expected

Speaker 2 to, as part of this gig, invest 16 more hours per week week at least. That is just the housework and the childcare.

Speaker 2 Not to mention the mental load of planning, the school, the volunteering, the whose birthday party is and what the present is, all of that

Speaker 2 per week.

Speaker 2 So there is a reason you lose yourself. There's a spiritual reason, like you discussed, because you think you're supposed to give up your needs.

Speaker 2 And there is an actual tactical on-the-ground reason you lose yourself because who the hell has time to find themselves when all of their hours are booked according to their gig.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's interesting the constant refrain of making the invisible visible because when I think about what you're saying, that's what we, Craig and Abby and I did now.

Speaker 3 The wild privilege of having three parents. Like, I don't know how anybody does it with two or one,

Speaker 3 but

Speaker 3 that was what we did, I guess, actually. Sit it down and say, here's all the tickers running in my brain.
You take one, you take one, you take one. Interesting.

Speaker 2 And I think maybe, maybe the answer is this.

Speaker 2 Maybe the answer is, unfortunately, Ashley, apparently, this is the way our society has decided the gig should be or is.

Speaker 2 I mean, notice who wins in this gig arrangement and heterosexual marriages. Of course, that this would just silently happen

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 it's better for one side than the other.

Speaker 3 Right. But also they're connected intrinsically.

Speaker 3 Like, they're ridiculously connected because if you're going to overtax women of their time, of their money, of their energy, of all of it, then in order to make it sustainable in a patriarchy, what you have to do is hold up the ideal of a woman as that,

Speaker 3 as a woman who is serving constantly to the extent that she has no self. How do we make that desirable? Oh, I know we will create this idea that the epitome of womanhood is the selfless woman.

Speaker 3 Right? So then not only will we not be pissed off about not having time for a self, we will chase it like a dirty pink bunny because they're telling us that is success.

Speaker 3 How many of us talk about our mothers as, oh, God, she was so selfless, as if that's some kind of compliment as opposed to an actual commentary on women in the world that the epitome of success would be to lose yourself completely to not have a self to not have a life that's it that's the golden ring

Speaker 2 yep and maybe that that just each generation

Speaker 2 this is what it is now we've got to do the work within the relationships that we have to help um

Speaker 2 become more full of ourselves and give ourselves a role in the gig and a value in the ecosystem of our families, and then

Speaker 2 make it make the gig different

Speaker 2 exactly the job description, alter the job description for ourselves.

Speaker 2 And then, so that the job description that our daughters and sons walk into will be a different job description because this didn't just happen. This job description didn't just occur.

Speaker 2 Like anything, you sat down and said,

Speaker 2 What's gonna, what's gonna work for the people

Speaker 2 who

Speaker 2 have the power?

Speaker 3 Yes, exactly. And what I know about women after listening is my job, my main job is just to listen deeply to women, right?

Speaker 3 Occasionally, a man,

Speaker 3 definitely non-binary people.

Speaker 3 What I have, what I know is that women desperately want to be good moms and caretakers and lovers.

Speaker 2 That is what

Speaker 3 they want.

Speaker 3 It's just that we we have to alter what that means,

Speaker 3 right, for ourselves.

Speaker 3 Yes, yes, live to be a good lover.

Speaker 3 But what does that mean? We must include the idea that love does not require us to disappear ever, that love insists that we show up fully, right? Love is about fully emerging.

Speaker 3 And we have to just say, yes, okay, I want to be a good mom, but is a good mom a martyr? Is that what I want to pass down?

Speaker 3 Or is it part of the job description to live fully so that one day these little ones will give themselves permission to live fully? Because

Speaker 3 I just,

Speaker 3 I have so, I know so many people who are desperate to let themselves live and feel guilty about it because of the legacy that a martyr mother passed down to them.

Speaker 3 That's the chain we have to break and create another golden ring, right?

Speaker 3 That is the definition of good motherhood that includes modeling,

Speaker 3 refusing to slowly die.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 Let's go to another question.

Speaker 3 Here we have one from

Speaker 2 Catherine. Catherine.
Okay.

Speaker 3 My mom has chronic illnesses and lives alone. She has doctor's appointments every week.
She needs groceries every weekend.

Speaker 3 She can do these things on her own, but it's a struggle and she doesn't want to bring in extra help.

Speaker 3 My brother and I live close by, but it's me that keeps track of all the appointments, helps her get there when I can, and does all the laundry and errands every weekend and sub meals during the week.

Speaker 3 My brother pops in and out, does things when asked, but... I'm shouldering all of this alone.

Speaker 2 And it doesn't bother him at all that our mom needs help.

Speaker 3 When I asked him if he doesn't worry because I take care of all of it, he said no, he wouldn't do anything differently if I stepped back.

Speaker 3 Do you think it's possible that women are just hardwired to be the caretakers?

Speaker 3 I just, this question reminds me of this meme I just saw. My brain, like many of us, is just a large file folder of memes

Speaker 3 That said that this one person asked

Speaker 3 a soon-to-be father, I think his partner was pregnant, if he wanted a boy or a girl.

Speaker 3 Can we just, we'll just put a pin in this ridiculous situation where we continue to ask

Speaker 3 future parents what the gender of their child, like as if gender is something that can be defined at birth, right?

Speaker 3 Like, it's like saying, so is your daughter, is your, is your child going to be an optometrist or, or it's like, I guess we'll find out, right? Gender is not something that we can assign.

Speaker 3 It has to be revealed over time. But besides that,

Speaker 3 the dude, the dad, says,

Speaker 3 you know, I'm just hoping that it's a girl just because, you know, girls are just so much more nurturing and care, you know, caretaking and loving. And so I'm just really hoping it's a girl.

Speaker 3 And now when I think about that, I think, okay, he was probably trying to be sweet. Like to him, that probably felt like progressive.
I'm a dad. He wants a girl.
Yay.

Speaker 3 But I just kept thinking, oh my God, even this fetus has a higher emotional load. Like even female fetuses are in there with already expectations that they will freaking take care of us.

Speaker 2 Right. And

Speaker 2 think of how insulting that would be to to his male fetus. So you, little one, I am already anticipating, will not

Speaker 2 be able to

Speaker 2 understand

Speaker 2 the emotional and physical needs of the world around you and respond to them appropriately. Right.
Like, it's so strange.

Speaker 3 It's so insulting to all genders, beyond gender, all the everybody. It's just insulting to everybody.

Speaker 3 To answer Catherine's question directly, I can only tell you what I think. I think that we are conditioned to be caretakers.
I do not believe that we are inherently born one way or the other.

Speaker 3 I think the second we're born, we start getting messages about what we need to do because of our gender. And so do little boys, right? And that just gets solidified over time.

Speaker 3 What's your take on this?

Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't know scientifically anything about hardwiring.
I do know that when

Speaker 2 half the population continues to take care of things, the other half of the population will never

Speaker 2 know

Speaker 2 whether they have the capacity and the ability

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 the joy of participating in things

Speaker 2 because they won't ever do it.

Speaker 3 Yes, it's so true. I mean, when you said that, I was just thinking about when Chase was first born, Craig lost his job.

Speaker 3 And so I was teaching, and Craig was home with Chase for a while, like during what should have been my maternity leave or something. I don't know.

Speaker 3 But I think of that as this huge blessing for us because Craig never got to have the learned helplessness

Speaker 3 that we all as a culture foist upon men by pretending they can't do things like change diapers or

Speaker 3 you know feed the baby all day or all like Craig

Speaker 3 there was none of that learned helplessness like it was it was sink or swim just like it would have been for me if I was the one home and so Craig learned and I learned early on that he was just as capable of caretaking as I was and that

Speaker 3 carried out carried throughout the kids lives

Speaker 2 I just wonder, I sometimes think about what the next generation is going to look at us and say is absurd about our arrangements.

Speaker 2 Because, I mean, when I talk to my peers of my age group, the things that they say about their parental

Speaker 2 dynamics that are absurd to them, like the way that their father will walk into a room and

Speaker 2 talk about, I wonder when we're having lunch.

Speaker 2 And then the mom will go

Speaker 2 prepare the sandwich.

Speaker 2 An implied helplessness of a

Speaker 2 65-year-old man to put together a sandwich. Never mind that he was, you know, the manager of a business, but he may, there's no world in which he may make his sandwich.

Speaker 2 What are the things? Like, we should not think that we are more evolved than that.

Speaker 2 We are a little further down the road, but there are so many dynamics in our relationships right now that are the equivalent

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 2 the sandwich making.

Speaker 3 Yep. That's right.
All right, let's go on to Danielle.

Speaker 7 Hi, Gwenn. My name's Danielle.
I'm newly married, and in the past year, I've begun to feel very overwhelmed with my new job and all the responsibilities I have in our household.

Speaker 7 I see my husband taking time for himself, reading books, going for runs, watching TV, having fun, while I spend all my spare time cleaning and cooking and doing everything to maintain our home.

Speaker 7 How do I release some of the responsibilities I have so that I can have time for myself too?

Speaker 6 Thanks.

Speaker 3 You have

Speaker 3 recently released something

Speaker 3 and so I wonder if you might be able to respond to Danielle.

Speaker 2 Yes, so we recently, John and I sat down and just looked at our lives

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 all of the things that need to be done on the regular and decided,

Speaker 2 decided on a distribution, which goes back to Ashley's question. When you never decide on a distribution, you end up with the default job description, the horseshit one we talked about, where you get.

Speaker 2 25 less hours in your week than your heterosexual male partner. So, so if you don't talk about it, that's what you get.
That's right.

Speaker 2 And in order to talk, in order to opt out of that job description, you have to talk about it.

Speaker 3 But if you don't make it all visible together, the woman will default to the culture's standards of what invisible work she should do.

Speaker 2 Right. So we talked about it and in and we decided that one,

Speaker 2 and John is amazing. I mean, he is, he's an amazing human and he

Speaker 2 wanted to help. He wanted, but it was invisible.
He didn't know where to help. So he, this is a while ago, he decided that he was going to be the ticker of the groceries and the house inventory.

Speaker 2 So, you know, all of that stuff, how much toilet paper do we have? Will we have enough for the school lunches? What are that, you know, all that inventory life thing?

Speaker 2 He

Speaker 2 took that on and put it on his ticker so i have not been to the grocery store until since i don't know when and i remember

Speaker 2 and it has made a a giant difference in my life i literally never think about whether we have enough food in the house whether we have paper towels in the house whether we have whatever it's just magically shows up here and

Speaker 3 um wow so you feel a little bit like a man feels just the magic that's exactly right The magic thing that's constantly happening.

Speaker 2 The magic thing where the thing, you have what you need in your life and you didn't do it yourself. So we, it's so interesting.
When we were talking about this,

Speaker 2 you

Speaker 2 we were talking about talking about that. Oh, and I said,

Speaker 3 we can't talk about that. I said, wait, no, that's, that's too privileged of a situation.
That is too lucky. Like, who has a husband that does all the grocery? We can't talk about that.

Speaker 3 That people will just be like, oh, well, well, that must be nice that she's so lucky. And then you said,

Speaker 2 I was pissed. You're pissed at me.
Because I said,

Speaker 2 so we can't talk about this because

Speaker 2 I am in

Speaker 2 the correct positioning in our marriage because we have sat down and decided this is an unequal distribution. You do all of this.

Speaker 2 And I need to take some of that on so that we can attempt to establish some balance. And

Speaker 2 that is something to be ashamed of. That is something to feel

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 I am somehow cheating the system.

Speaker 2 A cheating the system. And you know what? You know what is horseshit? How many men out there are looking at their male friends going, Damn, bro, you are so lucky.

Speaker 2 Your wife does a grocery shopping every week.

Speaker 3 That's what got me. Wow.
That's what got me when you said that.

Speaker 2 You are so lucky. Do you know how lucky you are? Do you know how few dudes have their wives go out and go grocery shopping every week?

Speaker 2 No. They don't even think about it.
They live in the land that I now live, which is that they have crackers when they need them all the time.

Speaker 2 It's so true. And that is because.

Speaker 2 That is because that's the default. And so I, it has made a difference in our lives and I appreciate it so much.
That's the other thing.

Speaker 2 Every Every time I, we have what we have in our house, every time he comes home from the store, I'm like, thank you. That's awesome.
I appreciate this.

Speaker 2 And also, how many husbands do you think with their wives walk in have that deep level of appreciation? They don't know it because most of them haven't experienced it.

Speaker 2 They don't know.

Speaker 2 They just add it to the list of the stuff that their wife automatically gets done. And man, what would we do without her? What, you know what you'd do without her? You'd go to the grocery store.
Amen.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 And when you explained it to me that way, I said, yes, ma'am, let us discuss the groceries. So what we would like to say to this person

Speaker 3 is you release something, you get it all visible,

Speaker 3 and then you renegotiate, right?

Speaker 3 And then

Speaker 3 you are deciding, you are seeing all the invisible work and you two can divide it up. Is that what our recommendation would be here?

Speaker 2 Yeah, and you'll find out whether your partner is amenable to that, whether your partner really does want you to have equal enjoyment of your life that they have.

Speaker 2 And that will be information.

Speaker 2 And if your partner is not willing to make an equal distribution of

Speaker 2 the responsibilities associated with the privilege of living according to how you live,

Speaker 2 you will find out. And if not, then you'll be in a position to, instead of reassigning the responsibilities, to decide whether you're going to release some of them.

Speaker 2 Whether there are things that you may just say, okay, well, that's, if you're not willing to take that on, that's actually just not going to get done in our house because I'm not going to continue to do it all.

Speaker 2 Got to hold the line.

Speaker 3 Got to hold the line.

Speaker 3 I mean, I think I'll just say this and then we'll go to our next right thing.

Speaker 3 But I do, when you're speaking about all of this, I'm thinking about Abby and me and the difference in the same gender marriage.

Speaker 3 And we were actually just talking about this last night that so Abby does the cooking, I do all the laundry. And we both feel so deeply grateful for it each time.

Speaker 3 Like every time I put a pile of clothes in Abby's closet, she literally is still like, thank you so much for doing the laundry. And I feel the same way when she's cooking.

Speaker 3 And I think that's not because it's a special love, it's because, because there are no invisible expectations,

Speaker 3 because there's no default to, oh, you're the girl, I'm the guy. And all of our internal conditioning kicks in about what each is supposed to do.
That's not there.

Speaker 3 So you actually see it all as an offering or something.

Speaker 2 I think that, but I think that's true for John and me. I have never,

Speaker 2 I have never felt closer to him than when we sat down and we said, we're going to do this. And we're,

Speaker 2 we,

Speaker 2 and we're doing it. I feel, I feel like we are equal partners.
I, the, the resentment is not there anymore. Literally.
Just after that.

Speaker 2 It's like when I see him do those things, it is so, so yes, there's going to be tension in those conversations for sure.

Speaker 2 But if you're able to get through to the other side of them, it's actually an investment in your relationships. I mean, it's, it's the willingness to confront that.

Speaker 2 And if you get through it, will actually make you closer.

Speaker 2 So all of that kind of grumbling inside of you goes away and you can truly appreciate and be grateful for and know that you're both holding up the sky and you enjoy it instead of looking at your beautiful ecosystem that you've created and being pissed and bitter about it because you know you're the one who made it happen,

Speaker 2 you can, you're grateful for it and you're grateful for them. It helps your relationship for sure.

Speaker 3 Yeah, because everybody needs a wife.

Speaker 2 Everybody, every damnbody.

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Speaker 3 next right thing

Speaker 3 what's our next right thing for these beautiful people what are our pod squads going to work on to this week i mean i think that there's two things i think we could get to the release of something

Speaker 3 we could practice just releasing something like you released groceries

Speaker 3 and then hold the line of whatever happens next and if it doesn't happen exactly as we want it to happen accept

Speaker 2 go back and listen to boundaries and then accept.

Speaker 3 Yeah, go listen to the boundaries episode for sure.

Speaker 3 But I also think, I mean, I, but I also think there's something to this, just making all of the, beginning to make all of the invisible work visible, just getting it all down on paper, getting the ticker from your brain out on paper so that all of the partners in our lives can see what's being done.

Speaker 3 invisibly.

Speaker 2 Yes, I think that's correct. I think that if, yes, writing, going back to Ashley's point, what's the gig here?

Speaker 2 You know, what are all the things in the gig that makes your household run, that makes your life happen?

Speaker 2 And then figuring out what you can give.

Speaker 2 So it's, you know,

Speaker 2 making the invisible visible. Then it's figuring out how you can redistribute that, really talking about it.
Then it's the

Speaker 2 it's both the holding the line and letting go.

Speaker 2 So you have to,

Speaker 2 um,

Speaker 2 you have to be willing to, if you give the ticker of the groceries to your partner, whatever groceries come in the house, you say thank you so much. Even if it's, I love just crackers.

Speaker 3 Even if it's just

Speaker 3 eating crackers, okay?

Speaker 2 And that is, I'm a control freak and I have never, you know what I'm never going to say a word about?

Speaker 3 Crackers.

Speaker 2 Whatever food is in the house because I'm so grateful for that. So you have to get it, but on a more serious note, you really will have to cede some control over how

Speaker 2 those things get done.

Speaker 3 Okay. And also, just before we stop, I want to also say this isn't just about households.

Speaker 3 I mean, the amount of messages we listen to people who feel the same way outside of their small nuclear family, to their extended family, the women who are taking care of the whole family, get that invisible ticker out.

Speaker 3 Show your brother what it is that you do. Show your mother what it is that you do.
The messages we got from women who somehow default have to take care of the whole office.

Speaker 3 All that the women do to keep offices together, right?

Speaker 2 That the get-it is the equivalent in the office space, in the workspace. The studies

Speaker 2 that look at the

Speaker 2 invisible work inside of the home and the ratio of disproportionate execution by women are the exact same as in the workplace. The

Speaker 2 unpaid work in the workplace. Right.
The all the holiday parties, the no, all of that,

Speaker 2 when I read those studies, I was full of rage because you know what? The men aren't, the men don't do the unpaid work in the workplace.

Speaker 3 Right. Okay.
So we're going to, we're going to, we're going to reel this in, Sissy, because I just.

Speaker 3 We're going to save the workplace rage for another episode because I know you have enough. I know you have enough.

Speaker 2 I have enough rage for

Speaker 3 you cannot spell courage without a little rage, y'all.

Speaker 2 Okay,

Speaker 3 so

Speaker 3 next right thing.

Speaker 3 In big ways or small ways, make the invisible visible this week. All right.
We love you.

Speaker 3 This stuff is hard, but we can do hard things.

Speaker 3 We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it.
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