In her inspiring TED talk, Tiffany Dufu calls a woman’s need to perfectly manage every aspect of the household the “home control disease.”
Others call it the invisible mental load that tends to fall more on women in heterosexual partnerships.
No matter what you call it, it’s the patriarchy baked into gendered norm expectations.
No matter how capable, how efficient, how smart you are–it probably has you seething most of your days. How much of this irritation do you bring to work? Isn’t it bad enough to have paperwork piling up without having to manage ever changing teamSnap hockey practices and trying to remember if you have enough mustard for Saturday’s meal?
Even if you hire someone (another woman probably?) to manage the work you don’t want to do, it’s usually still YOUR WORK to offload right? Arghhhhh!!!
I’m sure you can identify with the expectation to manage the emotions, dynamics, and operations of your household. The question is, will you continue to play that default role?
Maybe you think:
“If I don’t do this, it won’t get done.” (Yes, that’s possible).
“I can do this faster if I just do it myself.” (Yes, my husband takes twice as long to buy half the groceries).
“The kids won’t get to school on time if I don’t wake them.” (Definitely true. Scoop and run some days).
“My partner works longer hours than me. I should do all this extra work at home.” (Hmm…).
Do you play into that role of sole home project manager? Or do you choose another way?
I don’t know which option you prefer. It’s not my place to say.
But if I do something and feel resentful about it, that leaves me feeling net negative. And that comes off as controlling and criticism more often than not to those I love the most.
Question: “Could you experiment with letting go of expectations in some part of your life?”
Instagram: 3 Things You Need Might Need to Hear Today
Credit: “Emma” (You Should’ve Asked)
