We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - OVERWHELM: Is our exhaustion a sign that we’re CareTicking time bombs?

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

In the episode discover: 1. How the constant to-do list ticker looping in Amanda's brain makes her feel like a dormant volcano. 2. The job description we've somehow accepted for motherhood—and whether self-abandonment is a job requirement. 3. The way gender expectations even creep into Glennon and Abby's marriage. 4. How to know whether your partner is a co-builder or an assistant. 5. How to make the invisible load of caretaking visible—and potentially bearable.   To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it. Download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at $12.99 per month. I'm not the problem sometimes things fall apart. Hi, it's Glenin. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. So the episode we're

launching today, we almost didn't air at all. We've recorded this conversation on a day when my sister was feeling really overwhelmed and kind of angry. 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. 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

That because she's a woman she is expected to do endless hours of invisible work that he isn't expected to do 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. He has more free time and energy in space in his day and in his mind, which means he has more free time and energy in space in his life. And in the end, that discrepancy means he has a fuller life, more time to be human, and that pisses her off.

After we recorded this conversation, we thought, well, that was a good sister conversation, but we won't make a public, because this is personal, it's a unique situation. People might not understand. But then, a couple weeks ago, we aired the fun episode. In it, we talked about 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 and little girls are trained to care

more about how we appear and how we feel. And as we get older, we are further trained to care for others' needs instead of our own. We forget how to play when we learn how to constantly please and serve. We don't get to play because we have too much damn work to do. And so we end up having less joy and less life than we should. And the response to that episode was incredible. My sister and I have read through hundreds of your reactions in comments and reviews on social media on our voicemail. 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. We've sat silently together and listened. We have read your stories aloud to each other.

And the common denominator has been, women are overwhelmed and a bit angry. You want to share the weight of the world. You want the world and your work and your families to stop expecting you to keep them spinning alone and invisibly. You want some life back. You want to get to live too. So, sister and I learned once again that the more personal we get, the more universal we are. That no life is really all that unique at all and that

one woman's issue is usually millions of women's issue. And that we are never alone. So let's begin. You're bringing us our hard thing today. What hard thing are you bringing to me? Okay. My hard thing these days is and all days is that I feel like I am walking around in work in my family, in my kids, taking care of my kids in my house life, everything. Like on the outside, I look like I'm a shit together. Like I look like I'm just calm, just getting it done. But one millimeter beneath the surface is like frothing lava. Like I'm a I am a dormant volcano and God help you if anything happens, anything at all, anything that's just normal part of life. And then I am just ready to just spew and destroy the world. Like, that's the feeling that I that Recently that it's just

That I feel like my mental space is is the equivalent of that like lava at the very top of the volcano that 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, 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, they're pissed another way. Have you worked on the five-o-four plan? And don't worry, because you have to ask your neighbor if she can get you in that one soccer team for the kid. And you've got to, and that, there's like all the kid list and there's the work list and there's the homeless and there's that and there's never it's like it's like all of the things that come together to architect a life. It feels like those are happening through my head all day long. And God forbid the inevitable happens

where one thing takes 20 seconds longer than it should. And then it throws me off completely because all of the ticker keeps running, right? Yes, the ticker will now you're behind. I'm behind. I'm always and never not behind. And I think what I realized recently, and it's been a challenge to me and in my relationship with my husband, John, because I realized that there is an unequal distribution of ticker. And this is how I realized it because my husband, John, God bless him and keep him. And he is a good insert here,

all the things we say about our kids before we're about to say how they're being assholes. He is 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 he can help made me realize, 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 figuring out what even needs to go on the to-do list. And you're sitting there in this very privileged position to just take an item off the to-do list, which means you're not carrying it. So you're not an architect and a co-builder of this structure of our life. You're a handyman. Right?

I mean, and not disparaging handyman. And not just... No, no. But it is a conceptual shift of mental space. It's though, 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 I'm saying is I don't ever not

thinking about what the 10 steps that need to go into one item on that to do list. And that means 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, then that means I'm having an unequal life. Exactly. And we're pretending like we're both parenting or we're both building, right? Like we are co-parenting. We are.

But actually, if one person is doing all the building and tickering and list making, then what you have is an assistant. Because if you, say two people are running a business, okay, what do people that are running a business called? Business owners. Business owners, 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? No. 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. 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 in a mixed-gender marriage is the CEO and the other is just the assistant that pops in and says, what can I do to help? And then we're supposed to pat that person on the head for being helpful.

Right, and I think maybe an example would help. Like the part... So we are equal and that we equally participate in all of the decisions for our kids. But 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 the invisible labor that goes into that is how do we find 10 camps within budget that

we can actually afford? How I need to text all 20 parents who we know to make sure there is their schedules along with our schedules so there always be one kid in each camp, 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. Do they have aftercare? Can we do that? Who's going to be in that? It's just there's the hours of invisible time and visible effort that go into the equal

sit down and say, 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, the emotional labor of all of that is part of the problem. It's like I'm walking around with this 200 pound pack on my back all the time that no one in my family

in my home can see. And so, you know, in addition to not 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. So it's it's double and then and then I'm thinking, yeah, I must be doing it wrong. 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. 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? But then I think if I put down this pack, this shit falls apart. Some hold the sky around here.

I'm Jonathan M. Hevar. I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things. But I grew up working class. My parents were immigrants with factory jobs. And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I want to talk about it. That's what we're doing on my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food.

I was like, girl, why not doing that anymore? You'll hear from people who told me awkward, embarrassing, and strangely intimate things about what class means to them. She said, you know, for the house cleaner, I hide the tag on the $6 bread. And I just thought, don't you think she knows that you're wealthy? You're hiding the tags from yourself.

Classy. A new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. So what is it? Okay, because we had, I used to think this was completely gendered, and it is mostly. But I had the ticker in my last marriage, okay? And then I got married to Abby, and I thought since I'm entering the same gender marriage. This is going to be some Nirvana of none. Like, nothing's going to be gendered.

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, 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. And I remember, I sat down with her 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, but the fact

that you have to ask, don't you understand that someone has to make all the lists? Right? Like, I need somebody else who's making lists, not who's just asking me what they can take from the list because what that implies is that it's my list. Right. If we're co-parenting here, it's not my list, right? So 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, so that's a huge, huge, for a lichen blessing because we have a blended family.

So Craig, 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, that's your gym. Abby, clearly, you know all about the sports, okay? If these children don't do sports, if they don't go to practice, if they miss a tournament, that's your gym, right? So, it was like the division of the categories of tickers helped us. But in order for that to work two things have to happen.

The other co-parent or partner, 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. Right? And then the original ticker, caretaker, has to allow the other person to do things in their way. So, what does it look like when you do pass over responsibility? Or have you ever? No. You should, we both have tiny, barely perceptible control issues. The tiniest kind. Only the tiniest kind of control issues.

No it has. Like in, I have successfully transitioned a couple of tickers and they've nailed them. He's nailed them. But I think for me it's all of the ones you know we have two kids who are neurodiverse and it's all of the I can't those kinds of things like who are going to be the therapist and how do I get the five before and how can will the insurance cover it and all, you know, the full-time job that that is, I honestly don't see myself releasing that. Yeah. I don't.

So I just, but so I have to own that, but at the same time, I also have to own that I have this relationship that I and that my frustration at the mental load that I'm carrying is obvious. So it's this, you know, forever, 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. And this is what I think is happening. In I have to think this is happening in a lot of families. 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, 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. So you have that load, but then you also have this

this exhaustion and anger about having to do that and about this unequal enjoyment of your life that you see the other person having. 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. Like I think I've noticed lately that my because so much of this is invisible, all of this work is invisible that I've just kind of made visible. I just walk around like a ticking. I'm like, well, I did this, this, this, this, today, and I called the whatever today. And I did this, this, this, this, it's like a let the record show.

Like at least that I, I don't, I'm doing that. And that is not fun for anyone. It's not fun for anyone. And then tell talk about. Oh, God, and Sunsoon article. So my sweet husband is just always trying to like connect us more and clearly because of my mental space, I'm not, you know, I'm overloaded. And so he doesn't mean like you don't want to make out all the time Just only every other time and so I

He does this like precious thing where his love languages like sharing and talking and quality Time of discussing things so he will Like in the middle of a crazy day, where I haven't like peed in four hours, he will text me an article about like geopolitical developments in Asia. Okay, and say something like this is really interesting. We should discuss. And instead of receiving that, the way it was given, which is a wonderful gesture from someone who's interested in actually talking to you and hearing your thoughts, I'm like, 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? 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. When I haven't taken a shower in four days, and it just feels like I legitimately receive it hour and 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. 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. Fix your life. 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 at work, home with her baby, all the things. And she said, and then I, you know, everyone I'd have to take my dad dinner. And I was like, oh, you take your dad dinner and she's like, yeah, 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 really sick? And she said, oh no, he's not sick at all. And I said, what? And she said, no, he's 60 years old, completely healthy healthy. He just can't you know, he can't really cooking clean And I was like dear God like what these people have pulled off Like what and sometimes what we allow them to pull off right he can't Like do you mean he won't?

He can't. Like, do you mean he won't? Because you're a single mom holding up the entire sky of your child in your life. But your dad who is healthy and living in his home can't. He's never been required to. He's never been required to, right? So part of this, right, is like, it's hard to decide how much we are enabling and martyring ourselves, right? And allowing things not to be required of co-partners, of co-parents, of fathers,

husband, sons. So what part do you think you have in that? Or do you? I think I do have that. I think I also have a desire to have things be done the way I think they should be done. And it's worked for me. See, here's the thing. Here is the here is the crux of it. It has always worked for me.

And it has always not worked for me. So the outcomes that I get when I do shit myself are amazing. Yes. I have that I have the things in my life that I want and I have built them. Yeah, and I am also most of the time miserable. Yes Yeah

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? I've like the four of us, my mom, my dad, me and you. 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. We depend on you to fix things, but then we also really worry that you're stressed out. 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 Jack Nicholson from a few good men. And you're like, you need me on this wall. You can't handle the truth. You need me on this wall. 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. But then when it hits the thien, we're like, don't worry, sisters on the wall. So I, I'm I hear this, I mean, I don't want to get down off the wall. Because I, that's the way I love my people. That's that's that is the only way I know how to love is to do and to help and to solve problems.

And so, it reminds me of in the episode we did about your anxiety where you said that you think at the crux of it, you often believe that your anxiety is love. And for me, that's the same way with 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, 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. The problem is the effects of carrying that are often that the people that I want to love don't feel my love because my effort is in the carrying and not in loving them the way that they need to be loved themselves. And then when they look at me and say, with their, not with their words, but with the why aren't you investing in us? Why aren't you?

Giving me what I need in my heart and in my mind. I'm like, I am giving more than I have. I am giving every ounce of myself every moment. I have no mental space, no physical space, no hours that are not carrying for all of you and loving you. And it's just, so I feel like I'm pouring that out. And then sometimes I feel like I'm getting back. We'll put it down. And I feel like put down my way of loving.

I don't understand the way that it's tricky. The whole thing is tricky. Yeah. I mean, I do feel that same way with the anxiety stuff. It's like, that's how I know to love is freak out about everything and worry. I worry, you know, I'll be will suggest I stop worrying. 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. And I'm like, it's not, it doesn't be okay. It be's okay because I made it okay. But like, but, but, but sister, it, it'll be okay. You, you make it okay by doing

things. I literally just sit in my house and freak out. Okay. So, but, but there is a part of me that will always and forever born no matter how healthy I get, believe that I am worrying us all into success. Okay? That if it worked out, it is partly because I, you did your part, made myself miserable. Okay? So it is a, I don't have a solution for this, but it is an interesting idea 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. And that your way you're loving is by project managing and controlling and staying on the wall 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. Correct. You are not present. And so this idea of the way we are deciding to love the crap out of our people, so much

so that they can't feel it. Right. We're loving them so so that they can't feel it. We're living them so hard, they can't feel it. That they are unloved. Okay, so on that note, and 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. ["Music"] Welcome back to our segment that we purposefully don't call a Q&A.

Because to me life is just endless cues and no-ays. Because to me life is just endless cues and no a's. Now we say I don't have answers, I have a response, I probably have a story. Let's get to our hard questions. The first one is from Ashley. My name is Ashley and my question is around becoming a mom. How can you be a mom and not lose your entire self? How can you be a mom and be a woman and a wife and a worker and a human that is still

independent of your children. 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 how? How do you do it? I guess that's my major question.

My name is Ashley. Thank you. Okay, Ashley already gets the Q&A because she said she didn't even say I need your answer. She just said I need your question. Ashley, I too have questions. First of all, I just love Ashley. I love her voice. I love her vulnerability.

When you said does is giving yourself up, part of the gig, it made me think, yes, the way it's structured right now, right? The way that our culture presents motherhood to us. Part of it, it's like implied that in order to be a good mother, we will bury ourselves, right? That right now, the way things are structured, the way the definitions of motherhood are given to us, that yes, part of the gig is losing ourselves, right? The only way we can change the

definition of that gig is if we look at it real, real hard and we say, no, no, no, no, my children will do what I do. And so my gig 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. That is the gig. Yep. I love that. And it as, I mean, I actually completely nailed it because that's the entire question, right? Is this what we signed up for? And 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. I'm thinking of if motherhood was actually a job description, what you would see, 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. 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. Your job description includes per week, 10 more hours of housework and six more hours of childcare than your mail partner.

Your twice is likely to manage the entire household and three times is likely to manage the kid's schedules. That's your job description. Wanna sign up? Want this job? So we don't, that's literally part of the gig, but we have not as a society 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 in addition, by the way to make all

of this invisible unpaid labor that we do on the regular not barriers is to name it and make it visible. You are not struggling because you are doing something wrong. You are struggling because structurally the way this gig is set up is horseshit. You are working outside the home doing just as much work statistically. statistically, and you are also expected to, as part of this gig, invest 16 more hours per week, at least. That is just the housework and the childcare. Not to mention the mental load of planning, the school, the volunteering, though, whose birthday party is it is, and what the present is, all of that per week. So there is a reason you lose yourself. There is there's a spiritual reason like you discuss because you think

you're supposed to give up your needs. 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? 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 know. The wild privilege of having three parents,

I don't know how anybody does it with two or one, but 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, you take one. Interesting. And I think maybe the answer is this. Maybe the answer is, unfortunately, actually, apparently, this is the way our society has

decided the gig should be. Or is. I mean, notice who wins in this gig arrangement and heterosexual marriages. Of course, that this would just silently happen because it's better for one side than the other. Right. But also, they're connected, 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, 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. 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. How many of us talk about our mothers as, oh God, you're 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. Yep. And maybe that just each generation, this is what it is now. We've got to do the work within the relationships that we have to help become more full of ourselves and give ourselves a role in the gig and a value in the ecosystem of our families and then Make it make the gig different All to the job description all to the job description for ourselves and then

So that the job description that our daughters and sons walk into Will be a different job job description because this didn't just happen This job description didn't just occur like anything you sat down and said What's gonna what's gonna work for the people who? Have the power. Yes exactly and what I know about women after listening is my job. My main job is just to listen deeply to women, right? Occasionally a man, definitely non-binary people. What I have, what I know is that women desperately want

to be good moms and caretakers and lovers. That is what they want. It's just that we have to alter what that means. Right? For ourselves, yes, yes, live to be a good lover. 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. 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? 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 I just, 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 out to them. That's the chain we have to break and create another golden ring, right? That is the definition of good motherhood that includes modeling, refusing to slowly die. Okay. Let's go to another question. Here we have one from Catherine. Catherine. Okay.

My mom has chronic illnesses and lives alone. She has doctors appointments every week. She needs groceries every weekend. She can do these things on her own, but it's a struggle. And she doesn't want to bring in extra help. 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 some meals during the week. My brother pops it in out, does things when asked, but I'm soldering all of this alone. And it doesn't bother him at all that our mom needs help. 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.

Do you think it's possible that women are just hard-wired to be the caretakers? I just, this question reminds me of this meme I just saw my brain like many of us. It's just a large, file folder of memes. That said that this one person asked a student tobe father, I think his partner was pregnant, if he wanted a boy or a girl. Can we just, we'll just put a pin in this ridiculous situation where we continue to ask future parents what the gender of their child, like as if gender is something that can be defined at birth, right? Like, it's like saying, so is your child going to be an optometrist?

Or it's like, I guess we'll find out, right? Gender is not something that we can assign. It has to be revealed over time. But besides that, the dude, the dad, says, you know, I'm just hoping that it's a girl, just because girls are just so much more nurturing and care, care-taking and loving and so I'm just really hoping it's a girl. 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. 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. Right. And think of how insulting that would be to his male fetus. So you, little one, I am already anticipating will not be able to understand the emotional and physical needs of the world around you and respond to them appropriately. Right. It's so strange. It's so insulting to all genders, beyond gender, all that everybody, it's just insulting to everybody. 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. 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. And that just gets solidified over time. What's your take on this? I don't know, I don't know scientifically anything about hardwiring. I do know that when half the population continues to take care of things, the other half of the population will never know whether they have the capacity and the ability and the joy of participating in things because they won't ever do it.

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. 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. But I think of that as this huge blessing for us, because Craig never got to have the learned helplessness that we all, as a culture, voiced upon men by pretending they can't do things, like change diapers or feed the baby all day or all like crap.

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 carried out, carried throughout the kids' lives. I just wonder, I sometimes think about what the next generation is going to look at us and say is absurd about our arrangements. Because, I mean, when I talk to my peers at my age group, the things that they say about their parental dynamics

that are absurd to them, like the way that their father will walk into a room and talk about, I wonder when we're having lunch. And then the mom will go prepare the sandwich and implied helplessness of a 65 year old man to put together a sandwich. Never mind that he was, you know, the manager of a business, but he, but there's no world in which he may make his sandwich. What are the things?

We should not think that we are more evolved than that. We are a little further down the road, but there are so many dynamics in our relationships right now that are the equivalent to the sandwich making. Yep, that's right. All right, let's go on to Danielle. Hi, Gwen and 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. I see my husband taking time from self-reinvux, going for runs, watching TV, having fun. While I spend all my spare time cleaning and cooking and doing everything to maintain our home. How do I release some of the responsibilities I have so that I can have time for myself too? Thanks.

You have recently released something. And so I wonder if you might be able to respond to Danielle. Yes. So we recently, John and I sat down and just looked at our lives and all of the things that need to be done on the regular and decided 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 when we talked about where you get 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. And in order to talk, in order to opt out of that job description, you have to talk about it. If you don't make it all visible together, the woman will default to the culture's standards of what invisible works she should do.

Right. So we talked about it and we decided that one and John is amazing. I mean he's an amazing human and he 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. 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. He took that on and put it on his ticker. So I have not been to the grocery store since I don't know when. And I remember, and it is made 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, um, wow. So you feel a little bit like a man feels just the magic thing, the magic thing that's constantly happening. The magic thing where the thing you have what you need in your life and you didn't do it yourself.

So it's so interesting when we were talking about this, we were talking about talking about that. Oh, and I said, we can't talk about that. I said, no, 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. That people will just be like, oh, well,

that must be nice. That she's so lucky. And then you said, I was pissed at me. Because I said, so we can't talk about this. Because I am in the correct positioning in our marriage because we have sat down and decided this is an unequal distribution. You do all of this and I need to take some of that on so that we can attempt to establish some balance.

And that is something to be ashamed of. That is something to feel like I am somehow cheating the system, 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. Your wife does a grocery shopping every week. That's what got me Wow, that's what got me when you said that

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? Yeah, 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 meet them all the time And that is because 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 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. 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. They don't know. 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 list of the stuff that their wife automatically gets done and man, what would we do without her?

What you know what you do without her, you'd go to the grocery store. Amen. Okay. 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 is you release something. You get it all visible and then you renegotiate. Right? And then 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? 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. And that will be information. And if your partner is not willing to make an equal distribution of the responsibilities associated with the privilege of living according to how you live, 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. Yeah. 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. Got to hold the line. Got to hold the line. I mean, I think I'll just say this and then we'll go to our next right thing. 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. And we were actually just talking about this last night that so Abby does the cooking I do on the laundry.

And we both feel so deeply grateful for it each time. Like every time I put a pile of clothes and abs closet, she literally is still like, thank you so much for doing the laundry. And I feel the same way when she's cooking. And I think that's not because it's a special love. It's because there are no invisible expectations because there's no default to,

oh, you're the girl on the guy and all of our internal conditioning kicks in about what you just supposed to do. That's not there. So you actually see it all as an offering or something? I think that, but I think that's true for John and me. I have never, I have never felt closer to him than when we sat down and we said we're gonna do this and we're we And we're doing it. I feel I feel like we are equal partners. I the resentment

Is not there anymore literally just after that. 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, but if you're able to get through to the other side of them, it's actually an investment in your relationship. I mean, it's it's the willingness to confront that and if you get through it, we'll actually make you closer. 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. Yeah. You can, you're grateful for it.

Yeah. And you're grateful for them. It helps your relationship for sure. Yeah, because everybody needs a wife. Everybody. Everybody. Every damn body. Next right thing, what's our next right thing for these beautiful people? What are our pod squats 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. We could practice just releasing something, like you released groceries, and then hold the line of whatever happens next, and if it doesn't happen exactly as we want it to happen, except go back and listen to boundaries. Oh, yes. And then accept. Yeah, go listen to the boundaries episode for sure.

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 invisibly. Yes, I think that's correct. I think that if yes, writing, going back to Ashley's point, what's the gig here? What are all the things in the gig that makes your household run, that makes your life happen? And then figuring out what you can give, so it, making the invisible visible, then it's figuring out how you can redistribute that and really talking about it. Then it's the, it's both the holding the line and letting go. So you have to, 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 just crackers. Exactly. Even if it's just crackers. Exactly. Eating crackers. Okay. And that is, I'm a control freak, and I have never, you know what I'm never going to say

a word about? Crackers. Whatever food is in the atmosphere, I'm so grateful for that. So you have to get it, but on a more serious note, you really will have to see some control over how those things get done. Okay, and also just before we stop, I want to also say this isn't just about households. I mean, the amount of messages we listen to people who feel this 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.

Show your brother what it is that you do. Show your mother what it is that you do. The message we got from women who somehow default have to take care of the whole office. All that the women do to keep offices together, right? That the get it is the equivalent in the office space and the workspace. The studies that look at the invisible work inside of the home and the ratio of disproportionate execution by women are the exact same as in the workplace,

the unpaid work in the workplace, the unpaid work in the workplace. Right. The holiday parties, the know all of that, 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. Okay, so we're gonna, we're gonna,

we're gonna reel this in to see because I just, we're gonna save the workplace rage for another episode because I know you have enough. I know you have enough. I have enough rage for our house. Yes, you cannot spell courage without a little rage. Y'all. Okay.

So, um, next right thing, in big ways or small ways, make the invisible visible this week. Alright, we love you. This stuff is hard, but we can do hard things. 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, 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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