Women at Work - How Mothers WFH Are Negotiating What’s Normal

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

We continue tracking the ways the pandemic is impacting women’s lives and careers, and discuss how to not only manage the challenges but also shape a more equitable future. Guests: Kathleen McGinn and Katherine Goldstein.

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. Amy, so what do we know about how the pandemic has been affecting women's careers? Can you give me a little bit of a recap? Sure. So we talked a lot about this in the last season, in particular, right as the pandemic hit, that many women lost jobs, in fact, at a greater rate than men were losing jobs. Yep. And we also know that women are doing a disproportionate share of the work at home. They're working two shifts. They're doing their jobs, the jobs they do to earn money.

And then they are taking care of the kids and they're cleaning the house and they're making dinner. Right. Let's not forget the women whose promotions and raises have been put on hold because companies either have hiring freezes or not giving bonuses this year. To me, the most shocking thing I heard in the last week was that something like 20% of women are considering hitting pause on their careers because of all this. That's right. One in four women, according to the most recent report from McKinsey and LeanIn.org, are considering leaving the workforce or downshifting.

And we know because of the Labor Department statistics that came out last week that women are leaving the workforce have left the workforce. The numbers between August and September were that 800,000 women voluntarily left the workforce. And that includes 324,000 Latinas and 58,000 black women. So that's a lot. What do you think all of this means? For me, it feels like we're on the cusp of a very scary downward spiral for gender equality, that the gains that we've made are just at such risk. And we're starting to see those effects. And I think we're just going to continue to see them. I totally agree with you, Amy. And I think that there's a generation of women, particularly

mothers of young children, who are just going to continue to struggle for the rest of their careers. Yeah. I mean, and as bleak as that sounds, I also think knowing that data, knowing those stats, those figures is empowering, right? We can do something about this. And that's what we need to do. And that's what we're here to do. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Gallo. I'm Emily Caulf Business Review. I'm Amy Gallo. I'm Emily Caulfield.

And I'm Amy Bernstein. With so many women's careers in the balance, we're continuing to track the ways the pandemic is changing our personal and professional lives. We're doing that so that we can make sense of what's going on at home and come up with ideas not just for managing the challenges, but for shaping a more equitable future.

Kathleen McGinn is someone who, for us at least, has become a real sensemaker and a ray of hope. She's a professor at Harvard Business School, and a lot of her research focuses on career mobility and negotiation. The last time she was on the show, last season in our episode called Unpause Yourself, she talked through how we should be thinking about professional advancement during the collective crisis. Since then, Kathleen has been studying parents in the U.S.

who are at home together working and raising their kids. Amy B. and I debrief Kathleen on how these couples' lives are changing, particularly the mother's lives, and the insights we can glean from those changes. Kathleen, thanks so much for joining us. It's wonderful to be back. And it's wonderful to have you back. So in this new research you're doing, you're kind of in the middle of it still. What strikes you as the most significant finding so far? So in this new research you're doing, you're kind of in the middle of it still.

What strikes you as the most significant finding so far? What surprised us most was the extent to which both men and women are responsive to the other party working from home. But interestingly, they respond in opposite ways. So men are very responsive to their wives working at home. And the more hours their wives work at home, the more men step in to help. And what's interesting is that women working from home, the more their partners are home, and we worked only with cisgender couples in the data that I'm sharing, the more the men were at home, the less housework the women did. This is very different than what we see with childcare. But in terms of housework, we were really surprised that they were sort of asymmetrically responsive in ways that suggest that when both men and women are working from home together, we're starting to see a little change in the roles

and the activities that they engage in when they're at home, with men doing a little more housework and women actually doing a little less. I'm wondering if you can explain how the couples you surveyed are deciding which partner does what tasks. Yeah, this is something that we dug into. So there is some default to norms. So it's sort of like, I always do this, is often the respondent's explanation for doing household activities. But it's more likely that women say, I do this because I always have done it, and so I'm going to keep on doing it. Men were more likely to say that they are doing work because they want to. And so we dug even further into this in the interviews. And what we found in the interviews is that both men and women talk about their wives' schedules

being more flexible. But what women talk about, yeah, I'm more flexible, so I do it. And that was fine in the beginning of the pandemic. But then it really got irritating because he's home all the time too. And so they talk about ways in which they moved away from that. Let me share just an example from one of the couples that we interviewed. So the woman says, at the beginning, it was just a little bit harder because it was actually my adjusting my schedule to his schedule. And that wasn't working. And so really, we started getting into a routine of telling each other what meetings we had. And then we kind of ended up creating a system.

We have a weekly dry erase board. And we started telling each other, hey, I have a meeting, I need quiet, and quiet became the keyword. So if you need quiet, and both of them expanded on the extent to which these two little props, the whiteboard, and the quiet as the code word word became their way of allocating tasks. What this is across a whole bunch of couples is that there are new conversations about making work, both the work that's going on at home and the work that they're doing in terms of their employment, making it much more explicit to one another, and then trying to talk through how they can create

more even division of labor within the household. I call this negotiations. And most of the explicit negotiations go on around the children. So couples see two things in this period of intense togetherness as must-dos. They have to keep on working and they have to be parents. And so the housework, we see much more variation in terms of whether couples talk about that. But the negotiation around the children is in many ways the first time for a lot of couples that they've stepped back and questioned, you know, is it really reasonable that just because I normally do this, I should keep on doing this? So you found this interesting balance with housework, Kathleen, but you didn't see it with child care. What do you make of that?

What are you seeing? So there are two pieces. One is that when we're talking about housework, we're talking about changing the behavior of just the adults in the household. When we're talking about child care, and really importantly, in this case, child education, we're talking about child care and really importantly, in this case, child education. We're talking about changing the behavior and the norms and the patterns, not just of the adults in the household, but the kids in the household as well. And so part of the promising thing that I do see in some couples is that couples are starting to recognize their relative strengths. So rather than just like go to mom for everything and sort of go to dad to play, which we do see equal amounts of playtime with men and women, so that's good. Men are starting to talk about how they're appreciating

a more complex relationship with their children. So I'm going to share a quote that I think is illustrative. This is a 33-year-old, three kids at home, mixed race couple, and he talks about being thrust into this role of educator. So my partner's definitely better at the educating. And so she took it on herself in the beginning to do all of that, which I was grateful for, and I was doing what I could. But we've learned that she's really good at math, so she can help with the math stuff. And I'm really good in English. So if my oldest is doing math homework, naturally she takes it on herself to work with him. And then if he's doing English homework, I naturally help him with that. And what I think is refreshing about this is that education is so different than just like,

mom, I need this, mom, I need that, that you can kind of just sort of take care of. And it would seem kind of almost petty to say, go ask your father, right? But in this case, it is a constant. Your children are home with you. It's something that's really, really important. And fathers and mothers are starting to see this doesn't have to be a zero one. Our children have lots and lots of needs. And we as parents have different skill sets, different aptitudes, different things we like doing. And maybe we can figure out how to work with our children and be with our children and play with our children in ways that aren't about that you happen to be a woman and I happen to be a man, but rather about this is what I'm

good at. And this is what you're good at. This is what I have fun doing with them. And this is what you have fun doing with them. That's great. But there's a huge difference between households with really little kids and households with older kids. The households with younger kids, like it's just gendered, you know, the woman's just doing more and the households with older kids, once you get past about six, the men are starting to say, you know, I think I could do more here. So what do you attribute that gendered difference in care to at different ages for kids? To this dual piece of what's normal and how hard is it to train kids? So it's much easier to say to your 10-year-old, hey, dad's really good at English.

Go ask dad. It's tougher with real little kids because it is actually a three, this is a multi-party negotiation. You're not just negotiating with your partner. You're negotiating with the kids. And I don't know, maybe some parents really have learned

how to negotiate with two-year-olds, but I can tell you, I was never very good at it. It's much, much easier to negotiate with a 10-year-old. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash

women at work. Hey listeners, if you want to hear from more leaders to help you answer questions like, should I talk about my anxiety at work? Or how do I claim my leadership power? Then you should listen to TED Business, hosted by Columbia Business School professor, Madhupe Akinnola. The show features TED Talks about everything from setting smart goals to the latest on DEI in business, followed up with a mini lesson from Mudupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. So let's talk about negotiation. Did you pick up any tactics that our listeners should know about as they think about who has to do the housework, who has to take care of teaching the kids? Yes, there are two tactics that came up repeatedly and were talked about as effective. There were

also some tactics that were talked about as not effective, but I'll focus on the effective ones. The first, and this is a cardinal rule in negotiation, is to try to understand what is it you're actually asking for. So we had lots of couples that gave examples of how early on there was just so much frustration. He's not doing what I want him to do. The kids aren't doing this. I can't do all this. There's so much frustration around the just impossibility of doing everything. The response on a lot of people's parts, men's and women's, in the beginning was really this sort of anger, stress, inability to move

forward. And then gradually, we've been following these couples since May, when we started the first surveys were in April and May, and then we followed them in June. And then we've been talking with them in August and September. What's happened is that people started really breaking down what is it that I actually need. And so the whiteboard is a really nice example of saying, okay, what I need is for you to know the times when I simply can't do it. And in other couples, it was what I need is to simply have some way of explaining to you what's working for me and what's not working for me. And other couples, it was very, very different. It's like, I want you to do X, and I want to do Y. I'm willing to do this, and I'm not willing to do that.

And it varied wildly by couples. But the ones that were really effective were the ones where they ended up usually not out of design, but rather out of frustration or necessity, sitting down and saying, here's what I need. And it sounds so simple, but that's the first step in an effective negotiation to know what your real interests are. And then, of course, to listen to what the other side needs as well. Were women more likely to initiate these conversations because they were the ones who tended to do this type of work so they sort of needed to get a little bit of work off of their plate? So it appears that the women were more likely to initiate it. The men are more likely to talk about it in our interviews which was really interesting. Men are more likely to talk about it in our interviews, which was really interesting.

Men were more likely to mention, well, at some point in time, my wife and I actually sat down and started talking about these things. Women didn't express it in that same way, but they did talk about initiating it and their husbands talked about them initiating it. Part of what needs to be broken through is something that needs to be broken through often at work as well. So one of the toughest things in moving from being a really competent individual contributor to becoming a manager and then even more so to becoming a real leader of people is that you have to stop doing things. To move forward, you really have to stop. You have to decide, what is it that I am uniquely competent at that really relies on me? And what is it better to have other people do, even if they might not do it quite as well as I do it? And at home, there's a constant presence that people talked about. It doesn't feel like

such a big deal to do the laundry if he's not home. But if he's home, and he's just sitting there, and I keep on folding the laundry, that gets really, really irritating. And so it's a little bit different, of course, than delegating at work. But it's the same idea that the more competent you are, the more you think I can just take care of this myself. And yet, that doesn't allow, first of all, growth of other people. It can never build sort of equality across a family. So I think this forced togetherness is really allowing women to step back and say, hey, I shouldn't have to beg, but here's the deal. I don't want to beg, so can you just do it?

And it really is a breakthrough. So Kathleen, you say that there's this dawning realization that working from home is going to be a long-term reality. How do you see that affecting the balance of work within the home and women's careers? So we have historically applauded organizations for providing women flexible work hours, flexible workspaces. And that has gone primarily to women. What we are learning is that that flexibility creates a normal at home. And so if it's the women that are flexible and men that aren't, we are seeing that even when men are at home full time, what's normal is that the woman be doing the work. Now, many, many of the women that we talked with

gradually started to fight against that and engaged in negotiations with their partners and their children that said, just because I've always done this in the past doesn't mean I should keep on doing it because we're all home now. But there's an implication of that for organizations that this flexibility needs to be more evenly distributed. It is not a benefit for women to get flexibility at work, to have the wonderful joy of being allowed to work at 10 o'clock at night after their kids go to bed, and simultaneously the wonderful joy of having the flexibility to take care of everything at home. This is what we're learning flexibility has bought us. And so I think women in their careers and organizations are going to start stepping away from this as a panacea.

The other thing is that organizations have already started to talk about how much increased productivity they're seeing with people working from home. And there's research that shows that people are working longer days working from home. And you can imagine that organizations would be quite happy, and many have already announced, that they're going to continue to have their employees work from home. And this seems like a win-win all around. And yet, this is coming at a real cost to women and to men, especially those that have constrained space at home. So we talk to couples that are literally the only place there is to work is the dining room table,

and they have to take turns. And when both people happen to need either privacy or are going to be on a call at the same time, somebody goes to the closet. So I am unexpectedly up in the Wisconsin Northwoods with my husband, who's also working remotely, and my daughter, who is taking four grad school classes remotely. And I'm sitting in one bedroom. She's sitting in another bedroom. My husband's sitting at the dining room table because this is like a cottage. We don't have studies. And organizations that are thinking that they can just keep this going on forever are not taking into consideration the daily, hourly, not just negotiations, but stressors that are involved in trying to have multiple people work from spaces that are not offices, that are homes.

So Kathleen, what do you think will be the long-term impact on women's careers? I think the long-term impact on women's careers and men's careers, hopefully, is that careers and lives are seen more holistically. We know from research that women have been socialized to have a broader set of goals in their lives. And organizations are not set up for people to have broad sets of goals. Organizations are set up for people to have broad sets of goals. Organizations are set up for people to have career goals. And men have historically been much more socialized into this.

Men are finding that they're really loving being more involved with their kids' lives, that they're really appreciating getting to know their wives as professionals as well as partners. And men are starting to step back during this pandemic and say, maybe I want a more integrated life. And women are starting, I think, to do the same thing, but in a way that pushes career to be maybe I don't need to be the only person in the family with flexibility. Maybe I can use the negotiation skills that I've had to build up because we're five of us squished in this little house working together. Maybe I can use those negotiation skills to create a career that is both a richer career and a more balanced, equitable distribution of work at home.

So there's a sense in which women can think about this as an opportunity to not just stop like we did in the beginning of the pandemic. So Amy, when you and I talked last time, we were early on in the pandemic and it was really time for women to say, hey, now's probably not the time to get promoted. Now probably is not the time to be asking for more money because organizations are just in a panic, just like individuals are. But those times have passed. This has become a very, very strange normal, but nonetheless a normal. And organizations are moving forward. So for those of us who are lucky enough to work in organizations that are continuing

to retain all of their employees, women are starting to say, okay, now might be the time to ask for that promotion. Now might be the time to ask for more responsibility, to take all that I've been doing extra, which women were doing a lot of early in this pandemic. Now all the things that I was doing extra for the organization and really reaping the benefits of that. Now is the time to start asking. If you were going to pick out one or two insights that you really hope our listeners can pay attention to as they negotiate their home lives and continue to work out the balance with their professional lives, what would you want them to think about? One of the most promising things that we've seen, and this runs through the surveys,

the diaries, and the interviews, is that women are just starting to do less at home. They first started talking about it in this way. I used to hate having all the dishes in the sink, but now we're making three meals a day. I'm trying to keep the kids at their desks and I'm trying to work at the same time. The dishes are sitting in the sink. And gradually it's become like, I don't need to keep the house the way it used to be. And hopefully that continues. This expectation that we sort of needed to be perfect at everything. That kind of works if you have these really separate segments of things. You know, I can be perfect at work while I'm at work, and I can be

perfect at home while I'm at home. But when it's all blended together, you can't do it. And so letting go of things like making sure the sink never has any dishes in it, well, that is great. And so hopefully women are starting to see ways that they can create value in their careers by and simultaneously changing the way things are done at home. Kathleen, what else are you looking forward to learning about households in the time of COVID? Where do you think you'll focus your research next? So we're going to continue to work with these couples over the next year. One of the questions that we can uniquely ask with these data, with what has happened during the pandemic, is whether changes that are temporary in the household.

So what we're seeing with men doing more housework, women doing less, a little bit less with childcare, but gradually over time, men are becoming much more interested in at least and slightly involved in their kids' lives. Is this going to stick? Gradually, people are starting to spend more time back in the office. Even if in the long run, there is more working from home, it's unlikely that we're going to continue at this level of men and women working from home. And so the question is, is this change going to stick? Is there enough momentum for men to continue increasing their contributions in the household, and for women continuing to step back and say, it's okay, we're doing this together. Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing if there is lasting positive change in terms of

division of labor at home. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Well, thank you very much for having me. I look forward to talking with you again after a few months when we learn more. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work.

Next, my conversation with two other women who are living through the circumstances that Kathleen is studying. I chatted with Maureen Hoke, the editor of hbr.org and the supervising editor of this show, and Katherine Goldstein, host of the podcast The Double Shift. Her show gives voice to women rejecting the norms of motherhood and instead working and parenting according to what they value and need. Katherine and Maureen, I'm so glad we're talking today. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. Thanks a lot, Amy. How are you both doing today?

Well, isn't that a loaded question? I think, I feel like all mothers need to agree on a new opener for how, instead of how you're doing, like, have you cried today? That's right. So let's start again. Have you cried today right that's right so let's start again have you cried today maureen so it's only 3 p.m you know like anything could happen um i have not cried today i felt like i could maybe have felt some tears today when i was uploading our trailer. We're just coming back for a new season of the show. And for some reason, I couldn't make the platform work. And I was like talking to the support team. And I was like, really? And they're like, this is an issue with Apple. And I was like, today? Really today? I haven't released a new piece of content for 10

months. And today is the issue with Apple. So that was, you know, but minor, overall minor, I would say. Yeah. Well, and it is so easy to cry these days. And I think that story is a perfect example, Catherine, because we, I feel like we are carrying so much. And then if something doesn't go right, the smallest thing, it is the, you know, straw that broke the camel's back. Yes. Yes. I feel like the feelings are, for so long, were just so close to the surface. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like I struggle with the beginning of the day or the end of the day are like prime opportunities for me to cry because this morning, for example,

so my daughter is going into in-person school two days a week. So she was going in this morning, for example, my daughter is going into in-person school two days a week. So she was going in this morning. It was also picture day. And I also, I had an early call. And so, you know, my husband was like, you know, running around trying to do stuff. But it was sort of like one thing disturbs the plan. And then it's like everyone's running around and I'm like, I have to go to my call.

And I'm just like, you know running around. And I'm like, I have to go to my call. And I'm just like, trying to get everything done. So and then I also find it can happen at the end of the day, if like something goes awry. Yeah, then I'll bet her off. Yeah. Wait, so maybe we need to amend the question to have you cried or yelled today? That's right. I think that's a good addition. Yeah. I do want to ask you, Catherine, about your show, The Double Shift. The theme of season two was the revolution starts at home, as in women can that tell you about how that revolution is going so far, going these days? to do in 2019, I have to say. But I think what is interesting to me about the findings is that, I mean, I think what we're seeing with the effects of the pandemic is that everything is up for renegotiation. Everything that we thought was the way things are, or we could count on, things we didn't have to worry about, has all been completely thrown up

in the air. So I think that this is a tremendously important time for families and mothers especially to renegotiate the shape of what their lives look like between work and family. I refuse to use the word balance because that's just like not even on the radar of a possibility. We're living through unprecedented amounts of pressure and crises. There's no like perfect balance moment. And I hated that before the pandemic and it's even more absurd now. But I do feel like we're in this moment of trying to, things that we felt like we could just grit our teeth and bear are just completely unbearable. And so that's why I think we're open to discussions in the home and hopefully much more radical discussions about the outlines of our lives. Yeah. It's interesting you brought up the negotiation because obviously that's a big

point of Kathleen's that we need to renegotiate or to negotiate. Many of us just sort of fell into patterns without even negotiating in the first place. And I was noticing this morning, like, it does seem like a daily negotiation. Like, this isn't like, what's our pandemic plan? It's like, what's our plan for the next four hours? Like, the negotiation has become so tiny on each little individual level. And I love that you say like everything is up for negotiation and it's not just everything's up for negotiation, but everything's up for negotiation all the time. Definitely. And I think something else that Kathleen said in terms of how she was describing the data, I think that there's actually a lot that's unsaid for women about the point that we find ourselves in. So she talked a lot about how women maybe before the

pandemic had, quote unquote, more flexible work because they had to be the one to stay home on the teacher workday and someone had to be home or someone had to be able to leave the office if there was a sick kid. And so people had already sort of fallen into some of those patterns. And a lot of that has to do with all sorts of huge structural things. That's not like some inherent born choice. That is because paternity leave is still basically pretty rare in this country. And men who take paternity leave are much more involved in their children's lives. Up through age six, they're much more involved. Paternity leave is rare. The wage gap is basically a motherhood penalty. So mothers often make less. So therefore, they are the ones who are going to negotiate for more flexibility. Their husband's jobs need to be protected. If he has an important

client meeting, it's more important for the family, for him to be sure that he's hitting all his marks at work. So all of those sort of shades are really what has brought us to this moment. It wasn't that this all just happened in sort of a bang. Like there's been societal choices for decades that have led us to these imbalances that are cracking open right now. Yeah. And Maureen, I'm curious because you, you know, you have a big job at HBR. Your husband has been freelance and he's the one who's had the more flexible schedule like how does this play out this renegotiation play out for you all right now yeah i think that's been really tricky because i have had to kind of figure out what do i need

to do and not do as part of as part of us all just being in the house together all the time and what's most important for my daughter but also also, you know, for me and for my husband in terms of the time that I'm choosing to work or that I'm choosing to be with the family. And there's also been a lot written about how everyone's working more. And all those lines have been blurred to the point that it would be really easy to be like, well, I'm just going to work like that's what I'm doing. And you deal with everything else. And I'm just going to work. And that's my job. You know, that's not OK either. Yeah. And one point that I really appreciated about Kathleen's interview was that there are some differences with the burden if you have a bunch of young kids at home versus a middle school kid versus a high school kid.

Now, I realize I'm terrified of having a teenager. So I'm not I would never say that's easy. But it's just like it's a different level of like minute by minute, hour by hour intervention that if you have a bunch of young kids at home and you're trying to manage remote schooling, I mean, it's just so hard. Yeah. Catherine, your kids are young, right? My kids are so young. I have a five-year-old who is in kindergarten and I have baby twins who are seven and a half months old. Oh my gosh. So yeah, I've pandemic twins. I feel like that is going to go on my tombstone or something. I just, it is really just what a life, what a life I'm living. Yeah. I agree that that was interesting when she said the sharing of childcare responsibilities

was completely out of whack toward the mom if the kids were young. Has that been your experience, Catherine? No, it hasn't been my experience. I don't think I have necessarily a super typical straight marriage based on all the research that I do. But also my husband is married to me. So child, we're at a deficit because I've like gone through the entire pregnancy. So like that's many, many months that he needs to like make up for, which is I don't know if it's really shared widely that view. And then also I breastfed all three of the children to some extent. So it's like, yeah, that's a lot of time. So I feel like I don't feel like I'm doing more of the child care. I think one thing that's very unique about our relationship is that we share the belief that my work is equally important even though I don't make as much money. And that is very, honestly, very rare. And Eve Rodsky talks about this in her book, Fair Play, which is a great, I think, a really great book for people to read and revisit during this time.

But it's the idea that all time is equal. She really highlights that as a feminist idea. where you implicitly or explicitly believe that one person's work is more valuable and therefore more worthy, that's going to skew all the different negotiations. And I think sometimes women minimize, even if they are the breadwinner, they can minimize, you know, the importance of their work. So I think that's something really important to examine. And I thought Kathleen's research also about women taking on tasks they thought they had always done or were good at versus men taking on the tasks they want to do was like a very interesting thing. More like this is my volunteer opportunity as opposed to like this is what is required. So how have you all seen that in your own lives in terms

of taking on what you've always done versus the helpful volunteer who's aiding with the fun things. Yeah, I feel like that rings true. And actually, her finding about in straight couples that the man is taking on more housework has been true for us. Like my husband in the early part of the pandemic was the grocery shopper. Like that was just what he did. He does more of the housework, more of the cleaning. And yet what

I kept sort of hearing in that conversation with Kathleen was also like, I'm still the one holding the clipboard and making sure all the tasks get done. And to your point, I sort of try to think, well, what would be fun for him? Like, what would be play to his strengths? Okay, he can go do these things. And I think that mental load of having to keep track of everything is one of the things that me and my mom friends talk a lot about is that even if you have a quote unquote equal partner in terms of they put in the same amount of time or even more hours around the house or with taking care of the children, there's still someone in my case, it's me or, you know, with many of my friends, it's also the woman who's keeping track and making sure everything gets done and sort of managing the whole process.

Now, I can argue I'm doing that because that's my skill. I'm a good organizer, right? Like Maureen knows I love a checklist. She loves a checklist. I do love a checklist. I do. And I could argue that, but I also just think it's we've defaulted to that role because it is the mom who's sort of usually the COO of the family. Yeah, I feel like I'm the COO of my family, that I'm managing that mental list. And I've had to just come up with some ways. And these haven't all just been pandemic specific, but to share that. And some of it has just been

really simple stuff. Like we have a whiteboard on the fridge where like at the beginning of the week, I write down everything that's supposed to happen each day. And it's even more complicated, I would say now in the times that we're living through right now. But I still feel like a responsibility if something doesn't happen. It's like, oh, like I'm the boss somehow that like it's my responsibility. Like go see the manager. That's me. But which, you know, that's not to say my husband doesn't take responsibility for things. He certainly does. But I still feel like I'm ultimately like managing that and making sure it all happens.

I'm very interested in this idea of the mental load. And I have been exploring it. We explored it a lot in the second season of The Double Shift. And I think my feeling about it, well, it's interesting. I've gone through various evolutions because also now that I have like so many children, three, it's like so many children. I'm just like, there's truly like so much more to do. It's not just like me being a perfectionist. It's not like me trying to overachieve in any way. I'm way past that. But I think that one of the things that is really interesting is how common it is for women to take on these roles like the holder of the checklist and the holder of the mental load.

And I think that has a lot to do with social conditioning. We are not born better understanding like laundry instructions. Like we have like taken that on as our social conditioning. And I thought that one interesting point Kathleen made, and I'm interested to hear what you all think about this, is that women have just started doing a lot less housework since the pandemic started. And that reminded me of some other research that I've read, which I always found fascinating, which was that single mothers like do less housework than married mothers. And you're like, how is that possible? It's one person versus two. It's because the single mother's like, I don't care. And I'm not

like forced into these, even if I don't realize that traditional gender roles about like how clean a house is supposed to be because there's no man here to like make me feel bad about it or like there's no institution of marriage to enforce that on me. I was curious what you all thought about that as well. Like the whole idea that we are just starting to let go of some of these social pressures. Right. And that's one of the things Kathleen also talked about, like stopping how you stop doing things in order to move forward. I think one of the ways that I sort of manage my own stress and anxiety sometimes is I'll look around and I'll be like, what is this mess?

You know, we need to clean this up. Nobody's vacuumed in here. What's going on? What I've had to kind of decide is like, what's more important, like running around and trying to feel like I'm on top of all the housework or just like sitting down and having some time to myself or whatever, like what ultimately is better for you. And so a lot of times it's not necessarily trying to manage whatever housework expectations that we have put upon ourselves. I mean, I think also, you know, there are times when, you know, even, even again, in my position with my husband working part-time and he does a lot of the during-the-day care for our daughter, sometimes at the end of the day, he's just burnt too.

So it's not like I stroll upstairs like, where is my dinner? I think what I've learned is you've just got to be flexible during this time. And I realize flexibility can be a bit tricky in that it's like, oh, you're flexible to do everything whenever as long as it gets done. And if you're if you're working at midnight, who cares? I guess I'm saying more like you had to let go of some expectations of like what everyone's going to be able to do every single day and just take it day by day. Yeah. And there's just way too much to do. There was way too much to do before the pandemic.

And now with like, I keep joking, I need a full-time assistant to manage my daughter's schooling. And she's not even home. Like she goes to school. But the number of Zooms and the forms and the app I have to fill out now and taking her temperature every day. And like, I mean, I get multiple emails from her school every day that I like are important. They're not ones I can just not read. So I just feel like there is just so much more. And part of it, to Kathleen's point, is that we do need to stop doing things. And I think, Catherine, on your season finale of season two of your podcast,

one of the things that really just keeps ringing in my head is this idea that the system's rigged. Like if you are a two parent household with kids, and you both have full time jobs, there is no way you can win, right? Like this is not a system in which you're like, set up to succeed, like, especially as a working mom, the system's rigged against you. So to feel guilty about it is just a waste of time. And to think my house is going to be perfectly sparkling, total waste of time. It's not just about letting go of small tasks. I think we have to let go of even big expectations that we've held ourselves to for way too long. The thing that I have been coming to more and more, if you want to make systemic change and really work to try to solve some of these issues, you should get up every morning and think, how do I make this a problem

for a man? That man can be your husband. That man can be your boss. That man can be the mayor of your city. That man can be the county commissioner. That man can be your senator. That man can be the CEO of the company. If you make it a problem for a man, I'm not saying this is going to make your life easier. And I never traffic in tips and tricks that like are life hacks. This will not make your life easier, but this will make society better. If you think about the problems you face and you make them a man's problem. Yeah. Can you give an example of what that looks like and maybe in your life or what you've seen someone else do? Sure. I think a lot of people are sort of struggling with, and this might speak to some of your listeners, like how companies should support families and parents during this time.

And most of the time creating like change in a company takes a long time. So I've reported on efforts to get paid family leave in companies. And usually if that everything goes really fast on that, that takes nine months to a year usually to get like a better family leave policy in place. And it takes like sort of consistent advocating. And it takes usually getting groups of people together and showing that there's a lot of interest. It takes research and data. So it's hard for companies to move so quickly on something like child care credits for extra help with school. Like it's not in most companies' budgets or DNA to like move so quickly. you and the other parents and mothers in the company say the company must have child care credits. School in our area is virtual. And if you want to keep this talent pool, you want to

keep women in the workforce. You want to reduce bias against parents and mothers. You don't want childless people to be bearing an unfair brunt of the work and creating all sorts of resentments and morale problems, you need to give us money to pay for extra child care. And you just do the work and the research and annoy him so much that every day he knows that these people are not going away and that this is a problem he has to deal with. And he can't just say like, oh, I don't think so, like that you're going to just be back with more information and just harass him until he does it. That's making it a man's problem. Was that was that clarifying?

It was. And I'm still trying to imagine how to do it in my life without getting fired or divorced. But I think that the idea that like even I envision a conversation with a male colleague, like the system is rigged. There's bias against mothers. There's this happening. Can you do something about that? Instead of saying, here's all the solutions. Here's we'll do this work to make it better. Like just asking, can you do something about that? Or even with my husband, like, I can't pick up our daughter today. Can you do that? And not saying, when you do, you have to call and blah, blah, blah, and walk him through it, but just say, can you handle that? It is making it his problem. And it's more just like offloading it, I think is the idea is like, how do we not take on making all of the solutions or coming up with all the solutions ourselves? Totally. And the reporting I've done on paid family leave, it's like always a group of mothers in addition to their job doing like tons of research and advocacy. And like, obviously, people are tapped out right now. Who can take on one more thing? I feel like no one can. And so I

think that that's the feeling, though, is also like like if enough women are making this a problem for their husbands then their husbands have to start advocating in their workplace and that will also create change yeah something I actually wrote down from the interview with Kathleen was you don't get what you don't ask for and I I do think that's true and I personally feel like I I've had to unlearn the fact that like you're not supposed to ask for stuff, right? You're just supposed to be happy for anything you get. And even listening to Make It a Man's Problem, I have this physical reaction to that. I can't make anything anybody else's problem. These are all my problems. Or I was talking with a female colleague the other day

about how if there's something that's not going right, both of us have this temptation. Like, let me in there. Let me take the wheel. Like, I got this. Do you know what I mean? Instead of saying, this is in your interest, too. Like, this is not just like a problem for mothers. Right.

This is a bigger issue that you need to pay attention to, too. And I agree with the strategy of professional persistence in that, you know what I mean? Because I've like the first time you go knocking and they're like, no. And you're like, okay, bye.

You know, you need to be persistent and make your case again, not to put more burden on women to do things, but you can make that case. You are well within your, your rights to, to do that. So Catherine,

we started by talking about the theme of season two, the revolution starts at home, but you've got season three starting. What's the theme for that one? So, you know, still exploring a lot of ideas around community, starting to talk about where we are in this moment and how we rebuild. Some of it we're recording before the election. Some of it we're recording after. So who knows? Who knows where we're going? But we're just sort of embracing the uncertainty of this moment and saying, like, it's important for mothers' voices to be heard in that. But probably the sub-theme, the non-explicit theme is matriarchy, which is a much more communal worldview that values helping and caring above, you know, dominance and power.

So I'm just going to be here on my podcast, spreading the gospel of matriarchy. We will be listening in. Great. For sure. And thank you so much for having this conversation with us. It was great chatting with you, Maureen. I'm so glad we got to talk this through together, too. Thank you so much. I'm so glad I could join this conversation. This is great.

Thanks for having me. That's our show. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Amy Gallo. And I'm Emily Caulfield. Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Adam Buchholz, Rob Eckhart, and Tina Tobey-Mack. We love hearing from listeners, and we get it if you're too maxed out to even think about sending another email. But if you find a few minutes and feel like reaching

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