Emotional Labor - a good read for men AND women

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor

I"m going to bet that 100% of woman can relate to this.

And that a mans reactions will be split three ways:

1) That's bullshit, just a bunch of women whining (defensive)
2) I don't understand (no interest in spending any time or energy in hearing from women about women)
3) Wow. Huh. I never realized... I never thought of it that way before... (OMG, HE'S A KEEPER!)

If you'd like a "greatest hits" from that very long discussion thread someone picked out the top responses and "condensed" the 2,000+ comments into a 70 page annotated Google doc pdf.

https://drive.google.com/a/paeaonline.org/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk/view?pref=2&pli=1

Men - I dare you to read the entire thing. To take the time and effort to read it - and not sneer or dismiss, but read it. Pretend that somewhere in those comments your wife made a posting - try to guess which one is hers.

I sent it to my husband asking him to please read it (out of desperation, as 9 months of bringing these things up in therapy have gotten me nowhere) - that I knew it was long but that I thought it had a lot of good points ... and he didn't. Said it was too long. That he didn't understand it. And it just appeared to be woman complaining about things that women just do better anyway.

It felt like a little part of me died when he said that.

(side not - unrelated - wow, the commenters at MetaFilter are sure a lot more supportive that DCUM - either they moderate all the trolls and hateful comments out or people who are responding are doing so because they want to say something constructive and adds to the conversation, not wasting their own time and the readers by making comments that shoot down the previous poster for daring not support their marriage vows. Quite refreshing.)

Thanks so much for posting this OP!

I had made an assertion in another thread about the emotional labor that SAHMs do, and the idea that this emotional labor is "work" was greeted with scorn. But, your link explains in much more detail what I was trying to say.

So many things rang true about emotional labor for me personally and also in what I see of my parent's relationship and my mom's anger about certain things. I have been trying very hard to introduce this idea to my kids (who are adolescents) -- that women do a huge amount of unpaid labor and that is not right. I want my daughter to recognize when she's doing it and make conscious decisions about why she's doing it and whether and in what way she is getting compensation. I want my son to grow up both being able to contribute emotional labor to a relationship and to not expect his mate to give it without some kind of compensation or mutuality. I'm curious how you would teach these ideas to your kids?

The link also really makes me understand my reluctance to be involved in another relationship after kicking out my wayward spouse. The amount of unpaid labor I did during and after that relationship was draining to me and completely unreturned. I still work hard to maintain a good relationship with him for the sake of our children, but it is absolutely a one way effort. In the last two years, I have been cordial, but invested far less emotional labor. I no longer ask him why he seems upset. I no longer ask him how work is going. I no longer ask him anything about his friends or family. I no longer provide coaching for his relationship with the kids, although sadly this means that the relationship between him and the kids has deteriorated. He clearly is disconcerted that I no longer respond to him, but since we are divorced, he can't really demand it any longer. It's been liberating for me in terms of not being as exhausted. Ironically, just as I stopped supporting him, he found another woman to marry. I guess that is his way of solving his problem -- find some other woman to provide these services. I was hoping he would mature and learn to do these things himself, but oh well. It's a little sad for the kids in terms of their relationship with him, but I am now investing that emotional labor directly in my relationship with the kids and supporting them to have good relationships with other friends and family, so I think that is a better choice in the long run.

When I look back at previous relationships, I realize that uncompensated emotional labor was the huge problem in those relationships as well. My personal experience is that I just haven't found any men that get this on any level. And yet, I have been shocked by one or two male friends that have made simple gestures of friendship that show me that not all men are incapable of this. I have been single and uninterested in dating men for a long time since my divorce and have wondered if that was unhealthy, but this link shows me that it is a very normal, rational calculation based on an evaluation of investment versus return.

As I read this I also wondered -- how can we make this required reading for all marital therapists? Ha! That'll probably never happen.

Very insightful, OP, thanks for posting.

Honestly, your message made me cringe. Please don't teach your daughter to walk around with a chip on her shoulder regarding anything remotely related to unpaid labor. Please teach her to be financially independent, strong and confident. With that skill set she will have the confidence to state what she needs/wants, be able to clearly define her expectations in a relationship, and wait to get in a long-term committed relationship until she is confident it is the right person (or never get in a long-term relationship). It makes for a much more positive outlook on life than what you are currently teaching her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor

I"m going to bet that 100% of woman can relate to this.

And that a mans reactions will be split three ways:

1) That's bullshit, just a bunch of women whining (defensive)
2) I don't understand (no interest in spending any time or energy in hearing from women about women)
3) Wow. Huh. I never realized... I never thought of it that way before... (OMG, HE'S A KEEPER!)

If you'd like a "greatest hits" from that very long discussion thread someone picked out the top responses and "condensed" the 2,000+ comments into a 70 page annotated Google doc pdf.

https://drive.google.com/a/paeaonline.org/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk/view?pref=2&pli=1

Men - I dare you to read the entire thing. To take the time and effort to read it - and not sneer or dismiss, but read it. Pretend that somewhere in those comments your wife made a posting - try to guess which one is hers.

I sent it to my husband asking him to please read it (out of desperation, as 9 months of bringing these things up in therapy have gotten me nowhere) - that I knew it was long but that I thought it had a lot of good points ... and he didn't. Said it was too long. That he didn't understand it. And it just appeared to be woman complaining about things that women just do better anyway.

It felt like a little part of me died when he said that.

(side not - unrelated - wow, the commenters at MetaFilter are sure a lot more supportive that DCUM - either they moderate all the trolls and hateful comments out or people who are responding are doing so because they want to say something constructive and adds to the conversation, not wasting their own time and the readers by making comments that shoot down the previous poster for daring not support their marriage vows. Quite refreshing.)

Thanks so much for posting this OP!

I had made an assertion in another thread about the emotional labor that SAHMs do, and the idea that this emotional labor is "work" was greeted with scorn. But, your link explains in much more detail what I was trying to say.

So many things rang true about emotional labor for me personally and also in what I see of my parent's relationship and my mom's anger about certain things. I have been trying very hard to introduce this idea to my kids (who are adolescents) -- that women do a huge amount of unpaid labor and that is not right. I want my daughter to recognize when she's doing it and make conscious decisions about why she's doing it and whether and in what way she is getting compensation. I want my son to grow up both being able to contribute emotional labor to a relationship and to not expect his mate to give it without some kind of compensation or mutuality. I'm curious how you would teach these ideas to your kids?

The link also really makes me understand my reluctance to be involved in another relationship after kicking out my wayward spouse. The amount of unpaid labor I did during and after that relationship was draining to me and completely unreturned. I still work hard to maintain a good relationship with him for the sake of our children, but it is absolutely a one way effort. In the last two years, I have been cordial, but invested far less emotional labor. I no longer ask him why he seems upset. I no longer ask him how work is going. I no longer ask him anything about his friends or family. I no longer provide coaching for his relationship with the kids, although sadly this means that the relationship between him and the kids has deteriorated. He clearly is disconcerted that I no longer respond to him, but since we are divorced, he can't really demand it any longer. It's been liberating for me in terms of not being as exhausted. Ironically, just as I stopped supporting him, he found another woman to marry. I guess that is his way of solving his problem -- find some other woman to provide these services. I was hoping he would mature and learn to do these things himself, but oh well. It's a little sad for the kids in terms of their relationship with him, but I am now investing that emotional labor directly in my relationship with the kids and supporting them to have good relationships with other friends and family, so I think that is a better choice in the long run.

When I look back at previous relationships, I realize that uncompensated emotional labor was the huge problem in those relationships as well. My personal experience is that I just haven't found any men that get this on any level. And yet, I have been shocked by one or two male friends that have made simple gestures of friendship that show me that not all men are incapable of this. I have been single and uninterested in dating men for a long time since my divorce and have wondered if that was unhealthy, but this link shows me that it is a very normal, rational calculation based on an evaluation of investment versus return.

As I read this I also wondered -- how can we make this required reading for all marital therapists? Ha! That'll probably never happen.

Very insightful, OP, thanks for posting.

Honestly, your message made me cringe. Please don't teach your daughter to walk around with a chip on her shoulder regarding anything remotely related to unpaid labor. Please teach her to be financially independent, strong and confident. With that skill set she will have the confidence to state what she needs/wants, be able to clearly define her expectations in a relationship, and wait to get in a long-term committed relationship until she is confident it is the right person (or never get in a long-term relationship). It makes for a much more positive outlook on life than what you are currently teaching her.

Ah, yes, female children should not be taught to set and enforce boundaries or consider reciprocity...... They should just find the "right person". Teaching my child to recognize when she is performing unpaid labor and consider if and why it is valuable to her and whether it is being done as part of a reciprocal benefit IS teaching her to "clearly define her expectations in a relationship."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not the PP to whom you respond, but in game theory, the model is more generally applicable in terms of "cooperating" or "defecting". In this way the prisoner's dilemma is more generally applicable to a wide range of situations beyond the plea deal dilemma described in the original prisoner's dilemma. If you think about it, parenting is a bit like a prisoner's dilemma in terms of decisions to cooperate or defect.........

I understand, but I think if you view the choice of possible responses to either cooperating or defecting (versus sitting on your hands or just doing the level that suits you) then you are giving into a false dilemma. In this case it implies you either "cooperate" (do what your spouse wants) or "sabotage" (undermine what they want)...and even that is, at best, a tortured fit of the model to the circumstances. Nevermind that the reward structures are completely wrong as well. There are plenty of alternative options here: clean, but maybe not as much as your spouse wants. Be willing to accompany spouse (and children) to church, but don't take the responsibility for getting the kids ready; you could agree that, despite being an atheist yourself, you're willing to compromise and allow the children to attend Church..see, very quickly the artificial constraints fall away.

There are certainly situations where there are mutually exclusive choices to be made about parenting, but how much to act as go-between for the ILs and DH isn't one of them; neither is how much tidying/cleaning you do. None of these "emotional labor" examples are mutually exclusive choices.

No gaming model is perfect. But, consider a new game invented after Prisoner's Dilemma. The new game is called, "Feed the Baby". Parent A and Parent B have a baby that must be fed regularly. Feeding the baby takes 1 parental unit of labor. Parent A and Parent B can cooperate to feed the baby and it would cost each parent 1/2 a unit of parental labor. Parent A or B can refuse to feed the baby, in which case the other parent might decide to feed the baby anyway or the other parent might not decide to feed the baby. If one parent decides to defects/refuses to feed the baby, and the other parent cooperates/feeds the baby, it costs the feeding parent 1 unit of parental labor and it costs the defecting parent nothing in terms of labor. If both parents decide to refuse/defect, then the baby doesn't get fed and the both parents suffer the worst outcome -- baby dies of hunger.

Now, in a rational world, each parent looks to minimize their input -- so each parent is more motivated to choose to refuse/defect because it costs them the least amount of labor and the baby dies, even though both parents could have chosen to cooperate for a slightly higher cost per parent in terms of labor and a much better outcome (no dead baby).

Now, put a more realistic layer of social conditioning on this game. No one wants their baby to die or become malnourished, so neither parent is likely to let the game go to the point where it's clear that both parents refuse to feed the baby. Also add the fact that Parent A has a whole set of societal consequences/pressures to not feeding the baby that Parent B does not experience. This makes the cost of Parent A's refusal to feed the baby quite high, regardless of what Parent B does. By contrast, there is little to no societal pressure on Parent B to feed the baby. This means Parent B can basically calculate the choice as, "I can expend some energy and feed the baby, or I can expend zero energy and it's highly likely that Parent A feeds the baby anyway at no cost to me." The outcome is that Parent B doesn't choose to feed the baby and Parent A does anyway.

Over time, the game is played repeatedly, and Parent B increasingly chooses the refuse/defect option. Parent A is now trapped into feeding the baby all the time. Parent A now tries to come up with a strategy to increase the consequences for refusal to cooperate by Parent B. Maybe Parent A starts to nag Parent B. Or Parent A becomes bitchy. Or Parent A decides on nights when Parent A has to get up to feed the baby, there will be no sex that week for Parent B, which Parent B really likes. Parent A is simply trying different strategies to shift the cost/benefit relationship in a way that motivates Parent B to increasingly decide to share the labor.

Is this sounding familiar to anyone?

BTW, there's also another game called "Change the Diaper".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I do things every day to show my husband I care about him: cleaning out his coffee mug in the morning to save him the time, picking up things on my way home from a full days work to make a dinner I'll know he'll enjoy, making sure his closet is stocked with what he needs both clothing and any toiletries, plugging in the PlayStation control he left unplugged so it's fully charged when he sits down to play at night, setting the DVR to record the game for him cause he probably forgot it and will be upset if he misses it.... noticing that his suit jacket has a missing button so adding it to the pile to take to the drycleaners... remembering he mentioned he was running low on stamps so I get some when I'm in the check out line at the grocery... oh, and he's been drinking that particular juice drink a lot lately, he's probably run out, I'll grab a few of them to stock the fridge for him...

Emotional labor: It's noticing things, it's paying attention, and it's thinking about the other person and doing things for them to make their life easier because you love them.

What would be nice is having him do something like that for me sometime. I'm not asking for him to thank me, I'm asking him to THINK about me. For more than 2 seconds. "She's had a really tough week at work, and I got home before her so I'll jsut go ahead and get those dishes started so she doesn't walk in adn see a messy kitchen first thing" or "I'll get dinner ordered in and put a bottle of wine in the fridge to cool for her, and let her pick whatever movie we watch together tonight."

It isn't hard. But it does take effort. You have to think about other people. And care about them. And care about their feelings.

And when someone says "I'm overwhelmed, this is too much, I can't handle it anymore" don't reply with a "well then just stop doing it, problem solved!" because that just says you don't give a damn at all.

Man or woman - just pay attention to the person if you love them, and show them once in awhile. Saying "i love you" would mean a whole lot more if there were some actions to back up those words.

See, that there is exactly what I find stifling and annoying about the MeFi emotional labor obsession. You do NOT have the right to dictate how somebody thinks and feels. You just don't. I get that many women are frustrated that they do more than their fair share of the household labor (oh boy do I, you don't even know). But that does not give me the right to dictate how anyone things and feels. Some people just aren't mind readers - if you want them to take an action, you have to tell them. If you want to realign the distribution of labor in the house, talk it over.

That's bullshit, though. When a woman says "it would make me feel more loved if you would notice things about me and the way I live to show you care" and her guy says "eh I can't read your mind, just ask me for what you want because I can't read your mind," he's just being willfully obtuse. She DID ask for what she wants, and he basically punted and told her in so many words that he doesn't care enough to really try. She's not trying to "dictate how anyone thinks and feels," she's trying to get the same feeling of warmth and care that she provides to others but is not getting herself. Don't put that on her. Requiring her to notice things about her own life to feed them to her husband as ideas for gifts or whatever is just requiring her to perform MORE emotional labor for the benefit of her husband!

Men are not incompetent at emotional labor because they did it in spades when you were dating! Before you were a sure thing! So to the poster above who said we should have been able to work this out the emotional labor situation before marriage -- IT WAS ALL LIES! Because many men slowly stop with the emotional labor when they have secured the marriage. Don't blame that on women -- in all fairness, many women get tricked by all the deep emotion and feeling and real care that go into the courtship, but only rarely does all of that continue many years into the marriage.

[Anonymous]

LOL, Feed the Baby and Change the Diaper games. Yeah, been there, very true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor

I"m going to bet that 100% of woman can relate to this.

And that a mans reactions will be split three ways:

1) That's bullshit, just a bunch of women whining (defensive)
2) I don't understand (no interest in spending any time or energy in hearing from women about women)
3) Wow. Huh. I never realized... I never thought of it that way before... (OMG, HE'S A KEEPER!)

If you'd like a "greatest hits" from that very long discussion thread someone picked out the top responses and "condensed" the 2,000+ comments into a 70 page annotated Google doc pdf.

https://drive.google.com/a/paeaonline.org/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk/view?pref=2&pli=1

Men - I dare you to read the entire thing. To take the time and effort to read it - and not sneer or dismiss, but read it. Pretend that somewhere in those comments your wife made a posting - try to guess which one is hers.

I sent it to my husband asking him to please read it (out of desperation, as 9 months of bringing these things up in therapy have gotten me nowhere) - that I knew it was long but that I thought it had a lot of good points ... and he didn't. Said it was too long. That he didn't understand it. And it just appeared to be woman complaining about things that women just do better anyway.

It felt like a little part of me died when he said that.

(side not - unrelated - wow, the commenters at MetaFilter are sure a lot more supportive that DCUM - either they moderate all the trolls and hateful comments out or people who are responding are doing so because they want to say something constructive and adds to the conversation, not wasting their own time and the readers by making comments that shoot down the previous poster for daring not support their marriage vows. Quite refreshing.)

Thanks so much for posting this OP!

I had made an assertion in another thread about the emotional labor that SAHMs do, and the idea that this emotional labor is "work" was greeted with scorn. But, your link explains in much more detail what I was trying to say.

So many things rang true about emotional labor for me personally and also in what I see of my parent's relationship and my mom's anger about certain things. I have been trying very hard to introduce this idea to my kids (who are adolescents) -- that women do a huge amount of unpaid labor and that is not right. I want my daughter to recognize when she's doing it and make conscious decisions about why she's doing it and whether and in what way she is getting compensation. I want my son to grow up both being able to contribute emotional labor to a relationship and to not expect his mate to give it without some kind of compensation or mutuality. I'm curious how you would teach these ideas to your kids?

The link also really makes me understand my reluctance to be involved in another relationship after kicking out my wayward spouse. The amount of unpaid labor I did during and after that relationship was draining to me and completely unreturned. I still work hard to maintain a good relationship with him for the sake of our children, but it is absolutely a one way effort. In the last two years, I have been cordial, but invested far less emotional labor. I no longer ask him why he seems upset. I no longer ask him how work is going. I no longer ask him anything about his friends or family. I no longer provide coaching for his relationship with the kids, although sadly this means that the relationship between him and the kids has deteriorated. He clearly is disconcerted that I no longer respond to him, but since we are divorced, he can't really demand it any longer. It's been liberating for me in terms of not being as exhausted. Ironically, just as I stopped supporting him, he found another woman to marry. I guess that is his way of solving his problem -- find some other woman to provide these services. I was hoping he would mature and learn to do these things himself, but oh well. It's a little sad for the kids in terms of their relationship with him, but I am now investing that emotional labor directly in my relationship with the kids and supporting them to have good relationships with other friends and family, so I think that is a better choice in the long run.

When I look back at previous relationships, I realize that uncompensated emotional labor was the huge problem in those relationships as well. My personal experience is that I just haven't found any men that get this on any level. And yet, I have been shocked by one or two male friends that have made simple gestures of friendship that show me that not all men are incapable of this. I have been single and uninterested in dating men for a long time since my divorce and have wondered if that was unhealthy, but this link shows me that it is a very normal, rational calculation based on an evaluation of investment versus return.

As I read this I also wondered -- how can we make this required reading for all marital therapists? Ha! That'll probably never happen.

Very insightful, OP, thanks for posting.

Honestly, your message made me cringe. Please don't teach your daughter to walk around with a chip on her shoulder regarding anything remotely related to unpaid labor. Please teach her to be financially independent, strong and confident. With that skill set she will have the confidence to state what she needs/wants, be able to clearly define her expectations in a relationship, and wait to get in a long-term committed relationship until she is confident it is the right person (or never get in a long-term relationship). It makes for a much more positive outlook on life than what you are currently teaching her.

Ah, yes, female children should not be taught to set and enforce boundaries or consider reciprocity...... They should just find the "right person". Teaching my child to recognize when she is performing unpaid labor and consider if and why it is valuable to her and whether it is being done as part of a reciprocal benefit IS teaching her to "clearly define her expectations in a relationship."

That is not what I said at all. My parents raised me to be strong and independent. They made it very clear from an early age that my work ethic and career path would have a direct impact on my life. I have been happily married for 15 years and I don't do any "emotional" labor nor have I ever. Honestly, i never even considered it until I saw this link. My husband is an adult and can maintain his own relationships without my help. I have my own relationships and job to maintain and I don't have the time or desire to maintain his life. On the housekeeping front we realized early on we both hate it so we hire it out. It has been a financial priority since we got married. It is a hell of a lot cheaper than divorce or therapy.

This isn't rocket science. Yes, it is about finding the right person because you can't expect to change another adult.

[Anonymous]

Sheesh, PP. What the other PP said was:

I want my daughter to recognize when she's doing it and make conscious decisions about why she's doing it and whether and in what way she is getting compensation. I want my son to grow up both being able to contribute emotional labor to a relationship and to not expect his mate to give it without some kind of compensation or mutuality.

You seem to be saying that PP should ignore the topic of emotional labor altogether and not teach it at all, and rather focus on teaching independence and smarts. But I think it's better to teach both kids about emotional labor so they're prepared for what they will face. Why not teach them everything?

Nobody taught you about emotional labor, as you say, and frankly you don't seem to have much empathy for people who are performing it for others without getting back in kind. This is, I think, a good reason for PP to be teaching both her kids about emotional labor and unfair burdens. It's better to know than not to know, better to be prepared and therefore better able to pick the right spouse than be surprised about things after you're married. Lots of women in this thread and the MetaFilter thread were saying that they were NOT prepared for how the burdens of emotional labor would fall after their marriage and particularly after their kids. You may have picked your spouse very wisely, or you may also have gotten lucky.

[Anonymous]

23:01 again: but teach them independence and smarts too, of course!

[Anonymous]

Men are very good at fooling us during the courtship process. And we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, thinking, oh they'll learn, they'll mature a bit in this area, blah blah. It doesn't necessarily work that way, as we find out later when we're doing all the heavy lifting.

I'm working hard to teach my kids to be mindful of this aspect of relationships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Honestly, your message made me cringe. Please don't teach your daughter to walk around with a chip on her shoulder regarding anything remotely related to unpaid labor. Please teach her to be financially independent, strong and confident. With that skill set she will have the confidence to state what she needs/wants, be able to clearly define her expectations in a relationship, and wait to get in a long-term committed relationship until she is confident it is the right person (or never get in a long-term relationship). It makes for a much more positive outlook on life than what you are currently teaching her.

Ah, yes, female children should not be taught to set and enforce boundaries or consider reciprocity...... They should just find the "right person". Teaching my child to recognize when she is performing unpaid labor and consider if and why it is valuable to her and whether it is being done as part of a reciprocal benefit IS teaching her to "clearly define her expectations in a relationship."

I agree with the first PP. Teaching a child to demand payment for things nobody asks her to do is setting her up for a lot of heartache. Wouldn't it make more sense to teach her to put things in perspective and realize that Christmas postcards is not the hill she should die on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Men are very good at fooling us during the courtship process. And we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, thinking, oh they'll learn, they'll mature a bit in this area, blah blah. It doesn't necessarily work that way, as we find out later when we're doing all the heavy lifting.

I'm working hard to teach my kids to be mindful of this aspect of relationships.

Many men feel the same way about women. Immature and unwilling to accept their reality or move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Honestly, your message made me cringe. Please don't teach your daughter to walk around with a chip on her shoulder regarding anything remotely related to unpaid labor. Please teach her to be financially independent, strong and confident. With that skill set she will have the confidence to state what she needs/wants, be able to clearly define her expectations in a relationship, and wait to get in a long-term committed relationship until she is confident it is the right person (or never get in a long-term relationship). It makes for a much more positive outlook on life than what you are currently teaching her.

Ah, yes, female children should not be taught to set and enforce boundaries or consider reciprocity...... They should just find the "right person". Teaching my child to recognize when she is performing unpaid labor and consider if and why it is valuable to her and whether it is being done as part of a reciprocal benefit IS teaching her to "clearly define her expectations in a relationship."

I agree with the first PP. Teaching a child to demand payment for things nobody asks her to do is setting her up for a lot of heartache. Wouldn't it make more sense to teach her to put things in perspective and realize that Christmas postcards is not the hill she should die on?

Yeah, women currently make, like, sixty cents on the dollar to men, so clearly teaching them about all the free shit women are often socialized to do that they shouldn't be doing for free that btw translates into the work arena for many women is just bananas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, your message made me cringe. Please don't teach your daughter to walk around with a chip on her shoulder regarding anything remotely related to unpaid labor. Please teach her to be financially independent, strong and confident. With that skill set she will have the confidence to state what she needs/wants, be able to clearly define her expectations in a relationship, and wait to get in a long-term committed relationship until she is confident it is the right person (or never get in a long-term relationship). It makes for a much more positive outlook on life than what you are currently teaching her.

Ah, yes, female children should not be taught to set and enforce boundaries or consider reciprocity...... They should just find the "right person". Teaching my child to recognize when she is performing unpaid labor and consider if and why it is valuable to her and whether it is being done as part of a reciprocal benefit IS teaching her to "clearly define her expectations in a relationship."

That is not what I said at all. My parents raised me to be strong and independent. They made it very clear from an early age that my work ethic and career path would have a direct impact on my life. I have been happily married for 15 years and I don't do any "emotional" labor nor have I ever. Honestly, i never even considered it until I saw this link. My husband is an adult and can maintain his own relationships without my help. I have my own relationships and job to maintain and I don't have the time or desire to maintain his life. On the housekeeping front we realized early on we both hate it so we hire it out. It has been a financial priority since we got married. It is a hell of a lot cheaper than divorce or therapy.

This isn't rocket science. Yes, it is about finding the right person because you can't expect to change another adult.

+1M to the 1st and 3rd comments. WRT this notion of "emotional labor", it's 100% something within your ability to control, and this poster gets it exactly right (on physical labor too - that's how adults cooperate to reach a solution).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not the PP to whom you respond, but in game theory, the model is more generally applicable in terms of "cooperating" or "defecting". In this way the prisoner's dilemma is more generally applicable to a wide range of situations beyond the plea deal dilemma described in the original prisoner's dilemma. If you think about it, parenting is a bit like a prisoner's dilemma in terms of decisions to cooperate or defect.........

I understand, but I think if you view the choice of possible responses to either cooperating or defecting (versus sitting on your hands or just doing the level that suits you) then you are giving into a false dilemma. In this case it implies you either "cooperate" (do what your spouse wants) or "sabotage" (undermine what they want)...and even that is, at best, a tortured fit of the model to the circumstances. Nevermind that the reward structures are completely wrong as well. There are plenty of alternative options here: clean, but maybe not as much as your spouse wants. Be willing to accompany spouse (and children) to church, but don't take the responsibility for getting the kids ready; you could agree that, despite being an atheist yourself, you're willing to compromise and allow the children to attend Church..see, very quickly the artificial constraints fall away.

There are certainly situations where there are mutually exclusive choices to be made about parenting, but how much to act as go-between for the ILs and DH isn't one of them; neither is how much tidying/cleaning you do. None of these "emotional labor" examples are mutually exclusive choices.

No gaming model is perfect. But, consider a new game invented after Prisoner's Dilemma. The new game is called, "Feed the Baby". Parent A and Parent B have a baby that must be fed regularly. Feeding the baby takes 1 parental unit of labor. Parent A and Parent B can cooperate to feed the baby and it would cost each parent 1/2 a unit of parental labor. Parent A or B can refuse to feed the baby, in which case the other parent might decide to feed the baby anyway or the other parent might not decide to feed the baby. If one parent decides to defects/refuses to feed the baby, and the other parent cooperates/feeds the baby, it costs the feeding parent 1 unit of parental labor and it costs the defecting parent nothing in terms of labor. If both parents decide to refuse/defect, then the baby doesn't get fed and the both parents suffer the worst outcome -- baby dies of hunger.

In Game theory, this is game is called "chicken". The reward structures of Chicken match the reward structures of babies, which amount to "whoever caves in first, or can tolerate the least, loses".

Anonymous wrote:Now, in a rational world, each parent looks to minimize their input -- so each parent is more motivated to choose to refuse/defect because it costs them the least amount of labor and the baby dies, even though both parents could have chosen to cooperate for a slightly higher cost per parent in terms of labor and a much better outcome (no dead baby).

In the real world, not all parents are sociopaths, also known as "Rational Econs" (yes, in the skewed sample of "fiscal conservatives", aka libertarians, everyone is 100% selfish and sociopathic, but that's not reality), also known as assholes.

In an ideal world, which the real world approaches much more closely than Libertarian Wall St, the parents do not look to minimize their input into their own child, and step up to the responsibility as adults. If your partner/spouse is unduly selfish (greedy sociopathic asshole), then I'm sorry about that - you should've sussed it out better before starting a business partnership with them.

I am the proud owner of a 7 month old baby, and I am very very familiar with the many variants of "Chicken" - aka, change the diaper, bathe the baby, feed the baby, get up in the middle of the night with the baby. These are all variants on chicken.

I also agree that if you cave in to an asshole, it will reinforce their assholery, and they will know and exploit your "weakness". The lesson is to never cave into an asshole.

And again, I go back to: your marriage and parenting are not a game. You do not have to crash into the other person and starve/kill the baby in order to stand your ground. You can take a number of other options:

- get up in the middle of the night, get the baby, wake up the asshole and hand them the baby and a diaper
- get up in the middle of the night, get the baby, wake up the asshole and hand them a bottle.

Often they are - like all those people who had teenage infatuations with the writing of Ayn Rand - simply immature and ignorant and not really all that greedy or lacking empathy, and after they are shown bluntly (as teenagers often need, a little reality or shock therapy, see "woken up in the middle of the night"), they come around and realize what they are subjecting their partner to and what their responsibilities are. In short: they grow up. If not, there is always another option:

- divorce the asshole

A member of my extended family is doing this for exactly this reason right now.

Anyway, you get the idea...about why relationships are not games or game theory.

[Anonymous]

I should have added: if both parents are sociopaths, the children lose...I have seen this, more than once, in DC, at least where the "emotional nurturing" if not physical component is at stake.