women's invisible labor - anyone had luck getting spouse to take on more of the mental work?

[Anonymous]

OP, what works against you is:
- he doesn't think it's important
- if it happens, it happens. It's only valuable if it doesn't take much effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Admitted control freak DW here. I handle it so it gets done right.

If it has to be done your way on your schedule, your husband isn’t the problem.

[Anonymous]

DH and I also share a Google calendar. I hadn't thought about using it for tasks though. We use it to deconflict activities and childcare and to ensure that each of us gets a block of "me time" on alternating weekends.

I do the vast majority of planning for the household -- financial planning, planning & registering kids care/summer camps, attending IEP meetings, selecting doctors, cub scouts stuff, vacation planning, arranging home improvement/maintenance, meal planning & grocery shopping, etc. I did manage to completely hand off managing DS's therapy and medication management though. It started with DH taking over getting the kids on the bus in the morning and taking DS to therapy. Then I just left it all up to him and let him deal with it or not. We've had a couple of times where DS has missed a day of medication due to DH not getting it refilled in time and we got charged a $75 no show fee when DH didn't call in time to cancel therapy when DS went to a birthday party.


The google calendar thing is a really good idea and I should take more advantage of it. I use it for reminders of things that need to get done quarterly or seasonally, so I should also set it up to remind him of things like FSA/DCFSA enrollment.

[Anonymous]

A lot of this crap can be eliminated. You’re doing this to yourself. Your kids don’t need to be in constant camps or enrolled in multiple activities at once. They don’t need birthday parties beyond a cake at home. Stop doing silly extraneous stuff, learn how to say no sometimes, and chill out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do most of the mental work but yesterday my DH got home from work early and cleaned out my disgusting garage including power washing the floor (he parks outside). I hadn't asked him to do it. He does stuff like this quite often so I'm not going to rock the boat. And he took me out to dinner!

Did he bang you too?

Yes, that was dessert!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of this crap can be eliminated. You’re doing this to yourself. Your kids don’t need to be in constant camps or enrolled in multiple activities at once. They don’t need birthday parties beyond a cake at home. Stop doing silly extraneous stuff, learn how to say no sometimes, and chill out.

How do you avoid the camps if both parents work and you have no family to help out? (Before you say something mean, we lost two parents to cancer, one has dementia and Parkinson's disease, and the other is no longer well enough to care for kids...and we're caring for those two parents on top of our kids. It's pretty f'n hard raising a family without the village.)

[Anonymous]

A ton of mental work can be done on-line. Registering for camp, making doctors appointments, paying bills, sending out invitations etc. etc. Many years ago all of this had to be done over the phone or in writing often during working hours. Now we can do it when we want to. Ask your mothers and fathers what they use to have to do before the internet. We don't even need to leave our houses to do most of our shopping. Yesterday evening it took me ten minutes to research and then order on line large storage units for our garage that will be delivered to our house with free shipping. 25 years ago my Dad would have had to spend a whole Saturday visiting stores to find the right deal and given the size would have really struggled to get it home. So quit bitching!

[Anonymous]

This whole "mental labor" thing is annoying.

[Anonymous]

Yes.

I say "You are completely in charge of XYZ. I am not going to think about XYZ anymore. If it falls through the cracks, that's on you."

[Anonymous]

You have to start off things right when you get married and then when you have kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole "mental labor" thing is annoying.

Agreed. And I’m a woman.

[Anonymous]

OP, we struggle with this, too. I outsource what we can and assign tasks when possible, and reading through this it appears that "physical" tasks like school pick-up, loading the dishwasher, and lawn mowing have naturally fallen to DH. But the "remembering" tasks all fall to me. I don't see any other way around it. I can and do put "change water filter" in our shared calendar, but I still need to follow up and do it or remind him to do it. He doesn't even remember to get the oil changed in his own car, but he will take both cars if I remind him.

I will say that I became a happier person when I accepted this responsibility and then started carving out down time for myself that enables me to recharge. So now I schedule my gym classes, book club, pedicure, so that the family can respect my handful of appointments the same way I accommodate theirs.

[Anonymous]

"women's invisible labor" = made-up bullshit invented to women can claim victimhood and add great drama to their otherwise dull lives...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of this crap can be eliminated. You’re doing this to yourself. Your kids don’t need to be in constant camps or enrolled in multiple activities at once. They don’t need birthday parties beyond a cake at home. Stop doing silly extraneous stuff, learn how to say no sometimes, and chill out.

Stop doing stuff to keep up with the Jones. If you’re very busy, screw baking cupcakes for some stupid school thing, and don’t get mad if your husband won’t do it either. If you don’t get off work till 5 in Springfield, do not even plan to try to get your kid to ballet practice at 5:30 in Reston. The laws of physics prevent it, and if your husband can’t get home till 6, it’s stupid to snarl at him about it.

Don’t be the silly women who complain about the labor they do including writing thank you notes for the husband and writing to prisoners for the church. That first one is his job to do or not do, and the second is just plain weird. Volunteer when you have the time, not when you don’t.

[Anonymous]

Have assigned tasks. I don't think about grocery shopping and cooking because those are dh's responsibilities. Just like dh doesn't think about cleaning up after dinner and bill paying because those are my responsibility.