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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain. [/quote]

All of these things being … picking out some clothing, getting some cookies and a birthday present? That … sounds … exhausting? Is that what my takeaway is here?

At any point was there some discussion in the family? “Larla, find a green shirt. Marla, get your read dress. Darla, pick out a present on Amazon. Honey, can you pick up some snickerdoodles on the way home?”[/quote]

I don’t think you actually have elementary schoolers.  Or that you are responsible for them anyway.  
The only thing most elementary schoolers could do on the OP’s list without any help is make the cookies.  And that’s the only thing you outsourced.

[/quote]

Maybe your elementary schoolers are a little slow? Mine know their colors. If I asked my daughter to get her green shirt, she would do so. If I remind my 4th grader to get her red dress, she'd go get it.

You're missing the point entirely. The husband isn't the issue here. The OP's inability to communicate and play the martyr is. [/quote]

My kid never has the color of shirt they need. We don't have clothes in every color of the rainbow at all times (maybe we should, but that would of course be a task that would fall to me, isn't it? and then everyone would make fun of me for being the OCD mom who overplays I'm guessing). She'll have a red dress but it turns out it's two sizes too small.

Like it is bizarre you are assuming that OP's kids already had all the items they needed for these performances -- the entire reason OP is annoyed is because obviously they didn't already have them, or what they had didn't fit, and she had to put effort into helping to buy or borrow items in order to fulfill the requirement. And it was OP who figured out they didn't have that stuff, and did it far enough in advance that they could order things online or go pick something up in a store without having to scramble the night before.

Same with the kid's gift. Yes, children can pick out a birthday gift for a friend. But the act of taking that kid shopping or being organized enough to sit down at a computer with the kid to select something online far enough in advance to get it in time, is work. Also if the kid suggests a gift that costs too much, or the thing they pick is sold out, you have to work through that with them because an 7 year old is not going to just know that Lego Set A is a more appropriate gift than Lego Set B. You have to teach them. And then the gift need to be wrapped and you have to remember to bring it. And no, most elementary age kids cannot do all that independently without quite a bit of handholding from a parent. They aren't slow, they are children.[/quote]

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