Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important.

No, it's common sense.

When people assign importance to tasks, they can focus on more important tasks and de-prioritize things that are unnecessary. If your spouse and/or family is not contributing, that's even more reason to de-prioritize the unnecessary.

It's cute how you cherry picked the line you wanted to argue over and left out the long explanation of WHY it's the accumulation of tasks and not any specific task that is the problem. I'm guessing you don't have a response for the full argument.

Triaging tasks prevents the accumulation of tasks. Quoting your full response does not change the importance of a focus on individual tasks. But we'll quote it anyway:

I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important. That's not the issue. The issue is that when one spouse is left to do all the little administrative tasks and the other partner makes no effort to participate, doesn't pay attention to the emails about these things, doesn't participate in any way, not even in deciding "hey this is not important, let's let Carla where what she wants for caroling and if the organizer complains I'll handle it" or whatever, then what you've done is turned one spouse into the family's administrative assistant. And the stuff they do in this capacity may not be individually important in every instance, but overall the role is a lot and can become very burdensome.

To provide some examples:

- My DH cannot be bothered with anything related to the kids clothes, shoes, or hair. It gets defaulted to me because DH will say "Oh I'd have no idea where to start" or "I don't understand kids sizing" or "you bought their shoes last time, it makes sense for you to do it." Okay, fine, buying clothes and getting the kids' haircut is not a big deal, I don't really mind. Except then last year, there was a huge lice outbreak at their school. Both kids got it, and we caught it late because I had zero experience with lice prior to that and had missed the signs. I also got it. It took a full month of treatment and maintenance to fully eradicate the family and it was stressful and time consuming. I have a full time job just like DH and had to do all the lice stuff while juggling that. But when I'd say to DH "can you nit comb this child's hair tonight? I'm so wiped out and I still have to do my own hair" he'd protest and say he didn't know how and "you're the expert." I told him I was only an "expert" at that point because I'd had to undergo a crash course in lice over the previous week. So he does it but he doesn't look at the video I give him and he's not doing a thorough job, so I wind up doing it again after anyway. And he's like "don't assign it to me unless you are okay with me doing it my way" which sounds reasonable when it's buying a sweater but actually doesn't apply in this case because if you lice comb insufficiently, you wind up getting a reinfestation. But he was the one family member who didn't get lice and he didn't get it so it all just fell to me. And it was not an optional thing and it was not unimportant. And now I'm *still* the lice person in our household and I'm the one who does all the preventative maintenance to make sure we don't get it again and I'm the one who braids our daughter's hair and makes sure we have lice spray on hand when the school reports an outbreak and stays on top of it.

- Our school sends a million emails (like multiple per day) about everything from uniform policy reminders to upcoming events to request for volunteers. It's so much communication and a lot of it is unimportant or just invitations for make-work I have no interest in participating in. But buried among all the emails I don't care about are emails that are totally essential to our family, like the sign up link for next semester's aftercare program or info about scheduling changes for the week before winter break. So I open all the emails from the school to make sure I dont' miss something important. Most get deleted but int his way I can be confident I don't miss anything important, and that's how we wind up not missing aftercare sign ups or re-enrollment deadlines or know when testing is scheduled or whatever. DH ignores all of the emails because he says "they are mostly pointless" and when I explain that some of them are not pointless and we still have to pay attention to them, he's like "yeah, you're better at that stuff than me." Better at opening emails and reading? Who knows. But I wind up handling all the school admin stuff as a result because he's decided it's all useless. If I try to delegate it out to him, he'll push back and say "well I don't have the context for that and you did it last time so it makes sense for you to keep doing it." Which is true and also infuriating, because the only reason I have all the context is because I made it a point to learn it and the only reason I did it the last time is because he refuses to open school emails.

So all the little things OP is talking about can snowball into a heavy load to carry, and can also morph into essential family activities that only OP will have the context and experience to handle because her DH has made no effort to involve himself in things like staying on top of school notices about holiday concerts or interfacing with the activity group that does the caroling. It's nbd until one day it is a big deal and then OP is the only one positioned to handle it.
report

I repeat: Triaging tasks prevents the accumulation of tasks you speak of. Try assigning importance to tasks. When people assign importance to tasks, they can focus on more important tasks and de-prioritize things that are unnecessary. If your spouse and/or family is not contributing, that's even more reason to de-prioritize the unnecessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There definitely seems like a distinct lack of conversation here around who is doing what in this particular play.

But, I also think all this dictating of exactly what kids have to wear for events by the powers that be is madness. In our school, I find the teachers often don’t mention the dress code until the Monday of the week you need it — instead of the week before when normal people could coordinate over the weekend. It makes me totally insane. For example, I’m the mom who travels for work and also makes virtually all our income. But suddenly, my kid tells me Monday night (when I’m in Chicago) that she needs a red dress for Thursday. I’m getting home late Tuesday night and have to work Wednesday. So, the first chance I would have to deal with this is really Wednesday night. And the performance is Thursday!! So, I’m telling my husband that in addition to solo parenting on Monday and Tuesday night for our 16 year old who has a rare genetic disorder and is cognitively a baby (he has to feed her, change her diaper, etc), he needs to drag her out to the store with the other kid to look for the special red dress that she now needs. Or we have to convince my kid to wear some garbage dress that we can overnight from Amazon, which she won’t be happy with and is just bad for the environment since she will never wear it again.

This whole situation is ridiculously unfavorable to the less wealthy. Frankly, I have plenty of money and I’m not interested in buying some one off thing my kid will probably refuse to wear again.

And those of you who think this crap isn’t a pain in the butt mystify me. Of course, doing this one time isn’t the end of the world. But the intensive parenting that is a monster created by our current culture is very challenging. And even though I’m a pretty ardent feminist, Phyllis Shafly wasn’t totally wrong to question why women would want to go to work and do all the work of a housewife. We taught women they could bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. No one said to the men, “hey, you are really going to have to learn to make the breakfast for your whole family proactively just because you know it has to be done.” I would argue I have one of the most equitable marriages out there, but studies show over and over that my life is the anomaly.

I completely agree and empathize with everything you are saying.

Except the bolded part - and I'm being picky given your particular situation, but it's generalizable - but why is it that YOU tell your husband he has to get a dress for his kid? I have girls so they are more likely to come to me, the woman, for dresses. I also however wonder about this general dynamic where it's the mother's job to delegate or do. Why is it that the woman are being both the housewives AND the workers?

DP

Both parents should be co-delegating. The division of delegating can shift back-and-forth based on circumstances. But both parents should be able and willing to share delegation responsibilities.

-dress critic

This is completely inefficient to have two people decide every thing together. That isn't even delegating that's leading by committee which takes a lot of time slows things down than having specialists.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There definitely seems like a distinct lack of conversation here around who is doing what in this particular play.

But, I also think all this dictating of exactly what kids have to wear for events by the powers that be is madness. In our school, I find the teachers often don’t mention the dress code until the Monday of the week you need it — instead of the week before when normal people could coordinate over the weekend. It makes me totally insane. For example, I’m the mom who travels for work and also makes virtually all our income. But suddenly, my kid tells me Monday night (when I’m in Chicago) that she needs a red dress for Thursday. I’m getting home late Tuesday night and have to work Wednesday. So, the first chance I would have to deal with this is really Wednesday night. And the performance is Thursday!! So, I’m telling my husband that in addition to solo parenting on Monday and Tuesday night for our 16 year old who has a rare genetic disorder and is cognitively a baby (he has to feed her, change her diaper, etc), he needs to drag her out to the store with the other kid to look for the special red dress that she now needs. Or we have to convince my kid to wear some garbage dress that we can overnight from Amazon, which she won’t be happy with and is just bad for the environment since she will never wear it again.

This whole situation is ridiculously unfavorable to the less wealthy. Frankly, I have plenty of money and I’m not interested in buying some one off thing my kid will probably refuse to wear again.

And those of you who think this crap isn’t a pain in the butt mystify me. Of course, doing this one time isn’t the end of the world. But the intensive parenting that is a monster created by our current culture is very challenging. And even though I’m a pretty ardent feminist, Phyllis Shafly wasn’t totally wrong to question why women would want to go to work and do all the work of a housewife. We taught women they could bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. No one said to the men, “hey, you are really going to have to learn to make the breakfast for your whole family proactively just because you know it has to be done.” I would argue I have one of the most equitable marriages out there, but studies show over and over that my life is the anomaly.

I completely agree and empathize with everything you are saying.

Except the bolded part - and I'm being picky given your particular situation, but it's generalizable - but why is it that YOU tell your husband he has to get a dress for his kid? I have girls so they are more likely to come to me, the woman, for dresses. I also however wonder about this general dynamic where it's the mother's job to delegate or do. Why is it that the woman are being both the housewives AND the workers?

DP

Both parents should be co-delegating. The division of delegating can shift back-and-forth based on circumstances. But both parents should be able and willing to share delegation responsibilities.

-dress critic

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important.

No, it's common sense.

When people assign importance to tasks, they can focus on more important tasks and de-prioritize things that are unnecessary. If your spouse and/or family is not contributing, that's even more reason to de-prioritize the unnecessary.

It's cute how you cherry picked the line you wanted to argue over and left out the long explanation of WHY it's the accumulation of tasks and not any specific task that is the problem. I'm guessing you don't have a response for the full argument.

I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important. That's not the issue. The issue is that when one spouse is left to do all the little administrative tasks and the other partner makes no effort to participate, doesn't pay attention to the emails about these things, doesn't participate in any way, not even in deciding "hey this is not important, let's let Carla where what she wants for caroling and if the organizer complains I'll handle it" or whatever, then what you've done is turned one spouse into the family's administrative assistant. And the stuff they do in this capacity may not be individually important in every instance, but overall the role is a lot and can become very burdensome.

To provide some examples:

- My DH cannot be bothered with anything related to the kids clothes, shoes, or hair. It gets defaulted to me because DH will say "Oh I'd have no idea where to start" or "I don't understand kids sizing" or "you bought their shoes last time, it makes sense for you to do it." Okay, fine, buying clothes and getting the kids' haircut is not a big deal, I don't really mind. Except then last year, there was a huge lice outbreak at their school. Both kids got it, and we caught it late because I had zero experience with lice prior to that and had missed the signs. I also got it. It took a full month of treatment and maintenance to fully eradicate the family and it was stressful and time consuming. I have a full time job just like DH and had to do all the lice stuff while juggling that. But when I'd say to DH "can you nit comb this child's hair tonight? I'm so wiped out and I still have to do my own hair" he'd protest and say he didn't know how and "you're the expert." I told him I was only an "expert" at that point because I'd had to undergo a crash course in lice over the previous week. So he does it but he doesn't look at the video I give him and he's not doing a thorough job, so I wind up doing it again after anyway. And he's like "don't assign it to me unless you are okay with me doing it my way" which sounds reasonable when it's buying a sweater but actually doesn't apply in this case because if you lice comb insufficiently, you wind up getting a reinfestation. But he was the one family member who didn't get lice and he didn't get it so it all just fell to me. And it was not an optional thing and it was not unimportant. And now I'm *still* the lice person in our household and I'm the one who does all the preventative maintenance to make sure we don't get it again and I'm the one who braids our daughter's hair and makes sure we have lice spray on hand when the school reports an outbreak and stays on top of it.

- Our school sends a million emails (like multiple per day) about everything from uniform policy reminders to upcoming events to request for volunteers. It's so much communication and a lot of it is unimportant or just invitations for make-work I have no interest in participating in. But buried among all the emails I don't care about are emails that are totally essential to our family, like the sign up link for next semester's aftercare program or info about scheduling changes for the week before winter break. So I open all the emails from the school to make sure I dont' miss something important. Most get deleted but int his way I can be confident I don't miss anything important, and that's how we wind up not missing aftercare sign ups or re-enrollment deadlines or know when testing is scheduled or whatever. DH ignores all of the emails because he says "they are mostly pointless" and when I explain that some of them are not pointless and we still have to pay attention to them, he's like "yeah, you're better at that stuff than me." Better at opening emails and reading? Who knows. But I wind up handling all the school admin stuff as a result because he's decided it's all useless. If I try to delegate it out to him, he'll push back and say "well I don't have the context for that and you did it last time so it makes sense for you to keep doing it." Which is true and also infuriating, because the only reason I have all the context is because I made it a point to learn it and the only reason I did it the last time is because he refuses to open school emails.

So all the little things OP is talking about can snowball into a heavy load to carry, and can also morph into essential family activities that only OP will have the context and experience to handle because her DH has made no effort to involve himself in things like staying on top of school notices about holiday concerts or interfacing with the activity group that does the caroling. It's nbd until one day it is a big deal and then OP is the only one positioned to handle it.
report

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?”

Right. I definitely feel like a child writing and receiving an award for a speech is capable of getting a birthday present and saying dad my show is on x day and time be there.
Alot of this mental load stuff is being a parent and the struggle is created by the need for rigid control, and refusal to delegate

What kid is getting a birthday present? Do you allow your kids to surf your Amazon account and make their own purchases? Because most people don't want their kids to do that.

Lol, right? That person’s kids also buy their own clothes.
They can’t bake cookies though…

By the time they are 13 they are buying their own clothes. They have a budget and if they want to do in store shopping they tell us if they want a ride


Younger kids are capable of being told go to your room and get a red sweater or a green shirt

You just think you have all the answers! But oops! No red dress. Or that green shirt from last year is now 2 sizes too small. What now super mom?

Then either their dad or I buy one or take them to buy it. You do have to do somethings for kids because they are kids. Were you under the impression that you birth them and then magically stuff just happens for 18 years?

Maybe you just have undiagnosed ADHD so basic things are very challenging for you

Nobody says it's hard. But you seem stuck on these very simple tasks. But in a day there are so many very simple tasks. Someone has to do them. And husbands would say they are focused on many other tasks just not the buying shirt tasks. For my house our division of labor is pretty even but no, my husband doesn't have to do the shirt but he is leaving work early today to take the car for an oil change.

I just had AI tally our last five years of Amazon packages and costs. For Share of Mind sake.

Things I ordered, by quantity:
65% for the kids (bday presents, clothes costume, sports stuff, school materials)
30% for the house (snacks, kitchen items, decor, lawn/pest stuff)
5% for me (cosmetics on sale, snakca)

Things my husband ordered, by quantity):
5% for kids (usually returned, wasn’t listening)
90% for himself (clothes/shoes, electronics, 5+ shavers a year & forgets to pack them)
5% for the house (weird electronics or lights sitting in a pile now)

Dollar value and quantity value vastly ordered by me. Tho his random electronics add up big time (roomba, etc).

Ok? Amazon won't quantify for me the mental labor of dealing with the income taxes, car maintenance, investment management, and all the other things in our household division of labor. While shopping for the shirts and bday presents is annoying I don't want to take on the other tasks so it works for us and more or less evens out.

The crux of the problem is ONE parent will not or cannot see the family’s needs and proactively fulfill them — whether it’s the school’s stated concert attire for a kid, or no more cereal left, or a sick child needing medicine, emotional support of a teen.

Then everything falls onto the OTHER more functional parent, who also still works fulltime, can get an oil change every 5k miles or two years, rebalance a PA, fix a leaky toilet, and meal plan, etc.

I mean what good is knowing how to fix a leaky toilet if you’re too lazy to walk by said leaky toilet and do something about it asap or later that day. You need a royal invitation from your wife?

I’m sorry your husband is like that but don’t presume everyone is reading and nodding along.

DP. A lot of women have this issue with their husbands. It's understandable that we would seek to commiserate somewhere. That's what is happening here.

What I don't understand is why there are apparently so many women with husbands who are not like this who need to devote time to this thread and expressing disbelief that any men are like this, or claiming it's just one or something. It's obviously not. It's a trope for a reason.

Trying to convince everyone that buying the dress and cookies is the biggest problem in a marriage is why you’re getting such push back. Men have figured out that this is nonsense, women either want to do this or don’t like the way their husbands compete these non essential tasks and then want to martyr themselves over it. It’s hard to muster up a lot of sympathy over this. Just drop the rope. Send the kid with whatever she has in her closet that’s close enough. Let the cookies go. It doesn’t really matter.

What if your kid tells you it matters?

FWIW, I'm a woman who works full-time and I do find certain things to be stupid wastes of time and therefore just don't do them. However, if my child cared about something, I would ignore the fact that I think it's dumb and would probably do it for them. Because that's part of being a parent. So I'm a little surprised that you think YOUR opinion is the only one that matters. You must not work either, because every job I've ever had has some parts that I don't think need to be done but do them nonetheless. It's called life.

Anonymous wrote:

I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important.

No, it's common sense.

When people assign importance to tasks, they can focus on more important tasks and de-prioritize things that are unnecessary. If your spouse and/or family is not contributing, that's even more reason to de-prioritize the unnecessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?”

Right. I definitely feel like a child writing and receiving an award for a speech is capable of getting a birthday present and saying dad my show is on x day and time be there.
Alot of this mental load stuff is being a parent and the struggle is created by the need for rigid control, and refusal to delegate

What kid is getting a birthday present? Do you allow your kids to surf your Amazon account and make their own purchases? Because most people don't want their kids to do that.

Lol, right? That person’s kids also buy their own clothes.
They can’t bake cookies though…

By the time they are 13 they are buying their own clothes. They have a budget and if they want to do in store shopping they tell us if they want a ride


Younger kids are capable of being told go to your room and get a red sweater or a green shirt

You just think you have all the answers! But oops! No red dress. Or that green shirt from last year is now 2 sizes too small. What now super mom?

Then either their dad or I buy one or take them to buy it. You do have to do somethings for kids because they are kids. Were you under the impression that you birth them and then magically stuff just happens for 18 years?

Maybe you just have undiagnosed ADHD so basic things are very challenging for you

Nobody says it's hard. But you seem stuck on these very simple tasks. But in a day there are so many very simple tasks. Someone has to do them. And husbands would say they are focused on many other tasks just not the buying shirt tasks. For my house our division of labor is pretty even but no, my husband doesn't have to do the shirt but he is leaving work early today to take the car for an oil change.

I just had AI tally our last five years of Amazon packages and costs. For Share of Mind sake.

Things I ordered, by quantity:
65% for the kids (bday presents, clothes costume, sports stuff, school materials)
30% for the house (snacks, kitchen items, decor, lawn/pest stuff)
5% for me (cosmetics on sale, snakca)

Things my husband ordered, by quantity):
5% for kids (usually returned, wasn’t listening)
90% for himself (clothes/shoes, electronics, 5+ shavers a year & forgets to pack them)
5% for the house (weird electronics or lights sitting in a pile now)

Dollar value and quantity value vastly ordered by me. Tho his random electronics add up big time (roomba, etc).

Ok? Amazon won't quantify for me the mental labor of dealing with the income taxes, car maintenance, investment management, and all the other things in our household division of labor. While shopping for the shirts and bday presents is annoying I don't want to take on the other tasks so it works for us and more or less evens out.

Super, then switch.

Give her the annual and quarterly computer stuff, and you do the day to day household and kid stuff.

Great idea PP!

I'm not the one complaining. But people should be honest about what their household division of labor actually looks like. Complaining about your half without telling us what the husband actually does is meaningless. How do we know how lopsided it is when we only have a few stupid examples of what actually doesn't sound very important?

Complaining and deflecting is exactly what you're doing above.

Face it, pretending to compare the man hours of some annual adult tasks to the day to day family household tasks is vain and naive, to say the least.

Oh please. The house of cards doesn’t fall down if the shirt is blue not green. Find some real problems.

+1

Yes someone mentioned a sick child needing medicine, and emotional support. Those are examples of real problems.

If you are complaining about dresses and cookies, you don't have real problems.

Lol

The delinquent dad who can’t be bothered to read the emails from school, his wife, coaches or doctors is going to ID a sick child, take them to the right doctor and provide emotional support all on his own accord!!?

Let me tell you how many times I returned from a biz trip and found an ill, neglected child. Many.

He won’t even take the time to put them to bed, he’d rather watch TV at 8pm and pass out. They can go upstairs themselves and go to bed. Age 6+.

So you married a dud without a pulse. That still doesn’t mean freaking out over a dress and unnecessary cookies is a good use of time. If OP had bigger issues she probably would have mentioned them.

Sure did; he sits on the sidelines and watches Tv. The entire household is set up to avoid needing him for anything, which in turn minimizes chaos and setbacks for me and the kids. No one props him up any longer beyond that.

So be it.

Why are you trying to make this about you?

Those are OP’s two options when dealing with a husband who’s a krap parent and adult and refuses to do the work to improve:

Divorce and wish the kids the best during his custody time. Still do everything behind the scenes. He undermines all actual parenting or house rules through age 18.

Or

Stay together and take all responsibilities away from him. Household runs more smoothly. More work for functional parent. Kids need to grow up and get independent sooner.

Only two options: Divorce, or take all responsibilities?

Why isn't communicate an option? Because it didn't work in your situation?

As many people have pointed out in this thread, communicating about the need to buy a green sweater isn’t that much more difficult than buying the sweater.
The task is knowing what’s going on in your kids lives, reading all of the stupid communications and group texts, etc.

I’m terrible at this stuff, as is my husband, but I have a nanny for my little ones who keeps on top of this stuff for my older ones, and I appreciate the hell out of her. I don’t know why the men on this board are so loathe to do that for their wives.

How would this even work? Both people read the email then they have to communicate are you getting the sweate or am I? It's so much easier to have one point person to handle school communication. The other parent becomes the point person for something else so you don't have to go back and forth all the time. OP is the point person for school and resents it. But what tasks does she have no problem ignoring and leaving to her spouse?

How do you make it through the day? I'll tell you how it works - the school sends an email saying the kid needs a green sweater for Thursday. Both parents read their emails at normal intervals. Whoever reads it first/has time to do it tells the other person "hey, I ordered the green sweater."

Before school started the school sent us an email saying these are the items your kid needs for day one. My husband read the email and texted me to say "I ordered the school supplies." I hadn't read the email yet but when I checked my email I just deleted it. See how that works? Do you have any other questions?

I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important. That's not the issue. The issue is that when one spouse is left to do all the little administrative tasks and the other partner makes no effort to participate, doesn't pay attention to the emails about these things, doesn't participate in any way, not even in deciding "hey this is not important, let's let Carla where what she wants for caroling and if the organizer complains I'll handle it" or whatever, then what you've done is turned one spouse into the family's administrative assistant. And the stuff they do in this capacity may not be individually important in every instance, but overall the role is a lot and can become very burdensome.

To provide some examples:

- My DH cannot be bothered with anything related to the kids clothes, shoes, or hair. It gets defaulted to me because DH will say "Oh I'd have no idea where to start" or "I don't understand kids sizing" or "you bought their shoes last time, it makes sense for you to do it." Okay, fine, buying clothes and getting the kids' haircut is not a big deal, I don't really mind. Except then last year, there was a huge lice outbreak at their school. Both kids got it, and we caught it late because I had zero experience with lice prior to that and had missed the signs. I also got it. It took a full month of treatment and maintenance to fully eradicate the family and it was stressful and time consuming. I have a full time job just like DH and had to do all the lice stuff while juggling that. But when I'd say to DH "can you nit comb this child's hair tonight? I'm so wiped out and I still have to do my own hair" he'd protest and say he didn't know how and "you're the expert." I told him I was only an "expert" at that point because I'd had to undergo a crash course in lice over the previous week. So he does it but he doesn't look at the video I give him and he's not doing a thorough job, so I wind up doing it again after anyway. And he's like "don't assign it to me unless you are okay with me doing it my way" which sounds reasonable when it's buying a sweater but actually doesn't apply in this case because if you lice comb insufficiently, you wind up getting a reinfestation. But he was the one family member who didn't get lice and he didn't get it so it all just fell to me. And it was not an optional thing and it was not unimportant. And now I'm *still* the lice person in our household and I'm the one who does all the preventative maintenance to make sure we don't get it again and I'm the one who braids our daughter's hair and makes sure we have lice spray on hand when the school reports an outbreak and stays on top of it.

- Our school sends a million emails (like multiple per day) about everything from uniform policy reminders to upcoming events to request for volunteers. It's so much communication and a lot of it is unimportant or just invitations for make-work I have no interest in participating in. But buried among all the emails I don't care about are emails that are totally essential to our family, like the sign up link for next semester's aftercare program or info about scheduling changes for the week before winter break. So I open all the emails from the school to make sure I dont' miss something important. Most get deleted but int his way I can be confident I don't miss anything important, and that's how we wind up not missing aftercare sign ups or re-enrollment deadlines or know when testing is scheduled or whatever. DH ignores all of the emails because he says "they are mostly pointless" and when I explain that some of them are not pointless and we still have to pay attention to them, he's like "yeah, you're better at that stuff than me." Better at opening emails and reading? Who knows. But I wind up handling all the school admin stuff as a result because he's decided it's all useless. If I try to delegate it out to him, he'll push back and say "well I don't have the context for that and you did it last time so it makes sense for you to keep doing it." Which is true and also infuriating, because the only reason I have all the context is because I made it a point to learn it and the only reason I did it the last time is because he refuses to open school emails.

So all the little things OP is talking about can snowball into a heavy load to carry, and can also morph into essential family activities that only OP will have the context and experience to handle because her DH has made no effort to involve himself in things like staying on top of school notices about holiday concerts or interfacing with the activity group that does the caroling. It's nbd until one day it is a big deal and then OP is the only one positioned to handle it.

So much this!! And the people sending them have no training in how to send a professional communication.

YES. And I hate to say it but I think most of the teachers seem to come from more traditional households, where the mom is in charge and prioritizes made-up school activities above all else and expect the moms to do the same

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important. That's not the issue. The issue is that when one spouse is left to do all the little administrative tasks and the other partner makes no effort to participate, doesn't pay attention to the emails about these things, doesn't participate in any way, not even in deciding "hey this is not important, let's let Carla where what she wants for caroling and if the organizer complains I'll handle it" or whatever, then what you've done is turned one spouse into the family's administrative assistant. And the stuff they do in this capacity may not be individually important in every instance, but overall the role is a lot and can become very burdensome.

To provide some examples:

- My DH cannot be bothered with anything related to the kids clothes, shoes, or hair. It gets defaulted to me because DH will say "Oh I'd have no idea where to start" or "I don't understand kids sizing" or "you bought their shoes last time, it makes sense for you to do it." Okay, fine, buying clothes and getting the kids' haircut is not a big deal, I don't really mind. Except then last year, there was a huge lice outbreak at their school. Both kids got it, and we caught it late because I had zero experience with lice prior to that and had missed the signs. I also got it. It took a full month of treatment and maintenance to fully eradicate the family and it was stressful and time consuming. I have a full time job just like DH and had to do all the lice stuff while juggling that. But when I'd say to DH "can you nit comb this child's hair tonight? I'm so wiped out and I still have to do my own hair" he'd protest and say he didn't know how and "you're the expert." I told him I was only an "expert" at that point because I'd had to undergo a crash course in lice over the previous week. So he does it but he doesn't look at the video I give him and he's not doing a thorough job, so I wind up doing it again after anyway. And he's like "don't assign it to me unless you are okay with me doing it my way" which sounds reasonable when it's buying a sweater but actually doesn't apply in this case because if you lice comb insufficiently, you wind up getting a reinfestation. But he was the one family member who didn't get lice and he didn't get it so it all just fell to me. And it was not an optional thing and it was not unimportant. And now I'm *still* the lice person in our household and I'm the one who does all the preventative maintenance to make sure we don't get it again and I'm the one who braids our daughter's hair and makes sure we have lice spray on hand when the school reports an outbreak and stays on top of it.

- Our school sends a million emails (like multiple per day) about everything from uniform policy reminders to upcoming events to request for volunteers. It's so much communication and a lot of it is unimportant or just invitations for make-work I have no interest in participating in. But buried among all the emails I don't care about are emails that are totally essential to our family, like the sign up link for next semester's aftercare program or info about scheduling changes for the week before winter break. So I open all the emails from the school to make sure I dont' miss something important. Most get deleted but int his way I can be confident I don't miss anything important, and that's how we wind up not missing aftercare sign ups or re-enrollment deadlines or know when testing is scheduled or whatever. DH ignores all of the emails because he says "they are mostly pointless" and when I explain that some of them are not pointless and we still have to pay attention to them, he's like "yeah, you're better at that stuff than me." Better at opening emails and reading? Who knows. But I wind up handling all the school admin stuff as a result because he's decided it's all useless. If I try to delegate it out to him, he'll push back and say "well I don't have the context for that and you did it last time so it makes sense for you to keep doing it." Which is true and also infuriating, because the only reason I have all the context is because I made it a point to learn it and the only reason I did it the last time is because he refuses to open school emails.

So all the little things OP is talking about can snowball into a heavy load to carry, and can also morph into essential family activities that only OP will have the context and experience to handle because her DH has made no effort to involve himself in things like staying on top of school notices about holiday concerts or interfacing with the activity group that does the caroling. It's nbd until one day it is a big deal and then OP is the only one positioned to handle it.

So much this!! And the people sending them have no training in how to send a professional communication.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the OP is complaining that she is shouldering more of the burden for kid-related activities (a shock, I know).

However, she does not mention what her DH was doing while she was getting the correct dress for her DD, etc. The answer to this question has a material impact here.

For example, if he is a vascular surgeon earning 90% of the household income, then she has little right to complain since he is earning the lion's share of their household income (HHI). BTW - My opinion would remain the same if the genders were reversed (i.e., she was the surgeon and he was out buying the red dress).

If both are contributing the same amount to their HHI, he should pick up half the kid-related tasks. If one outearns the other, the lower earner should pick up more of the slack. The math is simple: the higher earner in the family should focus more on their job to ensure they (as a unit) earn the most together.

I really don't like this argument, that HHI is the way we measure contribution to the household. What if my nonprofit job which is arguably better for my family to see me doing and the world makes 1/10 as much as some man who works 1/2 the time but makes twice the money? And by the way, women make less money on the dollar for the same jobs, so shoud that mean they have to make up for it with other household tasks?

Anonymous wrote:I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important. That's not the issue. The issue is that when one spouse is left to do all the little administrative tasks and the other partner makes no effort to participate, doesn't pay attention to the emails about these things, doesn't participate in any way, not even in deciding "hey this is not important, let's let Carla where what she wants for caroling and if the organizer complains I'll handle it" or whatever, then what you've done is turned one spouse into the family's administrative assistant. And the stuff they do in this capacity may not be individually important in every instance, but overall the role is a lot and can become very burdensome.

To provide some examples:

- My DH cannot be bothered with anything related to the kids clothes, shoes, or hair. It gets defaulted to me because DH will say "Oh I'd have no idea where to start" or "I don't understand kids sizing" or "you bought their shoes last time, it makes sense for you to do it." Okay, fine, buying clothes and getting the kids' haircut is not a big deal, I don't really mind. Except then last year, there was a huge lice outbreak at their school. Both kids got it, and we caught it late because I had zero experience with lice prior to that and had missed the signs. I also got it. It took a full month of treatment and maintenance to fully eradicate the family and it was stressful and time consuming. I have a full time job just like DH and had to do all the lice stuff while juggling that. But when I'd say to DH "can you nit comb this child's hair tonight? I'm so wiped out and I still have to do my own hair" he'd protest and say he didn't know how and "you're the expert." I told him I was only an "expert" at that point because I'd had to undergo a crash course in lice over the previous week. So he does it but he doesn't look at the video I give him and he's not doing a thorough job, so I wind up doing it again after anyway. And he's like "don't assign it to me unless you are okay with me doing it my way" which sounds reasonable when it's buying a sweater but actually doesn't apply in this case because if you lice comb insufficiently, you wind up getting a reinfestation. But he was the one family member who didn't get lice and he didn't get it so it all just fell to me. And it was not an optional thing and it was not unimportant. And now I'm *still* the lice person in our household and I'm the one who does all the preventative maintenance to make sure we don't get it again and I'm the one who braids our daughter's hair and makes sure we have lice spray on hand when the school reports an outbreak and stays on top of it.

- Our school sends a million emails (like multiple per day) about everything from uniform policy reminders to upcoming events to request for volunteers. It's so much communication and a lot of it is unimportant or just invitations for make-work I have no interest in participating in. But buried among all the emails I don't care about are emails that are totally essential to our family, like the sign up link for next semester's aftercare program or info about scheduling changes for the week before winter break. So I open all the emails from the school to make sure I dont' miss something important. Most get deleted but int his way I can be confident I don't miss anything important, and that's how we wind up not missing aftercare sign ups or re-enrollment deadlines or know when testing is scheduled or whatever. DH ignores all of the emails because he says "they are mostly pointless" and when I explain that some of them are not pointless and we still have to pay attention to them, he's like "yeah, you're better at that stuff than me." Better at opening emails and reading? Who knows. But I wind up handling all the school admin stuff as a result because he's decided it's all useless. If I try to delegate it out to him, he'll push back and say "well I don't have the context for that and you did it last time so it makes sense for you to keep doing it." Which is true and also infuriating, because the only reason I have all the context is because I made it a point to learn it and the only reason I did it the last time is because he refuses to open school emails.

So all the little things OP is talking about can snowball into a heavy load to carry, and can also morph into essential family activities that only OP will have the context and experience to handle because her DH has made no effort to involve himself in things like staying on top of school notices about holiday concerts or interfacing with the activity group that does the caroling. It's nbd until one day it is a big deal and then OP is the only one positioned to handle it.

Anonymous wrote:It seems the OP is complaining that she is shouldering more of the burden for kid-related activities (a shock, I know).

However, she does not mention what her DH was doing while she was getting the correct dress for her DD, etc. The answer to this question has a material impact here.

For example, if he is a vascular surgeon earning 90% of the household income, then she has little right to complain since he is earning the lion's share of their household income (HHI). BTW - My opinion would remain the same if the genders were reversed (i.e., she was the surgeon and he was out buying the red dress).

If both are contributing the same amount to their HHI, he should pick up half the kid-related tasks. If one outearns the other, the lower earner should pick up more of the slack. The math is simple: the higher earner in the family should focus more on their job to ensure they (as a unit) earn the most together.