Coming to terms with offloading 'mom/wife tasks'
March 16, 2023 6:24 AM Subscribe
For reasons I completely support, my husband will be leaving his job in the coming months and taking a long-term (potentially permanent) break from the workforce. Right now, we both work fairly aggressive, full-time office jobs -- so this will be a significant shift for our household (which includes us, a toddler, and a dog). Please help me work through my embarrassingly non-feminist anxiety/concerns.
As we plan for this change, what worries me most isn't the financial element but rather the psychological one (for me). I take a lot of pride in my ability to 'make it all work': the job, keeping the house fairly clean, doing all the laundry, making dinner most nights, taking on a disproportionate amount of kid stuff (e.g., making lunches for daycare, managing wardrobe as she rapidly grows, handling birthday party RSVPs and gifts...). While my husband does more traditionally wife-driven tasks than the average American dad, he plans to take a lot of them off my plate when he's no longer working and I am. While I'm grateful for it, it feels a bit like part of my identity is about to be taken away and I'm afraid I'll feel less like myself, less like a good wife/mom, more like a failure, etc.. I realize this is unreasonable but I just can't shake it.
Have any Mefites (of any sex/gender) been in this admittedly privileged situation? I'd welcome advice, articles, anecdotes, etc. that can help me wrap my mind around this upcoming transition.
(Apologies if this offends anyone due to my husband/wife traditional task framing. I tried.)
As we plan for this change, what worries me most isn't the financial element but rather the psychological one (for me). I take a lot of pride in my ability to 'make it all work': the job, keeping the house fairly clean, doing all the laundry, making dinner most nights, taking on a disproportionate amount of kid stuff (e.g., making lunches for daycare, managing wardrobe as she rapidly grows, handling birthday party RSVPs and gifts...). While my husband does more traditionally wife-driven tasks than the average American dad, he plans to take a lot of them off my plate when he's no longer working and I am. While I'm grateful for it, it feels a bit like part of my identity is about to be taken away and I'm afraid I'll feel less like myself, less like a good wife/mom, more like a failure, etc.. I realize this is unreasonable but I just can't shake it.
Have any Mefites (of any sex/gender) been in this admittedly privileged situation? I'd welcome advice, articles, anecdotes, etc. that can help me wrap my mind around this upcoming transition.
(Apologies if this offends anyone due to my husband/wife traditional task framing. I tried.)
When my (M) partner (F) wanted to get her PhD we had to move and I became unemployed because the job prospects in her school's city were pretty dismal. I basically became her wife, secretary, and research assistant, doing the shopping, errands, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and housework. That said, she's now a professor with a monograph published of her dissertation--which I indexed*--and is one of the only people in her graduate school cohort in such a position. I don't want to toot my own horn here, but having me available to take all of that off her plate during grad school and a high-powered post-doc position did genuinely help her focus on getting ahead and landing a position in a truly horrific academic job market. I'm now in grad school myself now that she's settled and happy, and honestly doing better in that than I would have back when we were both going back and forth about who would be first to run with the career baton.
*eponysterical: we were too poor to pay for a professional indexer, so I taught myself how to do it and this led to being a free-lance indexer for many of her colleagues and academic contacts, and I was able to leverage this into a new career in academic librarianship at the university she teaches at. You never know where life choices will take you.
posted by indexy at 7:09 AM on March 16, 2023 [42 favorites]
*eponysterical: we were too poor to pay for a professional indexer, so I taught myself how to do it and this led to being a free-lance indexer for many of her colleagues and academic contacts, and I was able to leverage this into a new career in academic librarianship at the university she teaches at. You never know where life choices will take you.
posted by indexy at 7:09 AM on March 16, 2023 [42 favorites]
Best answer: If it's possible, I would wait to see if this is actually how you end up feeling rather than worry about it too much in advance. It sounds to me more like just general anxiety about change, and yes, that's a change!
On the practical level...one thing I can almost guarantee that unless your husband is continually reminding the daycare/school/other moms/scout leaders that he's the contact, you will remain the main contact for all the mom coordinating things.
Second, you'll find new family traditions that will keep you just as connected to your home and family. You won't make lunch but you'll have some kind of coming-home ritual that operates the same way...one parent I know takes a few minutes to listen to music in the driveway to transition from work to home, rather than rushing in to make dinner, and so the kids see the car and go out (in bare feet in the winter, cold but cute) to pile into the car and have "quiet time." (HA HA I suspect that parent stops down the street for the real quiet.)
It's going to be okay. You are still the mom, I promise.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:10 AM on March 16, 2023 [12 favorites]
On the practical level...one thing I can almost guarantee that unless your husband is continually reminding the daycare/school/other moms/scout leaders that he's the contact, you will remain the main contact for all the mom coordinating things.
Second, you'll find new family traditions that will keep you just as connected to your home and family. You won't make lunch but you'll have some kind of coming-home ritual that operates the same way...one parent I know takes a few minutes to listen to music in the driveway to transition from work to home, rather than rushing in to make dinner, and so the kids see the car and go out (in bare feet in the winter, cold but cute) to pile into the car and have "quiet time." (HA HA I suspect that parent stops down the street for the real quiet.)
It's going to be okay. You are still the mom, I promise.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:10 AM on March 16, 2023 [12 favorites]
My husband works three days a week. He pays the bills, files the taxes, does the yard work, and handles house maintenance and repairs. He does all the grocery shopping and some of the cooking. I like to cook and prepare food for my family. It's one of my love languages so to speak. I do most of the heavy cleaning and he does a lot of the light cleaning and tidying. We're both good at laundry, but it depends on the month on who is doing it the most. I see nothing wrong with still doing some of your usual tasks if it makes you happy. If it works for your family, and your stress levels, it doesn't have to be an issue. I know my personality and taking on "everything" is overwhelming. I know I can't do it and I don't want to do it. While I like to cook, I don't want to do it every night. I am very glad I never have to grocery shop, etc.
If you don't see your tasks as a burden, but as a joy and something you like to do, keep with them. I never fully adopted the concept of emotional labor -- I'm only burdened if I think it so. With that being said, I need my partner to contribute and work at something on the regular. If I did most, and he did little, it would never work. My attraction will go to nil and I would resent the hell out of him.
You might discover it's a relief that while you are at work, the laundry gets done and put away, and there is dinner waiting for you. It's a straight-up joy to come home to a clean house with dinner on the stove. If he isn't already doing his own laundry I would make that a given that he will do his own laundry. If it were me, if you're doing the bills and financial stuff, I would pass that over to him. You could also outsource less if you use daycare and landscapers or whatever. These can be his responsibilities if they aren't already. Taking care of a toddler is a full-time job but he's going to want and need responsibilities during the day.
I don't think my kids cared who did the laundry or the cooking as long as their parents were present and loving. Being there is what counts. Sharing a meal at the table is the important part -- not who cooked it that night.
posted by loveandhappiness at 7:27 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you don't see your tasks as a burden, but as a joy and something you like to do, keep with them. I never fully adopted the concept of emotional labor -- I'm only burdened if I think it so. With that being said, I need my partner to contribute and work at something on the regular. If I did most, and he did little, it would never work. My attraction will go to nil and I would resent the hell out of him.
You might discover it's a relief that while you are at work, the laundry gets done and put away, and there is dinner waiting for you. It's a straight-up joy to come home to a clean house with dinner on the stove. If he isn't already doing his own laundry I would make that a given that he will do his own laundry. If it were me, if you're doing the bills and financial stuff, I would pass that over to him. You could also outsource less if you use daycare and landscapers or whatever. These can be his responsibilities if they aren't already. Taking care of a toddler is a full-time job but he's going to want and need responsibilities during the day.
I don't think my kids cared who did the laundry or the cooking as long as their parents were present and loving. Being there is what counts. Sharing a meal at the table is the important part -- not who cooked it that night.
posted by loveandhappiness at 7:27 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have been in this situation, with the possible difference that my husband always took on a large share of the work - we really were/are close to equal in everything but the directly kid-related stuff, and probably 70-30 on that.
When he became a stay at home, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Obviously all men / all people are different. But it turned out that a lot of things were on my plate not because I was a great manager of making it all work, but because those were things that he wasn't all that interested in, or assumed I wanted to do, or knew I did better - not in a strategic incompetency way ("I can't do the dishes, you're so much better than me" crap), but "you've spent more time one on one with kid and already know which activities / caregivers / school assignments are his issues, so you should probably be point person on this." So like loveandhappiness said, you'll be amazed how quickly you'll adapt to the joy of coming home to a clean house with dinner waiting. But you'll find that other tasks that you assume he'll be doing because he's home - may stay your tasks anyway. You may find he has completely different home-care priorities, and instead of doing the chores you think you've offloaded, you'll come home to "I spent the day doing X project that needed doing" (cleaning gutters, finally changing wonky light fixture, etc - important but not crucial stuff neither of you ever got to). So you end up getting the benefit of having him at home, without actually losing the responsibilities you're proudest of.
I'd also like to point out something you might have missed, which is that staying home all day for whatever reason (especially after a demanding job, and especially for a lot of men because our society devalues men staying at home) can be depressing and lonely and disorienting. So it's possible the problem you think you'll have, of offloading too much and being needed less "as a mom / wife," could actually turn out to be the opposite problem - that you'll still have all the same responsibilities, or not as many fewer as you're assuming you will, and that you may start to resent him for that at time when he needs you to be supportive (and may not be willing or able to tell you he needs that support). So I would look out for that as well.
For us, my husband went back to work about a year ago, and post covid I'm working from home full time - and I'm not gonna lie, I still miss having dinner cooked for me and hate having to do it, even though I'm literally a few feet from the kitchen. It's not a mom/wife thing at all. You'll get over that right quick.
posted by Mchelly at 7:58 AM on March 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
When he became a stay at home, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Obviously all men / all people are different. But it turned out that a lot of things were on my plate not because I was a great manager of making it all work, but because those were things that he wasn't all that interested in, or assumed I wanted to do, or knew I did better - not in a strategic incompetency way ("I can't do the dishes, you're so much better than me" crap), but "you've spent more time one on one with kid and already know which activities / caregivers / school assignments are his issues, so you should probably be point person on this." So like loveandhappiness said, you'll be amazed how quickly you'll adapt to the joy of coming home to a clean house with dinner waiting. But you'll find that other tasks that you assume he'll be doing because he's home - may stay your tasks anyway. You may find he has completely different home-care priorities, and instead of doing the chores you think you've offloaded, you'll come home to "I spent the day doing X project that needed doing" (cleaning gutters, finally changing wonky light fixture, etc - important but not crucial stuff neither of you ever got to). So you end up getting the benefit of having him at home, without actually losing the responsibilities you're proudest of.
I'd also like to point out something you might have missed, which is that staying home all day for whatever reason (especially after a demanding job, and especially for a lot of men because our society devalues men staying at home) can be depressing and lonely and disorienting. So it's possible the problem you think you'll have, of offloading too much and being needed less "as a mom / wife," could actually turn out to be the opposite problem - that you'll still have all the same responsibilities, or not as many fewer as you're assuming you will, and that you may start to resent him for that at time when he needs you to be supportive (and may not be willing or able to tell you he needs that support). So I would look out for that as well.
For us, my husband went back to work about a year ago, and post covid I'm working from home full time - and I'm not gonna lie, I still miss having dinner cooked for me and hate having to do it, even though I'm literally a few feet from the kitchen. It's not a mom/wife thing at all. You'll get over that right quick.
posted by Mchelly at 7:58 AM on March 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Well it would reasonable to rank each of those tasks by how much enjoyment you derive from them vs how much time they take. The "worst" tasks get transferred to your husband first until you reach a point where you're satisfied.
You can also think about breaking down tasks and offloading the bits you like least. "cooking dinner" is a process that starts with meal planning, shopping, prep, and that finishes with cleaning and efficient leftover management. My wife does 70% of our cooking but very little of the kitchen cleaning and often delegates prep to me.
There may be tasks such as children's clothes, presents, and RSVPs that you want to keep. Certainly those are more joyful than cleaning dishwasher filters and bins.
posted by atrazine at 8:13 AM on March 16, 2023
You can also think about breaking down tasks and offloading the bits you like least. "cooking dinner" is a process that starts with meal planning, shopping, prep, and that finishes with cleaning and efficient leftover management. My wife does 70% of our cooking but very little of the kitchen cleaning and often delegates prep to me.
There may be tasks such as children's clothes, presents, and RSVPs that you want to keep. Certainly those are more joyful than cleaning dishwasher filters and bins.
posted by atrazine at 8:13 AM on March 16, 2023
From what I've seen, the things make stay-at-home-dadding work:
- one income really is enough; this falls apart super hard if that's not true
- he's willing to do the work at a reasonable level of competence
- you're willing to acknowledge that homemaking isn't a democracy, and give up the day to day control/discretion that you now have over the house and kids, while obviously staying involved in big or highly sentimental decisions
posted by MattD at 8:19 AM on March 16, 2023 [6 favorites]
- one income really is enough; this falls apart super hard if that's not true
- he's willing to do the work at a reasonable level of competence
- you're willing to acknowledge that homemaking isn't a democracy, and give up the day to day control/discretion that you now have over the house and kids, while obviously staying involved in big or highly sentimental decisions
posted by MattD at 8:19 AM on March 16, 2023 [6 favorites]
Also - don't assume that this is hard or emasculating for him or he'll be embittered by exclusion from the stay-at-home-mom club at school. A lot of guys really love it, including ones who didn't exactly choose it at first.
posted by MattD at 8:20 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by MattD at 8:20 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you haven't seen this, this stages of change model (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing) has been really helpful to me in knowing that with any big change for a team (and a family is 100% a team) it's supposed to be a change and the difficulties during the first parts are actually part of the process and lead to best possible result for everyone.
I'm in a two mom household, but am the more "classically wife" coded of the two of us, and have a higher demand out of the house career, while my wife works from home and takes the lead on a lot of home management. The two things that have helped me the most to be okay with this is first: GRATITUDE, actively noticing how nice it is that x thing is just done without my mental or physical work put towards it. And honestly, working harder at work to move up in my role because I know I'm in a really good position of being able to move up at work as a mom of a toddler which I wouldn't be if my partner was also in a role like mine, so I can work to make us more financially comfortable, and feel like I'm contributing to our household in this way that I can.
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 8:24 AM on March 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm in a two mom household, but am the more "classically wife" coded of the two of us, and have a higher demand out of the house career, while my wife works from home and takes the lead on a lot of home management. The two things that have helped me the most to be okay with this is first: GRATITUDE, actively noticing how nice it is that x thing is just done without my mental or physical work put towards it. And honestly, working harder at work to move up in my role because I know I'm in a really good position of being able to move up at work as a mom of a toddler which I wouldn't be if my partner was also in a role like mine, so I can work to make us more financially comfortable, and feel like I'm contributing to our household in this way that I can.
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 8:24 AM on March 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
On the practical level...one thing I can almost guarantee that unless your husband is continually reminding the daycare/school/other moms/scout leaders that he's the contact, you will remain the main contact for all the mom coordinating things.
I just wanted to reiterate this point; I have seen this play out repeatedly in my area — even in supposedly super-liberal California multiple stay-at-home fathers have told me of their struggles with this, and many childcare-related services seem to be absolutely unwilling to contact the father first — they will ONLY reach out to him after failing to reach the mother, with obvious consequences to timeliness.
It’s deeply stupid, but it can be a non-trivial recurring issue.
posted by aramaic at 9:53 AM on March 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
I just wanted to reiterate this point; I have seen this play out repeatedly in my area — even in supposedly super-liberal California multiple stay-at-home fathers have told me of their struggles with this, and many childcare-related services seem to be absolutely unwilling to contact the father first — they will ONLY reach out to him after failing to reach the mother, with obvious consequences to timeliness.
It’s deeply stupid, but it can be a non-trivial recurring issue.
posted by aramaic at 9:53 AM on March 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I remind myself that that is the voice of the patriarchy speaking through me, and I say (sometimes even out loud), "shut up, patriarchy"
posted by advicepig at 12:26 PM on March 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by advicepig at 12:26 PM on March 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
I would explore the emotional payback you get from the identity of “doing it all”. When you make the kids’ lunches in advance, are you mentally patting yourself on the head and also imagining others admiring you for it? This sort of pat on the head stuff goes very deep. You can either find other things to pat yourself for, or ask yourself where you learned this and are you enough as you are? Sit with the frustration of not getting your due and see what comes up. PS you will face this eventually, say at end of life when dependent on others.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:45 PM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:45 PM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: When my husband was at home for a year, I very quickly understood why men have hung on to the patriarchy so fiercely for thousands of years - it is AWESOME to come home to a clean house and a hot meal. My advice is to choose some things that you really want to hang onto, but otherwise just let it go and see where you all end up after some time.
posted by CathyG at 10:39 PM on March 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by CathyG at 10:39 PM on March 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
This change gives you an opportunity to raise your kid with less gender-role baggage. That’s a big win for your kid, regardless of their own gender.
posted by Comet Bug at 11:32 AM on March 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Comet Bug at 11:32 AM on March 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
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This is typical advice for these situations, but I think the most important step is to have a conversation with your partner. "Hi partner, I'm looking forward to our new transition, but one of the things I'm most anxious about is missing the feeling I get when I do more than my fair share of the housework. With our new dynamic shifting, is there a task you really hate doing that I can be in charge of even when I'm busy? Can you think of any other ways I can feel like I'm a contributor to this household in a meaningful way - like stopping by the store on my way home, or planning vacations, or doing any intentional actions that can help me internalize that I'm not just delegating everything to you?"
I think any solutions may or may not work, and it's something to keep sharing your anxiety/nervousness about and adjusting and checking in as things progress!
posted by bbqturtle at 6:47 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]