On rocks and hard places

Something to try when you're at your wits' end

Late last year, a reporter from The Atlantic asked me for an interview about what she described (aptly) as a simple but vexing question: why do women do so much more housework than men? We had a lovely chat, and then I promptly forgot about the whole thing until January 2^nd, when the resulting article dropped and my DMs started to blow up.

Journalists don’t typically run article drafts by their interviewees; thus, whenever I read an article I’m quoted in I tend to squint—like you might while trying to watch-but-not-fully a scary movie scene—hoping that my words haven’t been taken out of context or used to support an argument I disagree with. Fortunately, that’s a very rare occurrence; much more often, I skim the article, link it on my CV, and—satisfied that I am not facing an impending PR disaster—move on.

This was the rare article that I read slowly, several times. Not because disaster seemed imminent, but because the piece was unexpected—and quite funny. Yes, Olga Khazan, the journalist, had written about the gendered housework question she initially contacted me with. But more than that, she’d written a very personal, and not especially favorable, account of her own marriage.

Early in the article she recalls a recent incident in which her infant had a multi-day fever, and Khazan learned the hard way that her husband had never researched backup childcare, as he’d promised to do: “When Rich asked me, four days into Evan’s fever, as we were syringing Tylenol into his wailing mouth at 2 a.m., ‘What are we gonna do?’ I very reasonably responded, ‘I don’t know, dickhead! What the fuck are we gonna do?’”

As the article unfolds, Khazan’s dilemma crystallizes: though she has implemented various best practices for equalizing household labor, Rich has repeatedly (at least from her perspective) failed to hold up his end of the bargain. He either forgets to do whatever he says he’ll do, or he does it so poorly that Khazan has to deal with the fallout. As a result, she finds herself locked in a classic manager-helper dynamic: “I bark out orders, and Rich kinda-sorta fulfills them, most of the time.”

This sounds…sub-ideal. And yet, Khazan concludes that acceptance is her best option: “I’m not getting divorced, because there is too much work to do. Right now a helper is worse than a co-pilot, but it’s better than nothing.”

Khazan is staring down a classic case of rock-versus-hard-place. Faced with two bad options—shoulder most of the mental (and physical) load, or end the relationship (and, likely, still shoulder a heavy load)—she’s opted for the one she perceives as less bad.

Though relatively few women speak about it so openly (or with as much sardonic humor), the research literature suggests this kind of dilemma is common and longstanding. Writing about dual-income couples way back in 1989, for instance, Arlie Hochschild noted the following: “Many women struggle to avoid, suppress, obscure, or mystify a frightening conflict over the second shift. They do not struggle like this because they started off wanting to, or because such struggle is inevitable or because women inevitably lose, but because they are forced to choose between equality and marriage. And they choose marriage.” (Emphasis added)¹

It is tempting, from the outside, to criticize these women: why are you tolerating this?? Then again, women who make the opposite choice, to leave a marriage, face their own army of critics: was it really worth breaking up your family over chores??

Personally, I respect Khazan’s clear-eyed analysis of her situation; much more commonly, I see women gaslight themselves, blaming their stress on their own limitations or reframing their situation as “not that bad.” If that’s what you need to do to get through the week, far be it from me to take that from you! Still, there’s something freeing about calling it what it is. (If good old-fashioned ostriching is your style, more power to you. Stop reading here…)

If you suspect you’re caught between rock and hard place, what can you do?

In the article, Khazan quotes me as advising a couple in her shoes to do some “deep work” to figure out whether their household labor-related goals are compatible. This was both vague and, admittedly, something of a copout. I don’t feel comfortable advising someone to divorce or stay married to someone who makes them unhappy (but is not abusive)! That’s way above my pay grade. Still, I stand by my recommendation and wanted to elaborate a bit on what I had in mind.

When I initially brainstormed this post, I thought about pitching this “deep work” as a sort of third way between accepting inequality and filing for divorce. Surely it’s not so black and white! Alas, upon further reflection, I don’t think that’s quite accurate. Sometimes you really are caught between two bad options. The strategy I outline below is more of a diagnostic tool to help you figure out whether that’s indeed the case.

For those with sufficient time and money on hand, deep relational work is best done under the guidance of a licensed therapist or counselor. But if you need or prefer a bootstrapped version, one way to get started is to sit down with your partner and talk through a few questions²:

• What are your primary goals and values, both as individuals and as a couple/family? How do chores and childcare relate to those goals/values? For example, someone might say that they value community and want a house that is warm, welcoming, and clean enough that guests feel comfortable. Someone else might say their goal is to keep their children reasonably healthy into adulthood, and that they thus value nutritious meals. Etc.

• What is your ideal allocation of physical, mental, and emotional labor and of earning income? This could be a number, like 50/50, or something more abstract, like ‘each of us contributes as much as we are able.’ It may be helpful here to distinguish your abstract ideal from your real-world ideal: assuming your life does not change dramatically, what’s the optimal allocation? Why?

• Who (if anyone) is ultimately responsible for making sure your household keeps running—food on the table, toilet paper rolls replaced, children deposited at their various activities, and so on? Not just ‘who should take out the trash or mop the floor’ but ‘where should the buck stop’? Why? Is the answer different for different tasks or areas of life?

• Relatedly, who (if anyone) is ultimately responsible for making sure your family has the money you need to get by? Not just ‘who should work’ but ‘who is on the hook for our bottom line’? Why?

If you try this exercise, keep in mind that humans are really good at telling others—and themselves!—what they want to hear. Do your best to dig deeper, beyond your initial responses. You may both say you want 50/50, but if you’re currently far off from that division, it’s worth probing. Perhaps one of you feels like your financial contributions effectively buy you out of some chores. Maybe one of you is more committed to a certain form of parenting, and thus reluctant to cede responsibility for certain childcare tasks. Then again, maybe you both really do want to be 50/50, but you’re facing some external obstacles.

It's unlikely that in the course of this conversation your partner is going to admit to believing a woman’s place is in the kitchen or that they would ideally do 0% of the childcare. (Plenty of people believe/want that, but I’d like to think you would have guessed it much earlier in your relationship.) More likely, you’ll need to read between the lines to identify subtler hints at what Hochschild would call their “deep gender ideology”: what they think deep down, rather than what they think you want to hear.

If you manage to have a good conversation, you’ll likely find yourself in one of several situations (and if you can’t have a productive discussion, well, that’s data too):

• Alignment – your goals and preferences are relatively similar. Yay!

• Potentially reconcilable misalignment - you’re in different places now, but it seems plausible that with effort you could find a middle ground.

• Irreconcilable misalignment - Alas, you have very different perspectives that seem unlikely to change.

Note that by “alignment” I don’t mean that your current labor practices match your ideals; I just mean that your respective ideals are compatible. If that’s you, your task now is to figure out how to bring your practices in line with your ideal. Experimenting with tools and systems, whether DIY or readymade (e.g., Fair Play, household management software) is likely worth your time. Change might not happen overnight, but at least you can feel confident you’re both working toward the same vision.

If, on the other hand, you diagnose your relationship with a case of irreconcilable misalignment, the bad news is that you may be facing some hard choices.³ The good news is that you, like Khazan, are now free to make those choices with your eyes wide open.

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I’m sending love to all of the readers in L.A. or affected by the devastation there. There are tons of lists out there for those looking to donate, but here are two I found helpful from Charity Navigator and the LA Homeless Services Authority.

On a MUCH less serious note, my semester kicks off next week, and I may need to adjust my pub schedule around teaching time. I’m still planning to post weekly, but don’t be surprised if the day of the week moves around over the next little bit as I figure things out…

1. Others, like my mentor Kathleen Gerson, have written about a variant of this dilemma that involves choosing between being an ideal worker and being an ideal mother.

2. As always, the caveat here is that I am not a licensed counselor! If this seems like something that would do your relationship and/or your own well-being more harm than good, please skip it.

3. It would be premature to jump to any big conclusions on the basis of one conversation. This exercise is just a starting point and likely merits follow-up—more conversations, ideally with the support of a trained professional.