Assessing value, studying vibes
Plus some TDD updates
I swear, I only meant to ghost you for half of January. For the last several weeks, my planner has repeatedly instructed me to “write Substack post,” to no avail. Most recently I was derailed by the shutdown of my daughter’s daycare due to extreme cold (see screenshot below, lest you think we Wisconsinites are soft). This was followed in close succession by the shutdown of my body due to extreme stomach bug (no images available).
But with the mercury rising (as I type, it is 2 degrees F) and my nausea subsiding, I am seizing this rare opening to let you know that…you will be hearing from me less often in 2026!
If you read my last post, you may recall that things were feeling a bit ~unsustainable~ over here at TDD HQ. Over the holiday break, I tried to time-manage my way out of the problem. Literally, I sat down with one of those “ideal week” templates where you map out your weekly schedule, and I shuffled all my commitments around the grid like little puzzle pieces.
Even in this perfectly controlled fantasy, free from extreme weather and various bodily ailments, the math just wouldn’t math. So for the time being, The Daminger Dispatch is returning to its roots as an ad hoc publication. Don’t tell the substack deities I am flouting the golden rule of consistency! You’ll still hear from me, but the “when” part will be a fun surprise for all of us. (I’ve turned off paid subscriptions, too, since it doesn’t seem fair to ask for money under the circumstances.)
But lest you think I summoned you here just to talk logistics, here are two things I’ve been thinking about instead of writing newsletters (in addition, I hope it is obvious, to wringing my hands and hitting the “donate” button as I monitor the events in my neighboring state with horror).1
What does it mean to “value” something?
If we’re being honest, this is often something I’m thinking about. But this month, valuation questions have been particularly top of mind. I’m moving (maybe? hopefully?) into the home stretches of a paper that applies devaluation theory to the household context. (I’m going to be a bit oblique, since that paper is still in the works, but hopefully this is still semi-interesting.)
Devaluation theory originated as a way to explain why predominantly female occupations paid less than similar occupations dominated by men, or why women were paid less than men for doing comparable work.2 Perhaps, the hypothesis goes, work gets devalued when women do it.
Phrases like “women’s work is devalued” get thrown around a lot in the housework research, too, but devaluation theory hasn’t been systematically studied there. You can probably guess why: how do you ascertain value when there’s no salary and no employer?
What my coauthors and I argue (drawing on lots of other smart thinkers) is that wages are not actually the best way to assess social value. Because the way we judge something (or someone’s) worth isn’t just an economic process. It’s cultural, too. How warm or cold do you feel toward this someone/something? How prestigious do you think they are? Etc.
I try my darnedest not to pay too much attention to the Substack Notes wars. Nevertheless, I am vaguely aware of the camp who feels that by calling domestic activities labor, we somehow cheapen them. I wonder, perhaps optimistically, whether this broader understanding of “value” might soften some of the hostility.
How do you measure a vibe?
My filter bubble over the last year or two has been full of (mostly) women telling (mostly) other women that it’s okay to get that divorce. Heterosexual partnerships, the thinking goes, are more or less doomed to fail—or at least make one or both parties unhappy. This general ~vibe~ was termed “heteropessimism” by Asa Seresin way back in 2019,3 but it seems (from a purely anecdotal perspective) to have grown even more prevalent in the years since.
My colleague and I are hoping to go beyond pure anecdote, though, and have been designing a survey that will assess people’s attitudes toward straight relationships with some rigor. It’s been fun to bring these nascent survey questions into real life. “Heterosexual relationships serve no one’s interests. Discuss.” “Men are only partnered with women so they have someone to do their housework. Thoughts?” (I’m a great dinner party guest, as you might imagine.)
If you have suggestions for our survey (real or satirical), send ‘em my way.
With a hat tip to the great Anne Helen Petersen’s recent series, “Things I Have Thoughts About.”
For the sociology sticklers in the audience, I am indeed playing a little fast and loose with the distinction between devaluation and queuing theories, but I hope you’ll forgive this slippage in service of simplicity.
Seresin later rebranded it “heterofatalism,” though I’m not sure that term has stuck as well.
I'm really interested in your survey on heterosexual relationships. There is a lot talk now about declining birthrates and whether feminism is somehow “to blame,” and it feels like that misses what is actually happening in a lot of families.
For context, I am a stay at home dad. My wife and I chose that to support her career in a very male dominated field. In different parenting groups now, I hear a lot of moms say they are exhausted by the mix of paid work, childcare, and housework, and some even say that if they had known how uneven things would feel at home, they might have made different choices about partners or timelines. My wife’s go to reaction when friends complain about husbands who barely help is basically, “Why would you marry someone who doesn’t contribute?” Though it often comes out as "Well, duh, I wouldn't marry an asshole!"
But would she have? When we first got together, we were both in grad school. I was doing developmental genetics, with really long days and inconvenient time points, like collecting embryos at 15 or 36 hours. Neither of us was thinking clearly yet about who would do what at home, the plan was for both of us to be in academia. The decision for me to leave my program (like Claire in your book I was also in year 5) and stay home with our kids didn't happen until after we were married and she was close to giving birth.
I don't think feminism is the problem. If anything, women’s financial independence over the past several decades has given them more room to ask, “What kind of partner do I actually want?” It's not just about income anymore, it's about whether someone will carry their share of childcare, housework, and the mental load.
I don't think men are inherently unwilling or unable to contribute at home, but I do think the bar for what counts as a good partner is rising. It seems that there was a lag between women gaining more independence and feeling ready to demand more equitable partnerships. There may now be a similar lag between those higher expectations and men’s ability or willingness to consistently meet them. My guess is that younger men who want long term partnerships will increasingly be evaluated on how they show up at home as much as on how they show up at work, and they'll have to learn to adapt to the new expectations.
For your survey, I really like the idea of capturing that gap between what people expected and what they are living now. If you are really looking for question ideas, here are some that I would be interested in the results of:
When you started your current relationship, did you expect housework and childcare to be shared roughly equally? What percentage did you expect to do?
Before living together or having children, did you and your partner clearly talk about how you would divide housework and childcare?
Right now, how fair does the division of housework in your relationship feel to you?
Right now, how fair does the division of childcare in your relationship feel to you?
Compared with what you expected at the start, does your partner now do more, less, or about the same amount of housework?
Compared with what you expected at the start, does your partner now do more, less, or about the same amount of childcare?
If you had known from the beginning how housework and childcare would actually be divided, would you still have chosen the same partner?
How strongly do you agree that both partners in a heterosexual relationship should develop similar levels of skill and responsibility in childcare?
How strongly do you agree that both partners should share responsibility for “household management” tasks like planning, scheduling, and remembering what needs to be done?
To what extent do concerns about unequal housework or childcare affect your desire to have (more) children?
Good luck with the survey and the cold!
I look forward to that theory paper as someone who studies attitudes toward the care of older adults! We just did a big scoping review of expectations (focused on theory and measures) and there's not a lot beyond a general use of "familism." But I keep wondering, when we say family should provide this care, do we really just mean women?