Making The Invisible Work Visible

An overload of invisible work may manifest in different ways: rage, resentment, anxiety, numbing, overwhelm, exhaustion, even illness. And somehow we've normalized this as simply being a mom. We've normalized mom's alone time at the grocery store or an appointment as self care. And some women have had to put their own health care aside in favor of taking care of their family. 

This topic is really important and essential to address and shift in the interest of our own health and the health of our relationships with our partners and children. Here are some of the steps we considered together:

• Ask & Task or MAKE THE WORK VISIBLE: share your caretaker tickers (meal planning, medical appointments, child care, cleaning...) with one another. Together create task lists and see if there are some you can offload or share or swap to create a better balanced approach.

• Hire Help or Ask for Help: Consider trading or hiring help for the tasks you're willing to let go of OR figure out short cuts like curbside shopping. Leaning into a community of parents to share the load can make a huge impact. Even 30 minutes of trading time is helpful. Look around to see who is in your village. Can you visit a friend and step in to help in a way that helps the other parent feel recharged? If they feel the benefit of that, perhaps they'll see how they can return the favor. We really aren't meant to parent alone. 

• Be Realistic: be very clear about the time you do have to offer and be intentional with how you use that time. This means you may have to let go of some of the things on your list. Prioritizing is key. 

• Let go of perfection:  maybe you can't do all the things you want to do or feel you need to do. When you ask for help, realize that you may have to surrender to how other folks do things and try not to re-do everything (making more work for yourself). 

• Long Game: there are many more years and many additional parenting responsibilities in store, maybe even more kids so it's essential to set the stage now and get practiced for your future!

• Me Time (not going to the store): being a parent is rather consuming, hold onto yourself and create the time you need to do the other things you enjoy. How can you shift your invisible workload to stay in touch with those things and make sure you’ve added your own needs to the caretaker ticker. Prioritize rest and sleep by going to bed early when you can or napping with your baby. 

• Love languages - Learning your love languages can help you more effectively show one another appreciation and support as parents especially given  the time and capacity limitations. I shared that when my partner brought me flowers I only saw that as more work for me to keep another thing alive but if he instead cleaned the bathroom or did some laundry it would go a lot farther. But how will our partners know unless we share with them? 

• Modeling: To help break this cycle further, be mindful of the expectations and responsibilities you're sharing with your children. Normalize sharing household work, regardless of gender, for all children at a young age. Invite them to care for themselves, their pets, their siblings, their homes and their things. Let them see you sharing the workload together as well so they expect to share the load as adults.

Just as a start! There are so many ways to seek balance and transparency.