Way back in 1996 sociologist Susan Walzer published a research article pointing to one of the more insidious gender gaps in household labor: thinking. It was called “Thinking about the Baby.”
In it, Walzer argued that women do more of the intellectual and emotional work of childcare and household maintenance. They do more of the learning and information processing (like buying and reading “how-to” books about parenting or researching pediatricians). They do more worrying (like wondering if their child is hitting his developmental milestones or has enough friends at school). And they do more organizing and delegating (like deciding when towels need washing or what needs to be purchased at the grocery store), even when their partner “helps out” by accepting assigned chores.
For Mother’s Day, a parenting blogger named Ellen Seidman powerfully describes this exhausting and almost entirely invisible job. I am compelled to share. Her essay centers on the phrase “I am the person who notices…” It starts with the toilet paper running out and it goes on… and on… and on… and on. Read it.
She doesn’t politicize what she calls an “uncanny ability to see things… [that enable] our family to basically exist.” She defends her husband (which is fine) and instead relies on a “reduction to personality,” that technique of dismissing unequal workloads first described in the canonical book The Second Shift: somehow it just so happens that it’s her and not her husband that notices all these things.
But I’ll politicize it. The data suggests that it is not an accident that it is she and not her husband that does this vital and brain-engrossing job. Nor is it an accident that it is a job that gets almost no recognition and entirely no pay. It’s work women disproportionately do all over America. So, read it. Read it and remember to be thankful for whoever it is in your life that does these things. Or, if it is you, feel righteous and demand a little more recognition and burden sharing. Not on Mother’s Day. That’s just one day. Everyday.
Cross-posted and in print at Money.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 11
jayell1727 — May 9, 2016
This is the kind of post that always makes me feel like not-a-real-girl and non-a-real-mom. I'm not the only person in my house who notices that we're out of toilet paper or various foodstuffs; sometimes I have to ask my husband where to find things in the kitchen; he's far more likely to know whether or not we have clean sheets than I am; he keeps track of our daughter's dental appointments because he takes her. I get that she's describing a common experience for women and I agree that it's not accidental. In fact, my experience proves that men are capable of seeing and remembering all kinds of household information. These posts always make me feel invisible and inauthentic.
Jonathan — May 9, 2016
My personal intuition is that this sort of worry work is driven by a feeling of not being "good enough," a la Brene Brown. I wholeheartedly agree that it's no accident that women tend to do more worry work than men. Women see a lot more messages from other people that they aren't good enough than men do.
I've witnessed this feeling of constant inadequacy being passed down from generation to generation. My mom grew up with a hypercritical mother and an alcoholic father and learned that she wasn't "good enough." She married my dad, who was emotionally abusive and told her she wasn't good enough. This feeling isn't limited to women, of course, as I've also inherited this wonderful frame of mind, but I'm an outlier.
Thinking about what my mom went through and the effort that she expended thanklessly makes me sad. Personally knowing what it's like to do this kind of worry work with no recognition and to be expected to do this kind of work invisibly frustrates me beyond belief. Why should women (or anyone else who doesn't feel good enough) shoulder the burden of thinking for others? Why should women's needs always come second?
My dad made the big bucks and got the recognition for being "intelligent" and "hardworking," but I saw the enormous volume of work my mom did with no appreciation, recognition, or compensation. My dad's work was the tip of the iceberg, while my mom's work represented the majority of the iceberg sitting below the water, holding up my dad. Long story short, my mom is the parent I respect and aspire to be like the most, not my dad. Mom, thank you from the bottom of my heart! ?
fork — May 9, 2016
Imagine that in a workplace. The organizers, the delegators, aka the managers, getting no pay and no recognition. I guess that would be one way to get more women into management positions.
DonnaDiva — May 9, 2016
From my decade in the military I can promise everyone that men are perfectly capable of "seeing" dirt and missing things if there are consequences for them not. I watched many a young male sailor become very good a cleaning and organizing, under the watchful eyes of male superiors. They get away with pretending not to know in other environments knowing that it's women, and not they, who will be judged harshly for failing to live up to standards by others.