My spouse believes in the Easter bunny...
I’m not sure when it happened, but apparently I am designing Easter baskets for young adults now. And they don’t want candy. They want cash. It’s a whole thing.
Especially when your partner seems to think there are magical forces at play in bringing it all together. (In his defense, he did order the ham. But the look of surprise on his face when he discovered the kids’ baskets was confusing for all of us -- you know there's no Easter bunny, right?!)
I’m guessing you’ve been introduced to concepts like mental load and emotional labor via the likes of @lauradanger and resources like Fair Play.
If not, here's the gist: women are sick of holding all the information, questions, concerns, and planning in their heads.
One piece of advice I’ve had to really embrace, in the last few years, is the idea that to be in charge of less I have to stop being good at all the things.
I need to be realistic about my abilities. And then stick to my limits.
For example, for holidays, I’ve made it clear what our local options are:
Go to my sister-in-law’s and have a beautiful, hand-cooked meal, or
Play hostess and we can order takeout.
Neither is right or wrong, good or bad, but I just have to be honest about what I’m getting into either way.
This math works both ways – if I am offloading a task to someone else, I must accept their version of that task. If it’s not in their skill set, it’s an eyes-wide-open situation.
“Do you know if we have any ketchup?” my boy asks me from the kitchen, holding his French fries high above a salivating dog.
A simple question, perhaps, but a past version of me would have eye-rolled, victim-marched to the fridge, and figured it out for him.
Nowadays, I’ve made it clear I don’t want to be the one who keeps an inventory of all the foodstuffs in my head. I am not the keeper of that information.
So instead, I become Kitchen Barbie. I soften my gaze with a vapid stare into the distance and monotone in my best bimbo voice, “I just don’t know. That’s a good question.”
Ash Grandin, @thegamereducator, has a great line that works well for children and adults:
“Hmm, where have you looked?”
It seamlessly turns the process back on the other person in a way that helps jumpstart the skill-building process of learning to find things on their own.
***Bonus – this might be especially helpful for kids with executive function deficits (all kids need support developing these skills), and it may be useful and non-triggering for demand-avoidant kids (and adults).
OK, so this is good for kids, but should we have to do this for grown adult partners? When does it become weaponized incompetence?
Obviously if we’re just dealing with growing pains, we want to allow them space to do their best, try and fail while holding to our boundaries.
But when does it cross a line into laziness territory? I wonder where that line is for you. What strategies have worked – or spectacularly failed – in your household?
Please hit reply! I read every response, even if I can’t write back!
I’m rooting for you!
Mary