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Dec. 13th, 2018 03:48 pm I just picked up Gemma Hartley's Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward. It's like reading dispatches from the Twilight Zone.
My thoughts so far:
If I was married to her husband, I would probably have smothered him with a pillow long ago. What's almost more incredible is the fact that she describes him as liberal, progressive, and otherwise above-average as a parent and spouse, despite the fact that he's apparently incapable of the most minimal degree of household competence. This is someone who sent his child off to school without lunch or any of his school supplies, and apparently needs his wife to remind him to pack his own lunch if she's going to be out of town, FFS. That's not competent fatherhood!
I don't honestly hang out with this particular subset of progressive women--the 'Lean In' culture, the supermoms, the ones who have it all and do everything and maintain a show home despite the presence of kids and spouse and a stressful full-time job. I didn't actually even realize that it was still a thing until I discovered that like half of my daughter's friends' parents thought that my spouse was a single father because, as the one of us who doesn't work full-time, he does the vast majority of school-related things. It would never occur to me to assume that I ought to be handling that, too--he's a goddamn adult! They're his kids too! He can get them dressed and pack their lunches and take them to school and daycare and check backpacks and make sure homework is done and all of the other million little details that you have to worry about with kids. He works 25 hours a week. I work full-time. Of course he takes over more of the parenting and household duties; why in God's name wouldn't he?
...but apparently he's a goddamn unicorn in that respect.
My thoughts so far:
If I was married to her husband, I would probably have smothered him with a pillow long ago. What's almost more incredible is the fact that she describes him as liberal, progressive, and otherwise above-average as a parent and spouse, despite the fact that he's apparently incapable of the most minimal degree of household competence. This is someone who sent his child off to school without lunch or any of his school supplies, and apparently needs his wife to remind him to pack his own lunch if she's going to be out of town, FFS. That's not competent fatherhood!
I don't honestly hang out with this particular subset of progressive women--the 'Lean In' culture, the supermoms, the ones who have it all and do everything and maintain a show home despite the presence of kids and spouse and a stressful full-time job. I didn't actually even realize that it was still a thing until I discovered that like half of my daughter's friends' parents thought that my spouse was a single father because, as the one of us who doesn't work full-time, he does the vast majority of school-related things. It would never occur to me to assume that I ought to be handling that, too--he's a goddamn adult! They're his kids too! He can get them dressed and pack their lunches and take them to school and daycare and check backpacks and make sure homework is done and all of the other million little details that you have to worry about with kids. He works 25 hours a week. I work full-time. Of course he takes over more of the parenting and household duties; why in God's name wouldn't he?
...but apparently he's a goddamn unicorn in that respect.
