Community Question 🗣 What Things Do You Do That Don’t Count As “Work”?

Things The World Does Not Consider Work – But Expects Women To Do (Without Complaint)

• Drive the child to daycare or school before work
• Pick up the children at 3PM (or pay extra to pick them up at 6PM)
• Maintain relationships with parents, in-laws, siblings, and cousins (which involves time, effort, and energy – texting, calling, FTing, coordinating trips + travel) 
• Keeping track of and enforcing the child’s schedule (when is bedtime, when school starts, when it’s time to take a bath, when it’s time to go to soccer practice, when it’s time to nap, when it’s time to leave to attend the tennis tournament)
• Buy gifts for mother’s day, father’s day, all birthdays (cousins, grandparents, children, children’s friends, aunts, uncles, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother and sister-in-laws (and their spouses), your spouse, and yourself)(also, tether appreciation gifts, anniversary gifts, gifts when you go to someone’s house for dinner, employee gifts, etc)
• Acknowledge receipt of gifts and express the appropriate level of gratitude for receiving gifts (thank you cards or texts or video or a FT) 
• Choosing schools (visiting schools during working hours – missing anywhere from 4-5 workdays)
• Keeping a mental tally of which kids prefer which snacks in your household (ensuring you have adequate amounts of said preferred snacks and maintaining a consistent inventory)
• Knowledge of when and where soccer practice is + being responsible for transporting soccer kid to soccer practice + being responsible for figuring out what to do with other kids while the soccer one is at soccer practice
• Knowledge + awareness of when kid(s) needs a new winter coat (noticing in August)
• Schedule, coordinate, and attend playdates, birthday parties, dances, and other social activities kids cannot do on their own yet
• Cleaning the house (bathroom (monthly), kitchen (daily), make beds,
• Laundry laundry laundry laundry laundry
• Install car seat + do research on and purchase necessary items (also determine which are necessary and which are just “nice to have”) including but not limited to: bottles, sippy cups, Tupperware, utensils, straws, stroller (and purchasing new ones as the child(ren) reach a new developmental stage) + also developmentally appropriate toys + games + books
• Doing the research on how to not destroy your kid (how much TV or screen time are they allowed? How much can you get away with before other’s judge you? When do you get them their own ipad? Is that rash something to worry about or can you just wait it out? How many days is TOO many days without a bath? Can you live without brushing your kid’s hair? How do you get playdough out of hair and carpets? What happens if/when they swallow playdough? When do you teach them how to put their stuff away? When to discipline and when to let it go? What playpens won’t kill your kid? What toys have (not) been recalled?)
• Being available to leave work at any moment if your kid gets sick or in trouble and needs to be picked up 
• Remembering which days are show-and-tell, ballet, baseball, or swim and making sure the kid has all the items for that activity 
• Signing your kid up for extracurriculars (as well as school) by the deadline – schlepping them to-and-from the activity and ensuring they have all the appropriate items to participate 
• Feeding your child(ren) breakfast, lunch, dinner, and endless snacks. Trying to find clever ways to encourage your kid to eat something that doesn’t cause heart disease and tooth decay but mostly just wanting them to eat…anything. 
• Getting your kid(s) out of the house involves: changing underwear, putting on pants, a shirt, socks, shoes, and a jacket; brushing teeth (and sometimes hair), eating breakfast, and making sure you have the right stuffies 
• Enforcing bedtime + creating a consistent and stable bedtime routine
• Reading with kid every night 
• Managing YOUR emotions so you can help your kid navigate THEIR big feelings
• Anger management, conflict resolution, and communication skills
• Noticing if (and when) your kid is upset, happy, sad, shy, outgoing, etc and having awareness about who they are and what they need/want and how to adjust your parenting to meet their personality, needs, and wants (when to enforce more authoritarian style or discipline, when to let something go, when to push “overcoming” something, when to accept that’s who the kid is + encourage and be proud of who they are – just (1) NOTICE and PAY ATTENTION to them and their idiosyncrasies (2) Adjust your approach accordingly)
• Managing your temper when they throw their shoe at you while you’re driving (OR you also secretly think it’s funny but know it cannot happen again so you have to modulate your tone to communicate this behavior is unacceptable and dangerous)
• Teaching your kid life skills for being a decent human, like sharing, being polite, and not throwing shoes at people
• Teaching your kid how to recognize the feeling that something is about to come out of them, then training them to run to the bathroom when they notice that feeling, and excrete of whatever feels like it wants to come out in the potty (then, again, how to do this at night, at school, at a restaurant, at a friend’s house, at the movies, at the park, and practice 100000 times WITHOUT deploying shame)
• Resist the urge to punch child, spouse, or wall
• Telling your boss, manager, clients, customers, and constituents that you need to leave a meeting/trip/dinner/work in order to pick up, have dinner with, or put to bed your kid – and endure the whispers and assumptions that you’re lazy, cutting corners, not “really” working, not working hard enough
• Endure well-meaning friends and family’s “advice” about what you could be doing differently or better because they’re “just trying to help, I’m not judging you, really”
• Maintain relationship(s) with your child(ren)’s friends’ parents (even if you don’t like them or have anything in common) so your kids can hang out with them 
• Teach and MODEL for your kid clear + direct communication, asking for what you need, identifying emotions, managing emotions healthily, metabolizing feelings, conflict resolution, and repair
• Teach and MODEL self-love, positive self-talk, and body positivity
• Repair. Repair. Repair. Repair. (When you invariably blow a gasket, you model taking responsibility for your behavior, apologizing for your behavior (NOT for the feelings they created), and amend the behavior)
• Teach and MODEL not to be racist and misogynist and homophobic (buying books + toys that are representative, introducing media that is representative + inclusive, ensuring your kids are socializing with kids who don’t look like them or come from different family structures or backgrounds, races, religions, or countries; introduce your kids to foods, languages, or places that they may not recognize (eg: there is no “gross” food – only food you don’t like or do like))
• Constantly scan for behaviors that might indicate something is wrong or deserves more attention or support (avoidant attachment, acting out, attention-seeking, anxious attachment, trouble reading, not meeting expected developmental milestones, punching, hitting, throwing, not-socializing, inability to calm down, etc)
• Modeling respectful communication with your co-parent
• Booking doctors appointments, attending doctors appointments (taking time off work, taking kid out of school, taking them back to school)
• Keeping track of immunization records, sign up sheets, deadlines, baseball little league supply checklists, consent forms, credit card authorization forms 

I don’t want to repeat everything that’s been said, but here’s a few things I thought of that I do to add to the list Margo has!

– knowing where my kids favorite blanket is at all times and making sure it gets washed occasionally

– mentally knowing how much ketchup or flour or cereal or any other food we have at all times

– making sure we schedule regular maintenance, inspections, and registration for our vehicles

– switching out the kids clothes (and shoes) when the get to a bigger size and figuring out if they need anything once in that new size

– knowing what is or isn’t needed at daycare daily