Sick of it all- which is why we’re here

Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women. Sociologist Jessica Calarco said this 3 years ago, deep in the thick of the pandemic. And while much has changed since then, much hasn’t changed since then. And I am sick of it.

Mothers do more domestic labor than their partners. It is disproportionately cognitive labor. This labor is associated with women’s mental health (depression, stress, and burnout).

Let’s be honest- the majority of advice given by The Masters of Productivity^TM to “do less” and to “focus on big ROI tasks” is ridiculous. Someone still needs to buy the classroom party stuff. Someone still needs to make sure kids get to practice. Someone still needs do laundry and load the dishwasher. And if they aren’t the ones doing the tasks, mothers are usually the ones directing household activities, reminding others to do those activities, and following up to ensure those activities are done.

The season of life that I am in doesn’t look like it once did. No longer do I have to drop what I am doing to sprint out the door at 230 pm for kid pick up. One, because my son is almost 15 and goes to high school a mile from our house. Also, I have a husband who *mostly* contributes to the running of the household everyday. We’ve been able to structure our life so that some of the the daily annoyances of running a household are less than they used to be. But, these were choices we made- we live in the city so where we can access to public transit- so my kid can hop on a city bus or bike himself to a lot of places. My husband has a work from home job that allows him a decent amount of flexibility (in exchange for not having a income that is commensurate with someone who has the amount of experience he has- but that is neither here nor there). And for both of these things I am grateful.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut. Everyday, I want to be doing more than just work, dinner, clean, bed. Rinse and repeat. I have stuff I want to write. I have places I want to go. I have home reno projects I want to do. And, I want a put together house. And I coach. And volunteer for school stuff (and I want to volunteer for other stuff). I want to be able to attend as many of my kid’s sports stuff as possible before he graduates. So, yes, my struggles are different than they were 7-8 years ago. But, in many ways, they are the same- just trying to squeeze more out of a 24-hour day than *might be* reasonable.

In this blog, I am dedicated to trying to find the solutions to help working moms GATTD (Get All The Things Done). So much of the advice out there on productivity and time management is honestly, just unrelatable as hell. Be for real, as the kids say. I would love to wake up at 4am and make breakfast before doing 60 min of physical activity. But a lot of times- I am dealing with shit as soon as I wake up, like the kitchen not being shut down properly the night before. So, my first feeling at 5am or 6am on those days is burning rage. It means that sometimes, I have rage cleaned the kitchen at 6am, instead of going for a little walk?

So that is what we are going here. Just looking for commiseration, solutions, and ideas for getting through “this stage”. Whatever this stage is. Here I’ll post book reviews, articles (news and scholarly), things I love that help check items off the list, things I think about. And sometimes ranty rants where I just scream into the void and invite you to scream into the void with me.