Fixing the Labor Imbalance at Home || How to Shift from Martyr to Change-Maker

In my experience, women often carry the mental and emotional weight at home, which goes unnoticed. This burden leads to feelings of being undervalued, even when performed willingly. Sharing this labor isn't just about dividing tasks evenly, but about mutual recognition and appreciation for every contribution, fostering a genuine sense of partnership within the family.

When I embarked on this journey to balance the labor in our home, it became clear that change must start with me. Through open conversations, I encouraged my family to recognize the invisible labor and prompted them towards owning more responsibilities. This process is gradual, but change arises from understanding our roles, communicating with compassion, and being willing to adapt together.

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica Packer: Women don't just want their families to do more. They want to be seen. Women don't want to just do less.

They want to be less responsible for everything. It's more about being seen and valued as a woman than it just being about who is doing what.

 

Monica Packer: Hi. This is Monica Packer and you're listening to About Progress where we are about progress made practical. Today I am going to tackle one of the toughest topics out there, and it is one that I've had to do with every coaching client I've ever worked with at some point, and to some degree. It's about the disparity of labor that women experience in their homes.

I'm gonna define that for you, but first I wanna start with a story that I think really illustrates what this looks and feels like even in the best of homes on our 14th winning anniversary a few years ago. We were about to go to dinner, and I decided for some reason that that was the perfect time for Brad and I to move through something called the Fair Play Deck.

If you've read the book, fair Play by Eve Rodsky, she's been on the show in the past, one of my favorite episodes ever. Then you know how Eve Rodsky talks about. Labor in the home and that labor in the home. All caretaking tasks from stocking toilet paper to feeding people to even being the tooth fairy should follow the same kind of practices they have in the business world and with business organizations because the home is the most important organization on the earth according to Rodsky.

And I would agree with her. And she talks about how. For each task like they do in the business world. For each task at home, there should be CPE, meaning conception planning and execution of a task. And as you're trying to figure out in your household who does what. That should involve the full CPE, meaning I conceive of a task.

I know it needs to happen. I plan it out, meaning what has to happen in order for that task to be checked off. And then I execute it, meaning I do it. And as part of that, she has this fair play deck of cards that go through a hundred. Tasks that are typical to most homes and as a couple to help aid in these discussions on who is doing what and to kind of gamify it and to also help, it become really visible on who is doing what.

You move through these cards and these tasks and you divide them into piles of who has CPE over. Certain cards, and like I said, there's about a hundred cards. And before we went to dinner, I just thought, let's sit down and take care of this because hey, it's a milestone. It's our anniversary. It may be a good opportunity for us to just kind of figure out where we are with certain things.

And also because in many ways I knew we had made a lot of progress in this. We had gone from Brad working downtown San Francisco when we lived in the Bay Area for. Six days at a time and us barely ever seeing him and him having a long commute and me being the primary, everything at home to him now, working remotely from home and being more involved in home life and things had been looking and feeling better for me and I didn't think it would be.

Such a big deal to go through those cards. So we sat down and we did that, and as we were going through the cards and putting things, you know, in piles, whether it's Brad's Pile, my Pile, or the middle pile of what we tend to do together that we may wanna consider, hey, someone needs to have full ownership, the full CPE over that task.

As we were going through those cards, I could see Brad's face draining of color and him getting more and more serious. And I began to understand why. And it's because by the time we went through the cards of the 100 cards, I held 60 cards of full CPE of each of those tasks for each of those cards.

And that actually looked better than I thought it would. And it looked better than it would've years ago. Years ago it would've been like 99 cards in my pile. But what was the problem was. I had 60 cards and of the 40 left, Brad had one and it was one that we had just given him paying for our mortgage.

So that meant at the 39 left. I was primarily being the one conceiving and planning of the tasks and Brad executing them, which is still, again, better than we. We had been able to do circumstantially for many years, but seeing the divide so stark in front of us was something that gave us both pause and.

It made Brad feel awful because Brad is an amazing man and has always been like rolling up his shirt sleeves as as soon as he's done with those work hours, he is every bit a part of our family life. He does not sit down and put his feet up and expect me to do it all, and yet we could still both see that it wasn't quite right and not that it has to be 50 50.

We're gonna talk about that, but it was a stark reminder of just how. Disparate this, this labor is at home for even the best of homes, and I would count myself among them. I wanna say right out the gate that I have a great marriage and a great husband, and we are partners in most all things, and we have improved since then.

I'll tell you more about that. But this disparity of who was doing what in the home has been a continued source of pain and frustration, and even conflict in our relationship. For years, I have spoken at great length about why women must do habits differently thanks to invisible labor. Invisible labor is the literal and mental, emotional labor performed to keep homes, communities, and institutions afloat.

That is largely undervalued, unpaid, or underpaid and unseen. That's my definition on this podcast with my clients, with my old course, the Sticky Habit Method, and my upcoming book on Habit Formation for Women. I have done my best to teach women a method. That will help them form habits that stick with this invisible labor, not only acknowledged as a reality in women's lives, but also a reality that we can embrace and still work with.

However, I, as much as I know, women cannot wait for larger things to change both in the home and in politics even. And. As much as I can acknowledge that change takes time and women need help now, and that means with supportive habits now it's still like us working around this large proverbial elephant in the room.

And that elephant is the tremendous burden of invisible labor on women and how while we can still work to support ourselves and take care of ourselves via habits in the here and now, there's a larger work that needs to happen. From policies to our homes and our communities on better valuing the work that goes into caretaking and sharing in that labor.

So today what I wanna do is to take a big piece of that elephant and to work on it with you. And that's with the home, specifically with the thing that we have the most control over. And the thing that will impact our day-to-day life most immediately. How we can better practically shift this disparity of labor so all household members are better sharing in the load of caretaking work.

The load that is required for everyone to be fed and to be clothed and be happy. So let's do it. Let's spend the rest of the episode doing that. After the break, I'm going to talk about what disparity of labor even is, and some hard truths about that that we need to embrace, and the real practical work that we can do to work on better balancing and tackling this disparity of labor in our homes.

 

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Monica Packer: That was probably the longest intro I've done in a while. So I'll try to cut right to it and I'll just say, this is a whole chapter in my book about this specific disparity, and there's gonna be a lot more there. So today what I wanna do is speak more to some very practical starting points and, and not surface level because it's, it's still gonna be deep and important, but.

Expect even more of this to happen. In one of the final chapters in my book that is coming up, I wanna begin with a, a definition disparity of labor. What even is that? This is the actual. Legit definition of that term, disparity of labor refers to significant, often unfair inequality and labor market outcomes, including differences in wages, employment opportunities, job security, or the share of income going to workers versus capital.

So it's a business term, but how it is applied in the home, it looks like the inequity of who was doing what to help maintain the home. And I can put that into three big categories. Cleaning, cooking, clothing, everything that goes into cleaning a home from stocking, cleaning products to overseeing what tasks need to be done to doing those tasks.

Cooking. Keeping food stocked, meal planning, shopping, and the actual cooking clothing from laundering to folding, to putting away to managing who needs what kind of clothing items and shopping for those clothes. And I know there's a lot more, but those are the three big camps that I think. Home labor often fall under , cleaning, cooking, and clothing.

Now, before we get into more of the practical side on how to help this disparity, I need to speak to a couple truths and these are hard truths, and this is me giving you the kick of the hug and kick in the pants that you need to grow, that I always share at the end of the episode. This is more of a kick.

I am going to be speaking more transparently to those who are in heterosexual partnerships because this is where the vast majority of research lies, as well as 99% of my personal experience as a coach working with women who are partnered. So I just wanna say that right out because this may not apply to you specifically, and if it does, I am so sorry, but that is what I can speak to.

The second hard truth I'm going to share right now is men are not the devil and children are not the worst. There are good men. Good husbands, good partners that fall into these patterns. And same with children, and that's because these patterns are built on systems that are so much larger than us as individual people and as individual families.

These are systems of politics, of society, of religion, and they are. Very long lasting, very entrenched systems that, again, are so much bigger than any one family member. And I am saying that now because I believe most men and partners, and I'm speaking more to men and children, I. Are well intentioned and are doing their best and aren't intentionally trying to create harm, including with a disparity of who is doing what in the home.

And I don't want this to be just another thing where we are griping about things or we're bashing a whole population of people, or that we're stereotyping a whole population of people, , specifically men and children. I don't think that would be productive. I don't think it would be helpful.

We all know what it looks and feels like to be the one who is primarily carrying the burden of the labor at home, and we are going to speak honestly about that. But what I really want to make sure we lean into is that this has to be something we work on, but it has to be a communal effort in our households.

And to do that, we. Have to begin by owning that. A lot of this, it was not intentionally done and we need to move forward in good faith and to give people the benefit of the doubt in our homes that they are able and with time, more willing to step up and to share in this labor. For those of you who that does not apply to, I also want to honor that, because it is true and it is out there and I see it with the women I coach too, Even then, I still wanna give you some hope that there are some shifts that can be made with time, and if it's not as much as other people can do, I acknowledge that. And I also still want to encourage you and. Trying to move forward and doing what you can even with your children if you can't as much with your partner.

But I'm largely speaking to, I think the majority of us where there is actually hope here and there are good people and there are just patterns and systems we've gotten swept up in. And that leads me to the third and final hard truth, and that is these are systems and patterns that we have also taken part in as women.

In some ways that we've even encouraged from insisting that nobody else knows how to do a task right, like we do to fully embodying the silent but simmering martyr role that we can fall into. Oftentimes we are playing a part in these patterns and in these systems, and it is really painful and hard to examine that part, but necessary, and I wanna model that for you right now.

Before we lean into the practical side, I personally signed on to there being a disparity between the labor committed in our home when Brad and I got married at the ripe old ages of 21 for me and 24 for him. We both knew that I wanted to be the primary parent overall throughout all of our children's growing up years, starting with being strictly a stay at home mom when they were very young to gradually working part-time, maybe more than that as they.

Got into school and, , got older. Now, I knew that that would mean that I was taking on almost everything at home because Brad would largely be carrying the, the role of ensuring that we have finances to pay for everything, being the, the main and sole provider for many of our years. So that would entail me being the only person in charge of almost everything at home, and I knew that I signed on to it.

But, in actually. Moving forward with it. I can tell you now, I did not expect how hard it would be, how taxing and how all encompassing this caretaking work would be. I didn't fully understand just how much the disparity of who was doing what at home and the load I was carrying at home. Both mental and physical would ring me out and leave me feeling like I had so little.

To actually give to the very people I agreed to care for. Even though I both valued and accepted my role and the disparity that came with that at the start of our marriage, I didn't expect how truly intensive and how invisible the labor would be and how it would feel, and how that invisible labor would make me feel so invisible and undervalued and.

Even though cognitively I would feel valued and know that my role mattered in reality, the lived experience was different. I have played the martyr well. I have played that martyr well. I have been bitter. I have been angry. I have muttered under my breath while taking care of tasks that nobody ever seems to notice or care about from wiping off the countertop to replacing toilet paper rolls, to cleaning off mirrors, I have demanded things change that people step up and do their part primarily with my kids, and then be both disappointed.

Resentful when nothing changes, I have insisted that only I can do certain things because I'm the only one that knows how to do it and to do it right and well, it can be easier for us as women to uphold the status quo of us being the martyr of the home of carrying CPE for every task because change is hard as a family.

It takes time. It requires us to be the change maker. It requires work and labor on our part to ensure that invisible labor is shared more. It can tell some disappointment and frustration. When things aren't done or seen or done to our level, it requires more flexibility in us letting go. It requires discomfort on our part, and in many ways it can feel.

Quote unquote, easier to just maintain the status quo. But in reality , we are paying prices for that. And those are prices that I have personally been unwilling to pay anymore. And to then show up as someone who says, not only do things need to change, I'm willing to lead that change.

 

Monica Packer: So before we lean into that practical side, we have to start with why.

Why does it matter that things are different? To you personally and maybe to your household, to your family, to your partnership? For me personally, it's been about me wanting to be Monica. I wanna be a mom more than anything, and I wanna be a wife and I wanna be a contributing member of society. I wanna do well in my work at home and professionally, but it's also paramount to me that I am Monica. I want my kids to look back and see me as a real person, as a full embodied self, as their mother, and continuing in the status quo of being the primary. Uh. Agent of all things invisible labor at home for me personally, would only continue to me being a burnt out robot at best and a resentful monster at worst.

So it's worth it for me to do this work as a household to better share in the labor at home so that I can be a person too, and that I can as a person, be the mom and the wife, and the contributing member of society and a hard worker that I wanna be too. When I've asked clients to consider why this matters to them, that they do the work to ensure this disparity is better shared for them, it's been about not wanting to model this form of martyr motherhood to their daughters specifically.

For some, it's been about the desire to raise adults. Adults that know how to do this labor, not to raise children housed in adult bodies who just continue the status quo and who don't know how to do their own laundry or to cook for themselves or to clean, and I'm talking about about both genders.

For other clients, it's been about wanting a marriage that truly feels like a partnership because when the loads are better shared, they're also better valued and by extension. These women can feel better valued too when they are truly in a partnership and not in a position where they feel like most of what they do is not only not seen, it's not valued.

So What would your why be? Why would it matter to you that this labor at home is better seen and valued and shared by the people who you live with? Truly think deeply about that. This goes with Michael Hyatt's advice that when you know your why, then you'll know your way.

When you know why this matters to you, it will not only give you the practical answers you need to figure out what this can look like and feel like in your home. It's gonna be very subjective for each household and each family. You'll also more deeply have this source of energy to draw from because it is hard work to figure out this whole labor conversation at home.

It is work to better see it, value it, and share it. And you need to know why it matters in order to have the energy required to do that work. So what would your why be? After the break? We're gonna talk about the way. The practical side of how we can work on this in our households and in our families.

 

Monica Packer: If You haven't heard,

I spent all of 2025 writing a book. and I'm so proud to say that my first draft of the manuscript has officially been submitted. There is so much work to come and the book is set to release in the fall of 2026. However, we have a new title, And with that, a way for you to get first access to what that new title is, as well as the first peak at the cover and to get exclusive behind the scenes virtual online events, celebrating its launch to act as , grassroots publicity, and to potentially be an advanced reader as well.

To get access to all of that, you simply need to be part of the free book launch committee. You can sign up at about progress.com/book committee. I've been sending out newsletters with updates. And some juicy behind the scenes, such as lately. The good news I got and the bad news I got, which is now turning into not so bad news.

And actually I think it's gonna be great news in the long run, and I'd love for you to take part again to get access to the newsletter and everything else I just shared. Go to about progress.com/book committee.

 

Monica Packer: Again, the way here is going to be more verbose and more detailed in the book that I have coming out in the fall. Hopefully I can share the title with you soon. But what I wanna do is give you a starting place and less in depth, like overwhelming way to work on this. So let's start with what the goal even is.

The goal of better distributing labor at home is not so every single family member has an even distribution of that labor. My 3-year-old is not going to share in. An equal percentage of work at home as I will, or an older sibling, or as my husband, that is not the point. My husband and I are not going to have a 50 50 division of what happens at home.

What is the better goal is that everyone better sees and values. The care work required for being in charge of a home and of people. It's about making what is invisible more visible and making it better valued. And as part of that, better distributing that work too, which will come next.

But the seeing and valuing piece to me is paramount to everything, and this is where I'm gonna be pretty bold. As much as it would be ideal for us to all share an equal percentage of what is done at home. Women don't just want their families to do more. They want to be seen. Women don't want to just do less.

They want to be less responsible for everything. It's more about being seen and valued as a woman than it just being about who is doing what. Now that gets to my second point. It does matter who is doing what and the responsibility side, the doing the work side. If you see it, you better value it and you're distributing it better.

How do we do that? So again, I'm gonna go back to it's not about equal division, it's more about seeing and valuing and the way that translates is to increased awareness and increased ownership. awareness means

we see something needs to be done. And that leads to ownership. We are truly owning our part and we follow through on our own. Those are the two bigger things. I'm aware and I take ownership. Um, the third point is more about the practical side of how that plays out.

Each person can have more awareness and ownership, starting with tasks that lie under them individually. Now I'm talking about I'm gonna be aware take ownership of my bedroom, of my toys, of my clothes, of my laundry, even, of my backpack, of my lunch, of my snacks.

What's under my individual purview is going to be the first on the list in terms of distributing the labor better, and this will also be important in terms of developmentally too. Again, my three-year-old isn't gonna be as accountable for his laundry as my 12-year-old, and it shouldn't be, but.

I can start to train him now to help me put the clothes away or to help me try to fold his clothes and with time to take more ownership of doing his own laundry with time. So that's also going to be, you know, varied in terms of execution by family. But I find that starting with the individual responsibilities helps the most and it also, helps with that martyr position that we can fall into as moms.

I find I feel the most resentful over the tasks that really. Should be more individually, , overseen and taken ownership of like when I trip over shoes that are sitting in front of the shoe stand that they should go on, or I am putting away a backpack that is not mine or washing out a lunchbox or organizing the toys in a closet that aren't mine and I don't play with.

I find those are the tasks that I get the most resentful over and are the ones that. Are the best place to start with. And again, it happens gradually and with time. The next is more of the shared responsibilities and the shared spaces that go with that. So the kitchen, the family room, the things that we all take part in and that we all benefit from.

That can happen next. And that can include more caretaking tasks like, um, cleaning shared bathrooms or the kitchen or the family room. It can involve cooking more. Uh, so cooking, cleaning, clothing, uh, those kind of bigger pockets that are more shared, , that can happen gradually with time. So after people kind of get more individual res ownership and awareness, they can do that more with the shared spaces and tasks with time.

And that's something you build up to. This is a process. You are signing up for things to happen gradually. And as part of that, it all begins with communication. And that has to happen with one initial conversation.

A conversation where you are not sitting down and raging at the family and telling them they're the worst and they never contribute. That you're tired of putting away their socks all over the house. Why can't you put them in the hamper? Why can't you put your shoes up on the stand? Why can't you take care of putting your own backpack away?

Why can't you take care of wiping off the, the toilet seat after you pee? Like stuff like that. It's not that kind of conversation, but it is a beginning of a conversation. It's about opening the door and letting people in. I have found it is not helpful to have a script, but it is helpful to have an opening to this kind of conversation.

You will know we're gonna have a family meeting, a household meeting, and we're gonna have a conversation about what it takes to keep a household running,

what it requires to clean a house, to cook for people, to clothe them, you are starting what will be a series of conversations on the invisible work that happens to. Cook to clean, to clothe all members of a household. And the beginning of this conversation is more about helping them see that there is invisible work happening and that it needs to be better shared, not right away, not all at once.

Not equally divided, but starting with better seeing and valuing, and then leading to more awareness and ownership. And while I think a script isn't helpful, there are two things that are helpful and one is having kind of more of a starter. And here's what I would propose. Hey, family. I have been needing to talk with you about something that has been weighing heavily on my mind, but I'm scared.

I don't wanna be critical. I don't want to have a negative conversation, and I'm concerned about how that conversation may come across. But I know that there are some changes that need to happen as a family, and there are ones that I cannot do alone. . I wanna talk as a family in a way that we can all be open to listening to each other and to hearing each other out.

So when can there be a good day and a time for us to gather and a chat through it all? And then you have that conversation where you share, Hey, this is what's on my plate. This is what it looks like to run a household. These are the tasks that I do that nobody sees, and it feels like because they're not seen, they're not valued, and that I'm not seen and I'm not valued.

And while I've done this work in large part in the past, willingly, I am paying a price for it. And I need that price to be better seen and valued, but also better shared. So here's what I think this can look like as a family, and then that's where you can talk about it. What do you guys think?

What are some tasks that you can take ownership over? And you start there, maybe it starts small with like you being really clear, like everyone's gonna put their backpack away after school. Everyone's in charge of their shoes. Eventually, maybe everyone's gonna be more in charge of their laundry and, and cleaning their room and maintaining it.

But overall communication matters. Not just that first conversation. It's not gonna be a one-time conversation. It's gonna be a series of conversations. And that leads to my sixth kind of tip here. You are going to have many conversations. I recommend my clients who are doing this to have a weekly meeting for a while.

More so it's not so serious every time, it's not a come to Jesus conversation every time. It's not laying it on thick. It's just about. Checking in. It's about communicating. It's about understanding, well, how is this going? And, and here's how I think it's going, and how do you think it's going?

And what can we be doing next and what's the next step on this? Are we doing well with our individual responsibilities? Well, what shared tasks can we better take a part in? It's kind of like a what about Bob? Series of conversations. I don't know if you remember that movie. What about Bob? Like all those baby steps, you're doing that with your family.

You're having a series of baby conversations that lead to baby tasks being shared, and gradually more ownership and awareness for what's under their, their charge. Um, you can teach them about the CPE from, uh, that Eve Rodsky teaches about, about conceiving, uh, planning and executing a task and also acknowledging that that's probably not gonna happen with all of your household members with all household tasks right away.

It's gonna require time. So this is where I'm gonna get to the final most important tip. You are the change maker. You are the one who is stepping up and requiring that change happens as a family. But the way you need to do this is with a realistic outlook. Like this is gonna be a gradual thing. It's gonna take time and it's gonna take work.

And I wanna do this in a way that I'm not a momager, where I'm not just being this person barking orders and being like, see, that's something you didn't even notice I did, and here I did it. Did anyone notice that I change a toilet paper? Does anyone care that I wash the dishes for the 50th time today?

Like not that kind of way. Not barking, not nagging, not ordering. Less as a momager and more as a coach, I feel like I can best illustrate this by sharing an excerpt from the book that I wrote. It may not appear like this word for word because I'm neck deep in editing the book right now. But I wanna share it with you because I think it really encapsulates what I want you to take home about you being the change maker in your home and speaking up and requiring that change happens, but in a way that you can be proud of and in a way that moves this work forward and actually helps. So let me share that excerpt for you. I'm gonna read it. Okay. While, one of the main goals of making shifts in your home's systems is increased ownership from each family member. The most important ownership lies internally with you. You must embody your position as a change maker of the home.

Things absolutely need to be different. Those you love have likely neglected seeing you too much, and for too long you deserve to be on your family's list just like they saturate your own. And yet you have to own for yourself that these are living, breathing humans who live alongside you. That it will be challenging for them to make these shifts, that you, while perhaps unknowingly also participated to some extent in building and perpetuating these same systems that are now hurting and that for change to happen, someone has to be willing to raise our hand and say no more.

That person is you. You are the one who must have both the courage and the fortitude to persist in this process because it will be a process. You are the one that will have to dig the deepest to remember why this matters. To draw up energy when it's lacking and to follow through from check-ins to consequences.

You are the one who will have to rally the group around your shared cause to model a willingness to adapt and to collaborate, to try again when things don't go well, because they certainly won't. Being a change maker is less about being the drill sergeant or momager roles you embodied in yonder years.

It's more about being a coach. It's seeing the big picture, knowing the playbook and directing the work in ways that may be hard, but ultimately for everyone's benefit, it's molding future leaders. It's encouraging those forgotten on the team. It's owning that this work transcends the fundamentals of who is doing what and how everyone is better contributing and being valued for those contributions.

While there is no I in team, you are the coach. So start leading this requires that you actually choose these changes, and as part of that, you will choose the process to get there because it won't be pretty, it will take work and there will be disappointments and failures along the way.

What likely went wrong for you in the past is that your despair led to resentful, lashing out, and demands with unrealistic expetations. Driving the cycle over and over again. That or succumbing to the disappointments and hunkering down like a turtle in distress. Instead, when you really choose to be the changemaker of your home, the work will feel different because you are different , and you are also doing this in a different way.

Okay, so that's the excerpt from the book, and I really hope that's something you can embody. You're not the momager, you're the coach.

 

Monica Packer: Okay, so the final thing I wanna share with that too is you're gonna need to have reinforcement all along, positive reinforcement. Notice the good, notice the attempts, praise, reward, and also have more fun as a family that really needs to be prioritized. Otherwise, this work is gonna be drudgery. It's gonna feel heavy for you for your household.

So really, really lean in to reinforcing in ways that are positive and feel good for everyone.

I am I, I'm pausing here a little bit because there's so much more to say on all of this, and there's also more of like this practical side to it. But again, that's gonna have to be a literal chapter in a book. Uh, so stay tuned for that. But I did wanna end here with a. Kind of what's happened to, for us personally, again, I have a great husband and a great man, and that 14th wedding anniversary moment of being like, oh, we still have a long ways to go in this.

I wanna share how we're doing. We're a work in progress like anyone else. Uh, I will say that talking about invisible labor so much professionally has helped my whole household be aware of it more just by osmosis. But also we've had transparent conversations as a family and as as a couple, and Brad. I would say is in large part, responsible for how that's been better because he has risen his hand too.

He has better seen and valued what I do, and he notices things more. He takes care of things more on his own. He takes ownership of things that he just sees needs to be done, and that's en large. Part a credit to him. I also think it speaks back to the biggest goal that I shared here.

It's not about having even distribution, it's about better seeing and valuing the work that is required that women largely carry themselves to run households. It's not like paradise here. It's not like I'm like, wow, everything's perfect, and I never have a bitter day or moment.

No, I have those still because I'm a human and I'm carrying a lot, and the labor at home is one of the biggest burdens I carry. I think I do feel it's better shared and overall I feel better valued and that's what matters to me. But I do wanna share about what happened this week that I think really illustrates , the work that's been done as a family and as a couple, Brad's in charge of the 12 to 13-year-old boys at church and our son is one of them, our second oldest and our first boy in the family. And this whole thing may sound like a humble brag. I'm not trying to make it be a humble brag, but Brad told me I'm in charge of activity this week, and I was thinking we could clean and restock the mother's lounge at church.

Most church buildings in my faith have this room called the Mother's Lounge, and it's where moms can go to nurse their babies and take care of them. And young kids too. Sometimes it's like a literal closet on the side of a bathroom. Other times it's a whole room. Sometimes it's really well cared for.

Most of the time it's not, it's like kind of with invisible labor. It's, it's. I rarely noticed or seen or valued and taken care of except by women who are in that space. And for Brad to one even think of this, I thought was so so symbolic of who he is as a person. And also the highlighting we've been doing as a family to notice more of the invisible labor and,

to take ownership of the tasks. And so what he did is the boys gathered at night and he invited me to come and talk to them, and I actually had no idea what I was gonna say. Uh, he just was like, come and tell them about your experience with the mother's lounge and what it's like as a mom and why this room matters.

I'm like, okay. And when I stood in front of those boys, I opened my mouth and I just. talked to them about invisible labor. I taught them about what it looks like to be in a caretaking role and how women largely care those roles. I talked about it, how happening in the family, of course, but also in communities like church buildings and also in workplaces.

I was able to highlight one of the boys' moms who was a PTA president for a few years and how the work that she did benefited the entire school and all the children, but it was largely unseen and. And she bore that well and did such a good job with it. And then I talked about how that happens with moms in the mother's lounge and how.

I've spent literal years of my life at church in the mother's lounge instead of being in the main room or in the Sunday school rooms or learning and getting myself filled because I'm with a baby that needs to be fed or changed or taken care of. And how a lot of times those rooms feel like there's dust covered everywhere.

Or you sit in a seat and it falls backward and it's so old and dirty and yucky, and there's diapers in that room that haven't been thrown out for months. You know, things like that. And I talk to them about. That and. Uh, then Brad and the, the boys went to a local grocery store and they got some supplies and they also got some ice cream cones to make it fun.

And they came back and they dusted and they cleaned, and we brought a cart from home that I was going to give to a secondhand store, and they filled it with wipes. Kisses, like Hershey kisses for the moms and some cleaning supplies and diapers. And they wrote a note for the moms.

And I told the boys before I left earlier, the women are gonna come into this room and they're gonna immediately notice a difference and they're going to feel so much more valued and seen. And they were listening. They were really listening, and they heard me. When they came home, I was getting ready for bed and my son came into me and he said, mom, thank you for all the invisible labor you do and.

You know, I guess I felt like it was, they've learned about invisible labor just from osmosis of hearing what I'm doing for work. I haven't felt like I've talked about it so transparently, but I guess I have, but having a more transparent conversation for my son to come home and give me a hug and say, thank you for all the invisible labor you do.

And then he told me about another kid from the group who was near tears while they were restocking the mother's lounge and cleaning it because he was thinking about his mom, who's also a mom of five. All the work she's done in that room, but also in general, how much she's done for their family.

And this whole thing gave me hope. Hope for my family. Of course, like and and pride for them. And I'm proud of Brad that he would volunteer this idea and oversee it and that he would train these boys. And I can be part of that too. But hope in the big picture, it takes work to make these changes. It takes hard conversations, it requires discomfort

but it is work that is well worth it. It is possible, and I think if people have the chance to better see it, they'll better value it and they'll be able to better share in the work that is required. And I'm speaking more at home, but also, of course, I'm speaking more socially and politically even, and things that need to better happen to share in this labor.

But I just wanted to leave you with that bit of hope and to tell you that things will change. It takes time. But you as a changemaker in the home. And while I know it requires more labor in your part, it is labor that is so much bigger than just what is happening in our homes. This is gonna translate to future homes and future families, but also future PTAs and, and different people showing up to parent-teacher conferences and volunteering for things at school and communities and at church.

And I would have to say in, in, in capitol buildings with time, I know it. I know it's going to help reverberate and be so much bigger than what we do in our very homes. And even that, I encourage you to start right then start now. Start here, start in your homes, and begin with these many conversations of helping your family better.

See value and share in the work that is required to run a home.

I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants you need to grow. Now, I normally share progress pointers. There's just so many here, so I don't have formal ones. All I have for you this time is an invitation to join the book Launch committee. This is my committee that is going to support the launch of my book happening this fall.

I'm gonna need help. Speaking of sharing in labor, I am one person with a shoestring budget and no budget for marketing and pr, and I'm gonna need your support in pre-sells and sharing about this book. And if you have any, uh, ways for me to link up to talk shows or new shows or anything like that, podcasts, anything I you can do, but even if it's just you.

Being willing to support me and, and to, to, to buy the book or to ask for it from bookstores or from libraries. That will go a long way if you liked what I shared from the book excerpt. Although, like I said, I'll probably change, um, because I'm still editing it right now. Uh, you're gonna love this book and I really believe it's going to change things for a lot of women, starting with how they are able to support themselves.

Even with the invisible labor that they carry. So you can do that by going to about progress.com/book committee. I have it linked for you in the show notes, and I do hope this episode alone can be something that you share with your, with your spouse, with your kids, with your siblings, with your friends, that it can be a resource to begin, , in better sharing in this load at home.

This podcast is listener supported members of the Supporters Club. Make my work with About Progress Free and available to all. We need your help with that too. Joining the Supporters Club makes it so that I can keep about progress out from behind a paywall without increasing ads dramatically.

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Anything helps, and leaving a reading and review on Apple Podcast helps a tremendous amount too. Thank you so much for listening. Now go and do something with what you learned today.