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| Book cover for the book "Fair Play" by Eve Rodsky. |
Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live) [affiliate link] by Eve Rodsky, is a book which presents a system that couples can use to keep track of all the little tasks that are required to run their home, and to divide the tasks fairly. This is a solution to the problem where the wife is the one who does all these tasks, all day long, and is very stressed about it, while her husband has free time and is completely unaware of all the work that she is doing.
Okay, yeah, this is a real problem. Society expects that women do all of these things, and husbands often expect their wives to do all these things. Communicating with the kids' teachers, being the one who goes in to work late because someone needs to be home when the internet maintenance person comes, planning meals, knowing what time the kids are supposed to be at their various weekend activities, scheduling doctor's appointments, etc etc etc. (The term "second shift" is sometimes used to refer to this unpaid labor that women do at home.) Husbands think they are "helping" or "doing half of the work" when they do a task here or there which their wife reminds them to do... but many women will tell you that having to remind someone over and over also counts as work, and it's often easier for her to just do the thing herself. (And husbands often complain that their wives are "nagging" them, by reminding them to do things.)
This applies to both stay-at-home-moms and women with full-time jobs. When both the husband and wife work full-time, it's very common that the wife somehow ends up doing the overwhelming majority of the housework. And for a stay-at-home-mom, doing all the household tasks can easily add up to more than a full-time job- so no, it's not fair if the husband does none of it.
And the book even has a few anecdotes about women who quit their jobs to be stay-at-home-moms, and then 20 years later their husbands wanted a divorce, and the husbands claimed the wives shouldn't get anything in the divorce because the wives stayed home and "didn't do anything." Oh this makes me so mad. And there are men who claim that they get paid more, so their time is more valuable, so they shouldn't have to do unpaid tasks at home- the wife should do that- ugh, no. The book makes a big deal about how "all time is created equal." And how, if the husband is able to work full-time and focus on his job, that's because his wife is doing all the behind-the-scenes work that makes his lifestyle possible. Not cool when men have an attitude like "I'm the one who earns the money to make her life possible, so I shouldn't have to do anything at home." No, she is the one making his life possible.
(This book is mainly for straight married couples, but it notes that the system can also be helpful for any collection of people who live together, including same-sex couples. And there is at least 1 anecdote about a man and his husband who benefitted from using the "fair play" system. I like this- I think overall the problem this book is addressing is an "are the straights okay" sort of problem, but yes, the system can also help people who are not straight married couples.)
Here's the solution from the book "Fair Play": You have a set of cards, and every task is a card. For example, there is a card for kids' extracurricular activities. There is a card for making dinner on weekends. There is a card for buying birthday gifts for relatives. Etc. The book presents a set of 100 cards, which basically cover everything required to keep your family's life running smoothly. You should decide which cards are worth doing, and you can throw away any that aren't. For example, some couples decide that sending holiday cards is not worth the effort, so they get rid of that card. That's a good thing- don't spend your time on something if it's not worth doing. (Also, if you don't have kids, you can get rid of something like 30-40% of the cards.)
So you discuss with your partner and agree on which cards need to be done. And then you divide them up between the two of you. The important thing is, if you own a card, you are responsible for conception, planning, and execution (CPE) of that task. You are responsible for the entire thing, and your partner doesn't have to worry about it, or remind you, or anything. For example, if you have the "weekday dinners" card, that means you have to plan the dinners, you have to make sure you have all the ingredients (I think "grocery shopping" is a separate card, so you have to communicate with whoever has that card), and you have to cook the dinner.
Combining conception, planning, and execution is super important, because I think one of the common problems that couples have with dividing chores is they only see the "execution" part of the task. I remember reading a story on the internet once, where a woman's husband agreed to cook dinner on a certain day, and then dinner time rolled around and he said to his wife, "okay I'm going to cook now, what do you want me to cook?" And the wife was so upset, so overwhelmed she could barely even talk, because even though he was "going to cook", he still expected her to do all the planning and grocery shopping. Or rather, he had no awareness that planning meals and grocery shopping are big, stressful, time-consuming tasks. He just thinks that groceries magically appear in their home, without recognizing how much work she always did. He thinks that "cooking dinner" means you just roll up at 5 pm and cook dinner- but no, it's way more than that.
Also, the concept of CPE is important because it's ideal for the person who executes the task to be the one who did all the planning- that means they completely understand the task. The book calls it a "break up" when one person does conception/planning and the other person does execution, because there could be miscommunication between them, and the one who executes the task doesn't have the information they need to do it correctly. (An example in the book: The wife has the card for "taking the kids to their friends' birthday parties", so she makes sure the birthday gifts are bought, and the kids are ready to go, but then she isn't available at the time of the party so she asks her husband to drive the kids there. But her husband doesn't have the address, and when he texts her to ask for it, she doesn't check her phone, so they kids don't make it to the party. The book says you should solve this problem by "redealing" that card- if the wife isn't available to do the "execution" of that task, then the wife should not have that card at all. The husband should do the entire CPE, then. Yes, the book says you should frequently evaluate what's working and what's not, and "redeal" the cards as necessary.)
Also, if the person who executes the task is not the one who did the planning, it will feel like a Randomly Assigned Task (RAT). This is something that husbands often complain about- suddenly, out of the blue, the wife asks him to do something, but the husband doesn't understand the purpose, so he doesn't really treat it as a priority. The book makes a big deal about how no, you should NOT assign your partner to execute a task if you own that card. If you really aren't able to do the execution yourself, ask someone who is not your partner to do it. I understand the reasons for this, but I don't know if it's really possible to follow it all the time. And I think that many couples are able to communicate well enough that this is not an issue- even if one person did all the planning, both of them understand the task well enough that it's not a problem if the other person is the one who executes it.
I have to say, I really like the idea of quantifying everything in a system like this. Because, whether you represent them with "cards" or not, these are the tasks that are necessary to run a household, and someone is doing them, and it's probably the woman doing them "invisibly." I don't feel that I need to literally sit down with my husband and assign cards- I think we manage well enough- but the concepts in this book are helpful even if you don't literally implement it.
So, here's a question: Should our goal be to have each person have an equal number of cards? A 50/50 split? No. The book says that the goal is not to be equal, but fair. I agree with this, and I'm glad the book emphasized it. If you try to make everything "equal", that means you'll be keeping track of every little thing, and comparing with how much time your spouse spent doing housework, and that will just cause more conflict. Personally, I feel that it doesn't bother me if I'm doing more household tasks than my husband, as long as I have enough of my own free time. I don't care if it's "equal", as long as I'm able to have enough free time that I can enjoy my life.
(And, if you really want to know, the book says that most women feel it's "fair" if the husband takes 21 cards out of 100. Like, you shouldn't really make a big deal about the specific number of cards each person has, but generally, if the husband had at least 21 cards, the wife felt that the result was good. I'm not really sure how to feel about this- like... why are we accepting that it just won't be equal, that women do more work than men, and that's just the way it is? But realistically, women are socialized to be aware of all these tasks, and men just aren't, so... realistically, for most couples, it's just not going to be equal. I guess.)
Another thing is that some tasks are "daily grind" tasks, which means they always have to be done at a specific time. Like taking the kids to school. And other tasks can be done any time, like making sure your home has enough spare light bulbs. It's very important that both partners have some "daily grind" tasks, because these tasks restrict your freedom a lot. And actually, a lot of the "traditional" ways that men and women divide tasks have the women doing the "daily grind" tasks (like cooking) while men do the tasks that have more flexibility about when to do them (like yard work). It's important to be aware of this and make sure both people have some "daily grind" tasks.
And one more thing, which is very important in this book: unicorn space. The book says that everyone needs their "unicorn space", which means you have the time and resources to pursue your passions, which aren't related to your job or your role as a spouse/parent. Your identity should be more than just "I'm a wife and mom." And often, women feel "mom guilt" when they spend time on their own hobbies. They feel like it's "selfish" and they should spend that time with their kids instead. I thought it was interesting when Rodsky talked about asking fathers "if you were on a business trip, and you had to extend the trip 1 extra day, would you feel guilty?" and the men answered "well I would miss my wife and kids, but why would I feel guilty?" Whereas the moms that she asked felt bad just thinking about this hypothetical, because they feel they are "supposed" to always be with their kids, and should feel guilty about any time not spent with their kids.
But yeah, unicorn space. This is important. You should have some time which is your own, which you use to develop your skills and be an interesting person and share your passions with the world. I guess my blog is my unicorn space.
Anyway, that's my summary of the book "Fair Play." I enjoyed it, and I think a lot of the concepts in this book are very valuable, like the idea of being aware of all the invisible work that you or your partner is doing, and the importance of combining conception, planning, and execution rather than just seeing the "execution" part of a task. Personally I don't feel I need to literally make cards and divide them up between me and my husband. But all of those tasks still exist, and still need to get done, whether you literally put them on cards or not, and it's important to be aware of that.
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I heard about the book "Fair Play" from Sheila Wray Gregoire's blog- here is the link: EMOTIONAL LABOR: How the Fair Play System Helps Share Mental Load
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