On the podcast today, I have the most interesting conversation with Eve Rodsky. We talk about the different tasks involved in running a home and keeping a family functioning. Eve spent several months capturing many of the tasks that people (women especially) take on in their families, and she focused on the ones that are especially invisible or “unnecessary.”
Eve Rodsky has recently written a book (with a card game) that captures 100 tasks involved in running a home. Her book is called Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live). She helps the adults in the house identify their values and to make sure that the division of labor works for them (and EVERY family needs to find their unique balance).
When dividing up the tasks, Eve explains the different parts of “owning” the task from start to finish: conception, planning, and execution. Spoiler: this explains why your husband brings home the “wrong” mustard and feels like he “can’t get anything right.” There is a system to help build trust and skills to support the home and family.
As part of these concepts, Eve also explains different models that women use to understand their roles and which tasks they should have ownership of in order to have a fair division of labor at home, especially when considering gender. Women can be Intentional Traditionalists, New Superwoman, Accidental Traditionalist, and The Collaborator. Make sure you listen in so you can evaluate where you are today, and where you would like to go.
We also get to talk about how getting your home organized gives you more time, and how you then need to figure out what to do with your time. Having a disorganized home can really function as a buffer or form of procrastination to avoid facing the hard questions about what you are called to do in life. Eve talks about how our culture shows us how to get to and through our first child’s baby shower, but then leaves us to figure out the rest of life without signposts or milestones. We talk about how to stay interested in our own lives. We share our perspectives to figure out how to still have a passion and choose things that interest us and are interesting.
I cannot do the work for you in understanding all the tasks of your home, or in having the difficult conversations with the people you love. However, I do want you to know that you have choices about how to divide the labor of your home. I want you to figure out your unique gift and contribution to the world. For extra fun, make sure you stick around to the end to hear about Eve’s thinking on unicorn space and how to find it with the help of their spiritual friends.