#157: The endlessly complicated task of “splitting chores”

+ the treat-and-punish cycle & whether everyone needs to be single for while

Good morning!

Welcome back to Dear Baby. Today I’ll be sharing answers to three questions—two shorter responses and one full-on essay that could have been its own newsletter because I had so much to say (and could have said more!). That one’s about the modern division of domestic labor, which is something I think about almost constantly (and am reading a book about). The other two questions concern why the cat-and-mouse game of treating yourself and punishing yourself doesn’t feel right long-term, and, finally, whether everyone needs to “be single for a while,” as the trope goes. All three answers below.

On Tuesday for Dear Danny, we’ll be answering questions about whether sexual attraction is 100% necessary at the beginning of a relationship, what to do if your friends are never on time, what to do if you see your romantic partner do something TRULY DISGUSTING (this one had us dying), how to deal with ennui about where you live, and whether it matters if you dislike your partner’s friends. That episode drops Tuesday at 9am! As always, you can write in here or call 802-404-BABY and leave us a voicemail. It’s $5 a month to read Dear Baby in full, listen to Dear Danny and my other podcasts, and receive my weekly recommendations list, plus gain access to the full archive.

Last thing: I’m off next week to spend time with my family in Colorado for my cousin’s wedding. So after the podcast on the 1st, you won’t see an email from me until the following week!

On self-indulgence vs self-discipline

“Hi Haley! Would love your thoughts about something that's been on my mind—the idea of being too soft vs. too ‘strong’ (?) with ourselves and how we strike the right balance. I am someone who is pretty hard on themselves, and generally has a long list of ‘shoulds’ about how I could be spending time (exercising, reading, cooking a gorgeous meal, finally figuring out some creative practice, etc). I am a therapist, and my clients are the same way. I can (and do) reframe this as productivity culture/internalized capitalism, but I know (and have felt myself) that the reframing doesn't run deep enough to eradicate it. Also, there is a need for discipline and structure, too. I fear being too permissive with myself (‘I had a hard day... time for a treat’) but also hate the energy of self-flagellation. I've always appreciated your way of navigating the in-between and it's provided me a lot of clarity. Please help me (and by proxy, my clients lol).”

Just need to say I’m deeply flattered to be asked this question by a therapist. You’re gonna make my head too big!!! But I struggle with this all the time too, so all I can really offer are some exploratory thoughts, and maybe we’ll net out with some insights that are useful. My first instinct is to figure out how both of these approaches—self-indulgence and self-flagellation—while seemingly opposed to each other, are actually coming from a similar drive, and are thus similarly ineffective. I suspect that drive is avoidance of our feelings, which is why neither strategy brings us consistently closer to ourselves, and instead kind of feel like running.

The other day, I was telling my friend Michelle that early pregnancy highlighted my obsession with energy. I was completely drained of it those first months, which in turn made me ravenous for it, and so I’d sketched out an entire philosophy around energy, and how it was all that mattered to live a good life. With energy, I could clean my house, cook nice meals, achieve my creative ambitions, manage my social life, and on and on. Energy changed everything. It was the ultimate life force! I didn’t think I was saying anything provocative, so when she told me disagreed, I was surprised. When I asked what she thought it was instead, she had to think for a second. Michelle’s an actor and filmmaker, and she also teaches movement, so a lot of her work is about dropping into the moment and being grounded in whatever she’s doing. She finally said that, for her, connection and presence were more important, because having boundless energy without being connected to what she’s doing would be a depressing life.

This reminded me of something I heard recently, which is that the opposite of anxiety isn’t calm, but presence. When we’re caught in the constant loop of rewarding or punishing ourselves, what I think we’re seeking is a temporary sense of calm, or escape from anxiety, rather than a deeper sense of connectedness with our needs. Michelle’s counterpoint made me realize how deranged (and American) I sounded, placing energy at the center of everything. It’s not humanly possible to feel tons of energy all the time, it’s out of step with our natural rhythms. What we can do is practice listening to what our minds and bodies are telling us—like that we need to rest, or go for a walk, or ask for help—and trust those messages, rather than attempting to rule over our feelings like cops

You mention you think you “should” read a book, or exercise, or cook a gorgeous meal. It’s probably hard to discard those things as “internalized capitalism” because, actually, they sound great. But maybe the problem isn’t whether those acts are worth doing, but whether they’re worth doing under duress. The real challenge, then, isn’t maximizing our output like little corporations, but finding better ways to sit with our needs and desires, and giving them space to inspire us instead. This takes extreme levels of self-trust and patience, and a willingness to redefine a good life on our own terms, which requires humility. This strikes me as more of a life-long practice than a quick fix, but I think that’s comforting in its own way. It’s so easy to talk at ourselves, and much harder—but more useful—to listen.

On splitting domestic labor  

“Dear Baby, my boyfriend of a little over two years and I just moved into a house together. For context, he works full-time hybrid, and I’m a teacher, so I have summers off. Because of this, a lot of the moving-in and housekeeping load has fallen to me. I love organizing and cleaning, so I don't really mind, but it’s led to a dynamic where I know where everything is/belongs, and he is often asking for help finding/putting things away. I fear that we're falling into the trope of a clueless husband and a wife who knows where everything is! It doesn't feel equal, yet we often talk about how we really want our partnership to be 50/50.

Also, a lot of the house chores seem to be naturally falling along gendered lines. I handle most of the grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc., whereas he tends to take out the trash, do any handy work, use the grill...lol. One part of me rationally understands that this makes sense, since these are our strengths (i.e. I *could* use the tools to hang the curtains, but it would take me 10x longer), but the other part of me is uncomfortable with where the division of labor is falling. A large part of this issue is the imbalance of time: I have a lot of it right now, so I'm carrying a heavier load on housekeeping. On one hand, it makes complete sense that we have proportional responsibilities to our amount of free time. On the other hand, I don't *love* the feeling of taking care of the house mostly myself (it's *our* house, after all!), and I worry that we're establishing unrealistic habits as I get ready to return to school in the fall and work full-time.

This is something my boyfriend and I have been talking about a good amount, and we both recognize the problems, but we are sort of stuck in terms of solutions. This seems like a topic that you spend some time thinking/being intentional about, so I would really love to hear your perspective. How would you approach a conversation about this in your own relationship? What does it really mean to be 50/50 in a relationship? Is equal responsibility realistic or even possible? Another possibility: Is this whole thing just an adjustment period that will work itself out as we really settle into our home together? (It's only been a bit over a month of living together.)”