Can you help me compile a list of tasks that are emotional labour/life admin?

[PetticoatSoldier]

I’m trying to write a comprehensive list of every job that comes under the emotional labour/life and home admin banner so I can share it with DH.

We share physical housework tasks and childcare equally but we were talking recently and he said something about “everything” being split equally and I pointed out that no actually, “everything” is not. So, now he has offered to take his fare share, I am trying to write a list of everything I can possibly think of to ensure the load is evenly split 😀 Can you help?

I’ll post what I have in comments or else this OP will be massive!

@Grellbunt

That's made me think of... the slog of "pretending" about Santa

cf. also:

Tooth fairy

But that slog is a choice that many choose not to make, not a necessary part of life and happiness.

One thing I will say, is that similarly to a thread I did a while back where I was so frustrated with DH but then realised that actually, i need to see what he DOES do, this thread has highlighted lots of things that actually I don't have to worry about because DH does - from road tax, to insurance, to garbage, to batteries and chargers, to wifi and gaming etc. in fact, a lot of the things in that poem are on DH's list!

He hasn't taken all of these things on willingly. But over time, he has done it and I've been able to walk away. I'm not sure how to get other men to do the same but as OP has said, theoretically her DH is willing he just claims not to know what all this other stuff is so maybe this really will help.

@choli - well, one could say that about lots of these tasks but you can hardly say that our contemporary society doesn't have an expectation around them.

This morning

DH - got up, are breakfast, started work
I - got up, roused the pre-teens, hung out washing so DD’s football kit would be clean for a match tonight*, found a mask for ds, ordered more masks because ours have all disappeared, let ds have my toast, found DD’s PE kit, calmed DS’s nerves re upcoming music exam, paid the milkman, replace the hand soap by the kitchen sink, paid the window cleaner, had my breakfast, took dd to school (having missed breakfast club). Started work.

I asked dh if he could take ds to his music exam at lunch time. Apparently he was too busy🧐

• dh thinks he does all the washing. He does it all on Saturdays and Sundays which is no bloody good if you have a football match on Sunday then Thursday. Many other examples of this. No matter how often I try to explain this, he only ever washes school uniform in the week.

dh thinks he does all the washing. He does it all on Saturdays and Sundays which is no bloody good if you have a football match on Sunday then Thursday. Many other examples of this. No matter how often I try to explain this, he only ever washes school uniform in the week.

Never ceases to amaze me how DH can do 3 loads of washing and completely miss that the kids' PE kits need washing for the following day.

@BikeRunSki

Sounds familiar but I was thinking about the opposite end of the day. DH works later hours than me and has almost no input into home admin.

DH leaves work - wonders what football is on, wonders whether we have beers in (might buy beers on way home)

I leave work, take DS to a sports club, go home get DD and take Her to a different class, go and get DS, drop him home, then collect DD, make dinner, clear up after dinner, find out when new parents eve is, fill in forms for leavers activities, do some work admin, check no kit needs washing, feed cats, clear up cat sick, sort out laundry and take upstairs etc etc before watching last 10 min of football which I'm not that fussed about!

@CharlieParley

Regularly go through the kids' wardrobes to remove clothes that no longer fit, and replacing them with clothes in their new size.

Until about the age of 16 or so I had to do this twice a year. DH has not only never done this, he's not even aware it needs done. But if the kids wear clothes that are too small or too big, he will notice and very helpfully remind me to make sure the kids have something to wear that fits.

This.

Sorting through the old sizes of things is something that wouldn't occur to my DH.

He would buy new sizes if I asked him, but he wouldn't think to take the smaller things out of the wardrobe or drawers. Socks and pants are the worst because they're harder to immediately spot as needing to go.

He has more than once found a bag of freshly washed items going to the charity shop or the uniform swap and 'helpfully' decided to unpack it all back into drawers and wardrobes, or even dump it back in the wash basket.

I married a man that earned less than me. I swanned in and out of the house. Actually I didn't, the job was extraordinarily stressful and the 6.30 am train to work and 8pm arrival home was hard going.

I did once look in the PE kit bag as they legged it out of the door and they didn't care about it being a weeks old sweaty and crumpled.

I told DH I've done 8 years of swapping summer for winter clothes and it's his turn. He's done it twice now and it causes as lot of moaning but I just ignored it.

If you are too young now you
May as well add for the future
Making an updated list when necessary to include all like things covering -
When kids change school
When kids leave home
When kids leave your area

Then (and this will be a very long list too)
Care for older parents

Etc etc.

Rainbows. Brownies. Guides

Prom - omg the prom

Really random bits of childcare. It’s not “all fed none dead” every single day. This week in our house it has included:
Ordering DD a new guitar music book to help her practice
Allowing DS to have a pet snail for a few days and ensuring it was appropriately housed/fed/released and the “house” was then cleaned
Finding a first chapter book to try reading to DS as he’s about that age
Teaching DD to tie shoelaces
Teaching DD to use an electric toothbrush
Having a conversation with DD’s friend’s mum about whether we’re both going to allow computer games on play dates or both ban them

Now obviously not every week is like that. But over the course of, say, a year, there’s a fair amount of this kind of RANDOM crap and it does add up. (I should add that I didn’t do all of the above tasks, DH did some, but for the purposes of the list I’m listing them all!)

Also: monitoring for, and treating, headlice/threadworms/impetigo/etc. Headlice in particular- no it’s not strenuous to sit and comb DD’s hair while she’s watching TV, but it’s a chunk of my time that I won’t get back.

@AllotmentTime A pet snail! Please tell me it had a name

This list is longer than I thought it would be! Haven't added to it today as I spent ages booking DC's summer holiday activities one by bastard one as the stupid system didn't allow me to select more than one at a time.

Yes, agree with packed lunches.
DH does make his own sometimes to be fair, but it wouldn't occur to him to make them for the kids.
Also, if he forgets to send a card I'm immediately chastised by say my mum "aw that's not very nice, you didn't send a card?"

Me - hang on, he's perfectly capable of sending them himself lol.

Mum - "yes, but if I didn't send cards for your Dad then his family probably wouldn't get them at all"
Me - and how exactly is that your problem, get him to bleedin write them lol (except a bit gentler as she doesn't get it lol)

Don't present him with the list straight off.

Get him to write his own list of things he can think of that he might have overlooked.
Then give him yours.

Because I’m still WFH, I had a disrupted morning taking the stuff to school that DH and DD when he had taken her to breakfast club earlier.

Also, because of DH’s hayfever, I am now spending a massive amount of time at football and cricket matches and training for both DC. This morning I willleace at 8am and get in about 12.30 pm. I told DH I couldn’t also do lunch. He says he’ll do it. I’m curious to see if he remembers that his wife of 21 years doesn’t eat meat.

@PetticoatSoldier “Snailey”. DS was lacking imagination 🤣🤣

During First Lockdown we had two who had superhero names. SuperSnail and Slime Boy, if I remember rightly!

My DD went to a nursery where they had pet snails called Elsa and Anna! Sorry to derail.

Remembering passwords and usernames.

DH sets them up on various gadgets and accounts for things, then he will say "the password is whatever" and then 12 months later he'll expect me, the person who doesn't use them, to know and remember exactly what they were.

It's as though by telling me what they are, his brain files them under "her problem now" and wipes them out of his memory.

If you have two children when completing school/other contact forms make sure your dh is named first on one of them, so all admin/emails/consent forms etc are directed to him.

Agree with that @RoseHarper I think we actually put him first on both but have ended up where I get the emails for one child and he gets the emails for the other. I actually find this better as it generally keeps us both on top of it all, especially with the abundance of covid related communication. Someone mentioned Parent Pay up thread and I do think it could be used better or developed further to simplify some of this stuff too, especially for children with parents in different households. I suspect our school doesn't make as much use of it as they could but at least in the past year they have switched to mostly emails instead of all the random letters in bags!

Yeah but parent pay will not let the NRP access to pay for stuff.

@RoseHarper

If you have two children when completing school/other contact forms make sure your dh is named first on one of them, so all admin/emails/consent forms etc are directed to him.

This is not my experience. I did that, because DH’s office is much closer to home than move. they still contact me first.

@RoseHarper

If you have two children when completing school/other contact forms make sure your dh is named first on one of them, so all admin/emails/consent forms etc are directed to him.

It doesn't work. DH was first on everything and they still call me. The ONLY exception is that for the emails that go out automatically... they will ONLY send to one parent and it was DH. Who obviously never checked them.

@BlackeyedSusan

Yeah but parent pay will not let the NRP access to pay for stuff.

I know, that's one of the things I was thinking about in terms of development. They could surely adapt it so that multiple users can access the same account so NRP can make payments, access up to date info etc. The whole system (I mean the whole school system, not just Parent Pay) seems to be designed for one parent (who knows which, could be any parent, no idea whether they are more or less likely to have a vagina or not ) to deal with everything which ends up forcing one parent to take stuff on even when parents are actively trying to split things more evenly and it must make things even more complicated when parents aren't living together.