February 1, 2025 • 32 mins
The Invisible Life of Parenting
Parenting is more than just bedtime stories and family dinners—it’s a full-time job behind the scenes. In this episode, we dive into the invisible workload parents carry every day, from coordinating schedules and driving to school and practice, to managing doctor’s appointments and playdates. It’s the side of parenting that often goes unnoticed but keeps everything running smoothly. Tune in as we discuss the mental and emotional toll of this hidden labor and share insights on how to find balance in the chaos.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey everyone, I'm Matt.
(00:02):
I'm Deanna.
This is Chasing Balance and on today's episode we're talking about the unseen, often unappreciated
tasks that parents do on the daily.
(00:41):
So I found a very funny quote or joke that says, if we build for all the invisible work
for the parents, we'd be millionaires.
Millionaires.
I believe it.
All the stuff that we do for not only our kids but for our family in general.
(01:03):
Insane.
Insane.
So we're talking about the mental load, the invisible chores, the emotional labor.
Now what do each of those consist of?
What is mental load?
So like the mental load would be like the planning, the coordinating the calendars of
(01:25):
the various things.
The stuff that the kids do not see.
The kids don't see but we-
They just get to enjoy it.
Yes.
And we have to, mostly you, we have to plan everything.
Yeah, and make sure that it works out.
Make sure that we're doing all the commitments and we're committing to all the things and
we're putting it all down so that we can do it all.
And also remembering everything.
(01:47):
Making all the doctor's appointments.
Doing all the haircuts and the dentist appointments and all the-
Wellness visits.
Yes, all that stuff.
The invisible chores.
Those would be stuff that consists of the laundry, the cleaning up, the changing the
beds, the changing the sheets that you love.
(02:12):
All of that.
And then keeping, also keeping track of all of the, like what the kids like, what they
don't like in terms of everything and then especially with like food and making sure
that the groceries are stacked.
How one loves cheese on their cheeseburger and ketchup.
They all love ketchup, they all love cheese, but only a couple like lettuce.
The other one likes pickles.
Don't you dare put lettuce on this other kid's thing or he's going to freak out.
(02:35):
And if the other kid doesn't have ranch with everything, and god damn it, I mean it, everything-
Strawberries.
Blueberries.
Green beans.
If there's not ranch on his plate, he freaks out.
He's super Midwest.
Yeah.
Super Midwest.
Right.
Yes, and making sure that everything is there and readily available for them for, because
god forbid if we run out of milk and they want cereal.
(02:58):
Yeah.
Or they haven't eaten in like two weeks.
Yes.
It's stale.
Yes, but it's there.
It's there.
Oh man.
So, and then, and then we kind of go into the emotional labor of things and that's monitoring
everybody's mood, making sure that everybody is on the right track of things, making sure
(03:19):
that everybody's-
In the right mind state.
Yeah.
And it's your job, our job, to be like, what's wrong with you today?
Right.
How can we fix it?
Did we not have enough milk for your cereal?
Did we not have enough ranch for your cereal?
You want ranch with your Pop Tarts this morning, buddy?
(03:41):
All right, I got you.
I'm not fighting over this right now.
Yes, but, and then it's also like, you know, as they get older, the social aspect of making
sure, you know, keeping in tune with the friendships and the friendship drama that's associated
with it and who we don't like this week, but who we like this week.
Yeah.
(04:01):
Who bullied me in class this week.
I was talking shit about them and, and then next week I want him to come over and go sledding
with me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was fun.
That was weird.
But Hey.
Yeah.
And, and then also anticipating all the needs, being prepared, making sure that when you
(04:21):
leave the house and you know that you are going to be away for three hours at a soccer
tournament that you have all of the snacks, all of the water and everything, even though
they said, yep, I'm ready to go.
Yeah.
No, you're not.
You're not ready to go.
You're ready to go for about an hour and then you're going to crash.
(04:42):
So how do we get control over that?
And how do we create that balance?
Essentially, that's what we kind of want to get to.
Yeah.
And that's what we kind of want to discuss.
Before, I think we discussed that about how do we get that balance.
I think we need to give, you know, all the, the mom's dad's pats on the back.
(05:06):
This is kind of a show, right?
Shout out to them.
Like we see you.
We know that a lot of, you know, other adults that aren't parents or we know that your kids
probably don't appreciate it, but we see you guys.
We appreciate you.
Yes, we do.
And your kids will appreciate you in the future, which I really hope our kids will in the future.
(05:28):
But yeah, fingers crossed.
I'm good if they don't.
Like it'll be okay.
They'll realize.
They won't notice it until they have kids.
Yep.
Exactly.
And then they're going to be like, oh, it all makes sense now.
But I mean, and honestly, I was, I was looking and I found this really interesting article
(05:48):
on Forbes and it discussed like the difference between the two genders in those gender roles.
And it says like statistically women, like the moms tend to hold roughly 75% of the mental
(06:09):
load in their household, in their household.
And I'm not trying to take credit away from, from dads or anything like that.
No, but, and we're in a unique situation since I'm remote.
Yeah.
And obviously it might be obvious, you know, this is from a Forbes article or study research,
but it could be flip flop for different families.
(06:30):
There could be stay at home dads that are more mentally focused, have more of the mental
load while the mom goes off to the office or wherever.
But yeah.
And I mean, and that's just in, you know, families that have like two, like in, how
do I say that?
(06:50):
Two parents?
No, I mean like families that are, that live together.
Like a mom and dad that live together.
I guess, well, no, not always, but yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Okay.
That's what you're saying.
What I'm trying to say, cause we're going to take that whole time.
Cause we just sounded like dumbasses.
No, I'm keeping it in there.
(07:12):
It's funny.
Okay.
Well, what I mean is that when that statistic is based off of families that have both mom
and dad living within the same household, the same dwelling, and obviously that would
be a lot different when that isn't the case.
And there's a single mom or a single dad raising their whole entire family.
(07:33):
Obviously those, those statistics will skew a little bit.
I know that in our situation prior to you working remote, I feel like it was a little
bit more on me because your work schedule was so more demanding than what mine was.
I had the flexibility where I would go into office, I think like three days a week and
(07:59):
then I was home too.
And then I would be home for the weekend.
And you had shorter days.
Yeah.
I thought you were taking a jab at my height.
So I would naturally take on all of those tasks that wouldn't be divided typically between
(08:19):
the two of us.
So I was the one that was planning everything and driving everybody and doing all of those
things.
And it wasn't until we kind of got into us being remote together through COVID and I
needed that help because now we're outnumbered, right?
(08:43):
We're outnumbered and I can't, I can't do it all by myself.
Not like I was before, you know, you, you are very prominent.
You're not offending me.
I mean, I know that you do more stuff than I, I mean, if we had to break down our relationship,
obviously you do more stuff for the boys and you know, medical appointments, things and
(09:07):
things of that nature than I do.
I wouldn't say that I work harder than you.
I just hold more jobs than you.
So I kind of, you know, they're like baseball cards.
You collect them.
They're like more fine financially.
And I'm not more financially in charge than you either.
I just work a lot.
That's about it.
That's how, that's what I bring to the table.
And sometimes I make dinner and lunches at night for the next morning.
(09:30):
Yeah.
So you do all the grocery shopping and you clean everything because you have the more
severe OCD than I do.
Yeah.
COVID messed me up.
It did.
It really did.
And that's, I mean, I think that that, I mean, it was a, it was a curse and it was a blessing
at the same time because it allowed me to be okay with getting help, which was something
(09:55):
that I've never really had in my life was the ability to ask for help essentially.
We had that conversation too.
We did.
I said, you need to ask me for help.
I just felt like it was.
I don't know what you want.
Ask me for help.
(10:16):
And I am just, I'm not saying I'm just some big dumb man, which I can be, but you do,
do like doing stuff on your own.
And I have, I have tried helping you before and I just get in the way.
Just like if you were to help me sometimes.
Yeah.
Cause I do it wrong.
I need a detailed list, write it down and tell me how you want me to help you.
(10:38):
Okay.
But let, okay.
So let's like, let's just bring it down for a second.
Okay.
So if we talk about the laundry, we have four buckets.
Yeah.
You got four specific buckets.
I got one washer and you just take all those motherfuckers and just dump it in.
(11:00):
Everything goes into one wash tub.
You can divide it as pretty as you want.
Everything goes in the wash tub.
And you know what?
Ship shape laundry is done.
And then you're like, my clothes smell bad.
And I say it's because you overloaded the washer.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's get back on top of it.
(11:20):
People want to hear this show.
But it's true.
Okay.
When it comes down to it and you know, this is like speaking to most of the, the people
out there that are, are stay at home moms or stay at home dads.
And every people that don't have that position, you know, tend to wonder like, what the hell
(11:42):
are you doing all the day?
You know, what do you, I've never wondered that, but I'm sure there's people out there
too.
I haven't either because I feel like we both are in a different situation where we, we
just know, cause we experience it.
Right.
And it's those ignorant people.
I think it's from the, you know, that, oh, well she's just a stay at home mom.
Right.
(12:03):
Well she has all the time in the world.
She can do it.
She's a stay at home mom.
She can volunteer to do all of this or, you know, she can make a thousand, you know, baked
goods the night before for school.
What's crazy is that now I shouldn't say now, but you work full time.
I work full time.
And in essence, it's still expected from you.
(12:26):
Yeah.
So it's like, yeah, it's the way that the society is the amount of guilt that is placed
on parents nowadays is insane.
Yeah.
We're we, whether it's the dad, the mom, whomever, we are expected to do so much more than what
our parents did.
(12:47):
And I, I don't know if it's comes from internal, like we expect because we didn't have so much,
you know, like we didn't have that.
So we know what, what we needed when we were kids and we're trying to give our kids that.
Or if it's just the way that social media has kind of like thrown it in our face, like
(13:08):
here's the picture perfect family.
Here's a new idea.
Here's a new craft.
Here's this, this, and here's all the things that you're doing wrong.
You know, so we need to kind of get away from that mentality and kind of put everything
into perspective and kind of check ourselves and make sure that we, you know, are kind
(13:29):
of are asking for help and we are ignoring the outside voices so that we can kind of,
we can focus in on what's important to us and what makes sense for us.
Yeah.
And I think that's, that's what you just said is important.
What makes sense to us.
I never needed anything when I was a kid.
I had it, I had everything that I needed.
(13:50):
I had a house, I had a roof over my head, clothes, food.
I was healthy.
And, you know, as far as like extracurriculars, I did sports.
If there was parties, we got to do a Halloween party at school, birthday parties, bring in
cupcakes or cookies.
I don't even know if we did that back then, but now it's turned into like, Oh, Christmas
time.
Every single teacher, every single kid in the class gets a gift.
(14:12):
Oh, it's the kid's birthday.
Well, not only are you bringing in cupcakes, but you also need to bring in a party favor
for every single kid in their class.
And they all have to be hypoallergenic.
Yeah, it's got to be peanut free.
Any of the toys or goodies that you give out can have never seen the sun or touch the grass
because somebody's allergic to the sun.
(14:36):
So and then on top of that, like going back to what you said is what makes sense to you.
And I completely understand and I fully appreciate when a kid says, Oh, you know, this is coming
up, you know, say a Cedar Point trip or a Washington, D.C. trip or something like that,
it costs, you know, hundreds or thousands of dollars to go on.
And it just doesn't make sense.
(14:57):
And you feel like an asshole for not letting your kid do it or not doing the certain special
thing that all the other kids are doing.
You know, it's got to make sense to you.
Even though you feel like crap.
Yeah.
And I mean, to that point, Preston had a field trip, like the fifth grade field trip out
(15:18):
to Mackinac, a place in Michigan, if you aren't familiar with it.
It's a place in Michigan that it's Mackinac Island.
It's a historic area.
It's beautiful if you haven't gone there.
But it is literally like four hours away from us.
We go there every summer.
Four and a half to five hours away.
(15:41):
Yeah, we go every summer.
But they were going as a as a class and it was a sleepover field trip, which would have
been fine.
But it was like seven hundred or eight hundred dollars.
And that's how much it costs our family to go.
And I felt like a complete terrible person for saying no, no, you can't go.
(16:05):
And he was totally bummed out.
But he stayed home and then he went to school for those two days.
And in lieu of going to Mackinac, he went to two museums that he had never gone to.
And he experienced two new places and he ended up making new friends that, you know, who
(16:26):
also couldn't go on the trip and he didn't really talk to in his class.
So he built more friendships and had a better experience.
So it ended up turning out good.
And he stayed here.
Yeah.
And safe.
And he was safe.
And it was cheaper.
It was cheaper.
And it wasn't an overnight trip.
And it was properly chaperoned where, you know, there was only a few chaperones that
(16:50):
go on these overnight trips.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, the kids are going to hate you.
They will, because they're not going to agree a day or two.
Yeah, they won't agree with every decision that you make as a parent, which, you know,
I didn't agree with all the decisions that my parents made at that point in time.
I wasn't allowed to go to the Washington.
(17:11):
The one trip I did go to was Toronto, to Toronto to see the Phantom of the Opera, which was
amazing.
That was for band class.
And we did stay overnight.
And then we had a Washington, D.C. trip in eighth grade.
And I don't know why I wasn't allowed to go on it.
It could be a financial thing and whatnot, but I don't care.
Yeah.
(17:32):
And I don't really think I cared at that time either.
Yeah.
I was just like, OK, whatever, you know, go to class, empty class.
I'm going to be able to goof off the whole time.
Right.
There's not going to be any kids there.
I don't know.
I never held that against my parents.
No, they had a lot of like sleepover field trips in at my school.
(17:53):
And I just remember there was a lot of like chaos.
Yeah, there was chaos at the Phantom of the Opera.
I never we didn't go to bed.
We were jumping around.
I mean, yeah, yeah.
A lot of mischief.
I mean, we're seventh graders, sixth graders.
Yeah.
We expect.
Right.
So anyway, circling back, I guess the task at hand is how how do we make it better?
(18:21):
Because it's it's not ideal.
It's not an ideal situation to have all of this just sitting on your plate or you feeling
responsible for that.
So how do we make it better?
So I personally would suggest like having those conversations like you and I did where
we split everything down the middle and, you know, as much as we could.
(18:46):
70 30.
Yeah, we made it make sense for us.
80 20.
Yes, I do nothing.
What do you do all day?
I just goof around.
Yeah, just make it make sense for for you guys, for for your family, for your situation.
(19:08):
And also, another key element is, you know, age appropriate, include your family, your
kids and have them help out, whether it's chores or whether it's like just having them
acknowledge or be aware of what is going on and what you kind of have to do and maybe
even help them.
(19:29):
You help you essentially.
One of the things that we recently got was one of those wall calendars.
Yeah.
And there's a free app on there.
What's it called?
Chord Chorbot.
Yeah, Chorbot.
It's a free app that you can put on there.
So you can put it on any of your phone or tablet or your wall calendar.
(19:50):
And it's an animated robot and you go through and you check off all the chores that they
did and they love it.
They get to go up to it.
You know, they sign into their name.
They have their own avatar and everything.
They get to check off the chore.
And then after they check off all their chores for that day, then the robot does their little
dance and says, great job.
You finished all your chores today.
And then like the room behind it gets all cleaned up.
(20:13):
So that's a really cool app.
I guess it's a little hack for all your parents out there.
It's called Chorbot and it's free, at least for Android.
Yeah.
And then also the other cool aspect of it is that it reminds you like if you put a monetary
value to the chores that you do or the kids do it for you.
(20:33):
Put an allowance on there.
You can put an allowance on there and you can.
It'll tell you the statistics like, OK, this week Preston has finished 11 of the 32 chores
that he has is supposed to do.
How much do you want to pay him?
Right.
Absolutely.
Not one goddamn cent.
That's lazy.
That's all or nothing.
Try again next week, buddy.
(20:54):
Right.
But I mean, it's not just like the chores and cleaning up the house or anything like that.
I've been trying to get them a little bit more acquainted with what we do just so that
they can kind of understand.
Because I think that those are I feel like those are really like real life skills.
And if we can kind of ingrain those at a younger age, then I have more confidence in the way
(21:21):
that they're going to go out into the real world.
Essentially.
Yeah.
So and this is going to be another one of the episodes in the future, but I'm going
to touch on it a little bit is one of the things is that going off of what you just
said about teaching our kids what we do, what we do in the household, what we do for the
(21:41):
household to run correctly and keep this ship's sailing straight.
We've been given compliments on how we talk and raise our kids because we talk to them
like they're adults.
And we treat them in a way like they are adults.
(22:02):
Like we expect certain things out of them.
And I know we'll probably get crap for this.
But you can you can give me crap on the episode.
We're going to talk a whole episode about it.
But yeah.
And I think that I think those life skills are extremely important.
I think that having making age appropriate and treating your children the way that you
(22:27):
want to be treated is also really important.
And obviously, you know, also let them have a childhood.
Circling back.
You know, I combine the soccer and the football schedule and I, you know, I laid it out for
them and I've put it all together and and I've kind of educated them on how much time
(22:51):
and effort it puts it in on my end.
And then I have to make sure that, you know, either you or I can drive them to there.
And then also, you know, there's a financial aspect to it so that they are aware of, you
know, how much things actually cost because, you know, they.
Yeah.
Where is it?
You know, signing up for soccer or football.
It's not you're you're not just going and showing up for a play date.
(23:13):
Right.
Exactly.
So we're going to put our best foot forward.
You know, this is the commitment that you made.
This is, you know, the cost of that commitment.
And we expect you to be the best version of yourself out there.
Right.
I think that that helps them.
I am very comfortable with talking to them about, you know, the financial aspect of things,
(23:35):
because I think that those things never go away.
And they see, you know, they see me doing all the finances and the budgeting for our
family and learning those skills at a younger age helps them hopefully in the long run to
be, you know, successful adults, because obviously those those aspects do not go away.
(23:58):
You're always going to have to do budgeting and that kind of stuff.
That's true.
Unless you find a wife that does it for you.
I did.
I helped you.
What?
When when we first started dating, that was a horrible credit card debt.
Yeah.
But you got me out of it.
I did.
(24:19):
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So one of the ways to kind of help it is to ask for help to have that conversation with
your partner or, I mean, also to have to build your village, essentially have your good positive
support team out there because you can go on to social media or you can go online and
(24:41):
you can Google something and you will find a hundred ways of doing something and a hundred
ways of why you shouldn't do it.
Yeah, anything.
Exactly.
So if you have that positive support team that you surround yourself with and you can
kind of rely on and confide in and, you know, ask for input or even ask for help, that will
(25:04):
definitely help alleviate that load because a majority of that mental load and the invisible
chores and the emotional side of things, the impact that we have as parents is it can trickle
into our psyche and it can cause, you know, sleep regression and sleep issues and stress
(25:26):
volumes and anxiety.
And then it can also, you know, alter your mood in terms of, you know, you get snippy,
you get short.
You do.
You do.
You're a shit.
Fatigued and everything.
So the importance of having that village and building your village to help you and your
(25:51):
family is extremely important.
And you know, talking about village, you know, we spoke about it in the COVID episode, you
know, your dad passed away.
My mom passed away before or right when Braden was born and then your dad passed away right
after Max was born.
So it's kind of weird.
(26:11):
So when you talk about village, it doesn't really have to be a physical person there
to help you out.
Like I know you have friends that you text message that really that, you know, even just
venting helps.
Yeah.
I mean, the number one person that I go to, she is a very close friend and I talked to
(26:35):
her almost every single day.
We used to live right next to her and our kids grew up together.
But during COVID, you know, she moved out to California with her family.
And you know, now we are, you know, a country apart, essentially.
But I still talk to her every day.
And if there's an issue or something, I normally will go straight to her and like talk to her
(26:58):
because I value her opinion on things.
She's very upfront and honest and she doesn't beat around the bush, but she's also the type
of friend that will put you in your place.
Yeah.
She'll just be like, I don't know.
Or she'll, you know, encourage me or she I'll be like, I don't, I don't need help with this.
(27:20):
I just need to vent.
And she's like, all right, girl, I got you.
And she will rip apart the situation just the same as I rip apart the situation.
And then, you know, 100% let me just make sure I hear what you're saying.
But yeah, so those are important things.
(27:42):
And also, at the end of the day, it's extremely important to give yourself credit and to make
sure that you kind of self-reflect and acknowledge all of the things that you've done.
And instead of focusing on the things that you didn't accomplish and that trickle over
into the next day, just respect the amount of things that you do on a daily basis, the
(28:07):
things that you have completed and all of the effort that you did.
Because even though you didn't receive the thousand thank yous that were, you know, probably
warranted, it was your effort and it was done.
(28:30):
So going back to what you said about how, you know, you just need to be okay with the
job that you've done, what you've accomplished that day, what you've been through.
And that kind of strikes, you know, for me, I don't think we even stop and think about
that until we go to write these shows and put these, I mean, just think about it.
I mean, how many days have you just gone to work, you know, you've sat at a desk or, you
(28:54):
know, been remote and sat at your desk at home, maybe didn't do your workout that day
and you're exhausted and you don't even think about it.
Like, you know, all I did was work today.
I sat on my ass.
Why am I tired?
Oh, you forgot.
You woke up at five thirty.
You drove your kid to school at six o'clock.
You made the lunches the night before.
(29:14):
You made lunch for yourself.
You had breakfast for yourself.
One of your kids stayed home because they're sick.
You went to the doctor's appointment during your lunch break.
You made, you know, you made dinner.
Then you made lunches again.
Then you took a kid to soccer.
You took another kid to football.
It's no wonder why you're tired.
Right.
Exactly.
So giving yourself credit when credit is due is extremely important because.
(29:38):
You're only human and you can only do so much and you have to accept that aspect, but you
also have to respect it too.
So right now, I encourage you to take a time and self-reflect and acknowledge all of the
efforts that you've put in and acknowledge all of the efforts that your partner has put
(29:58):
in.
Yeah.
And, you know, take that time to to see if there's any aspect that you need to ask for
help or if you see your partner struggling, ask them if they need help.
And also give yourself a pat on the back once in a while.
Yeah.
Do it.
(30:19):
So I invite you guys to share stories with us.
We would love to hear any tips, any tricks that you have or even any funny stories or
any kind of stories in regards to this.
I think that it is a matter that is in itself invisible.
And we just kind of take it on as parents and as homeowners and adults.
(30:43):
We just take on this mental invisible burden and we don't really openly discuss it.
So right now, we're giving you that chance to kind of discuss it and we would love to
hear your feedback on it.
Yeah, we don't openly discuss it or I don't even think really realize it, like I said,
until we stop and think about how amazing we are.
(31:08):
Yeah, we are such amazing people.
Like what we do on a daily basis.
We are fucking unicorns.
And we're keeping three other humans alive.
We're doing it.
Who allowed us to have them?
And three fish.
Who thought?
Not us.
Well, you greatly appreciate everyone tuning in.
Thank you for downloading the episode.
(31:29):
You can always follow us on social media and stay tuned for the next episode as well.
Once again, thank you.
Chasing Valance, real life parenting, one conversation at a time.
We'll see you later.
You again soon.
Hey everyone, I'm Matt.
(00:02):
I'm Deanna.
This is Chasing Balance and on today's episode we're talking about the unseen, often unappreciated
tasks that parents do on the daily.
(00:41):
So I found a very funny quote or joke that says, if we build for all the invisible work
for the parents, we'd be millionaires.
Millionaires.
I believe it.
All the stuff that we do for not only our kids but for our family in general.
(01:03):
Insane.
Insane.
So we're talking about the mental load, the invisible chores, the emotional labor.
Now what do each of those consist of?
What is mental load?
So like the mental load would be like the planning, the coordinating the calendars of
(01:25):
the various things.
The stuff that the kids do not see.
The kids don't see but we-
They just get to enjoy it.
Yes.
And we have to, mostly you, we have to plan everything.
Yeah, and make sure that it works out.
Make sure that we're doing all the commitments and we're committing to all the things and
we're putting it all down so that we can do it all.
And also remembering everything.
(01:47):
Making all the doctor's appointments.
Doing all the haircuts and the dentist appointments and all the-
Wellness visits.
Yes, all that stuff.
The invisible chores.
Those would be stuff that consists of the laundry, the cleaning up, the changing the
beds, the changing the sheets that you love.
(02:12):
All of that.
And then keeping, also keeping track of all of the, like what the kids like, what they
don't like in terms of everything and then especially with like food and making sure
that the groceries are stacked.
How one loves cheese on their cheeseburger and ketchup.
They all love ketchup, they all love cheese, but only a couple like lettuce.
The other one likes pickles.
Don't you dare put lettuce on this other kid's thing or he's going to freak out.
(02:35):
And if the other kid doesn't have ranch with everything, and god damn it, I mean it, everything-
Strawberries.
Blueberries.
Green beans.
If there's not ranch on his plate, he freaks out.
He's super Midwest.
Yeah.
Super Midwest.
Right.
Yes, and making sure that everything is there and readily available for them for, because
god forbid if we run out of milk and they want cereal.
(02:58):
Yeah.
Or they haven't eaten in like two weeks.
Yes.
It's stale.
Yes, but it's there.
It's there.
Oh man.
So, and then, and then we kind of go into the emotional labor of things and that's monitoring
everybody's mood, making sure that everybody is on the right track of things, making sure
(03:19):
that everybody's-
In the right mind state.
Yeah.
And it's your job, our job, to be like, what's wrong with you today?
Right.
How can we fix it?
Did we not have enough milk for your cereal?
Did we not have enough ranch for your cereal?
You want ranch with your Pop Tarts this morning, buddy?
(03:41):
All right, I got you.
I'm not fighting over this right now.
Yes, but, and then it's also like, you know, as they get older, the social aspect of making
sure, you know, keeping in tune with the friendships and the friendship drama that's associated
with it and who we don't like this week, but who we like this week.
Yeah.
(04:01):
Who bullied me in class this week.
I was talking shit about them and, and then next week I want him to come over and go sledding
with me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was fun.
That was weird.
But Hey.
Yeah.
And, and then also anticipating all the needs, being prepared, making sure that when you
(04:21):
leave the house and you know that you are going to be away for three hours at a soccer
tournament that you have all of the snacks, all of the water and everything, even though
they said, yep, I'm ready to go.
Yeah.
No, you're not.
You're not ready to go.
You're ready to go for about an hour and then you're going to crash.
(04:42):
So how do we get control over that?
And how do we create that balance?
Essentially, that's what we kind of want to get to.
Yeah.
And that's what we kind of want to discuss.
Before, I think we discussed that about how do we get that balance.
I think we need to give, you know, all the, the mom's dad's pats on the back.
(05:06):
This is kind of a show, right?
Shout out to them.
Like we see you.
We know that a lot of, you know, other adults that aren't parents or we know that your kids
probably don't appreciate it, but we see you guys.
We appreciate you.
Yes, we do.
And your kids will appreciate you in the future, which I really hope our kids will in the future.
(05:28):
But yeah, fingers crossed.
I'm good if they don't.
Like it'll be okay.
They'll realize.
They won't notice it until they have kids.
Yep.
Exactly.
And then they're going to be like, oh, it all makes sense now.
But I mean, and honestly, I was, I was looking and I found this really interesting article
(05:48):
on Forbes and it discussed like the difference between the two genders in those gender roles.
And it says like statistically women, like the moms tend to hold roughly 75% of the mental
(06:09):
load in their household, in their household.
And I'm not trying to take credit away from, from dads or anything like that.
No, but, and we're in a unique situation since I'm remote.
Yeah.
And obviously it might be obvious, you know, this is from a Forbes article or study research,
but it could be flip flop for different families.
(06:30):
There could be stay at home dads that are more mentally focused, have more of the mental
load while the mom goes off to the office or wherever.
But yeah.
And I mean, and that's just in, you know, families that have like two, like in, how
do I say that?
(06:50):
Two parents?
No, I mean like families that are, that live together.
Like a mom and dad that live together.
I guess, well, no, not always, but yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Okay.
That's what you're saying.
What I'm trying to say, cause we're going to take that whole time.
Cause we just sounded like dumbasses.
No, I'm keeping it in there.
(07:12):
It's funny.
Okay.
Well, what I mean is that when that statistic is based off of families that have both mom
and dad living within the same household, the same dwelling, and obviously that would
be a lot different when that isn't the case.
And there's a single mom or a single dad raising their whole entire family.
(07:33):
Obviously those, those statistics will skew a little bit.
I know that in our situation prior to you working remote, I feel like it was a little
bit more on me because your work schedule was so more demanding than what mine was.
I had the flexibility where I would go into office, I think like three days a week and
(07:59):
then I was home too.
And then I would be home for the weekend.
And you had shorter days.
Yeah.
I thought you were taking a jab at my height.
So I would naturally take on all of those tasks that wouldn't be divided typically between
(08:19):
the two of us.
So I was the one that was planning everything and driving everybody and doing all of those
things.
And it wasn't until we kind of got into us being remote together through COVID and I
needed that help because now we're outnumbered, right?
(08:43):
We're outnumbered and I can't, I can't do it all by myself.
Not like I was before, you know, you, you are very prominent.
You're not offending me.
I mean, I know that you do more stuff than I, I mean, if we had to break down our relationship,
obviously you do more stuff for the boys and you know, medical appointments, things and
(09:07):
things of that nature than I do.
I wouldn't say that I work harder than you.
I just hold more jobs than you.
So I kind of, you know, they're like baseball cards.
You collect them.
They're like more fine financially.
And I'm not more financially in charge than you either.
I just work a lot.
That's about it.
That's how, that's what I bring to the table.
And sometimes I make dinner and lunches at night for the next morning.
(09:30):
Yeah.
So you do all the grocery shopping and you clean everything because you have the more
severe OCD than I do.
Yeah.
COVID messed me up.
It did.
It really did.
And that's, I mean, I think that that, I mean, it was a, it was a curse and it was a blessing
at the same time because it allowed me to be okay with getting help, which was something
(09:55):
that I've never really had in my life was the ability to ask for help essentially.
We had that conversation too.
We did.
I said, you need to ask me for help.
I just felt like it was.
I don't know what you want.
Ask me for help.
(10:16):
And I am just, I'm not saying I'm just some big dumb man, which I can be, but you do,
do like doing stuff on your own.
And I have, I have tried helping you before and I just get in the way.
Just like if you were to help me sometimes.
Yeah.
Cause I do it wrong.
I need a detailed list, write it down and tell me how you want me to help you.
(10:38):
Okay.
But let, okay.
So let's like, let's just bring it down for a second.
Okay.
So if we talk about the laundry, we have four buckets.
Yeah.
You got four specific buckets.
I got one washer and you just take all those motherfuckers and just dump it in.
(11:00):
Everything goes into one wash tub.
You can divide it as pretty as you want.
Everything goes in the wash tub.
And you know what?
Ship shape laundry is done.
And then you're like, my clothes smell bad.
And I say it's because you overloaded the washer.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's get back on top of it.
(11:20):
People want to hear this show.
But it's true.
Okay.
When it comes down to it and you know, this is like speaking to most of the, the people
out there that are, are stay at home moms or stay at home dads.
And every people that don't have that position, you know, tend to wonder like, what the hell
(11:42):
are you doing all the day?
You know, what do you, I've never wondered that, but I'm sure there's people out there
too.
I haven't either because I feel like we both are in a different situation where we, we
just know, cause we experience it.
Right.
And it's those ignorant people.
I think it's from the, you know, that, oh, well she's just a stay at home mom.
Right.
(12:03):
Well she has all the time in the world.
She can do it.
She's a stay at home mom.
She can volunteer to do all of this or, you know, she can make a thousand, you know, baked
goods the night before for school.
What's crazy is that now I shouldn't say now, but you work full time.
I work full time.
And in essence, it's still expected from you.
(12:26):
Yeah.
So it's like, yeah, it's the way that the society is the amount of guilt that is placed
on parents nowadays is insane.
Yeah.
We're we, whether it's the dad, the mom, whomever, we are expected to do so much more than what
our parents did.
(12:47):
And I, I don't know if it's comes from internal, like we expect because we didn't have so much,
you know, like we didn't have that.
So we know what, what we needed when we were kids and we're trying to give our kids that.
Or if it's just the way that social media has kind of like thrown it in our face, like
(13:08):
here's the picture perfect family.
Here's a new idea.
Here's a new craft.
Here's this, this, and here's all the things that you're doing wrong.
You know, so we need to kind of get away from that mentality and kind of put everything
into perspective and kind of check ourselves and make sure that we, you know, are kind
(13:29):
of are asking for help and we are ignoring the outside voices so that we can kind of,
we can focus in on what's important to us and what makes sense for us.
Yeah.
And I think that's, that's what you just said is important.
What makes sense to us.
I never needed anything when I was a kid.
I had it, I had everything that I needed.
(13:50):
I had a house, I had a roof over my head, clothes, food.
I was healthy.
And, you know, as far as like extracurriculars, I did sports.
If there was parties, we got to do a Halloween party at school, birthday parties, bring in
cupcakes or cookies.
I don't even know if we did that back then, but now it's turned into like, Oh, Christmas
time.
Every single teacher, every single kid in the class gets a gift.
(14:12):
Oh, it's the kid's birthday.
Well, not only are you bringing in cupcakes, but you also need to bring in a party favor
for every single kid in their class.
And they all have to be hypoallergenic.
Yeah, it's got to be peanut free.
Any of the toys or goodies that you give out can have never seen the sun or touch the grass
because somebody's allergic to the sun.
(14:36):
So and then on top of that, like going back to what you said is what makes sense to you.
And I completely understand and I fully appreciate when a kid says, Oh, you know, this is coming
up, you know, say a Cedar Point trip or a Washington, D.C. trip or something like that,
it costs, you know, hundreds or thousands of dollars to go on.
And it just doesn't make sense.
(14:57):
And you feel like an asshole for not letting your kid do it or not doing the certain special
thing that all the other kids are doing.
You know, it's got to make sense to you.
Even though you feel like crap.
Yeah.
And I mean, to that point, Preston had a field trip, like the fifth grade field trip out
(15:18):
to Mackinac, a place in Michigan, if you aren't familiar with it.
It's a place in Michigan that it's Mackinac Island.
It's a historic area.
It's beautiful if you haven't gone there.
But it is literally like four hours away from us.
We go there every summer.
Four and a half to five hours away.
(15:41):
Yeah, we go every summer.
But they were going as a as a class and it was a sleepover field trip, which would have
been fine.
But it was like seven hundred or eight hundred dollars.
And that's how much it costs our family to go.
And I felt like a complete terrible person for saying no, no, you can't go.
(16:05):
And he was totally bummed out.
But he stayed home and then he went to school for those two days.
And in lieu of going to Mackinac, he went to two museums that he had never gone to.
And he experienced two new places and he ended up making new friends that, you know, who
(16:26):
also couldn't go on the trip and he didn't really talk to in his class.
So he built more friendships and had a better experience.
So it ended up turning out good.
And he stayed here.
Yeah.
And safe.
And he was safe.
And it was cheaper.
It was cheaper.
And it wasn't an overnight trip.
And it was properly chaperoned where, you know, there was only a few chaperones that
(16:50):
go on these overnight trips.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, the kids are going to hate you.
They will, because they're not going to agree a day or two.
Yeah, they won't agree with every decision that you make as a parent, which, you know,
I didn't agree with all the decisions that my parents made at that point in time.
I wasn't allowed to go to the Washington.
(17:11):
The one trip I did go to was Toronto, to Toronto to see the Phantom of the Opera, which was
amazing.
That was for band class.
And we did stay overnight.
And then we had a Washington, D.C. trip in eighth grade.
And I don't know why I wasn't allowed to go on it.
It could be a financial thing and whatnot, but I don't care.
Yeah.
(17:32):
And I don't really think I cared at that time either.
Yeah.
I was just like, OK, whatever, you know, go to class, empty class.
I'm going to be able to goof off the whole time.
Right.
There's not going to be any kids there.
I don't know.
I never held that against my parents.
No, they had a lot of like sleepover field trips in at my school.
(17:53):
And I just remember there was a lot of like chaos.
Yeah, there was chaos at the Phantom of the Opera.
I never we didn't go to bed.
We were jumping around.
I mean, yeah, yeah.
A lot of mischief.
I mean, we're seventh graders, sixth graders.
Yeah.
We expect.
Right.
So anyway, circling back, I guess the task at hand is how how do we make it better?
(18:21):
Because it's it's not ideal.
It's not an ideal situation to have all of this just sitting on your plate or you feeling
responsible for that.
So how do we make it better?
So I personally would suggest like having those conversations like you and I did where
we split everything down the middle and, you know, as much as we could.
(18:46):
70 30.
Yeah, we made it make sense for us.
80 20.
Yes, I do nothing.
What do you do all day?
I just goof around.
Yeah, just make it make sense for for you guys, for for your family, for your situation.
(19:08):
And also, another key element is, you know, age appropriate, include your family, your
kids and have them help out, whether it's chores or whether it's like just having them
acknowledge or be aware of what is going on and what you kind of have to do and maybe
even help them.
(19:29):
You help you essentially.
One of the things that we recently got was one of those wall calendars.
Yeah.
And there's a free app on there.
What's it called?
Chord Chorbot.
Yeah, Chorbot.
It's a free app that you can put on there.
So you can put it on any of your phone or tablet or your wall calendar.
(19:50):
And it's an animated robot and you go through and you check off all the chores that they
did and they love it.
They get to go up to it.
You know, they sign into their name.
They have their own avatar and everything.
They get to check off the chore.
And then after they check off all their chores for that day, then the robot does their little
dance and says, great job.
You finished all your chores today.
And then like the room behind it gets all cleaned up.
(20:13):
So that's a really cool app.
I guess it's a little hack for all your parents out there.
It's called Chorbot and it's free, at least for Android.
Yeah.
And then also the other cool aspect of it is that it reminds you like if you put a monetary
value to the chores that you do or the kids do it for you.
(20:33):
Put an allowance on there.
You can put an allowance on there and you can.
It'll tell you the statistics like, OK, this week Preston has finished 11 of the 32 chores
that he has is supposed to do.
How much do you want to pay him?
Right.
Absolutely.
Not one goddamn cent.
That's lazy.
That's all or nothing.
Try again next week, buddy.
(20:54):
Right.
But I mean, it's not just like the chores and cleaning up the house or anything like that.
I've been trying to get them a little bit more acquainted with what we do just so that
they can kind of understand.
Because I think that those are I feel like those are really like real life skills.
And if we can kind of ingrain those at a younger age, then I have more confidence in the way
(21:21):
that they're going to go out into the real world.
Essentially.
Yeah.
So and this is going to be another one of the episodes in the future, but I'm going
to touch on it a little bit is one of the things is that going off of what you just
said about teaching our kids what we do, what we do in the household, what we do for the
(21:41):
household to run correctly and keep this ship's sailing straight.
We've been given compliments on how we talk and raise our kids because we talk to them
like they're adults.
And we treat them in a way like they are adults.
(22:02):
Like we expect certain things out of them.
And I know we'll probably get crap for this.
But you can you can give me crap on the episode.
We're going to talk a whole episode about it.
But yeah.
And I think that I think those life skills are extremely important.
I think that having making age appropriate and treating your children the way that you
(22:27):
want to be treated is also really important.
And obviously, you know, also let them have a childhood.
Circling back.
You know, I combine the soccer and the football schedule and I, you know, I laid it out for
them and I've put it all together and and I've kind of educated them on how much time
(22:51):
and effort it puts it in on my end.
And then I have to make sure that, you know, either you or I can drive them to there.
And then also, you know, there's a financial aspect to it so that they are aware of, you
know, how much things actually cost because, you know, they.
Yeah.
Where is it?
You know, signing up for soccer or football.
It's not you're you're not just going and showing up for a play date.
(23:13):
Right.
Exactly.
So we're going to put our best foot forward.
You know, this is the commitment that you made.
This is, you know, the cost of that commitment.
And we expect you to be the best version of yourself out there.
Right.
I think that that helps them.
I am very comfortable with talking to them about, you know, the financial aspect of things,
(23:35):
because I think that those things never go away.
And they see, you know, they see me doing all the finances and the budgeting for our
family and learning those skills at a younger age helps them hopefully in the long run to
be, you know, successful adults, because obviously those those aspects do not go away.
(23:58):
You're always going to have to do budgeting and that kind of stuff.
That's true.
Unless you find a wife that does it for you.
I did.
I helped you.
What?
When when we first started dating, that was a horrible credit card debt.
Yeah.
But you got me out of it.
I did.
(24:19):
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So one of the ways to kind of help it is to ask for help to have that conversation with
your partner or, I mean, also to have to build your village, essentially have your good positive
support team out there because you can go on to social media or you can go online and
(24:41):
you can Google something and you will find a hundred ways of doing something and a hundred
ways of why you shouldn't do it.
Yeah, anything.
Exactly.
So if you have that positive support team that you surround yourself with and you can
kind of rely on and confide in and, you know, ask for input or even ask for help, that will
(25:04):
definitely help alleviate that load because a majority of that mental load and the invisible
chores and the emotional side of things, the impact that we have as parents is it can trickle
into our psyche and it can cause, you know, sleep regression and sleep issues and stress
(25:26):
volumes and anxiety.
And then it can also, you know, alter your mood in terms of, you know, you get snippy,
you get short.
You do.
You do.
You're a shit.
Fatigued and everything.
So the importance of having that village and building your village to help you and your
(25:51):
family is extremely important.
And you know, talking about village, you know, we spoke about it in the COVID episode, you
know, your dad passed away.
My mom passed away before or right when Braden was born and then your dad passed away right
after Max was born.
So it's kind of weird.
(26:11):
So when you talk about village, it doesn't really have to be a physical person there
to help you out.
Like I know you have friends that you text message that really that, you know, even just
venting helps.
Yeah.
I mean, the number one person that I go to, she is a very close friend and I talked to
(26:35):
her almost every single day.
We used to live right next to her and our kids grew up together.
But during COVID, you know, she moved out to California with her family.
And you know, now we are, you know, a country apart, essentially.
But I still talk to her every day.
And if there's an issue or something, I normally will go straight to her and like talk to her
(26:58):
because I value her opinion on things.
She's very upfront and honest and she doesn't beat around the bush, but she's also the type
of friend that will put you in your place.
Yeah.
She'll just be like, I don't know.
Or she'll, you know, encourage me or she I'll be like, I don't, I don't need help with this.
(27:20):
I just need to vent.
And she's like, all right, girl, I got you.
And she will rip apart the situation just the same as I rip apart the situation.
And then, you know, 100% let me just make sure I hear what you're saying.
But yeah, so those are important things.
(27:42):
And also, at the end of the day, it's extremely important to give yourself credit and to make
sure that you kind of self-reflect and acknowledge all of the things that you've done.
And instead of focusing on the things that you didn't accomplish and that trickle over
into the next day, just respect the amount of things that you do on a daily basis, the
(28:07):
things that you have completed and all of the effort that you did.
Because even though you didn't receive the thousand thank yous that were, you know, probably
warranted, it was your effort and it was done.
(28:30):
So going back to what you said about how, you know, you just need to be okay with the
job that you've done, what you've accomplished that day, what you've been through.
And that kind of strikes, you know, for me, I don't think we even stop and think about
that until we go to write these shows and put these, I mean, just think about it.
I mean, how many days have you just gone to work, you know, you've sat at a desk or, you
(28:54):
know, been remote and sat at your desk at home, maybe didn't do your workout that day
and you're exhausted and you don't even think about it.
Like, you know, all I did was work today.
I sat on my ass.
Why am I tired?
Oh, you forgot.
You woke up at five thirty.
You drove your kid to school at six o'clock.
You made the lunches the night before.
(29:14):
You made lunch for yourself.
You had breakfast for yourself.
One of your kids stayed home because they're sick.
You went to the doctor's appointment during your lunch break.
You made, you know, you made dinner.
Then you made lunches again.
Then you took a kid to soccer.
You took another kid to football.
It's no wonder why you're tired.
Right.
Exactly.
So giving yourself credit when credit is due is extremely important because.
(29:38):
You're only human and you can only do so much and you have to accept that aspect, but you
also have to respect it too.
So right now, I encourage you to take a time and self-reflect and acknowledge all of the
efforts that you've put in and acknowledge all of the efforts that your partner has put
(29:58):
in.
Yeah.
And, you know, take that time to to see if there's any aspect that you need to ask for
help or if you see your partner struggling, ask them if they need help.
And also give yourself a pat on the back once in a while.
Yeah.
Do it.
(30:19):
So I invite you guys to share stories with us.
We would love to hear any tips, any tricks that you have or even any funny stories or
any kind of stories in regards to this.
I think that it is a matter that is in itself invisible.
And we just kind of take it on as parents and as homeowners and adults.
(30:43):
We just take on this mental invisible burden and we don't really openly discuss it.
So right now, we're giving you that chance to kind of discuss it and we would love to
hear your feedback on it.
Yeah, we don't openly discuss it or I don't even think really realize it, like I said,
until we stop and think about how amazing we are.
(31:08):
Yeah, we are such amazing people.
Like what we do on a daily basis.
We are fucking unicorns.
And we're keeping three other humans alive.
We're doing it.
Who allowed us to have them?
And three fish.
Who thought?
Not us.
Well, you greatly appreciate everyone tuning in.
Thank you for downloading the episode.
(31:29):
You can always follow us on social media and stay tuned for the next episode as well.
Once again, thank you.
Chasing Valance, real life parenting, one conversation at a time.
We'll see you later.
You again soon.
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