My mom once joked about what she could accomplish if she had a wife. Because most of her male coworkers didn’t have to worry about dropping kids off at school or getting home in time to make dinner; they didn’t take off work for doctor’s appointments or attend field trips or pack lunches or spend weekends buying groceries and cleaning the house. Their wives handled all that.
And I didn’t really get it then, but I sure get it now. Because it cannot be overstated how important and also seemingly overlooked domestic labor is when you’re talking about women’s productivity or “commitment” in literally any avenue outside the home.
I get asked all the time—especially by female friends—how I manage to have a successful full time career in tech AND regularly crank out published books/fic AND still go to the gym and have hobbies. People seem to think I have masterful time-budgeting wisdom.
But the honest answer is that I have no children and my husband takes care of nearly everything*. He makes dinner, handles lawn care and laundry, trash and recycling, changes air filters and cleans gutters. He makes his own appointments and sometimes mine. Plans our leisure travel. Books our flights. And we have a house cleaner.
My daily duties are taking the dog for his morning walk and making breakfast. My monthly duty is going to Costco. If there’s a home repair need that requires power tools, that’s my job, as well as any car-related maintenance stuff. That’s it.
I have very little mental or physical load surrounding domestic responsibility. AND I have my own dedicated home office where I can close the door and completely focus on my work or writing without interruption (I see you Virginia Woolf).
Which means I can do tech things from 8 until 4-5pm, go to the gym, and still have several hours of writing time before I have to go to bed. It means I can engage in time-consuming hobbies like flying or hiking or rock climbing on weekends. And it’s still hard! I still get burnt out because my brain is usually working all day without stop until 9 or 10pm! But if I had kids or was managing a household I would not physically be able to do the amount of work + writing that I do on an average day. It wouldn’t be possible.
So it’s not that I budget my time, it’s that I have more of it. Because I’m outsourcing a shit ton of labor that most of the women I’m talking to accept as their responsibility. It’s not a fair comparison.
(*My partner and I had a conversation about the division of labor in our household when we moved in together that we revisit every year. He volunteered to take on the majority of domestic tasks because his work schedule is more forgiving than mine, he likes cooking, he’s excited about diversifying our income streams (nerd), and he’s a supportive guy who knows that writing makes me happy. But the exact parameters of who does what are always open to negotiation).
