emotional labour is an actual thing. being the glue that holds a family together is an actual thing. i abdicated a lot of it a while ago because i really wasn't well enough to keep myself functioning let alone any extended family systems. but part of picking back up the pieces is picking back up the emotional labour. that i have a life partner who's committed, willing and (mostly) able to hold the fort in the interim is pretty unusual when it comes to heterosexual relationships, ime.
in my optimistic moments i hope that the amount of time he takes to deal with kid-admin and (especially) kid1's counselling/hospital appointments goes some small way to restoring the gender/parental responsibility balance in the workplace...
Emotional labour. I’ve never heard that term before. But yeh absolutely. The having to remember everything for everyone bit is absolutely exhausting. And if you forget one thing you get blamed. Example: I go to the supermarket every week, and buy like, what, over fifty different items. But the only time anyone ever even notices that I’ve gone to the shops is if I forget the one thing they wanted. See also: all the appointments, birthdays, school shit (fuck off world book day I’m looking at you), family occasions (his fam as well as yours), pets, the list goes on. Along with the actual work (ie scrub the toilet, cooking, lifts, homework, counselling, screaming like a harridan) it’s at
least equivalent to a part time job (and mine are teenagers!).
There’s that, plus the fact that a lot of men even now can’t do even basic household management. My father in law is of a generation of men who’ve never so much as boiled an egg. Now M-in-laws on the stroke ward I’m having to cook for him, fling a hoover round etc cos he literally cannot do this shit himself.
But here’s the thing, I don’t even mind doing that work myself. I quite like taking care of people, especially people I love. But it needs to be recognised. I need TIME to do it, and I need to be able to AFFORD to do it. If I work part time (as I did til last year) and get working family tax credits cos my incomes under 15k pa, don’t look down on that as benefits. I mean
society don’t look down on that. Because it’s cheap at the fucking price, compared to meals on wheels or a care package or a nursery.
Why are we (as a society) paying minimum wage to childcare workers, yet still the cost of childcare absolutely demolishes a young family’s (let alone single mums) income, to do a job that a lot of the time could be done by a Mum or Dad who actually loves that baby/child and wants to do it but can’t afford to?
It’s insane! You pay through the fucking nose to go to work to do a job that nine times out of ten you’d probably rather not be doing, or doing
so much, cos you’d rather be home with your baby. And most of the time it’s at best marginally fucking worth it! At least that’s how it’s been for me up til last summer. Same with care packages for the old folk, insanely expensive, often poor quality, whilst someone (a daughter or son) who
wants to do it sits in an office feeling guilty, or dashes there between working days.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for women having a career, having a job outside the home, their own interests and identity. It’s what I wanted once my kids were in primary. But it should be a choice. A sit down ‘so how many days do you want to work, and how many days do you want or need running the home?’. Rightio, there you go, sorted. Men the same, no excuses here, they get offered the same deal. Caring responsibilities = option of flexible working + decent WTC.
It seems to me not just better for people (the carer and the cared for) but it’s also surely gotta be more cost efficient for us as a society?! Whose crunched these numbers, someone must have. The issue will be that Care Provider X doesn’t make a profit. Well fuck Care Provider X.
As a society let’s do the numbers and have a chat about this, cos it’s not working out right now. Not for the old folk sat alone with their Wiltshire Farm Foods ready meals, or the little kids in day care for longer thans reasonable, but mostly for the women who are trying to do it all because they
have to.
