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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: episode is going to be a longer one part of

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Speaker 1: the series where I interview fascinating people about how they

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Speaker 1: take their days from great to awesome and any advice

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Speaker 1: they have for the rest of us. So today, I'm

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Speaker 1: delighted to welcome Alison Damager to the Before Breakfast. She

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Speaker 1: is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

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Speaker 1: She's also the author of the brand new book What's

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Speaker 1: on Her Mind, which is about the mental load of

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Speaker 1: family life. So Allison, welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Laura, it's great to be with you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, excited to have you. So why don't you introduce

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Speaker 1: yourself to our listeners?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely so, As Laura said, I am a sociologist by

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Speaker 2: training and profession, and I study how gender shows up

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Speaker 2: in family life. So most of my work so far

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Speaker 2: has looked at what that means for both different gender

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Speaker 2: and same gender couples. How do they divide up the

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Speaker 2: work that goes into keeping a household running, keeping children

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Speaker 2: alive and reasonably happy, And in particular focus on the

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Speaker 2: cognitive or mental aspects of that work.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, how would you define mental load?

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Speaker 2: So I think it's easiest to start with what it's not.

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Speaker 2: When we talk about housework, usually what people have in

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Speaker 2: mind is I'm washing the dishes, I am cooking a meal,

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Speaker 2: I am driving someone somewhere. And what I have tried

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Speaker 2: to show is that we also have to think about

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Speaker 2: what's going on in people's minds, what decisions are they making,

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Speaker 2: what problems are they travel shooting? And so I think

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Speaker 2: about cognitive labor as sort of the work behind the

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Speaker 2: scenes that makes everything else possible. It's scanning the horizon

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Speaker 2: for potential problems or opportunities or upcoming issues, doing research

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Speaker 2: to figure out how to handle those, making decisions, and

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Speaker 2: then following up to make sure all of that happened

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Speaker 2: as you expected it to.

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Speaker 1: And what drew you to this topic.

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Speaker 2: I went into grad school intending to study something completely different,

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Speaker 2: and then in my first year classes I kept really

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Speaker 2: feeling fired up by the readings I was assigned that

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Speaker 2: talked about gender and equality in households, and I had

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Speaker 2: that sort of classic awakening moment where I realized that, oh,

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Speaker 2: these are not issues that were dealt with entirely by

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Speaker 2: prior generations. This is something that is still very much ongoing.

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Speaker 2: And I also thought that, you know, most of the

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Speaker 2: studies that I'm reading really focus on how people are

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Speaker 2: using their time, and there's important, right I'm talking to you, Laura,

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Speaker 2: who's of course the expert on this, But I think

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Speaker 2: so much of what households need is hard to capture

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Speaker 2: with a staff watch. It's all of the things that

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Speaker 2: we know can be really taxing about making decisions in particular,

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Speaker 2: and I couldn't find work that really rigorously measured that

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Speaker 2: thinking labor and captured you know, how it was divided

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Speaker 2: between men and women in households, and so I set

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Speaker 2: out to create an interview study where I could figure

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Speaker 2: it out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's an interesting question because if you're trying

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Speaker 1: to ascertain how people are spending their time, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's sort of relatively well established ways of doing this.

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Speaker 1: I mean something like the American time you survey asking

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Speaker 1: people what they were doing over the course of twenty

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Speaker 1: four hours, for instance, or people send out stop watches

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Speaker 1: and say, you know, okay, every time this time, you know,

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Speaker 1: what are you doing? Right down in a journal? What

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Speaker 1: you're doing and we'll record it that way. I know

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Speaker 1: you've thought about this. How does one measure what people

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Speaker 1: are thinking about and sort of the you know, stress

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Speaker 1: or ease associated with what they're thinking about. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I could be thinking about what's for life lunch, but

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Speaker 1: it doesn't really stress me out that much. So it's

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Speaker 1: a different matter of that versus you know, how is

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Speaker 1: this kindergarten teacher going to be this year? So how

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Speaker 1: does one or any ideas you've come up with for

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Speaker 1: how to measure that.

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Speaker 2: So one thing that some people have tried is what's

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Speaker 2: called the experienced sampling method. In the old days, this

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Speaker 2: would be a pager, you know. Nowadays it'd be a

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Speaker 2: text notification where you randomly check in with people throughout

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Speaker 2: the day and say, what are you doing and what

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Speaker 2: are you thinking about? And how are you feeling about

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Speaker 2: those things? So that's one approach some people have taken.

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Speaker 2: I think the downside with that is it's hard to

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Speaker 2: capture the complexities of thought. Often I'm thinking about, you know,

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Speaker 2: ten things over the course of a five minute period,

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Speaker 2: and I probably wouldn't write all of those things down.

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Speaker 2: Another thing that people have tried to do is to

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Speaker 2: put together a list of common areas of life that

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Speaker 2: someone might be thinking about and say, within the last

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Speaker 2: X hours or days, have you thought about this? What

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Speaker 2: I did, because I was doing a smaller sample study

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Speaker 2: with you know, a couple hundred people, I had this

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Speaker 2: really painstaking approach where I asked people to do a

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Speaker 2: modified version of a timelog, but rather than tracking their

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Speaker 2: time and activities, I asked them to track their decisions.

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Speaker 2: Because my thinking was usually we know when some sort

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Speaker 2: of decision outcome has been reached, and then when I

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Speaker 2: met with them in the interview, I would have them

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Speaker 2: work backwards and say, oh, you decided to sign your

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Speaker 2: child up for this camp? How did you start thinking

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Speaker 2: about this right? What other options did you consider? Did

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Speaker 2: you talk to your partner about it? And so on?

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Speaker 2: And so then I would take what they told me

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Speaker 2: in the interview and put together a picture of who

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Speaker 2: was doing what in their household.

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Speaker 1: And I know you found that there was certainly a

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Speaker 1: gendered aspect to this. I'm sure are life listeners are

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Speaker 1: not surprised to hear that in at least many heterosexual

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Speaker 1: couples that wound up being more women who were likely

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Speaker 1: to do it but with that, many of your people

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Speaker 1: that you were interviewed didn't have that as the explanation.

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Speaker 1: They weren't just like, well, yes, she does it because

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Speaker 1: she's the mom or something like that. They had other

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Speaker 1: reasons they gave you as modern enlightened people. Right, This

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Speaker 1: is the.

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Speaker 2: Part that I found most interesting and in a little

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Speaker 2: bit surprising. So you're absolutely right that most of the

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Speaker 2: people I talked to, many of them were college educated

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Speaker 2: living in big cities, the kinds of people who research

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Speaker 2: would suggest are likely to have more egalitarian beliefs. So

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Speaker 2: they didn't tell me, oh, she does most of this

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Speaker 2: thinking work because she's a woman and that's her job.

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Speaker 2: They told me she does most of this because she's typing.

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Speaker 2: She is just such an organized person. She plans ten

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Speaker 2: steps ahead. She's just on top of everything. She's supermum.

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Speaker 2: And they wouldn't tell me, oh, he leaves all the

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Speaker 2: thinking work to his wife because he's a man and

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Speaker 2: it's not a man's job. They would say, he's just

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Speaker 2: so laid back, he goes with the flow. He is

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Speaker 2: just in the moment and kind of taking things as

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Speaker 2: they come. But what I was able to show was, Okay,

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Speaker 2: I don't think that I accidentally discovered a cluster of

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Speaker 2: Type A women. I think what was happening was people

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Speaker 2: were taking gender stereotypes and gender roles and sort of

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Speaker 2: switching the language a little bit to make it seem

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Speaker 2: like it was about their individual personalities. Because that's you know,

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Speaker 2: as you said, modern lane people, we don't necessarily want

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Speaker 2: to think of ourselves as falling into traditional roles, and

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Speaker 2: so it's much easier and a way to prevent conflict

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Speaker 2: to say, you know what, it's just our personalities. But

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Speaker 2: I think gender has a lot to do with it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, because then when you looked

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Speaker 1: at LGBT couples, it it didn't. I mean, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: quite like you weren't suddenly having two women in a

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Speaker 1: couple both being Type A about it necessarily exactly.

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Speaker 2: So, there are a number of couples who, especially with

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Speaker 2: the LGBTQ couples, they didn't necessarily divide this work fifty

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Speaker 2: to fifty. But they also didn't fall into this very

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Speaker 2: clear role where one person is the main thinker in

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Speaker 2: all aspects of life and the other person is more

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Speaker 2: laid back. It was much more mix and match, where Okay,

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Speaker 2: Partner one does most of the thinking work related to

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Speaker 2: food and shopping and home maintenance, and partner too does

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Speaker 2: most of the thinking related to the kids and travel

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Speaker 2: and things like that. So they mixed and matched in

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Speaker 2: a way that didn't map onto any particular gender stereotype,

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Speaker 2: which alerted me to, Okay, I think there's a gender

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Speaker 2: thing going on here for the street couples.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Well, we're going to take a quick ad

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Speaker 1: break and then we'll be back talking about more of

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Speaker 1: the practical side of this, how various people can sort

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Speaker 1: of change them of mental load that they are carrying. Well,

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Speaker 1: I am back talking with Professor Allison Damager, who's at

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Speaker 1: the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of the

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Speaker 1: brand new book What's on Her Mind about Mental Load

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Speaker 1: and Family Life. So we've been talking a little bit

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Speaker 1: about her research and how one figures out how much

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Speaker 1: mental load people are carrying and the gendered aspects of that.

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Speaker 1: But you know, this is a very practical show. The

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Speaker 1: gender stuff is fascinating, but we want to talk more

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Speaker 1: about practical Somebody listening to this feeling like I am

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Speaker 1: feeling overwhelmed. I have a lot of mental load that

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Speaker 1: I am carrying and planning stuff all the time, keeping

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Speaker 1: track of all the calendar. How what are some practical

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Speaker 1: ways that they can go about carrying less? And maybe

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Speaker 1: that's not always just getting the other person to carry more.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there might be many ways to approach that.

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Speaker 2: You're absolutely right. I think there are at least a

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Speaker 2: couple pathways. So I'm imagine it could be someone of

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Speaker 2: any gender, but let's imagine it's you know, the more

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Speaker 2: common Okay, it's a woman carrying more of this work

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Speaker 2: for her family. Her two main options are to get

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Speaker 2: someone else in her family to take on that work,

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Speaker 2: or someone beyond her family, right. I know folks who

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Speaker 2: have household managers and others who they pay to share

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Speaker 2: the load in this way with them. Number two would

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Speaker 2: be find ways to just take more things off the

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Speaker 2: family's collective plate, right, so that no one has to

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Speaker 2: work up on this sort of thing. Now, if you

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Speaker 2: want to go with path number one, reallocation, I think

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Speaker 2: step one has to be making what you are currently

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Speaker 2: doing visible. Oftentimes in households, one partner who's doing this

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Speaker 2: work is feeling burdened by it, but their spouse either

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Speaker 2: doesn't know all that they're holding, or it only comes

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Speaker 2: up in times of conflict, right when we're fighting about oh,

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Speaker 2: I'm stressed and you're not doing enough. It doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 2: happen where we sit down and have a really strategic

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Speaker 2: discussion about here are all the things I'm holding, what

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Speaker 2: are you holding? How can we think about this? What

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Speaker 2: I find most commonly in couples is that they've sort

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Speaker 2: of slid into particular patterns. Oftentimes that is coming from

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Speaker 2: you know, what did their parents do, what have they

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Speaker 2: seen modeled around them? All sorts of factors that sort

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Speaker 2: of make it the path of least resistance for many

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Speaker 2: couples to fall into a she does most of the

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Speaker 2: planning and life management and he does less of it.

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Speaker 2: So what I first say is, you want to decide

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Speaker 2: not default, make a conscious decision about what are we

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Speaker 2: aiming for as a couple, as a family. Are we

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Speaker 2: okay with the current imbalance? Presumably you know, if they're

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Speaker 2: asking this question, at least one partner is not okay

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Speaker 2: with it, So then the question becomes, okay, what would

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Speaker 2: be more realistic given our current constraints. I don't think

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Speaker 2: it's realistic for people to go from eighty twenty to

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Speaker 2: fifty to fifty overnight. There are many households for various

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Speaker 2: reasons where that just would not be the ideal, and

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Speaker 2: so I think it's important for both partners to agree

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Speaker 2: on what are we aiming for, what's important to us,

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Speaker 2: and then to think about, Okay, how can we close

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Speaker 2: the gap between where we are and where we want.

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Speaker 1: To be now?

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Speaker 2: There are some approaches that, you know, suggest sort of

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Speaker 2: a complete overhaul of who's doing what. My personal suggestion

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Speaker 2: is to start small, pick the low hanging fruit. And

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Speaker 2: what I have seen is that for a lot of reasons,

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Speaker 2: the low hanging fruit is not the kid's birthday party,

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Speaker 2: or interacting with the teachers at school, or planning the

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Speaker 2: family gatherings. The low hanging fruit for most families tends

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Speaker 2: to be more internal to the household. Right what are

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Speaker 2: we eating for dinner? How often are we cleaning things

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Speaker 2: and repairing things? Stuff that has lower stakes for doing

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Speaker 2: differently or not being done in the exact same timeframe.

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Speaker 2: So I recommend picking a place where the person who's

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Speaker 2: the primary cognitive labor doesn't have super strong feelings. They

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Speaker 2: want it to get done, but they don't necessarily care

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Speaker 2: that it be done. In a particular way. And then

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Speaker 2: the crucial part is you've got to have some patience.

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Speaker 2: Most of this stuff is a set of skills that

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Speaker 2: gets built up over time, and it's not reasonable to

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Speaker 2: expect that the minute you say, okay, we're switching and

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Speaker 2: now person two is in charge of this, that they're

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Speaker 2: going to do it exactly right. So that's why I

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Speaker 2: think picking something that's a little bit lower stakes gives

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Speaker 2: you a bit of wiggle room when there's some inevitable

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Speaker 2: hiccups along the way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, that's funny because the skills, I mean, you

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Speaker 1: mentioned it's skills, but the idea of scanning their horizon,

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Speaker 1: seeing a problem or an opportunity and taking action toward

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Speaker 1: it is not I mean domestic. That's what people do

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Speaker 1: at work all the time. So it's not that people

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Speaker 1: don't don't have those skills regardless of their gender, it's

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Speaker 1: that they're usually not used to applying them in this

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Speaker 1: particular context.

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Speaker 2: Correct. And so that's another piece of advice that I

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Speaker 2: often give to people, where you know, couples who feel

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Speaker 2: like I'm just not he's just not good at this,

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Speaker 2: or she's just not good at this. I recommend looking

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Speaker 2: at what you do or have done professionally as a

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Speaker 2: sort of a proven ground, right, most professions require some

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Speaker 2: level of as you say, it's getting the horizon, planning ahead,

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Speaker 2: being strategic, and so asking well, how have you done

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Speaker 2: that in your hobbies or in your paid work or

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Speaker 2: in school, and then what skills might you transfer? Because

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Speaker 2: you're exactly right that I think it's not that these

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Speaker 2: skills aren't there, it's just they have not historically been

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Speaker 2: deployed in this particular context.

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Speaker 1: And what about the option of kind of caring less.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you said, look at the low hanging fruit,

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Speaker 1: but it's possible when you sort of identify low hanging fruit.

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Speaker 1: And some people aren't part too. I mean, it's not

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Speaker 1: there's there's somebody else that they can delegate this too.

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Speaker 1: If they need to reduce the mental loads, some of

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Speaker 1: it's going to have to come from not doing things.

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Speaker 1: I mean, is that reasonable?

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Speaker 2: So I think it is very reasonable. I do want

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Speaker 2: to be realistic that women especially are held accountable for

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Speaker 2: a lot of domestic outcomes. And so while I would

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Speaker 2: be the first to say I don't think it matters

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Speaker 2: if your child is matching, you know, at school, I

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Speaker 2: don't think it necessarily matters that you've got to thank

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Speaker 2: you card out within six months of the event. But

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Speaker 2: you have to decide whether you're okay with the potential

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Speaker 2: social consequences of not doing these things in this particular way.

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Speaker 2: If you are, then great, absolutely drop it, let it go,

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Speaker 2: or find a less time intensive or mental energy intensive

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Speaker 2: way to perform the same function of say, acknowledging that

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Speaker 2: you received a gift, maybe as a text that's in

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Speaker 2: a picture or something like that. Right, they're often less

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Speaker 2: labor intensive ways to achieve the same aims.

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Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And with this even if people don't wind

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Speaker 1: up shifting how the mental load gets allocated. You mentioned

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Speaker 1: something that I read in the book that appreciation helps

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Speaker 1: a lot. That some of this labor is just invisible,

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Speaker 1: like nobody even knows that it happened. You know, you

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Speaker 1: come to your partner with like a list of your

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Speaker 1: top two camps. Your partner is like, yeah, that looks

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Speaker 1: like I like this one. You're like, yeah, I like

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Speaker 1: that one too, and they don't know that there were

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Speaker 1: ten other camps that were examined and discarded before we

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Speaker 1: got to the final two. But making just making sure

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Speaker 1: it's visible and then the other person. Expressing appreciation can

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Speaker 1: go a long.

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Speaker 2: Way, absolutely So. One thing that my partner and I

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Speaker 2: have have done inconsistently, but when we do it it's great,

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Speaker 2: is at night we say one thing that we appreciated

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Speaker 2: the other person having done that day. And what often that's,

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Speaker 2: you know, work for our household. What that does is

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Speaker 2: sort of signal, hey, I saw that you were doing this.

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Speaker 2: I saw that you were working hard on this thing.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes we also share, hey, here's all the work that

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Speaker 2: went into planning this trip. Just that you know, right,

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Speaker 2: and the other person knows, oh, that's a signal that

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Speaker 2: you are looking for some gratitude from me. So I

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Speaker 2: find too that it can be really helpful to have

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Speaker 2: some shared household project management tools. We like to use

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Speaker 2: Apple Notes and Google Calendar. There are plenty of other

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Speaker 2: technologies and more springing up every day, it seems, and

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Speaker 2: part of that is just a way of making it visible,

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Speaker 2: whether or not you were equally sharing it or changing

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Speaker 2: anything about how you're doing it, at least you can

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Speaker 2: show yourself as well as your partner that hey, this

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Speaker 2: is valuable, this is a lot I'm holding it. I

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Speaker 2: think for many people who are their family's primary cognitive labor,

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Speaker 2: just having language to say Okay, even if I am

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Speaker 2: not outside mowing the lawn or cooking a meal, there's

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Speaker 2: a lot that I'm doing, a lot that I'm holding,

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Speaker 2: and it makes sense that I might feel tired or

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Speaker 2: overwhelmed from time to time.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, all right, We're going to take one more quick

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Speaker 1: ad break and then I will be back with more

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Speaker 1: from Alison Damager. Well, I am back talking with Alison Damager,

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Speaker 1: who is the author of the brand new book What's

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Speaker 1: on Her Mind about the Mental Load of Family Life,

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Speaker 1: professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin Madison. So

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Speaker 1: pivoting a bit more toward your own schedule, I always

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Speaker 1: like to hear, do you have any routines that make

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Speaker 1: you more productive?

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Speaker 2: Well, I am a bit influx at the moment. I

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Speaker 2: have a five month old baby, my first child, and

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Speaker 2: so I am in the process of trying to figure

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Speaker 2: out which of my old routines still holds in this

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Speaker 2: new era. But the one thing that I'm definitely holding

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Speaker 2: on to is a kind of weekly planning session where

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Speaker 2: I do both the professional and personal. It's a brain

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Speaker 2: dump of everything that I could possibly get done in

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Speaker 2: that week, and then I try to assign tasks two days.

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Speaker 2: So that is something that even if the task lists

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Speaker 2: are shorter and more flexible than they used to be,

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Speaker 2: really keeps me grounded. The other thing that I try

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Speaker 2: to do is really sit down every morning and map

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Speaker 2: out the day. Sometimes that's how Newport time blocking style.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes more often lately it's just a post it note

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Speaker 2: where I list the five things that I must do.

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Speaker 2: But those help me to not face so much decision fatigue.

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Speaker 2: To cite some of my own research, it's taxing to

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Speaker 2: have to constantly make decisions about what you're doing, and

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Speaker 2: so I like to chunk that sort of thing and have,

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Speaker 2: you know, my Sunday night self make most of those

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Speaker 2: decisions about what I'll do.

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Speaker 1: Are you a morning person? I mean you said you're

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Speaker 1: doing this in the morning, you're mapping out the day?

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Speaker 1: Is Are you a morning routine kind of person?

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Speaker 2: I am? And that's been one of the hardest parts

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Speaker 2: so far about adjusting is my daughter is also a

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Speaker 2: morning person, often a five am morning person, and so

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Speaker 2: whereas previously I had time to kind of ease into

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Speaker 2: the day, reflect this is often happening much later in

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Speaker 2: the morning, but Usually it's when I first sit down

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Speaker 2: at my desk. This is the time when I get organized,

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Speaker 2: think about the priorities, and move forward, even if it's

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Speaker 2: at nine am rather than seven am as it used

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Speaker 2: to be.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and do you guys, I mean you and your

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Speaker 1: partner have active discussions about then, you know, looking forward

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Speaker 1: and knowing your research as you're going to be making

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Speaker 1: decisions about life for all three of you. Who does what?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? So we have historically had a Google document where

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Speaker 2: we list out all of the different chores and areas

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Speaker 2: of life that we're responsible for. You know, who's going

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Speaker 2: to take our pet to the vet and who's going

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Speaker 2: to make sure of the car gets maintained. We've been

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Speaker 2: pretty good about putting both the physical and the associated

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Speaker 2: cognitive work in that document, and then we revisit when

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Speaker 2: there's big transitions. So we bought a house last year.

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Speaker 2: That was exciting, but it brought a whole new set

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Speaker 2: of tasks and chores. And we try not to assume him, right.

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Speaker 2: I think it's very easy just to be like, oh,

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Speaker 2: he's a man, and so mowing the lawn is going

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Speaker 2: to be him. But we had a conversation earlier this

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Speaker 2: year where I said, actually, I think I would enjoy

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Speaker 2: mowing the lawn right It's time outside, getting some exercise.

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Speaker 2: So that has become my task. And we keep this

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Speaker 2: spreadsheet updated and have to keep ourselves honest by periodically

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Speaker 2: revisiting to make sure we haven't stray too far from

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Speaker 2: what we were intending to do.

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Speaker 1: I love that. I love that you are mowing the lawn.

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Speaker 1: And I suspect many people have in fact chosen lawnmowing

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Speaker 1: as a chore because it's like, Hey, on the weekend,

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Speaker 1: I gotta get outside. I got it. Sorry, I can't

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Speaker 1: help with everything inside the house right now, I gotta

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Speaker 1: get out and mow the lawn.

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Speaker 2: It's exactly right. But don't tell my husband that.

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Speaker 1: Don't tell your husband that. Yeah, exactly exactly. So I

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Speaker 1: always asked my guests, what is something you've done recently

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Speaker 1: to take a day from great to awesome.

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Speaker 2: Well, I am in the stage of promoting my book,

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Speaker 2: and that is something that does not come naturally to

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Speaker 2: me as a rather introverted academic type. I much prefer

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Speaker 2: to quietly do my writing and then hope that people

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Speaker 2: find it. But what I have been doing is really

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Speaker 2: reaching out to my network and saying, hey, I've got

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Speaker 2: this coming out, you might be interested in it. And

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Speaker 2: it's been so nice to hear from people who I

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Speaker 2: haven't connected with. I feel a little bit weird about

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Speaker 2: reaching out to them, but almost one hundred percent of

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Speaker 2: the time people are kind and excited and glad that

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Speaker 2: I thought of them. And so it's been a really

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Speaker 2: good reminder for me that if I believe that work

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Speaker 2: is the work that I'm doing is important, sharing it

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Speaker 2: with others is you know, not just a benefit to me,

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Speaker 2: hopefully it's it's enjoyable for them to reconnect with me.

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Speaker 2: So that's been something that I've been trying to build

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Speaker 2: into my work each day.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it's always fun to reconnect with people and

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Speaker 1: to share good news. What's something you are looking forward to?

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Speaker 2: Oh, I am really looking forward to. Uh. Next week

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Speaker 2: is my book Clunch event in here in Madison, Wisconsin,

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Speaker 2: and so there's going to be some celebrations at my

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Speaker 2: favorite bookstore in town, and I think that that will

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Speaker 2: be you know, a little nerve wracking, but also a

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Speaker 2: lot of fun. So that's on the horizon for next week.

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Speaker 1: Oh, that's very exciting. Well, anything in a bookstore is

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Speaker 1: a big win in my book, as it were, So Allison,

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Speaker 1: where can people find you?

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Speaker 2: The best way to find me is at my website,

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Speaker 2: Alisondamager dot com. It has links to my research to

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Speaker 2: buy the book where I'll be speaking this fall. You

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Speaker 2: can also sign up for my newsletter, The Damager Dispatch,

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Speaker 2: either via my website or at Alisondamager dot substack dot com.

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Speaker 2: And there I write about intersection of gender and family life.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, well please check that out. So Allison,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to

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Speaker 1: everyone for listening. If you have feedback about this or

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Speaker 1: any other episode, you can always reach me at Laura

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Speaker 1: at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of

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Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've

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Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at

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Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit

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Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows

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Speaker 2: And