EPISODE TAKEAWAYS:

• Working moms take on a disproportionate amount of mental load and unpaid labor in U.S. households
• Understanding what holds us back from automating and delegating is the first step in making it a regular practice in our lives
• Our partners are some of the most important people we need to learn to delegate to
• Delegation gives us the freedom we need to pursue our Centered Vision and move from Conflicted to Centered
  
  

WHAT'S INSIDE:

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This episode is all about how to automate and how to delegate as a working mom. We're going to get to the heart of the issue, because I think a lot of efficiency or business experts talk about productivity, efficiency, automating, and delegating, kind of all in that same vein of finding trusted people that you can train and then handing things off to them and really letting it go to those people. I think that's really, really important. There was a situation really recently that I had to decide, "Hey, listen, I've got to delegate this task that is draining me every single time I do it and that I keep on like beating my head against a wall about." I will tell you more later on in the episode but that was much more like, "What am I doing? I'm wasting my time."

There are a lot of other factors that also make it hard. Sometimes when we're trying to decide if we should delegate or not, we are resisting delegation. We don't want to be the kind of person that needs delegation and that can't do it all on their own. Or maybe you resist delegation because it's so dang difficult to get the other person on board who we want to delegate to (AKA our partners). If you have a male partner living in your home, and if your experience is similar to the way mine was for a very long time, maybe you have tried to delegate to that person, but it has been difficult to convince them to do it or to accept it or to create any type of sustainability. Or you end up feeling irritated that you're the one in the first place that has to delegate to them. Why is it that you're in charge of things? Why aren't they actually realizing on their own that there are tasks that need to happen? And so at the heart of delegation is sometimes a lot of resentment.

There was for me, and there is sometimes a lot of shame if we feel like we are the ones that can’t handle everything, and that we have to give it to somebody else in order for it to get done. And so those are the pieces that I want to focus on. 

If you have not already listened to our episode with Jancee Dunn, who wrote How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids (a salacious title, but amazing book), it was a really great episode that we had super early on in the podcast — it's in the first six podcasts that we did). And if you have not listened to our episode Let's Talk About Sex After a Baby or a Few Kids, that one also is a great one for relationships. Finally, more recently we had Eve Rodsky, who is the author of Fair Play, who talked about an actual gamified way to divide up tasks and responsibilities within the home.

What I want to talk about today is this idea that a lot of moms come to me about, which is "How do I get my husband on board?" If you're not living in a relationship with a man, just like bear with me for a sec, because it's actually a a principle that works for every single human in a relationship or with kids, even, even if you're aren't in a heterosexual couple situation. But if you are living in a household with a man, it can feel really, really irritating that you are the one that has to read the books about how to share and create equity within a household, that you are the one who is listening to this podcast, that the other party seems to not even give a crap about all of this, that somehow even if you create a system by which you are delegating to other people, or you're creating more of a team, you are still the head of that team. That is annoying as all get out.

I also want my husband to one day tell me that he has created a game that we can play, that we're dividing up the tasks and responsibilities of my home and have it not be me who starts that conversation or who's even thinking about it. But here is the deal: we live in reality, not in our fantasies. We live in the world that we live in.

If this is not you and you live in a totally equitable house, amazing for you. But the world that I see most women living in is one where, if we want anything to change, we have to one be the one that starts a conversation. And as an encouragement, it's the same thing as in any type of equal rights movement, right? Like when we are fighting for equal rights for women in the workplace, it's not generally speaking men that are speaking up, it's women who are fighting back and marching in the streets. Hopefully we have some allies along with us, but it's us that have to fight if it is about gender equality.

I would love it if a knight in shining armor came and rescued me and made it so that there was more equity in my house, but I know that's not going to happen. I know that if I want that to happen at my house and I want to be an equal team player with my husband (and he is the same with me), that I am the one that has to start the conversations.

I am also the one who has to take a giant step back when I can, so that he does have the chance to take responsibility within my household. And I am the one that has to really hone in on what are the ways that I can communicate with him in a way that he hears me clearly. I have to start to use compassionate assertiveness, where I come from a place of wanting to deeply understand his heart. I have to know that he actually does love me and wants the best for me and my family, but there is some lack of knowledge or barriers that come up for him. A lot of times when my husband is having a hard time in terms of being equitable in our household, it's because he is really focused on what he needs to do at work and not thinking much about our household. And so speaking from a place of, "You're a human being just like I am" and then also advocating for our needs is step one.

The other is using a common language. My husband is a big sports guy so we talk a ton about being teammates. We talk a ton about, "Sometimes I'm going to have the ball and then I want to pass it to you. Sometimes you're going to have the ball and you're going to pass it to me." I don't care about it being 50-50 in my household. I just care that we have equity so that I am not holding 70% of the items that need to get done 100 percent of the time. That's not going to work for me.

When it comes to delegation it's not just about, if you have a male partner in your house and you are a mom, right? This goes for all types of romantic relationships. We have to build team members. If you have another, same-sex partner living in your house, or if you're a single mom, delegation matters perhaps even more, or at least in the same way. The number of times that I have relied on caregivers or other women in my circle is innumerable. I have a text chain that I have with other women in my community, so that if one of us has to continue working, but we need childcare pickup, others in that group can go and pick that child. If they have a late meeting, they can help out or I can help them. I have relationships with these women and we're friends, but they’re not necessarily my besties. It's just that we have a partnership. We are working together as working moms -- I delegate to them and they delegate to me so that we can accomplish all of our objectives in a day and a month in a year (and so we can stay on track).

The other place that I have delegated a ton as a working mom is to paid caregivers. We all make investments. We all have choices that we make. The investment that I have made the most in my life as a working mom is in quality caregivers. Sometimes that has been in childcare centers. Sometimes that has been with nanny shares. And sometimes that has been with actual nannies who come to my house and are only for me and my children. An issue that has been coming up for me lately, which I said I would talk about in the beginning of the episode, is actually with school drop-off. Those of you who know me well know that I have anxiety like my oldest daughter and probably my younger daughter will at some point. I dance with anxiety.

I'm always managing anxiety as opposed to trying to make it fully go away. I know when I take care of myself —when I get really good rest, when I am moving my body, but then also when I'm not putting myself in situations that are incredibly stressful for myself —that is when I'm able to manage my anxiety the best. No surprise there. Right? What have I identified as something that is extremely stressful for me is on my work days when I need to be at the office at 8:30 to see patients and when I have a mountain of paperwork that needs to be accomplished and signed off on and completed and given to somebody else before then (it's about 30 minutes worth). My kids start school at 8:35. That's when the first bell rings. That is a moment that is stressful. When my kids are dawdling along the sidewalk, you know, looking at the flowers, I find myself with a clenched jaw, irritated at them and getting super anxious inside my body.

So I've made the decision to delegate that over time to other caregivers that I pay to take my kids to school drop off. It's not nearly as stressful when I have nowhere specific to be on the days when I am at home doing Modern Mommy Doc stuff, when I don't have to be at my pediatrics practice. It's all good then. I can take my kids to school because I don't have anywhere to be. But doing it day in and day out when I have someplace specific to be right afterward I have found doesn't work for me and, actually, I know it doesn't work that well for my kids as well. So I just want to give you permission as a mom, as a working mom, to let go of some of the tasks that you hold on your plate are ones that maybe it seems like you should do, because you think it'd be so precious to be the one to take your kids to school or that you feel ashamed of that you can't do well.

At first I was kind of ashamed that I can't take my kids to school very well without getting irritated with them. Like, what's that about? There's no shame in that, though. Having a centered life is all about moving from that place of being really conflicted all the time, harder on ourselves, pulled in too many directions and not fully present in our lives. All of the things that drag us away from that centered life are things that are really big and we have to re-address our priorities around them. Some of the things, though, are things we just have to be practical about and say, "Why am I putting myself through unnecessary stress? I should delegate that to somebody else."

Now the easier stuff, when it comes to delegation and automation, obviously, are things like auto bill pay or having a calendar that syncs with your email. I love Google suite. That's my favorite. I'm in love with it. They have all my data, but I still love them! I set up calendar reminders every single time automatically when I set an appointment for myself. I have Zoom integrated. I use Calendly and send calendar links that people can use to make an appointment with me. It sets up the zoom meeting and it automatically sends me an email and that automatically goes to my calendar. So that type of automation, if you're a working mom, that matters immensely. But it doesn't matter as much as the ability to delegate and the willingness to kind of say, "Yeah, even though I wish that people would come just ask me constantly where I need help or would suddenly come to my rescue or that my partner would be more woke and would see my struggle and would really want to help me, it might not happen soon...or ever."

It's instead just saying for ourselves, "Okay, well even if they don't understand it, I'm going to help them to understand who I am. I'm going to show up for myself enough to speak up, to say, 'this is where I need help. This is what is stressing me out'. Even if nobody else understands it."

I know that if my mom was listening to this right now that she would say, "Whitney, you can take your kids to school. You don't need to pay, that's such a waste. Why would you pay, you know, extra money for that half an hour for someone to take them to school" And I would say back that in that half an hour, I paid the price in my mental health. The whole rest of the day, my productivity was worse because I had to spend all of that time reconciling emotions (or thoughts) like," I was a crappy mom to my kids the whole way to school."

That's a half and hour where I could be more focused on my business endeavors/ So it doesn't just waste the time and cause a disruption in my relationship with my kids in that moment and with myself in that moment, it lingers and it permeates the rest of the day as well. So always consider delegation an investment in other people and in yourself and in the other people that you have around you.

Also, the more you delegate, the easier it is to do it. The more it opens you up for the space to do the things you and only you are uniquely wired to be able to dream up, to be able to think about. If you are creative, it allows you the space you need for those creative moments. When I delegate it makes it so that all of a sudden my mind is focused on the big picture versus the little picture nitty gritties. It lessens my focus on the to-do tasks, all the things that somebody else could be doing for me.

Before I close on this, I want to say, I'm sure some of you are thinking about budget and are thinking, "Well, I can't delegate and outsource every single thing. You know, I'm a single parent or I don't make very much money." And I want to say back to you: I have been in the position where I have had to make choices to say, what things am I going to pay money for? What things am I going to do myself? One thing I would be doing though, if I was going to be doing it myself, is to live as minimally as possible in terms of my environment. I would clean out my stuff so that there was less time that I was spending if I had to be the one to do it — less toys to pick up, fewer clothes to put away, less laundry to do, fewer sheets to fold. If you're the one that's going to be doing it, okay. That's totally cool. Been there, done that. And that means you've got to streamline. Because if you are trying to go further, to go past your current situation; if you want a life that is really full and meaningful and full of purpose and totally full of intent, and that's not what you're living now, and you want to move to that higher level; you're going to have to make space in your life.

Like we talk about in our Centered Life Blueprint, if you have a centered vision for your life and you have all this other stuff that's outside the circle that has to happen in life that you focus on SO much, you can't pay attention to making your centered vision for your life a reality. If you're constantly outside the circle, you'll be just caught up in the weeds. So if you don't have the budget, that's cool. There have been times I have not as well, but that means you've got to streamline. That means your job is just to remove the contaminators out of your agenda, out of your schedule, out of your environment. So that way you have the least amount of stuff that you have to do yourself.

Finally, I just want to say this, your worth is not defined by the laundry and the dishes, by cleaning the bathroom or signing your kids up for camp. And I know it sounds silly to even say that. Of course your worth isn't. But when you don't delegate, when you don't give some of the things that are on that heavy mental load list to other people, then that list — all those, all those things that don't matter at all —they do start to define your worth because that's all you spend time on. So I want you to challenge yourself to think about, is there some small thing you could think about giving away? If it's something about you sharing the load with your partner and you feel like, man, I carry all of it, the next question is: is there some guidance that I need to get so that way I can really make a shift and educate my partner and get into more of a team approach with that person? If my kids are old enough to, I need to really hold them to task and decide, okay, you need to do some chores here. You need to take responsibility. It's good for them. It's good for you. In The Working Mom Blueprint, we have a whole list that talks about chores and responsibilities for kids by age and what are the different chores that kids should do and can do.

Because otherwise there's so much at risk. If we don't delegate, if we do it all, if we keep on carrying that heavy burden, a) we never realize our dreams and b) we live in a life of resentment. We're resentful, resentful, resentful. We keep on doing the work, keep on doing the work, keep on doing the work, but you know, what's going to happen one day, right? All of that resentment builds up, like you're in an Instant Pot and there's no steam release valve so the pressure just builds and builds and builds. So then, you're going to explode on somebody, right? You're going to get mad. You're going to flip out at your husband, at your partner, at your kids, at your job. You're going to be burnt out. Because (that pressure) has to go somewhere and when we keep on carrying that load and never give it to somebody else, the resentment that builds goes somewhere.

There is so much more life out there for you, Mama. And I want you to grasp it and to have it and make it a reality for yourself. And that really does start in part with automation and delegation.

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