Let me be clear, I hate the back to school avalanche of papers that have to be filled out.
Like HATE, hate. I hate that we have to fill out the same information on a bunch of different forms. I hate that I know some of these will be looked at once and tossed. I hate that it’s someone’s job to put these forms into a computer when we could have just done it in the first place and saved both of us time.
I hate it.
And for years, I filled them all out every back-to-school season by myself and I was miserable every second of it (and yeah, I know I could “choose joy” in the moment, but I did not, in fact, choose joy 😀)
It wasn’t until I had a very honest conversation with my husband Scott that things changed.
Moms are FAMOUS for becoming martyrs in our families. Except no one in our family has any idea. In our head, we’re like, “NO ONE cares that our house is dirty. I’m the only one who even pays attention to the filth.” But on the outside, we don’t ask for help or try to delegate. We just rage clean.
On the inside, we’re like, “I hate cooking every night. I actually don’t like cooking at all!” but on the outside, we just keep plugging along pulling things out of the freezer at 5pm and no one is the wiser that you’re dying inside.
I know everyone’s situation is different. I really do. But I firmly believe that if you’re parenting your kids with some sort of partner (anything really, across the board), you HAVE to be splitting up responsibilities equitably. Or at least so that both partners
feel things are equitable. That doesn’t mean you’ll have an exactly equal amount of tasks or split down the middle on how long it will take. But in order to have a respectful relationship, one parent cannot be the default parent when it comes to responsibilities pertaining to your kids.
And this is especially true for moms who become the she-fault parent (see what I did there) for all things back-to-school.
I mean, it’s kinda ingrained in us right? How often do we hear things like “room mom” at school or “snack mom” at practice? It never goes the other way.
Society assumes that moms will just do it all because we’ve LITERALLY ALWAYS JUST DONE IT ALL.
And moms are burnt out and overwhelmed.
Here’s what you can do to make sure that you’re not taking on all the of the back-to-school brunt:
Have that conversation.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told Scott something was bugging me and he would tell me he had no idea it was even happening. Often, something that is a really big deal to us just isn’t on their radars. And, as much as we would like them to be, they simply aren’t mind readers. Be clear and kind, letting them know how you’re feeling and what you propose could be different. Try to focus on what you’d like to see changed rather than on what “always” or “never” do (in fact, just don’t say those two words. It never goes well.)
Split things up in a way that actually makes sense.
Stop assuming you’ll make all the lunches because you make all the rest of the food in the house. Does your husband work from home? He probably has less to do to get ready in the morning and has extra time so that task can be his. If you drive right past Target everyday on your way home from work, you can be the one to do the drive up order. Take a look at what has to be done and divide it up so that none of you actually hate what you’ve got on your task list.
For stuff you both dread, do it together.
I talked about this a couple weeks ago, but if you can split that mile high pile of papers that comes home on the first week of school, you’ll get them filled out way faster (that’s how math works). And it’s muuuuch more fun to do it sharing a glass of wine or with a movie on than by yourself crying in the bathroom because your hand keeps cramping up.
Bottom line: speak up and don’t let yourself take on ALL the things (plus all the guilt that comes along with not being able to do them all well) simply because that’s how it’s always been.
