Gender Balance in the COVID Home:

An opportunity to recalibrate the emotional burden

It is easy to see the glass as half empty in our current situation. Especially if you have lost a job or a loved one. And although I’d never go as far to say this overall experience is positive, I do see some glass half full potential for lasting change.

COVID-19 has given every couple an extraordinary opportunity to better understand their domestic space, and the balance of effort within it. And this could be a good thing.

Our Lives Have Changed

Our households have changed dramatically in the past few weeks. Those in the knowledge economy have moved their offices into their homes. Many in the service industry have either lost their job, and some have drastically increased their hours to help others. Anyone with kids has lost daycare and school, and now grapples with the harsh reality of 24/7 parenting.

Regardless of our situation, there is simply more to do in the home than before. We’re eating more at home — so meal planning, cooking and dishes take up more time. We’re spending more time at home so our space gets dirty quicker. Our kids never leave our side. (I can attest that facilitating distance learning for a Kindergartener is easily a full-time job in itself.)

So, there’s more to do in the home. But who is doing what? Are we leaning on traditional gender norms in the COVID home? Or sharing the load equally?

Some rebalancing of domestic work is happening by default. Men working from home are, for the first time, normalizing a Zoom meeting with kids playing in the background. And many men are taking on greater domestic responsibilities simply because they are the now only adult in their home.

But default mode will only take us so far. Despite the great visual that comes with the kids in the background, those Zoom meetings do not capture the emotional burden of caring for a home and a family. And will these new stay-at-home dads change forever? How do we avoid a future scenario when everyone goes back to work and men collectively think, “Man, glad that’s over. Now the wife can do everything again.”

In order to truly move the needle on gender equality, we need to have some honest conversations. And we need to have them sooner than later.

The Hands-On Husband and the Equal Partner

I introduced these two terms in a previous Medium article, and you can probably get the gist from the terminology. But here’s a quick review. Please be aware that these do not describe actual people, but rather patterns of behavior. In both descriptions, assume this man’s partner is also working outside the home and adding to the family income.

The Hands-On Husband: This is the most common husband and father in 2020. We see him in our neighborhood, in our families, at work and on TV. Women from previous generations tell the Hands-On spouse, “you’re so lucky to be married to such a wonderful guy!” And compared to the 1950’s King of the Castle, they’re right. Because the Hands-On makes dinner on Saturdays, folds laundry when asked, and is willing to take the kids for a bike ride, he’s an improvement. But the Hands-On still doesn’t share in the management of the household — and thus carries very little of the emotional burden of the home.

The Equal Partner: The Equal Partner does half the domestic tasks in the home, and he shares in the management of household processes. The Equal Partner fully understands the concept of the emotional burden, and why social norms place it on a woman’s shoulders instead of his. So, the Equal Partner makes a conscious effort to level the household gender balance. This guy does not need a honey-do list, he doesn’t need to be asked or reminded to empty a clean dishwasher, and he believes that his wife’s job is as important as his own.

The Hands-On Husband is our compromise. The Equal Partner is our goal.

Hands-On Husbands During COVID

Jamie lives in California. She and her husband are both working from home during COVID while jointly caring for their toddler. For what it’s worth, Jamie makes more money than her husband. The domestic divide in their house doesn’t have to do with income — it has to do with gender norms and assumptions. On a phone call last week, she explained her isolation situation.

“My husband is super progressive. He wants to help. So, he keeps asking me “what can I do? Tell me what to do!” What he doesn’t understand is that giving him direction is just as much work as doing it myself.”

Jamie isn’t alone in this description of her “progressive” husband; I have heard this scenario from dozens of women. But progressive men can’t be lulled into believing that they’re doing enough just because they do more than their fathers did.

Frankly, society sets the bar way too low for husbands. It is too easy for men to succeed at partnership because so little is expected of them. Can you imagine if the Hands-On took his domestic approach to work? Picture him saying to his boss, “I’m not capable of managing any sort of process. I’m just going to sit here until you clearly tell me exactly what needs to be done, and when.” Men are obviously capable of management and leadership at work. There is no reason why this can’t translate to the home.

We have no option but to raise the bar and our expectations; a man cannot be an equal partner until he shares in the emotional burden of the home.

Jamie recognizes that when she is on kid duty and her husband is working, she takes multi-tasking to an extreme: not only watching her daughter and keeping up with emails, but also cleaning, cooking and doing laundry. However, when she takes a few hours to work, she emerges to find that her husband has ONLY watched their daughter — leaving the house a mess. “I don’t want to have to tell him what to do. I just want him to see what needs doing on his own.”

In the COVID home the Hands-On continues with his assigned tasks, requiring his partner to work herself into exhaustion as she desperately tries to oversee homeschooling, plan and implement three meals a day, manage all the domestic responsibilities she had before COVID, and maintain the appearance of “working” so she doesn’t get fired.

Unequal domestic responsibilities are the root of gender inequity in professional spaces. With a heavier burden at home, women are less likely to reach their professional or earning potential. COVID only exacerbates this fact, intensifying the burden of the every-day working mom who is still doing everything she was doing two months ago… but now she’s doing it without childcare.

Becoming a More Equal Partner during COVID

Men CAN help share the emotional burden during COVID and afterward. Whether men are working from home, have an essential job that takes them away from their families, or are the primary caregivers because their partners have an essential job, by taking responsibility for whole categories of domestic work, they can ease their partners’ emotional burden.

Because whatever HE is tracking/planning/worrying about — SHE can take off her mental plate.

I know that patterns established over generations do not change quickly. I know it is hard for men to take on the gritty, day-to-day responsibility of an emotional burden, and hard for women to trust another to do work she feels is her responsibility. But new habits emerge when our life circumstances change, and this could be the moment for some men to lean in at home.

Try talking to your partner about the balance of emotional burden (Daminger’s article provides an excellent background if needed) in your home. It would be especially appropriate for men to initiate this conversation. I’m pretty sure if a guy starts with, “I’d like to talk about how to lessen your household burden,” he’d have an attentive audience.

To start, try switching the allocation of one or more of the below chore categories. The key here is reallocation of an entire category — therefore relieving one spouse of being “task master.” If these examples don’t resonate, think of a task category that is more applicable to your household.

Dishes — Be responsible for all washing, drying, loading, unloading.

Food — Take ownership of shopping, tracking what is needed, prepping and cooking.

Exercise — Kids need to get out and/or get moving. Take responsibility for making sure kids get the 60 minutes of recommended exercise every day.

Floors — Take responsibility for sweeping and/or vacuuming several times a week to keep the cluttered COVID house a bit cleaner.

Distance Learning — Be your child’s “go to” parent for help with anything school related: track tasks, handle all correspondence with teachers, help with technology, explaining lessons, etc.

Hidden Opportunities and Silver Linings

Data tells us that pandemics tend to disproportionately affect women when you examine issues of unpaid work, caregiving roles and household burden. COVID-19 is no exception, but if we can re-evaluate how we manage responsibilities in our domestic space, then maybe that’s a silver lining.

We might as well take advantage of this unusual circumstance. This pandemic is already forcing us to operate outside of our daily norms, and pushing us into uncomfortable patterns that are not familiar. While we work to re-establish our “new normal,” we might as well try to level the gender playing field in the home.

If nothing else inspires you to do so — think of the kids. In 20 years, they won’t likely remember a google classroom assignment or the 98th bike ride around the park. But they will likely remember if both of their parents equally pitched in to make a bad situation tolerable.

Who knows, maybe those memories will shape the kind of parents they are in the future.