Here’s some stuff i would say to myself when Cindy and I got married. I.e., when we started our household. The following might seem like I’m trying to look like a present day angel. This is pretty far from the truth so let’s just call this “aspirational”.
So there’s this narrative of the invisible mental load in a household. Part of that narrative is that you’re not really helping by asking the mentally loaded person, “what do we need, or what do you want me to do?”, or “can’t you make a list?” I suggest that maybe one way to escape this is with one small bit of advice:
Do the groceries.
The idea is that once you do this one thing, you might just naturally take on a bunch of related tasks to make the groceries go smoothly. This’ll ultimately have you owning the whole vertical slice in the kitchen. (“Vertical slice” is corporate for the sort of chain of tasks from the beginning of the process to the end.) By owning all of it, there’s less problems with the handoffs (the person doing the dishes won’t resent the person making five pots dirty).
So here’s the bunch of tasks that you may want to do, when you take on the groceries.
Continue reading “Some tactical advice to my younger self”
D. M. Swart 