Emotional Labor

My friend Melissa was just telling me about this article that she had read - Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up.  It discusses Emotional Labor and more specifically, how women tend to take on more emotional labor than men.  It isn’t a short article, but I found it really interesting and insightful.

I have never really been able to communicate it as “emotional labor,” but I have felt that I am often doing a lot to keep things running and in order in our household and my husband just doesn’t really seem to realize or appreciate it - I am the one who pays attention to if we are almost out of toilet paper, toothpaste, his hot sauce etc., so I will be sure to get more.  I am also picking up and putting things away so our home isn’t a mess, so things aren’t misplaced etc.

I of course wish that my husband put in more emotional labor in our household, but in his defense, he does do a lot to help out in general and I know that he just doesn’t get it.  A lot of these things that I take on/handle just don’t really stand out as something that needs to be done to him and I know he just doesn’t realize how much work it is to take on so much of the emotional labor.  I guess I just need to try to call it out to him more and try to make him better understand and more aware.

I am of course talking about my husband, because he is the one other person that I share my day-to-day life with.  While as women we take on much more of the emotional labor than men, this isn’t only a gender divide. While thinking about this, I was thinking about how my two older sisters take on much of the emotional labor for me (thanks Alie and Lyss. . .and sorry.)  I think as the youngest I often kind of fall back into being the youngest and taking on less work/responsibility than my older sisters, since that was often the case when I was growing up. My sisters already take on so much being the awesome moms, wives, sisters, daughters and friends that they are, so I need to and will make an effort to take on more of the emotional labor and not put it all on them.

I cannot talk about emotional labor without recognizing my mom, who has throughout the years taken on a large majority of emotional labor for our family (as so many mothers do) and she continues to do so. Thank you, thank you, thank you mom! I will try to take on more of the emotional labor.