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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Talk Nerdy. Today is Monday

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May twenty fifth, twenty twenty six, and I'm the host

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of the show, Doctor Kara Santa Maria, and as always,

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before we dive in, I want to thank those of

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you who make Talk Nerdy possible. Remember, this show is

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and will always be one hundred percent free to download,

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and if you would like to support the show on

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an episodic basis, all you've got to do is visit

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patreon dot com slash talk Nerdy to learn more. This

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week's talk patrons include Chuck Blell, David J. E. Smith,

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Daniel Lang, Mary Neva, Will Defrain, David Compton, Brian Holden, Gabo,

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Jay Ulrika Hagman, Pasquale, Jilati, Rika Maharaj and Joe Wilkinson.

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Thank you all so much, so let's dive right into it.

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This week I had the Opera oportunity to speak with

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the author of Good Daughtering the work You've always done,

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the credit You've never gotten, and how to finally feel

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like enough, Doctor Allison m Alford. Alison is a clinical

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Associate professor in the Department of Information Systems and Business

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Analytics at Baylor University. Her PhD is in communication studies.

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We're going to talk about what exactly that means. And

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she also has her own coaching and consulting firm, Good

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Talk Communication Consulting, where she offers communication coaching to help

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professionals and students, you know, really learn how to improve

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their communication skills. Her research focuses on all sorts of

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very interesting topics like adult daughtering, work, family balance, and

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invisible labor. So we're going to get into it today

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without any further ado. Here she is doctor Allison m Alford.

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Speaker 2: Well, Alison, thank you so much for joining me today.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely great to be here, Kara, thank you.

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Speaker 1: So I'm excited to talk about your new book, Good Daughtering,

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the work you've always done, the credit you've never gotten,

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and how to finally feel like enough. I think that

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almost any woman or even any you know, gender minority

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who is listening to this show can really resonate just

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with the title alone.

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Speaker 2: But before we get into the sort of the topics of.

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Speaker 1: The book, let's talk a little about you and your

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subject matter expertise. So you your training is in communications,

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Is that correct?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So I've always been kind of confused about It's funny.

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I was all through psychology. I remember the communications and

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the psychology department shared a building at my undergrad alma mater,

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and always always like, what do they do over there? Right?

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Speaker 3: You know, it can be very siloed when you're in

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a university setting, but I mean their companions. I think

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of communication studies and psychology as cousins. And you know,

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psychology is a study of what are we thinking, what

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is our cognitive processing, what is our you know, assessment

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of that? And communication is the study of how do

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we co create our realities through a shared experience through

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talking or body language or you know, how do I

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get my point across to someone, whether it's through language

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or nonverbals, and a As a researcher, I'm interested in

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how the language we use or the choices that we

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make with our physical self create our reality. So in

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some schools you'll find them in the same spot. In

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some schools you'll find them in different places. I would

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say also so on distinction to just be very bougie

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about it is we think of communication no s as

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the study of the field of shared realities and how

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communication shapes our lives, whereas communications with an s is

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more like media studies, very important, but a little bit

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more of a distinction there. Journalism is communications. So I

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don't know if that helps a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I think that helps a lot, and it makes me

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almost I feel a little cheated that as I you know,

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I did my undergrad also I was in Texas back

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at the University of North Texas and my master's there,

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and then did a whole career actually as a journalist,

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and then I went back to school to finish my

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PhD somewhat more recently, and so as a working clinical

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health psychologist, I feel cheated that I didn't get communication

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like not communications trad but communication education and training, because

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I feel like it would really improve or increase one's

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capacity in a clinical setting to have a deeper understanding

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of the very things that you study.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, it's very theory driven and it's very much

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based on the idea of like what does our social

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system create between us and how do we interpret that

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and how do those interpretations then transform our lived experiences,

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our realities and our relationship and so a lot of

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of course communication studies is about what's broken, you know, what,

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what's not going well in relationships? Why do people divorce

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or what's you know, why are they're on again off

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again relationships? Are stalking or something. But there's also a

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lot of exploration of what makes relationships work what and

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that could be in a personal setting, you know, family setting,

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inner personal one to one, or it could be in

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an organizational setting like how do we like our boss?

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And also in this in the school I was in

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ut Austin that had a rhetoric program, so also how

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does our written communications such as public speeches, public address

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change people's experience of a candidate or a person or

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a phenomenon. So I think it's it's a bit cerebral,

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and what's really important is to bring it to get

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to that place, but then always bring it back to

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the real people who need to use it. And for me,

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that's why I wanted to bring out a book because

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I thought in academia, you create these publications, they take

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you two three years, they cost money to get grants

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and get people to take this, do the surveys, and

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then like twenty people read them. And I've always wanted

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to have an impact to have real people use the summer,

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have better relationships and better lives.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's so interesting when we think about kind

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of interpersonal relationships, and especially at the familial level, you know,

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mothers and daughters is a perfect example. And then we

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think about interpersonal relationships in organizational structures employees and bosses,

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co workers, teams. They feel like they'd be very disparate

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areas of inquiry, but at least from a psychological perspective,

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you know, they are. I consider them two of the

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three sort of main pillars of mental health and self efficacy.

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You've got love, You've got work, and I often say,

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and then you've got play. And so two of those

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three are these familial or even as you mentioned before,

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I guess romantic relationship structures just relationship structures in general.

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And then the interpersonal experiences people have at work, which

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of course includes their educational endeavors and you know, kind

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of associated things. It's most of us are not operating

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in a vacuum. We're working with people, we're living with people,

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we're interacting with people all the time. And so I'm

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curious how you chose or how you choose where to

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kind of point your research, because it's pretty broad the

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options that are available to somebody who who works in

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this field.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you're absolutely right that context matters. You know, there's

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nothing that happens in a vacuum. And so when we

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think of our own relationship with our parent, it really

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matters what our socioeconomic status is, what country of origin

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we're from, what privileges we have, or what difficulties experienced,

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what illnesses have come into play. So context always matters

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when we are examining how and why this relationship is

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going in this way. So for me, as you know,

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I think one thing that's kind of opaque for some

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people is what do you do during a PhD? And

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I learned that a large part of doing a PhD

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is reading and learning and listening so that you can

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understand the scope of the field and what's happening. And

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then the next thing that you have to do is think,

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what have we not explored yet and why why wouldn't

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we have explored that thing? And what I learned was

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that we had some information about women in midlife, particularly

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around parenting or in the workplace, or we had information

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about adolescence and the parent child relationship, and we had

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information about research already done, great research, important research about

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how women are the primary care gime or for their

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adult parent, typically in elderhood. But we were just missing

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so much nuance and context from the middle of life,

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from what you're doing in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties,

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when you're two independent or interdependent individuals and nobody sick

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or hurt or kind of meeting the other, but you're

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trying to be in a relationship, which means you're connected,

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you're interconnected, and you do want something from each other.

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And so I directed my attention towards that, towards the

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idea of what is the active role of daughters and daughtering,

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because I saw that there was a gap. There was

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not a usage of this sort of aegentic agency given

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format for thinking of how women show up in families.

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And we have had a lot of progress over many

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decades about how we think of women as act participants

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in their home, in their work life, in their social systems,

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but we really weren't thinking. It wasn't being discussed intergenerationally

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in anything except those the sort of more rare contexts.

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And that's why I thought, you know, there's a bit

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of hubris because it was about myself as well. But

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it's like in my family, I do a lot. I

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mean I am giving a lot, I am asking a

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lot and coordinating. I am showing up for these people

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because they matter to me. But I'm not just some

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waif who's just blowing in the wind, waiting around for mothering.

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I am doing daughtering actively. And when I look at

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my peers, the smart women around me, they are too.

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But for some reason, nobody is giving any credit to

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how much that draws on our resources or drains our resources.

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It means we have to make trade offs with other

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things in our lives.

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Speaker 1: You know. I think part of the reason when this

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book came across my desk that I immediately was like, okay,

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I want to have this conversation.

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Speaker 2: Is because it resonates.

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Speaker 1: Even beyond this, I guess, this relational role of daughtering.

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Speaker 2: You know, the first thought.

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Speaker 1: That comes to mind when I even just when I

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read literally the title of your book was you know,

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emotional and cognitive labor. It's like the only thing I

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could think of, And I got to admit, you know,

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this is a hot topic of conversation among my friends,

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within my relationship. Even in the therapy sessions that I

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have with my patients, A lot of sort of psycho

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education about gender roles and about expectations, and about the

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way that we raise our girls versus boys, and how

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that translates to the roles and the responsibilities that we

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assume as we grow into adult women versus adult men.

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And I can't help but point to and I've mentioned

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this on the show before, and I'm just curious if

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you've seen these documentaries and if you feel like they

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I don't know if you feel like the same kind

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of connection to them as I do.

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Speaker 2: But Jennifer c.

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Speaker 1: Bul Newsom has produced some really phenomenal documentaries in the past.

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Her first one was Misrepresentation. She then did The Mask

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You Live In and then finally another one that really

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resonates for me is one called fair Play. And they

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really grapple with this gendered expectation that is societally induced

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and that is sort of invisible under the radar. We

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all carry it and sometimes we don't even know we're

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carrying it.

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Speaker 3: Well, you nailed it. You nailed the entire premise of

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my book and my research, which is the idea of

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invisible labor and why that expectation exists. But you know,

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Eve Rodsky is the author of a book called fair

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Play that then came Yeah Yeah, as well as a

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Netflix special, and she was kind enough to give a

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support to my book because ultimately, that is what we're

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talking about. We're talking about invisible labor. We're talking about

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social expectations and how the social context matters in how

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we show up or decide how much to show up.

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And yet we haven't most of us decided we're just

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doing something, you know, of wrote sort of discipline or obligation.

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And that's sort of my call to action, right, is

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that you get to decide daughtering is active and it

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is a choice. You may not have noticed before that

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it was a choice that you had a choice, that

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you were doing things on your own because you even

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you know, very often we have the idea of daughtering

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pushed to the back. You know, when we think of

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women and women's labor, we tend to think with a

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maternal lens. We tend to say things like I'm mothering

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everyone around me or even there's a lot of trending

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videos where someone says I'm raising my parents, now I'm

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mothering my mother. And so what that revealed to me

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as part of my research was we lot lack a

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lot of the language that we need to get to

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the nuance of what it means, because there's no way

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that I'm actually raising my mom. You know, she's not

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nine and I've had a nine year old and it's

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a very different power dynamic. But there is a caring role,

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there's an obligation role, there is a closeness factor, there's

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an intimacy concern. But because we are not adept at

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using those types of vocabulary, we default to this bigger

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idea that all types of caring behaviors are maternal. And

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really it's a patriarchal lens of the maternal body, that

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women's bodies are maternal in everything we do. And it's

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an unfair representation.

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Speaker 1: Right, It's like it's it's the structure itself of the

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patriarchy maintains and perpetuates that type of expectation, that type

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of I don't know, maybe burden is too strong a word,

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maybe it's not. And I struggle with it too because

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I'm not a mother, and I think in some ways

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that affords me a certain level of freedom where I

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don't always identify with those types of ideas, and I

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don't always identify with the language I tend not to

254
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use it as often, but I even in my own relationships,

255
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I found myself saying, I'm not your mommy therapist.

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Speaker 2: That is not my job.

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Speaker 1: You know, that is not my role, and that's not

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the role I intend to assume in this relationship.

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Speaker 2: But you're right.

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Speaker 1: I don't often think of doddering as active, and possibly

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it's because for the majority of the time that was formative,

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when we considered ourselves the most dotty, if I could

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put that in air quotes, we didn't have a choice.

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We didn't have agency when we were young, or at

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least not that much agency.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right, you're right. So we're talking about when

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you're a child, When you're a minor, you lack the

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ability to decide. Not only are you not cognitively able,

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but you're completely dependent on these parents for money, for safety,

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for legal authority. And that's totally different when you have

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an adult who you then begin to give care to,

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who's older than you, who has legal authority, money, power,

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and agency. So that's why the same words don't work.

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And I actually think that it's easiest to see that

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dichotomy within the women who have who don't have children

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because because a woman who doesn't have children doesn't claim

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to mother everyone everywhere, all the time. Then it starts

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to be like, of course, it doesn't make sense that

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all of a sudden she would mother her mother instead.

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The more honorable way to address our full humanity, the

281
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complexity of women's bodies and lives and experiences is to say,

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let me use representative language for what it means to

283
00:18:32,319 --> 00:18:36,160
do daughtering, and let me bring that type of language

284
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to the forefront and describe the difficulties, the pain points,

285
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the benefits, the obligation, the beauty and talk about it

286
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in its own right. And I think that women we

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fought for the right to we have fought over the

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last one hundred years right, especially in the US, for

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the right to be seen as individuals in the workplace,

290
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not just women in the workplace, but just an individual

291
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in the workplace. And this is kind of a next

292
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frontier is to think of daughtering as a role that

293
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is important and it is honorable, but it is distinctly

294
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different from mothering or being an individual, or being a neighbor,

295
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or being a friend, or being a worker. It is

296
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an obligatory relationship with its own power, dynamics and closeness

297
00:19:26,559 --> 00:19:30,480
issues and intimacy complexities that is between me and an

298
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elder generation. And when I start to think of it

299
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:37,119
that way, it's like, yeah, I want to be able

300
00:19:37,160 --> 00:19:43,039
to use words with nuance that describe the full scope

301
00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:47,200
of that experience. And we do see, and my research

302
00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:50,480
has shown there's a wide variety of ways to do

303
00:19:50,559 --> 00:19:54,119
daughtering and types of mothers and fathers that you got,

304
00:19:54,319 --> 00:19:57,480
and types of childhoods you've got in adulthoods that you got,

305
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:00,880
and we're not going to really be able to fully

306
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:04,720
explore and understand each other's experiences unless we could talk

307
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about it with its own vocabulary.

308
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting because I think about you know, as

309
00:20:11,119 --> 00:20:20,880
you just mentioned, every relationship and every kind of connection

310
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is unique. There are some themes, you know, if you

311
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live in the United States, there are societal themes and

312
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:34,359
pressures that everybody probably experiences. But then, as you mentioned before,

313
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based on different demographic factors and also just fundamental differences

314
00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:41,319
like I don't have well, I do have brothers, but

315
00:20:41,359 --> 00:20:44,079
I didn't grow up with brothers. For example, I have

316
00:20:44,599 --> 00:20:47,359
one sister, so we were a daughter household and we

317
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:50,880
grew up to with a single mother as my parents

318
00:20:50,880 --> 00:20:55,920
were divorced. I know people who don't have mothers, or

319
00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:58,880
don't know their mothers, or they lost their mothers when

320
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they were very young. There are people where there are

321
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:04,759
multiple children in the family, there are of course only

322
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:10,000
child only children. All of these things, you know, make

323
00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:13,279
for a completely different experience.

324
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Speaker 2: But all that being.

325
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Speaker 1: Said, I caveat because I am curious about your take

326
00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:26,279
going back to this concept of invisible labor, about how

327
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:35,160
the daughter role and the daughter responsibility translates into the

328
00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:40,359
invisible labor that women tend to carry throughout the lifespan,

329
00:21:40,519 --> 00:21:43,839
not just with their mothers, but also with their partners,

330
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:47,680
and also with their siblings, and also with their colleagues

331
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and across the board. Is it do you think does

332
00:21:50,759 --> 00:21:54,960
it all kind of come back to the expectations and

333
00:21:55,039 --> 00:22:00,599
the responsibilities that daughters are, that are that's put on

334
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:03,160
daughters than that daughters therefore assume.

335
00:22:04,079 --> 00:22:06,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think that's a great question, you know.

336
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,359
And and so the concept that we're talking about is

337
00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:12,359
invisible labor, and I think it's a good point to

338
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:18,200
define what is invisible labor, and invisible labor is unpaid

339
00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:23,880
work that uses your resources such as time, energy, money,

340
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:28,200
your your you know, your personal bandwidth, your battery life

341
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:32,000
in order to achieve a goal. And with daughtering, the

342
00:22:32,039 --> 00:22:35,680
goal is connection. The goal is that we are trying

343
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:39,839
to stay in our family, stay connected, to stay keep

344
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the group together. And so in order to do that

345
00:22:44,079 --> 00:22:47,799
we expend our resources. And through my research, what I

346
00:22:47,839 --> 00:22:50,440
found was there's four different ways that we can think

347
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:57,319
of labor within the daughter daughtering work, and one of

348
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:00,920
them is visible and three are invisible. So I talk

349
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:06,440
about daughtering labor as acting, thinking, feeling, and being. And

350
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:09,799
so when you're acting like a daughter, that's pretty visible.

351
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:12,119
You know, maybe you took a cast role, you bought

352
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:15,079
a gift, you showed up for the holiday, you helped

353
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:19,519
paint a room, or do some yard work, and everybody

354
00:23:19,519 --> 00:23:20,920
can see that and maybe you could even take a

355
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:23,519
picture of put it on Instagram or Facebook. Right, So

356
00:23:23,559 --> 00:23:29,240
it's very visible. But then the thinking work, feeling work,

357
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:34,799
and being work are invisible because they're happening inside someone's head,

358
00:23:35,279 --> 00:23:39,680
their heart, their body. And so thinking work is the

359
00:23:39,799 --> 00:23:47,039
cognitive labor of planning, preventing issues to you know, putting

360
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:50,359
aside resources well in advance of the time they're needed.

361
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:55,200
So the thinking work could be years or even decades

362
00:23:55,319 --> 00:23:58,400
in advance of when the thing that you need is

363
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:01,359
going to happen. I met with one woman who told

364
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,680
me she was creating a fund for when her parents.

365
00:24:04,759 --> 00:24:07,759
She was an only child and only daughter, and she

366
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,680
felt like when her parents in the future, decades in

367
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,000
the future, would become ill, that that was going to

368
00:24:13,039 --> 00:24:15,759
be a big financial burden. So in order to alleviate

369
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:19,559
her current feelings of stress, she started putting money in

370
00:24:19,599 --> 00:24:22,279
a bank account, and she talked to her partner about it,

371
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:25,039
and they budgeted for it, and so that was both

372
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:30,039
cognitive and emotional. So the feeling work is the emotion work.

373
00:24:30,279 --> 00:24:35,720
Of emotion work is soothing and smoothing and making everyone

374
00:24:35,759 --> 00:24:40,319
feel comfortable and putting out fires, preventing problems before we

375
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:43,640
ever get to the problem, like telling your brother, Okay,

376
00:24:44,279 --> 00:24:46,440
you know that thing that you always do and it

377
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:48,359
makes while I'm mad, and then she leaves the room.

378
00:24:48,799 --> 00:24:52,559
Don't do that, Just don't do that this weekend. Okay, Yeah,

379
00:24:52,599 --> 00:24:54,599
that's kind of I think.

380
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: It's people soothing for sure, and I think even beyond that,

381
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:03,119
and obviously this stands outside of the daughter role into

382
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:05,240
a lot of the female roles that we assume in

383
00:25:05,279 --> 00:25:10,759
our lives, but anticipating the needs of men, really anticipating

384
00:25:10,799 --> 00:25:12,759
the needs of anyone who is around us, but very

385
00:25:12,759 --> 00:25:18,200
often anticipating the needs of men. And sort of how

386
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:22,119
do I put this, anticipating the emotional reaction of men

387
00:25:23,079 --> 00:25:26,799
so as to ensure everybody's comfort. I think that this

388
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:31,039
is a so massive emotional and cognitive labor that we

389
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:33,960
undertake daily and don't realize how exhausting it is.

390
00:25:34,799 --> 00:25:38,079
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, you know, there's one form of being

391
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:42,359
emotionally responsive, reactive empathy, and that would be as if

392
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:46,160
you're the thermometer in the room right taking the temperature.

393
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,599
But the harder labor, the dodding labor, the woman's work

394
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:53,400
is to be the thermostat, which is to say, this

395
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:55,960
is the temperature we're gonna be, and I'm gonna make

396
00:25:56,039 --> 00:26:00,319
everybody come to this temperature. And of course you would

397
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:04,599
leave the dinner or the event or the group chat

398
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:08,839
or whatever exhausted, because you know, we all know the

399
00:26:08,839 --> 00:26:12,240
thermostat is using power and working hard to try to

400
00:26:12,279 --> 00:26:16,160
regulate that environment. And so these are the kinds of

401
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:20,319
things that are the reason that they're invisible is they're

402
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:25,400
not tangible. Many of these things are preventative. We can't

403
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:27,440
take a picture of them and put it on Instagram

404
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,039
and say, I thought about thirty years in the future

405
00:26:30,079 --> 00:26:32,200
when my dad might need care and put one hundred

406
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:36,079
dollars in the bank account. I guess in theory we could,

407
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:41,559
but typically we don't, so it's invisible. And the last

408
00:26:41,599 --> 00:26:44,680
one of the types of invisible labor that I talk

409
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,359
about is being work, which is identity work of how

410
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:52,839
am I a daughter, representing my family, the legacy, the traditions,

411
00:26:53,599 --> 00:26:57,400
and being a good daughter, the daughter that they would

412
00:26:57,400 --> 00:26:59,519
want me to be, or the family member, or the

413
00:26:59,519 --> 00:27:02,599
person that they raised me to be. And those are

414
00:27:02,839 --> 00:27:08,279
not necessarily happening face to face engaged in talking with

415
00:27:08,519 --> 00:27:13,119
your parent. They're happening inside the daughter. So unless the

416
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,079
daughter reveals them, narrates them, tells someone else about it,

417
00:27:17,839 --> 00:27:21,920
they are They're difficult to see, and that's what makes

418
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:22,599
them invisible.

419
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:28,319
Speaker 1: And there are some real, I think negative psychological consequences

420
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:36,440
from engaging in sort of ongoing invisible labor that we

421
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:38,640
all do engage in. I mean, I think one of

422
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:41,599
them is this feeling of like this is so thankless

423
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,079
and I never get any credit for it. And that

424
00:27:45,079 --> 00:27:47,799
can be a hard feeling when somebody is working really

425
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,200
hard under the radar and all of their sort of

426
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:53,759
hard work just goes unnoticed or there's not a lot

427
00:27:53,759 --> 00:27:56,799
of gratitude in the room. But I think there's even

428
00:27:56,799 --> 00:28:01,440
a more pernicious problem where by the very virtue of

429
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:06,279
this type of labor being invisible, it reinforces the privilege

430
00:28:06,319 --> 00:28:09,559
that those who aren't doing the invisible labor have to

431
00:28:09,759 --> 00:28:12,440
not do it. And so when I think about the

432
00:28:12,519 --> 00:28:19,519
idea of anticipating the needs and being the thermostat in the room,

433
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:23,880
it allows for individuals who are not taking on that

434
00:28:24,039 --> 00:28:29,000
role to be reactionary, to not regulate their emotions, to

435
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:33,680
do none of the labor and actually not It's like,

436
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,000
by definition, it's a negative feedback loop, right, Like the

437
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:40,160
more that somebody else takes on that role, the more

438
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:45,359
that the people who don't even know it's happening don't

439
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:46,839
have to take on that role.

440
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's a reifying experience. So once it happens, and

441
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,359
then it happens again, and then it happens again. And

442
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:59,079
I think that many women, particularly recently in the trending topics,

443
00:28:59,119 --> 00:29:02,039
we've heard of the elder daughter syndrome. I think this

444
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:06,359
speaks really well to that point, which is the eldest daughter,

445
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:10,799
whether in childhood or continuing through adolescence into adulthood, she

446
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:19,880
gets really good at managing, preventing, caring for you know, stoking, tending, minding, whatever,

447
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,920
the sort of caregiving types of words we can use. Well,

448
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:29,160
then even if there are other daughters or sisters, they

449
00:29:29,319 --> 00:29:34,039
are not as able. And it's because she keeps doing it.

450
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,279
And then every time she thinks, the eldest daughter thinks,

451
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:39,000
I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going

452
00:29:39,079 --> 00:29:42,200
to be the one who fills the stocking, brings mom's

453
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:46,759
favorite cake, fixes things in the group chat. Well, then

454
00:29:46,799 --> 00:29:48,640
what happens is nobody else does it.

455
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 2: Yes, that everything falls apart right.

456
00:29:51,519 --> 00:29:55,759
Speaker 3: Because they don't know how, and the eldest daughter doesn't

457
00:29:55,799 --> 00:30:00,240
know how to resist for long enough for the those

458
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:03,440
other people to learn. So then it just is like, ugh,

459
00:30:03,599 --> 00:30:06,079
I guess this is my role. These people will never

460
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:08,759
do this, and so it's got to be me. And

461
00:30:08,799 --> 00:30:11,519
then she's back at it. And so whether it's a

462
00:30:11,759 --> 00:30:18,240
son or a younger sibling, the situation is reiffied, it's reaffirmed,

463
00:30:18,319 --> 00:30:23,119
it's reinstated. But it doesn't have to be that way, right,

464
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,240
And I think the hopeful message that I want to

465
00:30:26,279 --> 00:30:30,319
impart is actually many, many things are changeable, and you're

466
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:35,960
not trapped in a system that is immovable, immobile, static.

467
00:30:36,559 --> 00:30:39,680
You are a change maker and you can make that

468
00:30:39,799 --> 00:30:42,160
change as long as you can be patient enough to

469
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:46,480
know that people don't change quickly, and these types of

470
00:30:47,359 --> 00:30:50,559
changes that we might want in our family system, they

471
00:30:50,839 --> 00:30:53,000
can take a long time, like putting on a pair

472
00:30:53,039 --> 00:30:55,359
of braces. You know, our teeth are not going to

473
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:57,240
change over night. They're going to take two or three

474
00:30:57,319 --> 00:31:02,640
years of daily movement and monthly appointments for them to

475
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:07,319
finally become a beautiful smile. Well, similarly, your family is

476
00:31:07,359 --> 00:31:10,720
not going to change because you make one quick change.

477
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:13,000
It takes a long time. But if you can be

478
00:31:13,119 --> 00:31:16,640
thoughtful and patient, you can make positive changes that are

479
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,400
both good for the family and good for the self.

480
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it seems like another really important ingredient other

481
00:31:23,799 --> 00:31:32,119
than patients is boundaries. Is the ability to say I'm

482
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:36,440
not gonna do that thing, and I'm going to, you know,

483
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,799
do what I can to empower others to take that role.

484
00:31:39,839 --> 00:31:42,720
Maybe it's about delegating. Maybe it's about just you know,

485
00:31:42,799 --> 00:31:45,440
being more pointed in how we ask for help, but

486
00:31:45,559 --> 00:31:49,920
also removing myself from the situation. If and when there

487
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:53,160
is a lot of emotional dysregulation, or if and when

488
00:31:53,319 --> 00:31:57,039
chaos ensues because I didn't clean everything up, I have

489
00:31:57,119 --> 00:32:01,240
to allow myself the freedom to dis connect from that

490
00:32:01,839 --> 00:32:05,960
uncomfortable display and say it's okay, it's not the end

491
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:08,440
of the world. We're going to get past this, and

492
00:32:08,519 --> 00:32:12,240
I'm not going to bear witness to this drama right now.

493
00:32:12,559 --> 00:32:14,599
Speaker 3: One of the ways that I'd like to talk about that,

494
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,119
and I talk about this in my book Good Daughtering,

495
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:21,680
is there's different kinds of happiness. There's different ways to

496
00:32:21,759 --> 00:32:27,920
think about good relationships and a good life. And so Seligman,

497
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,480
who's a positive psychology person, says in his book he

498
00:32:32,559 --> 00:32:37,359
talks about you to monic happiness and hidonic happiness, and

499
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:42,960
so you tomonic happiness is overall, big, overarching lifetime happiness

500
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,079
what makes us feel like a good person who's lived

501
00:32:45,079 --> 00:32:48,640
a good life. And hidonic happiness is what makes me

502
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:52,039
happy right this moment, you know today and feels really

503
00:32:52,079 --> 00:32:55,480
good and fun, and you can kind of see that

504
00:32:55,519 --> 00:32:58,200
there'd be problems with each of those. There's benefits to

505
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:00,839
each of them, there's problems to each of them. And

506
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,000
I think metaphorically, I think of this like a homeowner.

507
00:33:04,519 --> 00:33:08,240
I'm a homeowner or a home mortgager from the bank.

508
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:12,240
And what that brings with it is a lot of

509
00:33:12,279 --> 00:33:15,720
satisfaction about living in a home, providing a home for

510
00:33:15,839 --> 00:33:19,279
my children, being a neighbor, being in a community. But

511
00:33:19,599 --> 00:33:21,759
what it also brings with it is I have to

512
00:33:21,759 --> 00:33:23,880
take the trash out or it smells in the kitchen.

513
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,440
I have to deal with a fallen tree limb or

514
00:33:28,039 --> 00:33:30,960
it will break a window. I have to pay for

515
00:33:31,519 --> 00:33:34,599
cockroaches to be eliminated or they'll crawl across my bed.

516
00:33:35,079 --> 00:33:39,119
So there's a lot of junkie stuff, not fun stuff.

517
00:33:38,799 --> 00:33:43,319
So it's not pleasant every single day to be a homeowner.

518
00:33:43,799 --> 00:33:48,839
But it contributes to my eudaemonic happiness, my overall lifelong,

519
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:54,079
big picture happiness to say I did that, and sometimes

520
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:58,440
I also contribute me to contribute to my daily happiness

521
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,480
and say not todaysh bag, you know, not today gutters

522
00:34:02,519 --> 00:34:05,680
with the leaves in it. You know, I'm going to

523
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,480
put out a decoration in the front yard and enjoy

524
00:34:08,519 --> 00:34:11,320
this little flag or something, and we have to balance

525
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,719
those things. And so the point that I'm trying to

526
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:18,119
make here is that if we evaluate our lives as

527
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:22,480
daughters or as women, or as individuals in the same way,

528
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:26,760
we can notice that sometimes you have to do junkie,

529
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:30,559
not pleasant stuff, and yet it still contributes in a

530
00:34:30,599 --> 00:34:35,920
way to an overall long term satisfaction and happiness with

531
00:34:36,079 --> 00:34:39,519
a life well lived. And I think there are many

532
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:44,360
parts of doddering that are kind of unpleasant in the moment,

533
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:47,480
but overall I feel like, yeah, I'm a good person,

534
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:50,519
and this is good daughter ing, and this is a

535
00:34:51,079 --> 00:34:55,079
I'm happy to have provided this to my parent for sure.

536
00:34:55,119 --> 00:34:57,519
Speaker 1: And I think some of those examples are also just

537
00:34:57,639 --> 00:35:03,719
really an algorithmic like ROI calculation. I think about I

538
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:05,800
have a very good friend who has a lot of

539
00:35:06,039 --> 00:35:10,840
executive dysfunction, right, so she really struggles with ADHD. And

540
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:14,119
one of the things, a perfect example was that historically

541
00:35:14,519 --> 00:35:18,679
when she had when she had her last dog, she

542
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:22,159
had one of those gravity water feeders for the dog,

543
00:35:22,559 --> 00:35:24,760
and the dog was constantly running out of water, and

544
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,840
then she would just pour water into the bowl and

545
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:31,000
I was like, why don't you fill up the bottle

546
00:35:31,199 --> 00:35:34,159
part because if you do that, you don't have to

547
00:35:34,159 --> 00:35:37,320
pour water into the bowl every few hours.

548
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,559
Speaker 2: It's so much work. What are you talking about.

549
00:35:41,039 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 1: You're doing so much more work now than you would

550
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:48,239
if you would just take the few extra seconds to

551
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:52,599
fill up the bottle feeder first. And I see this

552
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,440
happen all the time, where there's a quick fix or

553
00:35:56,480 --> 00:36:01,599
a quick interjection because it feels less tax but really

554
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:05,800
investing a little bit more effort now pays dividends in

555
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:09,480
the future. And I think that that kind of goes

556
00:36:09,519 --> 00:36:13,159
hand in hand and what you're talking about about affecting change.

557
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,559
Part of it is patients, part of it is boundaries,

558
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,079
and part of it is you know, kind of flexing

559
00:36:19,119 --> 00:36:24,199
your chief executive below and making decisions now that that

560
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:26,880
hopefully will will pay dividends in the future.

561
00:36:28,079 --> 00:36:30,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, if I was to talk to

562
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,559
your friend, I would say, what is it within you

563
00:36:34,199 --> 00:36:37,599
that feels like that job of filling up the bowl

564
00:36:38,199 --> 00:36:40,800
is too big? And so I think there's a bigger conversation,

565
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:44,360
which is where are all of our resources being taxed,

566
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,480
where are all of our resources being expended? And who

567
00:36:47,519 --> 00:36:50,920
can we bring in to help us with the big

568
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:56,199
picture items, and so in my life doing daughtering, I

569
00:36:56,199 --> 00:36:58,800
think many women think of daughtering or the mother daughter

570
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,800
relationship or parents child relationship if it's with their dad

571
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:05,559
or stepdad, stepmom, mother in law, whatever, as this really

572
00:37:05,639 --> 00:37:08,760
one on one isolated thing, and I think of it

573
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:14,000
as a group effort. And so when I'm thinking about

574
00:37:14,119 --> 00:37:16,199
going to see my mom and dad and I'm going

575
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:17,760
to go to their house and I'm going to spend

576
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:20,000
a weekend and I'm going to spend money and buy

577
00:37:20,039 --> 00:37:24,760
food for us, et cetera, I enlist my support system

578
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:28,920
to all have tasks. And those tasks are not them

579
00:37:29,079 --> 00:37:34,000
doing grandchilding or them doing son in lawing, if you will.

580
00:37:34,519 --> 00:37:40,159
Their tasks are to help me do effective daughtering. And

581
00:37:40,599 --> 00:37:44,559
I think sometimes we forget that we can go one

582
00:37:44,599 --> 00:37:47,760
step bigger and ask the question, why am I so

583
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,440
worn out that I can't fill up the bowl? Who

584
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,559
do I need to ask for help in my life

585
00:37:53,599 --> 00:37:57,960
in other spaces, at work, in my community, in my

586
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:03,440
extended family, in my you know, with my partner, and

587
00:38:03,519 --> 00:38:06,639
then I may free up because resources are finite.

588
00:38:07,039 --> 00:38:08,199
Speaker 2: And so if I'm using them.

589
00:38:08,079 --> 00:38:09,599
Speaker 3: All at work, or I'm using them to do the

590
00:38:09,599 --> 00:38:12,840
dishes or I'm using them on childcare or amusing them

591
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,159
to get out the vote, I'm gonna have fewer resources

592
00:38:16,159 --> 00:38:19,599
for dottering that if dottering becomes an important thing to

593
00:38:19,599 --> 00:38:22,159
put my attention on, then I need to figure out

594
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:27,360
how to draw resources and support toward that activity to

595
00:38:27,519 --> 00:38:30,719
support me so then I can feel good about it,

596
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,639
like I'm doing it in a measured way, in a

597
00:38:33,679 --> 00:38:34,480
balanced way.

598
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,119
Speaker 1: And I think there's almost there's almost an unstated major

599
00:38:38,159 --> 00:38:42,400
premise here that we we we touched on but maybe

600
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:45,480
glossed over quickly, because I can imagine I'm trying to

601
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:47,800
put myself in the shoes of the listeners now, and

602
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,000
I can imagine that there are a fair amount of

603
00:38:50,039 --> 00:38:52,920
men listening to the show right now saying, but I mean,

604
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,519
why do you keep saying doddering, Like why does this

605
00:38:55,599 --> 00:38:58,000
not just apply to every child? Like I'm a son

606
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,280
and I have to do this and that, and I

607
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:02,400
have to show up and do this, and why is

608
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:05,159
it that the daughters are the ones complaining about being

609
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:09,119
so exhausted? And I guess what I would say to them?

610
00:39:09,159 --> 00:39:12,159
And I'm curious your take on this is that you know,

611
00:39:12,199 --> 00:39:15,559
when I go into the infusion center at the hospital

612
00:39:15,599 --> 00:39:17,719
where I work. I'm a psychologist, as I mentioned, in

613
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:21,079
a cancer center, and when I enter into that infusion center,

614
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:22,519
I'll tell you what.

615
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:24,599
Speaker 2: There are a lot.

616
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:26,360
Speaker 1: Of women and there are a lot of men who

617
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:30,960
get cancer. It doesn't discriminate. And very often the women

618
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:36,079
who are there getting infusions are either there alone or

619
00:39:36,079 --> 00:39:38,960
their daughters are there with them. The men who are

620
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:43,360
there getting infusions very often have their partners, their female partners,

621
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:47,760
or their daughters with them. And I could bet money

622
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:50,400
that if I surveyed the people there and ask them

623
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,960
who made this appointment for you, it would be their

624
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:55,719
wives or their daughters.

625
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an astute observation, and I think research backs

626
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:07,199
that up that when individuals are ill or elderly, that

627
00:40:07,519 --> 00:40:10,199
the daughters take over. And it's by and large the daughters,

628
00:40:10,199 --> 00:40:13,559
but it's also it's complicated as a little bit more

629
00:40:13,599 --> 00:40:17,840
by who lives closest, and then lastly socioeconomically, who has

630
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:19,159
the time to give.

631
00:40:20,159 --> 00:40:23,159
Speaker 1: And also who's single and who's not. Because I do

632
00:40:23,199 --> 00:40:25,719
see sons step up, but I very often see the

633
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:27,440
son's wives stepping up.

634
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 2: It's not even there a parent, you know, it's there

635
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:32,800
in law.

636
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 3: But yeah, yes, yeah, so we we have a lot

637
00:40:36,039 --> 00:40:38,960
of social systems that play there because we can also say,

638
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:42,239
does that daughter in law have a full time job

639
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,320
or is she doing this because she's quote unquote the

640
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,119
stay at home parents. So then as that she then

641
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:49,920
quote unquote has time.

642
00:40:50,159 --> 00:40:53,119
Speaker 2: Right and is she expected to exactly yes?

643
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 3: And so an interesting thing. I'll I'll tell you a

644
00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:00,639
little story. My book came out in February and it

645
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:04,360
was on Good Morning America and that was so cool.

646
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,599
The posts were sitting on the couch and they were

647
00:41:07,639 --> 00:41:10,760
talking about the book and invisible labor and what women

648
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:15,000
are expected to do. And Michael Strahan, one of the

649
00:41:15,039 --> 00:41:18,599
co hosts, he pipes up and says, hey, Sam and

650
00:41:18,599 --> 00:41:21,679
I are going to write a book about sunning. It'll

651
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:26,679
be one page. And I started laughing just like you,

652
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:30,559
and I said, nailed it. Because the biggest difference between

653
00:41:30,559 --> 00:41:34,599
sons and daughters is expectation. It's not that men can't

654
00:41:34,639 --> 00:41:36,519
do this. It's not that men don't have it in

655
00:41:36,559 --> 00:41:40,280
them to be caring. It's not that all men are

656
00:41:40,559 --> 00:41:46,119
uncaring unfeeling. It has to do with societal expectations about

657
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:53,280
who does the healthcare work, the childcare work, the family work,

658
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,679
and I think some of those are changing over time,

659
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,639
but we're not anywhere close to equality. So I mean,

660
00:42:00,639 --> 00:42:04,320
there are many men who show up well in their families,

661
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:08,239
and I think I would say my husband has been

662
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:10,960
a great example of that to me over the past

663
00:42:11,639 --> 00:42:15,360
nine years with his mother who is in an assisted

664
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:20,360
living facility, and he has just, I mean completely stepped up.

665
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:24,800
He's the leader of that, he's the desire. And what

666
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:27,360
a relief it's been because I have a full time

667
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:32,800
job and I can't do that. But not every man

668
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:38,400
has the emotional maturity to do that. And where does

669
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:42,719
that come from. It comes from a lifetime of experiences, expectations,

670
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:46,800
requests from the women, from the mothers and the fathers

671
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:49,199
to the sons. And so I think one of the

672
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:51,639
things that we can do to be hopeful about this

673
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,360
for the future is say, well, let's teach our sons differently.

674
00:42:55,159 --> 00:42:58,960
So you know, I have a son he's seventeen, and

675
00:42:59,039 --> 00:43:01,840
I talked to him and so, A he's watched his

676
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:07,320
dad be an incredible caring person to his grandma. And

677
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,639
B he read my book which is called Good Daughter Ing.

678
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:13,400
But a man, a son, an eighteen year old, read it,

679
00:43:14,039 --> 00:43:17,199
and I said, you know, it's not necessarily about you,

680
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:20,199
but of course it's all about you because you have

681
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:22,920
a mom, you have a sister, you may have a

682
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:26,599
wife at some point, and so as a member of society,

683
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:32,880
men need to be aware of this expectation difference. I

684
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:36,159
think sunning is very real and very important. It's just

685
00:43:36,199 --> 00:43:39,159
not my personal area of expertise. But that doesn't mean

686
00:43:39,159 --> 00:43:43,840
that it's unimportant or doesn't need to be highlighted. And

687
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,159
so I'd love to see men step into that space

688
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,159
and say, I want to do this, I love this,

689
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:54,239
I enjoy this, and that's what creates long term culture change.

690
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,079
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, I think it bears sort

691
00:43:57,159 --> 00:43:59,719
of highlighting here. And I'd be curious your take on this,

692
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:03,679
because because yes, you are very very lucky that you

693
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,360
have an incredible partner who does step up and who

694
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:09,800
is you know, kind of pulling that kind of weight

695
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:14,400
and doing a lot of that labor. I have a

696
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,400
similar partner, and this is a conversation we have a lot.

697
00:44:17,559 --> 00:44:21,760
I don't know if it's because he's a unicorn. I

698
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,719
think part of it is that he cares enough, you know,

699
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:27,559
and that he has he's a feminist man, and he

700
00:44:27,639 --> 00:44:30,159
thinks about these things and they matter to him. But

701
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:32,760
I think part of it is because I wouldn't allow

702
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:35,599
him not to. I wouldn't be in a relationship with

703
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:40,079
somebody who has those kinds of expectations of me. I

704
00:44:40,159 --> 00:44:43,280
refuse to fall into that trap. Even though I still

705
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:45,119
do it. We all still do it. And when we

706
00:44:45,199 --> 00:44:47,920
notice we're doing it, those of us who I think

707
00:44:48,199 --> 00:44:51,599
are doing the work to a identify the problem of

708
00:44:51,599 --> 00:44:56,559
invisible labor and b try to affect change, are actually

709
00:44:57,119 --> 00:44:59,239
actively holding our partners to account.

710
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 2: I just won't do it, you know.

711
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 1: I just like there will be times where I'm like,

712
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:06,559
not my responsibility, so if it doesn't get done.

713
00:45:06,639 --> 00:45:08,519
Speaker 2: I mean, I saw a TikTok video the other day

714
00:45:08,639 --> 00:45:09,239
was insane.

715
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:11,719
Speaker 1: It was this girl that was like day three of

716
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:13,840
not taking the package in from the front step and

717
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:16,519
seeing what my husband does, and he would just step

718
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,360
over the package and walk and then when he came home,

719
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:22,000
he would step over the path and he would take

720
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:23,880
the dog. He would step over, and I mean maybe

721
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:26,239
it was like to be funny and they planned it

722
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:30,719
and blah blah blah, but it resonated for sure, and

723
00:45:31,079 --> 00:45:33,199
it kind of goes back to what we were saying before.

724
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:36,280
It's not that men, by their nature, it's not that

725
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:41,400
men are incapable. It's that our society has afforded men

726
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:45,880
the privilege to not even notice that they're not pulling

727
00:45:46,079 --> 00:45:49,679
their own weight when it comes to emotional and cognitive labor.

728
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:54,760
It's our sons, our sons. I don't have kids, but sons, brothers,

729
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:58,119
whatever you want to call them. Yeah, they marry sons

730
00:45:58,519 --> 00:46:03,599
exactly America's sons. They don't notice the amount of work

731
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:08,320
that the daughters are doing because by definition, it's invisible.

732
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:11,400
And until we make it visible and we bring it

733
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:16,039
out into the open, and we hold our partners, and

734
00:46:16,199 --> 00:46:19,000
as you mentioned, our sons, when those of us who

735
00:46:19,039 --> 00:46:23,639
have them raise them to be accountable, I don't think

736
00:46:23,679 --> 00:46:27,360
we're going to see a lot of change.

737
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,559
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, No, I think it's so important to recognize

738
00:46:29,559 --> 00:46:34,199
invisible labor can happen for anyone, any gender, any sex,

739
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:39,079
any person in any space. For instance, as somebody says, well,

740
00:46:39,159 --> 00:46:42,280
I've been managing our investment accounts for fifteen years and

741
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:44,679
you've never asked about it, and I've been doing it,

742
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:46,360
and I've been trying to build this for us. That's

743
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:49,760
invisible labor to the person who had the privilege of

744
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,280
not thinking about money in the relationship. And so it's

745
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:58,679
not necessarily invisible labor itself isn't gendered, but there are,

746
00:46:59,119 --> 00:47:04,920
what we can notice this many gendered responsibilities and ideas

747
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:08,159
about who does what and why. But when I look

748
00:47:08,199 --> 00:47:10,119
at back at my own life, I think, you know,

749
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:13,440
it's not that one of us got a PhD. We

750
00:47:13,679 --> 00:47:19,760
got a PhD because getting that degree for me learning

751
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:22,559
the material, going home and saying this is what I read,

752
00:47:22,599 --> 00:47:24,679
This is what I learned. You know, one of the

753
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:27,840
things that happened. This is more than ten years ago.

754
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:30,239
I went home and I told my husband about this

755
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,000
article that I read in a sociology class. I mean

756
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:37,880
it's by MICHAELA. De Leonardo from the eighties, nineteen eighty seven.

757
00:47:38,599 --> 00:47:42,960
She writes about the articles called the Invisible World of

758
00:47:43,039 --> 00:47:47,119
Cards and letters, and it's about women's work can work.

759
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,559
How you who invites the auntie who doesn't have anywhere

760
00:47:50,559 --> 00:47:53,159
to go, and who make sure she has a gift

761
00:47:53,199 --> 00:47:56,320
under the Christmas tree at the you know, at the event,

762
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:59,679
that kind of thing, and it talks about sending Christmas cards.

763
00:48:00,199 --> 00:48:02,480
And I went home ten years ago and I told him,

764
00:48:02,519 --> 00:48:06,039
you know, sending Christmas cards is an invisible labor, and

765
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:10,519
he laughed, Well, here we are ten years on and

766
00:48:10,559 --> 00:48:13,880
he sends the Christmas cards now and he understands how

767
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:18,800
hard that is now. And I don't think it's magic.

768
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,800
I don't think it's luck like you said, you said lucky.

769
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:23,880
I actually think it's learning.

770
00:48:24,239 --> 00:48:24,880
Speaker 2: It is.

771
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:30,679
Speaker 3: And so by virtue of myself getting a PhD and

772
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:32,920
having a partner who just listened to me day to day,

773
00:48:33,559 --> 00:48:38,280
he was learning too. And you know, his investment in

774
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:41,079
me getting the PhD was initially economic, like let's get

775
00:48:41,119 --> 00:48:44,920
better jobs and better lives. But the side benefit is

776
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:50,679
that he got open minded. He grew in his mindset

777
00:48:51,039 --> 00:48:54,079
of what is possible, what is true, what is normal,

778
00:48:54,159 --> 00:48:57,519
what is right. And so I think that should be

779
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:01,760
a message of hope for any women who are maybe

780
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:04,960
married to men that they're thinking, I'm not quote unquote lucky,

781
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:07,159
or I'm not married to the person, or I'm not

782
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:11,039
finding that guy out there when I'm dating and I

783
00:49:11,159 --> 00:49:15,440
want to be dating that person is again, it's embrace's mentality.

784
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:20,039
It's a little bit at a time over time results

785
00:49:20,079 --> 00:49:23,039
in that beautiful smile and as long as the person

786
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,880
is willing to keep connecting with you and coming back

787
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:29,880
to you, then change can be made. And the same

788
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:33,000
is true for daughters with their parent. Even when you

789
00:49:33,079 --> 00:49:36,239
think this guy's seventy five, he's not going to change.

790
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:39,719
My dad's not going to change. If you change, the

791
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:45,599
relationship changes. It's not possible, based on communication theory, for

792
00:49:45,639 --> 00:49:49,239
the other person not to change. They have to. They will,

793
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:54,239
but it requires a lot of fortitude, a lot of patience,

794
00:49:54,519 --> 00:49:57,159
and a lot of willingness to sit in the tension

795
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:03,599
of being in relationship with him perfect people. And if

796
00:50:03,599 --> 00:50:05,880
we can do that, and if we can notice that

797
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:07,840
and say this is worth it, This is worth it,

798
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:11,280
not just between me and my parent, but I'm you know, heck,

799
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:15,960
I'm shaping culture. I'm shaping future generations. By just holding

800
00:50:16,039 --> 00:50:19,800
this line, this boundary, this or talking about these things

801
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,480
out loud, then you can see that there's a greater

802
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:27,840
human value in doing this work. And so that's why

803
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:29,880
I want to encourage women to do the work, not

804
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:32,199
give up or feel like it's fruitless or hopeless and

805
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:35,199
just shut down and keep it to themselves. It matters

806
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:36,519
and it's helpful.

807
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 1: And I think it's also okay to be angry. It's

808
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:47,000
all okay to vent about it and to have moments

809
00:50:47,079 --> 00:50:52,079
where I think it is important to give validity to

810
00:50:52,199 --> 00:50:54,960
the experience that so many women have, and I would

811
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,159
say especially so many women of color have, where they're like,

812
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:01,320
why is this my responsibility? Why do I have to

813
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:04,079
keep doing all of this work. Part of it is

814
00:51:04,079 --> 00:51:07,960
that this additional work that we're talking about helps relieve

815
00:51:08,119 --> 00:51:11,239
some of that burden. But I think it's a completely

816
00:51:11,559 --> 00:51:15,400
fair complaint. You shouldn't have to do it all. It

817
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:18,079
shouldn't be a responsibility, let's say, as a black woman,

818
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:22,480
to educate your white friends about the experiences that you have,

819
00:51:23,079 --> 00:51:26,599
just like it shouldn't be your responsibility as a woman

820
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:29,239
to educate the men in your life about the invisible

821
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:33,239
labor that you carry. It's an unfair position to be in,

822
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:36,320
and yet the reality is it is the position that

823
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:41,639
we're in because of these societal structures. We are in

824
00:51:41,679 --> 00:51:44,760
a patriarchy. It's the water we swim in. We can't

825
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:45,400
always see it.

826
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:45,800
Speaker 2: But there.

827
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:50,719
Speaker 3: It's also the dynamic. It's a dynamic system that is changing,

828
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,239
whether even though sometimes we feel hopeless about it. You know,

829
00:51:54,599 --> 00:51:58,559
one of the chapters in my book is called Intersectional

830
00:51:58,599 --> 00:52:02,079
Perspectives on Daughtering, and I spoke to a few women

831
00:52:02,519 --> 00:52:10,079
of different races, different nationalities. I spoke to transgender individuals,

832
00:52:10,119 --> 00:52:13,360
and I asked them about their experiences because I think

833
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:17,360
that those experiences, why that while they may feel like

834
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:21,039
outliers to my own life, you know, I'm a white

835
00:52:21,079 --> 00:52:25,400
woman in Texas, they help us to understand the totality

836
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:30,039
of the types of experiences that people are undergoing. And

837
00:52:30,119 --> 00:52:33,280
you think, what's so interesting is to notice many of

838
00:52:33,320 --> 00:52:37,840
these ideas that we're wrestling with with invisible labor or

839
00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:40,920
things that women brought up in the seventies and eighties.

840
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:44,159
I mean, the academics brought them up. But that's how

841
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:49,079
long culture takes to shift from something being an academic

842
00:52:49,159 --> 00:52:53,480
idea to a pop culture idea. And we can continue

843
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:56,920
to be a part of that. Right. So, fourth wave feminism, says,

844
00:52:58,039 --> 00:53:01,079
is the idea that if we engage in podcasts and

845
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:05,800
online spaces and Facebook conversations and substacks and social media

846
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:11,239
posts about our experience, we are shaping culture. So I

847
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:14,440
want to tell women, your voice matters, even if you think, oh,

848
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:16,960
I made a little video and one hundred people watched it,

849
00:53:18,119 --> 00:53:22,239
and especially you know, anyone who interacts with future generations.

850
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:25,960
Those future generations are watching and it really matters how

851
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:30,880
they see you handling daughtering or daughter in lawing or

852
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:34,559
step daughtering, or you know the likes of those things.

853
00:53:35,119 --> 00:53:38,559
And when you place boundaries, they are empowered to place

854
00:53:38,639 --> 00:53:41,679
more boundaries on their time, their life, and their resources.

855
00:53:42,679 --> 00:53:45,719
Speaker 1: Absolutely, so I got to ask here as we're ending

856
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:49,719
the hour, you know, for those who pick up the book,

857
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:52,400
and I hope it's not just daughters who pick up

858
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:55,960
the book, because I think, as you mentioned before, sons

859
00:53:56,199 --> 00:53:59,119
have a lot to learn from the book. Mothers have

860
00:53:59,199 --> 00:54:01,760
a lot to learn, fathers have a lot to learn.

861
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:04,760
But for those who do pick up this book, what

862
00:54:05,039 --> 00:54:10,760
are you sort of hoping is the main or maybe

863
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:13,400
a few different outcomes. Is it about just, you know,

864
00:54:13,599 --> 00:54:17,480
validating somebody's experience first and foremost and being like, I

865
00:54:17,519 --> 00:54:20,960
hear you, trust me this, You're not, you know, crazy,

866
00:54:21,079 --> 00:54:23,960
like this this is an experience of many many daughters.

867
00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:31,159
Is it about learning how to release the I guess

868
00:54:31,159 --> 00:54:35,119
the rains a little bit and allow, not even allow,

869
00:54:35,159 --> 00:54:38,400
but ask for the help that probably you so desperately need,

870
00:54:38,679 --> 00:54:40,760
Like what do you hope the outcome will be here?

871
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:44,320
Speaker 3: What I've heard from many women who have the book

872
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:47,320
is there's a sense of relief, and that relief is

873
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:51,000
both I'm not alone. Wow, there are other women out

874
00:54:51,039 --> 00:54:54,639
there and that story sounds just like mine. And so

875
00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:57,800
even if I haven't heard that from a woman in

876
00:54:57,840 --> 00:55:02,360
my current circle of to ten or fifteen women, there

877
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:05,480
are millions of other people out there, and some of

878
00:55:05,519 --> 00:55:10,079
them are experiencing what I'm experiencing. But it's also a

879
00:55:10,119 --> 00:55:13,320
place that gives us language to get into the nuances,

880
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:16,760
get into the thick of what does this mean? What

881
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:20,519
is what are these aspects of my life, my daughterhood,

882
00:55:20,559 --> 00:55:24,719
being daughterly that perhaps I've never investigated before. So it's

883
00:55:24,719 --> 00:55:28,559
a space right for thinking, work for sitting in that

884
00:55:28,639 --> 00:55:31,519
space and thinking and evaluating who do I want to

885
00:55:31,559 --> 00:55:34,920
be as a daughter and what makes a good life.

886
00:55:35,639 --> 00:55:38,360
But the last part is, you know, the book is

887
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:43,320
not just full of definitions and research. It's got activities,

888
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:47,039
and those activities are designed for you to do, whether

889
00:55:47,119 --> 00:55:50,840
it's what is my daughter in bandwidth? Or what is

890
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:54,079
my daughtering mission statement? Or how to have a conversation

891
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:57,440
with your sibling with your parent Because I think that

892
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:01,400
the best the best way can go forward with daughtering

893
00:56:01,559 --> 00:56:04,360
is to communicate it. What am I doing, what would

894
00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:07,440
I like? What looks good? How can we make this

895
00:56:07,519 --> 00:56:11,760
work together? And so you know, while part of learning

896
00:56:11,760 --> 00:56:14,000
about this book is hey, this is a pain point.

897
00:56:14,039 --> 00:56:16,480
Oh my gosh, I'm doing doughtering. This is hard work,

898
00:56:17,199 --> 00:56:21,039
the overall goal is to say I can find greater

899
00:56:21,159 --> 00:56:25,719
connection and greater satisfaction and even better relationship, more authentic

900
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:28,840
relationships with the people in my life when I'm able

901
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:33,559
to express how important dodding is and how much of

902
00:56:33,559 --> 00:56:35,239
my resources I'm using on it.

903
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:39,639
Speaker 1: Gosh, I cannot thank you enough for sharing so many

904
00:56:39,679 --> 00:56:43,559
insights about a topic that is, you know, absolutely ubiquitous

905
00:56:43,599 --> 00:56:48,000
and fundamental to so many people's experiences. But as you

906
00:56:48,079 --> 00:56:53,239
mentioned before, until it is kind of identified, until the

907
00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:58,239
introspection is there, until we have the language, it's just

908
00:56:58,360 --> 00:57:01,880
existing sort of under the radar and in the background.

909
00:57:02,079 --> 00:57:06,320
Everybody the book is good. Dadding the work you've always done,

910
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:10,000
the credit you've never gotten, and how to finally feel

911
00:57:10,119 --> 00:57:14,119
like enough by doctor Allison m Alford. Alison, thank you

912
00:57:14,199 --> 00:57:17,480
so much for being here with us today, for teaching us,

913
00:57:17,559 --> 00:57:20,159
and for you know, bringing this into our consciousness.

914
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:23,519
Speaker 3: Thank you, Kara really appreciate it, and.

915
00:57:23,519 --> 00:57:26,679
Speaker 1: Everybody listening, thank you for coming back week after week.

916
00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:29,280
I'm really looking forward to the next time we all

917
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:32,119
get together to talk nerdy