logoalt Hacker News

throw0101a • today at 8:20 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

> One very common pattern I saw is that the conclusion is always that the dad is useless. Any provided facts are downplayed. Any omitted facts are imagined in the most negative light possible. And to be fair, there really are LOTS of cases where the dad is useless. The issue is more that posts needed to contain a mountain of evidence to return a neutral ground where the dad is no longer seen as a piece of garbage, rather than starting from neutral ground.

You can find quite a lot of data showing that the burden of managing domestic matters falls primarily on women. I would recommend people check out the book Fair Play which examines the problem and puts forward a system where people are assigned various personal tasks that need to be done (there are 100 in total, not all of which may apply to your life/household):

> The result is Fair Play: a time- and anxiety-saving system that offers couples a completely new way to divvy up domestic responsibilities. Rodsky interviewed more than five hundred men and women from all walks of life to figure out what the invisible work in a family actually entails and how to get it all done efficiently. With four easy-to-follow rules, 100 household tasks, and a figurative card game you play with your partner, Fair Play helps you prioritize what's important to your family and who should take the lead on every chore from laundry to homework to dinner.

* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44071899-fair-play

* Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6FfxfRMQkw


Replies

darknavi • today at 8:38 PM

I really enjoyed Fair Play. While we didn't really prescribe to playing the game rigorously or really start keeping track of cards, it was a great read for our relationship and really made both of us look at how we lived our lives and acted in our relationship. We immediately made some small but lasting pivots that removed unneeded friction and now have new-found respect for each others daily "grind".

I've recommended it to a few friends and they have had similar stories. Nothing life changing, but some small, nice changes to the dynamic and how they think about it.

➕ show 1 reply