Mamas! I’m not sure why it took me so long to write this book review! I read this book quite a while ago (and have since gone back for a re-read!) and I can honestly say that it has made a huge difference in how my husband and I manage the load of caring for our busy household. It’s high time that I share my thoughts with you!
We all know that running a household and parenting kids requires endless emotional, mental, and physical effort. Unfortunately, without an explicit negotiation of how the workload should be split, research shows that women still do the bulk of childcare and domestic work, even in two-earner families in which both parents work full-time! And moms who are lucky enough to have partners already willing to “help” still face the enormous mental load of asking for that help, providing instructions, and following up to make sure tasks are completed.
For moms in this community, of course, there’s the added burden of living with a chronic illness. Taking care of your own health may require dozens of appointments, trips to the pharmacy, long phone calls arguing with your insurance company or copay assistance program, physical or occupational therapy, and more – not to mention a very legitimate need for down time to rest and care for yourself!
There’s a simple reality here: if your partner doesn’t contribute appropriately to the domestic workload, you won’t have the necessary time to take care of your own health. And, as my husband likes to remind me, your health is not negotiable. While Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play doesn’t directly include dealing with the added invisible burdens of chronic illness, I found it easy to adapt Rodsky’s system to include this additional “card.”
What’s a card? Well, based on copious research, interviews, and testing, Rodsky has developed a system that offers couples a way to divide up all domestic responsibilities – or “cards” – and, most importantly, to divide them fairly. She’s done the all the background work for you and includes 100 cards, four rules to follow, personality types to help you understand each partner’s role, and even specific language for starting this conversation with your partner.
According to Rodsky, “Task cards are dealt strategically between the two players in accordance with the couples shared values. No player hold any cards by default, each persons responsibilities are transparent, expectations are explicitly defined, and both partners are set up to win.” And why would your partner want to take on more of the domestic workload? Rodsky explains that too: Household sanity. Fewer arguments. Less nagging and resentment. (Maybe even more sex!)
I think one of the most important things Rodsky does is identify all the “Daily Grind” tasks: time-sucking jobs that must be done regularly, repetitively, and often at a very specific time every day (such as school pickup/drop off or getting dinner on the table). She points out that these Daily Grind tasks tend to fall almost completely on moms, giving them less control over their own time, while dads tend to opt for jobs that can be done according to their own schedule (such as yard work or vehicle upkeep.) Recognizing this simple truth and working to re-divide some of the Daily Grind cards with my own husband made a huge difference for me!
I will say that my husband and I have not been using Rodsky’s system exactly as she explains it in the book – we’ve altered her plan a bit to make it fit better into our family’s life. For example, while we did actually divide up physical cards between us – to help us each see what the other is responsible for – my husband and I decided not to trade the cards as often as Rodsky suggests. But, overall, the system Rodsky has created was an extremely useful framework for organizing, illustrating, and talking about all these issues. And it has impacted our family for the better.
Rodsky encourages each mom to grab on to this mantra and repeat it again, and again, and again: “I do not have to do it all.” Fair Play will help you learn how to make this mantra a reality within your own home.
📚📚Want to purchase your own copy of “Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live)”? 📚📚Please use our Amazon Affiliates link by clicking here! Mamas Facing Forward may receive commission at no extra cost to you. Those funds will go towards providing more resources for moms and moms-to-be living with chronic illness, so thanks for using our links!
