Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do(and More Life to Live) - Softcover

Rodsky, Eve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593087534 ISBN 13: 9780593087534

Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK 

"A hands-on, real talk guide for navigating the hot-button issues that so many families struggle with."--Reese Witherspoon

Tired, stressed, and in need of more help from your partner? Imagine running your household (and life!) in a new way...

It started with the Sh*t I Do List. Tired of being the "shefault" parent responsible for all aspects of her busy household, Eve Rodsky counted up all the unpaid, invisible work she was doing for her family -- and then sent that list to her husband, asking for things to change. His response was... underwhelming. Rodsky realized that simply identifying the issue of unequal labor on the home front wasn't enough: She needed a solution to this universal problem. Her sanity, identity, career, and marriage depended on it.

The result is Fair Play: a time- and anxiety-saving system that offers couples a completely new way to divvy up chores and 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 series of conversation starters for you and 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.

"Winning" this game means rebalancing your home life, reigniting your relationship with your significant other, and reclaiming your Unicorn Space -- as in, the time to develop the skills and passions that keep you interested and interesting. Stop drowning in to-dos and lose some of that invisible workload that's pulling you down. Are you ready to try Fair Play? Let's deal you in.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Eve Rodsky received her BA from the University of Michigan, and her JD from Harvard Law School. After working in foundation management at J.P. Morgan, she founded the Philanthropy Advisory Group to advise families and charitable foundations on best practices. In her work with hundreds of families over a decade, she realized that her expertise in family mediation, strategy, and organizational management could be applied to a problem closer to home--a system for couples seeking balance, efficiency, and peace in their home. Rodsky was raised by a single mom in New York City and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their three children. Fair Play is her first book.

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1.

 

The Curse of the

She-Fault Parent

 

I was ready to fold.

 

Consider:

The Case of the Missing Blueberries

 

> I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries.

 

I stared at my husband's text and imagined him speaking these words in what I call his "porn voice"-breathless, like he gets when he's frustrated or overwhelmed.

 

Instantly defensive, I thought: Um, why can't you get the blueberries?

 

I'd taken the afternoon "off" in order to spend time with my oldest, who was sorely in need of some mommy reconnection time in the wake of the recent arrival of his new baby brother. After going over my long list of instructions for the sitter (twice), I hustled out the front door to pick Zach up from school-all while balancing the snacks I'd just packed, a bag forgotten by the prior day's playmate, a FedEx package to be dropped off, a brand-new already-too-small pair of children's

shoes to be returned, and a client contract that needed a markup

before tomorrow morning. I was just barely holding it together when my husband's "blueberry text" arrived, and the tears came so fast and furious I had to pull over to the side of the road.

 

How had it happened that I'd gone from successfully managing an entire department at work to failing to manage a grocery list for my family? And what self-respecting woman cries over an item forgotten at the market? And, just as alarming: Would a container of off-season blueberries serve as the harbinger to the end of my marriage?

 

I wiped away the mascara streaks beneath my eyes and thought: This is not how I envisioned my life-the fulfiller of my family's smoothie needs.

 

Hold up. Rewind.

 

How I Got Here

 

My mom and dad divorced when I was three and she was

pregnant with my brother. Mom opted to forgo alimony to avoid acrimony and raised my brother and me in a one-parent home while working full-time as a professor of social work in New York City. Not a high-paying job, but she made it work for our family. Or so I thought until the first eviction notice was slipped under our apartment door. Mom had taught classes all day, picked my brother and me up from school, took us to the dentist uptown, dropped us back at home with a sitter downtown, and then . . . went back to work. When I saw the envelope on the floor, I opened it, read the letter inside, and then waited up late for Mom to come home. When she finally walked through the door, I broke the news to her that we no longer would have a place to live. I was eight years old. Mom assured me that she'd simply forgotten to pay our rent, and she would mail a check first thing in the morning.

 

She followed through on her promise and we didn't have to move, but from that moment on I understood how hard life was for my mom because she carried 100 percent of the burden at home. Throughout my formative years and on too many occasions to count, I remember looking at her at the end of another long, exhausting day-my overworked super mom who tried to do it all-and thinking: That will never be me. When I grow up, I will have a true partner in life. Though it wasn't modeled for me, I became determined to build and sustain a 50/50 partnership one day.

 

I worked hard and got myself through college and then law school, when I met the man who would become my partner. My best friend had set us up. Zoe said about Seth: "He's Jewish and obsessed with hip hop." I instantly flashed back to when I'd surprised guests with a choreographed dance to Slick Rick's "Children's Story" at my bat mitzvah. I had to meet this guy.

 

I was a first-year associate at a law firm in New York City, which meant logging long hours, so for our first date Seth and I agreed to meet at a late-night bar in Union Square. But at 9:30 p.m., I received a client call that kept me on the line for nearly two hours. By the time I arrived at the bar, it was almost midnight and Seth was . . . still there. One of Seth's friends had waited with him until I showed up. Seth told me later what his friend had said when I walked through the door: "She was worth the wait." And so was Seth. I liked him right away.

 

There was just one snag to our budding romance: Seth lived in Los Angeles, and I had just taken the New York Bar Exam. We did a cross-country courtship for a year, and on our anniversary, I presented him with The Best of 2003, every single email that we'd written to each other since the night we'd met. There were more than 600 pages of email exchanges that I'd printed out in the basement of my law firm and bound into a deep red four-volume book set. Seth was touched by my sentimentality (and equally impressed by my meticulous organizational skills). I think we both knew then that this was the real thing.

 

Within the year, I took on the arduous endeavor of studying for and passing the California Bar and uprooted to Los Angeles. And then, when Seth's growing business required an East Coast office, we packed up and moved back to New York as a newly engaged couple. (Getting him back home was my secret plan!)

 

Our first apartment across from the Midtown tunnel was cramped and always loud, but we didn't care. We were in love, true collaborators in the home, and champions of each other's careers. As a young couple, our dynamic felt equitable, a reciprocal partnership of equals. In between loads of laundry, I marked up his operating agreements as his entertainment agency expanded, and Seth gave me business pointers while he unloaded groceries.

 

He was my right-hand man as I worked my way up the ladder to my dream job-using my legal training, organizational management skills, and mediation background to work with individuals and companies to structure philanthropic organizations. In layman's terms, I advised the wealthy on how to give away tons of money to nonprofits that served the greater good. We were both doing work that we felt proud of, and together we crushed it every step of the way.

 

Cut to married with children-everything changed.

 

The She-Fault Parent

 

I became the default parent-or more aptly, the she-fault parent-and as such, the only thing I was crushing were peas for my baby. To be fair, Seth eagerly jumped in to diaper change, bottle-feed, and provide middle-of-the-night comfort to his firstborn. But beyond forming this early, critical connection with his son, Seth would frequently say about our new family dynamic: "There's not a lot for me to do."

 

While my husband is no Neanderthal, he was echoing what a good cave buddy had promised him during my pregnancy: "Relax. Dads don't really do anything for the first six months. It's more of a 'mom' thing."

 

Like many breadwinner-working fathers, Seth returned to work just one week after Zach was born. I'd been granted three months of maternity leave to "stay home" (as if

that term encompasses all that new parents do every day). Looking back, I hadn't anticipated the endless emotional, mental, and physical effort parenthood would require. My cousin Jessica, who lived a quick cab ride uptown and who was also pregnant at the same time, hadn't seen what was coming either. In her third trimester, she'd signed us up for a knitting class because "we'll probably get bored on maternity leave." Bored, yes. Idle, no. I had more than enough to keep my hands occupied without ever picking up a knitting needle or a ball of yarn. Because Seth and I hadn't pre-negotiated

how to share in the domestic workload before Zach came along, it defaulted to me. He'd leave for work in the office and I'd spend the next eight hours boiling bottles,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593087534
• ISBN 13: 9780593087534
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar