Primary Care-Givers: The Tough Conversations That Need to Happen

We’ve heard it constantly over the past year - Covid has drastically put the brunt of house work on women and years of progress towards gender equality are being erased - new research published by @fortunemag provides an interesting perspective into why.

The research shows that when polled more than 80% of men believe men and women should equally share in care work. But in practice it’s not happening.

The research digs deeper into men that pre-pandemic already had a lot of responsibility care giving - it shows they have been even more likely to take on more over the past 12 months. Because they already had experience here, they’ve first seen how hard and critical it is and have stepped up.

This data is really interesting to me and tells me two things:

1. Our current system is just broken. Man or woman, we can’t juggle everything that is expected of us (work, mental health, caregiving) without letting something slip. And this pertains to a household where there are two potential caregivers - If we can’t handle all that’s expected with two caregivers or parents HOW are single care givers expected to navigate this? As a society we MUST do better and government leaders and CEO’s need to take the lead here.

2. In cases where there are two caregivers, whoever the primary caregiver is in the family may need help with communicating how hard the work is. It's critical he/she feels their work, even though not bringing in cold hard cash, is just as important as the work that’s done for a salary or wage. In my opinion these conversations are not happening nearly enough and we must change that.

I’m volunteering up my time (for free) to chat with anyone that wants some help preparing or navigating through a tough convo like this. DM me directly on @SheCommutesOutLoud or email me: tara@hercouragecoach.com

Article referenced: @fortunemag

Written by: @mhaspan

Survey/research: New America

📷: @pbs