Transcript for Episode 05

00:05

Hi, good peeps. Welcome to the flexible neurotic podcast. You know that friend that you can call to ask anything? That's me. Dr. Sarah Milken. I'm known to my friends as the flexible, neurotic. What is flexible, neurotic even mean? Let me be neurotic by take out my golden shovel to dig deep for all the golden nuggets in the hottest topics from parenting, to education to neuroscience, and maybe even some beauty secrets. So we can all start living more flexibly. Come join us for edgy conversations with rad moms. Innovative thought leaders and well being practitioners helping you find that sweet spot between chaotic and gel. If you're craving that sweet spot, grab your golden shovel with me. You will walk away with nuggets you can start using today. Hi good peeps. This is the next episode of the flexible, neurotic. I'm Dr. Sarah Milken, the flexible neurotic. Today I have a very special friend and guest with a Harvard Law degree and organizational management expertise. He broadsky wrote The New York Times best selling author of fair play a game changing solution for when you have too much to do and more of a life to live. Eve's fair play book highlights how women are tired of doing too much shit. She created the shit I do less that has now gone viral. We will dive into this later. This book is changing the marital dynamic and the family system as we know it. He believes we have to apply an organizational systems lens to our household and family duties. With the fair play book. Eve has created a fair play deck of cards for you and your spouse or partner for you to redistribute the family workload task by task. Just wait until you hear this IE.

02:10

I Sarah I'm so happy to be here with you.

02:13

I'm so happy to have you here and you have the prettiest glitter eyeshadow on. I thought I was a glitter queen.

02:21

We were doing some early filming and so it was not something I usually wear. I don't usually wear blue eyeshadow.

02:29

It looks so good. I love it. It's so perfect for the show. The flexible neurotic the Harvard nerd with glitter eyeshadow.

02:36

I love the flexible neurotic is a metaphor and analogy because I always say that I'm a feminist to just desires to have lip injection so we can be a lot of different things at once.

02:49

Oh my god, totally I agree with you.

02:51

I haven't done it yet, but I haven't done lips.

02:53

I've done Botox though, for sure. Okay, so my intentions for this episode as it is for all the episodes of the flexible neurotic is for us to dig deep with our golden shit shovels. You have one righty, of course. Okay, good.

03:09

I have every tone. And a glitter one is glitter one Emerald one. Every metallic

03:17

perfect. So we're gonna dig into edgy conversations about how we can find our sweet spots between neurotic and chill. In this case, we are going to find the sweet spot and learning to create a more equally distributed family and household workload for all members, moms, women, anyone who's responsible for anything in the house, anything and everything. The intention of this episode is not to piss off spouses, partners, boyfriends and girlfriends everywhere, right you.

03:48

It's definitely not a shaming game. But this is unpacking some cultural things that we should all be thinking about instead,

03:56

so good. This is to help them figure out and us to figure out how to equalize the home workload. As Eve says there is no bigger aphrodisiac or foreplay than your partner loading the dishwasher or managing your kids soccer bags, soccer emails and snack duties. Listen up if you want more sex and less nagging. Okay, so Eve Are you ready? I'm ready. Cool. So we all know that our childhood formative years play a huge part in our self identity and formation. Sometimes we incorporate the good parts and try to skip the quote bad parts. Can you dig into a little bit about what your childhood was like your family life and what contributed to who he Brodsky is today and why you wrote the book.

04:48

I love that question, because I don't get to answer it that often. But I will say that I feel like fairplay was a combination of who I am my identity a book I was born to write because my story started In a single mom household I grew up in next to the kind of power plant and Avenue C and 14th Street in New York City. My father was tangentially involved in raising me. But starting around seven Sara or eight, I really became my mother's partner. And maybe you would call it being a parental child. But I would help her manage late utility bills wait up late, when she would work late to show her the eviction notices that come tell her she had to pay rent help with my disabled brother nobody knew was disabled, or couldn't read until junior high school. So I saw firsthand, really the burden of the invisible work when it falls on one person. And also the blame my mother put on herself, when you know, having it all met doing it all. So that's my lens. And I think from that early age there, I had vowed, I would have an equal partner in life. So I did I married that equal partner. And things were really fair in our life. I was a lawyer, I had gone to Harvard Law School, Stuyvesant High School, to University of Michigan, to Harvard Law School. And each step, I climb my levels of excellence, further outside of Stuyvesant town, where I grew up, and I was really proud of myself. And I really thought that productive work was going to be the center of my life, always. That's my value system to be the change I want to see in the world. That's my mother. For you. She's

06:22

a professor, right? I was gonna say, it seems like from what I've read about, your mom had a very big social justice bent to her about being the change, you want to be in the world. So kind of pulling some of the good parts of your childhood and the good themes, that would definitely be one of them.

06:39

Absolutely. I mean, I think growing up, right, you just are like, Oh, you're going to another meeting again. Right? And then you're you're like, seven? You're like, wait, what's a meeting? You know, and you feel sad, right? Maybe that your parents can't always be around, but I look back on it. And this is why, you know, I fundamentally believe time spent in service of yourself as a woman and the act of pursuit of what makes you you, which there you're doing with this podcast, no one else could do what you do.

07:06

Thank you.

07:07

It's so important, because I think about how much it influenced me to see how much my mother cared about her work. And she's a professor of community organizing at the hunter school of social work. She just retired this year to run a voter commission around social work as public engagement.

07:24

You guys get shit done, Eve.

07:27

She's amazing. She just will not stop. The last thing I'll say. And that really affected me I think was she really taught me that physical possessions will never replace or looking at beauty or your body or things out other people defy you will never replace sort of how you feel about yourself. And so she would always talk about this pastor that works with her in a community organizing campaign in the 70s. That said, you know, when in need do a deed, Oh, I like that. And for her, it meant I will never buy you a Barbie, you're not going to get the Barbie car that you wanted or a camper van. Exactly, I will never get or some a doll house that I was, you know, or a strawberry shortcakes friend, right that I really wanted. But she said, You know, I will always buy you a Greyhound bus ticket. If you ever want to go to DC, you can send away for brochures, because obviously we didn't have the internet then. But I will, especially around your birthday. If you ever want to go to DC and you want to use your voice to march for something that matters to you, I will always take you. And so that was our tradition. On my birthday, we would go to Washington, DC, no cell phones with paper bag lunch, and we would march.

08:34

Those are the meaningful gifts that you actually remember over the course of your life. I grew up in a house where my mom worked full time. And it's interesting because people ask me about that, you know, not having worked myself in a real quote job for the past 15 years and how it's different than how I grew up. But what's interesting about it is I never questioned it while I was growing up because it was just my normal. I knew that my mom wasn't dropping me off at school. And she wasn't picking me up. She had a full time career. She runs the largest nonprofit in the country for special needs kids. And I just knew she was going to work. She was doing good in the world. And thankfully, my dad is a dentist and he worked every other day. And he was definitely like the hands on dad who worked in the nurse's office and you know, did all those kind of fun things. It's interesting to think about just what your normal is. And for you, your mom being a single mother and working your ass off. That was your normal 100%. And

09:35

I think the beauty about and we'll talk more about fair play, right is that this is obviously not a stay at home mom versus WORKING MOM debate. Yeah, let's leave those in the 90s. Somehow we got into a cultural conversation about the life changing magic of organizing your junk drawer, which is really fun, and I really love to be organized. But I think this is about the life changing magic of long term thinking, you know, who do you want to be? What Sarah, do you want to be in 10 years? Right? What do you do want to be in 10 years

10:03

totally.

10:04

And when there's surprise when the expectations of what you want it to be, and where you are, don't match. And of course, you can't control everything. But I mean, where they really don't match because of some choices that may have been made for you buy society that you thought were your choices, which is what happened to me, I was in a really, really bad place, because those value systems of being the change I wanted to see in the world, and always being a product of productive work. And considering that that was what got me sort of out of my situation, education. When you say productive work, you're talking about this sort of performance driven mindset of like, I'm going to go to this school, and I'm going to get these grades. And I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that like sort of linear success path. Right? Yes. What I mean is that we have milestones, right, that we set out for and productive work. Now I define it very differently. So we'll talk about that. But what I mean is that I think we set up milestones that women can meet earlier in their lives, right? So we are highly educated as women, we are in the best schools were most of the valedictorians in this country, right? And then we're taught culture defines for us other levels of success that don't always vibe, but with those cultural milestones, right. So then we're also taught the next thing is when you're getting married, and the next thing is your engagement shower, or whatever type of monetary success is on your path, where the next thing is, what children you're going to have. There's very linear cultural milestones for women in this country around success. And if you don't meet those milestones, you often get shamed for them. And so what I'm trying to do with fairplay is to say that, all I want is that the life that you want for yourself is something that you expect, that's all.

11:49

Yeah, and then I can change over time, too. And you can put certain dreams on hold, like I did. I mean, I went to an Ivy League school and got a master's in a PhD. And I thought I would work like my mom did that I had a baby. And then suddenly, I was like, I don't really feel like leaving him and I have the financial wherewithal of my husband's job, like, where I could stay home. And not everyone has the opportunity to make that choice. But then now, I'm 45 and a half, and I'm like, Okay, what the fuck now? What can I do for myself? Now it's my turn. It doesn't mean I'm not going to be a mom anymore a wife, but like, I needed to kind of go back. Yep, 1516 years ago. Okay, what was there? And what can I sort of resurrect? Absolutely. So it may not be 100% in a perfect timeline, but I'm going back to it. And that's what I'm trying to do with this podcast is just sort of normalized that like, we all feel kind of fucked up, like, how am I going to start this? Where do I even go? What are my next steps, but we're sort of all in this together, and everyone's versions gonna look different. Like I'm doing a podcast, someone else might write a book, someone else might take a tennis thing. It doesn't matter what it is. It's just whatever is you?

13:03

Yeah. And that's what I call unicorn space,

13:05

which I love. Can you repeat unicorn space? Because I feel like we have to like really define it.

13:11

So let's define it. So I talk a lot about different things in the book. And what I really wanted to write was an organizational system for the home. And that is what I did. But what kept coming up in my research. Over years and years of interviewing for the book itself, there was 250 couples, but not always at the same couple that mirrored the US Census. And from that data, which took so long, but I want it to be really thorough, so I wasn't some just pontificating, self help expert.

13:39

Yeah, you kind of are really nerdy though me?

13:42

Yes, of course. Well, it took a really long time. And at the end of day, I'm really I'm a trained as an academic. So it felt right to go to the basic research and also to do my own sociological interviews.

13:55

I love it.

13:56

And while I wanted to write the organizational management system, and that's what I ended up testing, the number one thing that kept coming up for women was a sense of identity loss in midlife, especially after their second child. And I know what happened to me. That was where I wanted to maybe leave my marriage and I talk a lot about that and fairplay, but the identity loss after their second child, where all the cultural milestones they've hit, they looked at me and said, I did everything society told me to do. I have two gorgeous kids, I have a nice house. Again, this is more of the women who identified as in the professional classes. I have a husband that I really care about, but I'm really unfulfilled. Everything that society told me to do is with a bill of goods, because I'm fucking miserable. Right? Right. I've lost myself in some way or and I write about those women about the woman who called herself an object at rest. Wow. I have three degrees. And I'm like, Well, okay, well, let's talk about what you want to do with those degrees. Well, objects in motion stay in motion even so I'm an object at rest. More talk about Josie, the woman who got hurt scholarship to the University of Vermont based on joining the ski team, and she was one of the first people in her world to graduate from college and how she ended up leaving her skis at the airport to nurse her child, right. So why are we putting ourselves last. And often the number one thing I heard was, I don't believe I've had permission to be unavailable. I really don't believe I've a permission to be unavailable to my kids, to my partner or to my workplace.

15:24

It's so interesting, because I remember in the book, you were talking about how I'm not stereotyping dads, but you know, the other spouse, whoever that other spouse is, sometimes doesn't have that same layer of guilt like shit, I shouldn't stay afterward for those drinks because my partner's been at home like tending to the kids all day. And maybe that person, you know, maybe she or he needs a break, and how there's no sort of, quote, other spouse or dad guilt. But there's guilt from the primary caregiver like, Oh, I can't go to the gym. I can't work out. I can't do any of these things, because I'm taking time away from the kids.

15:59

Oh, absolutely. And men take twice as much leisure time as women,

16:03

especially in the bathroom with their phones. I find your husband's in the bathroom with the phone so long, he would kill me when he hears us.

16:11

Not anymore. But I had to write a book about Seth, right? To get into really a place of fairness. Right?

16:16

Totally. He really hit the shitless Seth?

16:20

Yes, Yes, he did. So what is unicorn space? Well, what I found was that when women come back, or have never left, their unique identity, what makes them them, their outcomes are really great for their mental health and for their marriages and for their reported Parenthood. So what I mean by that is not fucking commodified wellness. Let's just break that down. When I talk to women about unicorn space, they say, Well, I always take time to get a manicure. And I'm not talking about anything you have to pay for. I'm talking about like the mythical equine like the unicorn active space that doesn't fucking exist for women unless we reclaim it. And so what I mean by those active pursuits is not beauty standard. So even though CBD oil pedicure sounds amazing about now amazing, but I don't mean anything you have to pay for. I mean, what do you do that makes you you? And so self care is a really important thing. So that would be like me eating a pie. Right? Right. Or frosting?

17:17

Don't we have that joint favorite food

17:20

frosting? We have a love of transfat Betty Crocker frosting

17:25

right out of the tub with the spoon. I love taxing that to you. I mean, there's nothing like digging into that chocolate frosting. My kids are like, that's so gross. And why are you double dipping? Like because nobody else is eating it except for me.

17:39

Right? And Sarah? I will say that around Halloween. I like right now I've transitioned to a candy corn obsession, but I will go back to my frosting after October 31.

17:48

Wow, talk about pure sugar. That's like a dopamine hit. Oh,

17:52

I will say that. That is my self care eating. And so the idea of eating a pie that could be self care, but it's the baking of the pie. That's the act of pursuit, right. listening to a podcast is self care. But creating a podcast is the act of pursuit. And that's where I want to redefine productive work.

18:08

Talk about a shit shovel and my husband's like, I think I've become your assistant. I'm like, I've been your fucking assistant for 27 years. Welcome to the party. Yes. And it's not even about retribution. It's like we're all in this together. And there's certain things that you're better at, like helping me figure out why my computer's not working. And maybe you call that assistant work, but I'm calling it fair play work. I've been doing your shit for so long. Like it's my turn. Well,

18:36

yeah, actually, there's a card for that. And the hook fairplay deck. It's called partner coach.

18:39

Yes.

18:40

And actually, I saw that a lot for women who are divorcing where men completely dismiss their wives obligation to their careers. And I saw very little of the reciprocation of men helping their wives unless you're Marty Ginsburg, we can talk about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and how amazing that was amazing. And so again, what I will say is that theraplate is a love letter to men, it's actually a love letter to men, because what I realized is these systems are not working for either party when we're in these silos. And obviously, you know, having an identity loss or lack of unicorn space is definitely not in service of the partnership or anybody's mental health. And one thing I will say about unicorn space is it does not have to be paid, because that was another thing. And ironically, it was actually women who identified in the working class positions. As we looked at the US Census self identified people who would do our surveys and would be interviewed by me. A lot of women actually, in the working class professions were much more able to identify their unicorn space as women in the professional classes. I was surprised by that. Why do you think that is because of intensive parenting,

19:47

helicopter parenting that takes up all of our time. Exactly. I

19:51

think that what's happened is there's been this confluence of social media with the self readily available guilt and shame that society has always put on women. And it's been a confluence of believing that it's too hard. Because remember, working women today spend just as much time with their kids as stay at home mothers did in the Mad Men era, right? So you can imagine women who don't, who are not working for pay right now, the obligations and the invisible work plus coupled with the fact that men have not they have stepped up cumulatively. They are doing more than they have done in the past. But women still do 15 hours a week or more, two thirds or more in general of all the work it takes to run a home and family, regardless of whether they work outside the home.

20:36

Let's define invisible work, because we've referenced that twice now. But I feel like I want listeners, obviously, who have not read the book to understand what you mean and how we can understand it.

20:48

Absolutely. So right after my life was almost collapsing, right I talked about in fairplay this day that Seth said me,

20:55

this is such a good story.

20:57

He sends me this text right after my second son was born, Sarah, which I was saying was a red flag point for a lot of women. Men have just been born. We were living in LA at the time, we'd moved to LA to make things easier actually to be closer to my in laws, who are much more helpful than my sort of blended right family situation. Right after Ben was born, I get a text in the car, I can give you the scene, Seth sends me a text that says I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries. Oh, so let's just talk about this blueberry sex, I'm surprised you to get blueberries. So I think any other day maybe wouldn't have mattered Sarah, but there was like a confluence of events that feel like right now, right? Where the sort of the space time continuum is sort of fucking collapsing on me.

21:41

Yes,

21:42

yes, that made this day so resonant. And it was really a very low point in my life. But look how low points can transform your whole career right back to what you said before that you don't have to be on this treadmill of the milestones, always in the timelines of everybody else. But I want you to be able to know that if you go off of those right, there are consequences and your identity and your financial position. Other things that you can plan what you want. That's what we're here for.

22:06

You can't win. You can't win either way.

22:08

No, but you can be intentional, more intentional, right? Because

22:12

I like the word intentional.

22:13

intentional, like I said, the life changing magic of long term thinking because the day I get this blueberries text, I realized I had not been intentional with my life and the surprise, a shock, I had to wake up to where I was. So you can picture the scene, right? I had this breast pump off the diaper bag in the passenger seat of my car, I had gifts for a newborn baby to return in the backseat of my car. I had a client contract in my lap, Sarah, because I'd opted out of the traditional workforce. And I put that in quotes now. Because I've subsequently learned I was fucking pushed out similar to like, probably how you felt right? You can't do it all in this world. No, without the help of men and social safety nets that we don't have in America. And so I had somehow thought if I'd started my own law firm, I would have more flexibility. So I had a client contract in my lap. And like most sort of Gen Xers I'm very analog. So I was sort of marking up this contract with a pen that was in between my legs. And every time I was sort of stopped at a stop sign. The pen would stab me in the vagina. Hmm. As I was racing to get Zach, who is my older son, he had a toddler transition program that was only for like seven minutes, right? Because we really value working parents in America.

23:21

Yeah, I love that. Those are my favorite. And then by the time you find a fucking parking space, they're supposed to be picked up.

23:28

That's right. Basically, it was like it's a two minute program. Yes. And in the midst of all this chaos, Seth sends me this text and I live in LA now like you and so we don't take traffic lightly here. I mean, for me to pull over men, there's something really wrong, right? So I'm pulling over and I'm crying. I'm crying over this text thinking to myself that a marriage is over and a very fucking cliched way because I'm over the aina fulfiller. obsess moody needs, right? Yes, instead of like the dramatic affair in the Caribbean, where my hair is blowing. And I'm with some amazing guy.

24:05

It's a fucking frozen blueberry bag.

24:08

Yeah, we're having a fight over offseason. Blueberries used for smoothies? Yes. And so that's really the first one I was thinking. And then the second level was to blame myself, of course. So then I went to in my mind, oh my god, you know, I used to be able to manage employee teams. And now I'm so overwhelmed. I can't even manage a grocery list. Right? Totally. It was more like oh my god, I can't even do this law firm. I'd better tell my partner in New York. I can't do this. Right. There's always going first opting out of the workforce before asking Seth for help, because you have to go to maybe three different stores to find the right blueberries. No, not even that right. But even if I got the blueberries right, between all the invisible work of doing everything, right, the cognitive labor for everything, we'll talk about that it leaves very little time for anything else. And even if you don't believe in the intensive parenting style, which I certainly didn't because I was left home to care for my brothers. Since I was nine years old, but even in just the amount of time, but we'll talk about that. And so on top of that, the third thing I was really thinking that day was such Surprise, surprise that I did not have the career marriage combo. I thought I would have Sarah because I was able to tell you so beautifully. Thank you for asking that question. Right? dig deep into the fact that I had vowed from an early age, I would have an equal partner in life, because I was my mother's partner. And I watch

25:24

what that look like for her. It's interesting, because that's exactly how I felt. And my dad was the opposite. My dad was the sort of do it all work in the nurse's office pick up carpool kind of dad. So I really sought that out in a partner and my husband, I mean, he runs his own company and has a very flexible work schedule in terms of like, I can't make it to this, can you please pick up one of the kids? And he has been so amazing with that. And I'm so grateful, because I don't think I could do it by myself. I know I couldn't.

25:59

Absolutely. But the fact that the expectation is that we still have to ask, can you please pick up one of the kids and they can say yes or no is what I call the default, right? I call it the default. And so this is why the home is really dangerous, Sarah, because what I found was that the home presents really, really small so that each of us thinks we're having different fights right over blueberries, or who's doing carpool, or whose job is more important because I make more money than you. Right? You get into these very small fights or this man and White Plains, New York who told me he's divorcing over a glue stick, right? He wasn't

26:32

going to come into the house until he got the glue stick that she had asked for.

26:36

Yes, you know, we can unpack that. But you could get the gist, right. And so the reason why the home is so dangerous is because presents really small. But what I was realizing was that, and this gets back to your question about what invisible work is, what I realized was that this is a phenomenon. This is a societal problem that we've been talking about for 100 years. And what I mean by that is that, let me just tell you one more quick story. I became woke to the what was happening to me. So I was thinking this is a blueberries issue. But I was being more conscious of what was happening to me. I sort of woke up to this, understanding that I was that she fought for literally every single household childcare task for my family. And we'd been married about 10 years. And so right around that time I went on this breast cancer March, I was honoring a friend who passed away from law school. And I was with women like you, Sarah, just brilliant, educated, supportive, lovely friends,

27:27

people who show up for people.

27:29

Yes, really amazing women. But you know, a woman who's an Oscar winning producer, just really powerful women and we're marching in this breast cancer March and it was like the reverse Cinderella. So what happens is, and we were not all heterosis gender relationships, but what was happening was at noon, it was like the clock struck right, the glass slipper started turning into pumpkin, where all of a sudden I started noticing all of our phones are blowing up. And it was texts from our partners or the substitute women our partners brought in that morning like their mothers in laws.

28:01

The next door neighbor's daughter,

28:03

babysitter. Yeah, playdates that we've arranged for them

28:06

that took 12 texts to arrange.

28:09

Exactly. This is what's happening noon, when my friend gets a text, where did you put up some soccer bag? Another friend is getting a text from her partner that says, Did you leave me a gift for the birthday party? What's the address? My friend Kate's has been my favorite text of the day was do the kids eat lunch?

28:24

No, they don't fucking eat lunch. I mean, honestly.

28:29

And so the sad part was watching all these women look at me and say, Oh, my God, Eve, you know, thank you for making the dim sum lunch reservation in downtown LA. But we left our partners with too much to do. And so those very powerful women who use their voice in every other aspect of their lives left to go find the soccer bag to go perfectly wrap a gift to take to a freakin birthday party and to feed their kids lunch. And as I'm watching all this happen, I decided to have a little act of resistance that day. And my act of resistance era was to count up all the phone calls and texts we had received. And it was 30. Phone calls 46 texts for 10 women over 30 minutes. And so what I realized was that what is this this phenomenon, as I said, the she fault, the fact that we do two thirds or more of what it takes to run a home and family is not new, the pandemic has really shone a light on it. And I'm very happy for that part of the pandemic that the invisible is now literally visible on zoom. We're all the BBC dad, but you may have heard different terms you may have heard the mental load, you may have heard the second shift. You may have heard emotional labor, right? But my favorite term was 1986 sociologist named Arlene Kaplan Daniels back to the basic research nerd in me,

29:45

yes,

29:46

who came up with this term, invisible work and what I love so much about the invisible work term, and I hope we all continue to use it and I see it now being more used than other terms is that there is a modicum of a solution in there because so many To articles say it's inevitable that women will take more work in the pandemic, or it's invariably falling on women. And I say it's fucking evitable. This is evitable. This is not inevitable. But it's just that we have chosen to treat the value of care and work in the home is invaluable or less valuable than work in the workplace. And that is because it's the woman's domain.

30:23

Yeah, I love when you say in the book, we suddenly have let our spouses and husbands tell us what to do. When did that start?

30:31

Well, I think it's very interesting, because when you think about this phenomenon, one of the questions there, I asked so many men, and again, we'll talk about sort of why this doesn't. It doesn't benefit men either. But was Do you believe in our holding your child's hand in the pediatricians office is as valuable to society as an hour in the boardroom? And it was actually the white, non Hispanic, professional classmen when they check that off, and that's who they identified as that had the hardest time saying that they believe that those two were equal your father did,

31:05

yes.

31:06

So a lot of people will say, well, not my spouse, I'm like, great, then you'd be a cultural warrior. Yeah. on our journey, just like, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, just because it's not raining on you, doesn't mean we don't need umbrellas, right? If your partner is different, and you believe that you have an equal partner in the home, then shout it from the rooftops, allow that partner to normalize it, have the people who work for him, take paternity leave, continue to celebrate those men who are in care, because that's really the only way we're going to change things is by valuing care and that we believe in our holding our child's hand in the pediatricians office as a society is just as valuable as in our in the boardroom.

31:41

What I also think is an interesting phenomenon is the men who do dig deep and get their hands dirty and do boring shit. Sometimes people will say, Oh, he has his balls all locked out. He's totally being told what to do by his wife. It's sort of like, No, he's actually being a fucking equal parent, and helping out here.

32:01

Well, that's why it's not a this is a love letter to men, because this is according to data, not just me. Men want to be good fathers attitudes of fathers are changing. housework, not so much. So we'll talk a little bit about how the shift work, the daily grind of housework needs to catch up to fatherhood.

32:18

Well, I'll tell you a funny thing about housework is my husband does not like the way that I load the dishwasher. He thinks it's disorganized. And he just thinks it doesn't look right. And I say I'm not going to spend fucking five hours cleaning the silverware as if it was going to go back in the drawer, because then what's the point of the fucking dishwasher? I got just so many complaints about it that I was like, guess what? You own the dishwasher. Now it's all yours. I'll pick another job. But I am not going to load the dishwasher if you're going to comment on how it's not organized the way you want it.

32:51

Absolutely. But that's the premise of fair play. The premise of fair play right is exactly that, Sarah, but as a holistic system, the premise was my job is to create family systems for very highly complex family foundations and family businesses that often look like HBO show succession. Right. And I remember thinking to myself, you know, what if I could have these families communicating around the table with grace and humor and generosity over the most difficult financial organizational decisions that I could definitely create systems around dishes, right. And what I realized is that really the core premise of fair play is very easy. And thank God for Carol Dweck, because she talks a lot about the mindset shifts, right. And so the power of a mindset shift and for her, my son called the power of yet, right? I'm not a NBA player yet, right? There's beauty in changing your mindset. But when I talk about it, our play is just it's changing from a scorekeeping mindset or resentment mindset, or she fault mindset to a ownership mindset. It's exactly what you said, it's this idea. But let me explain to you why it's a little bit deeper because what I found in fairplay was that we're very focused on just execution. And it's really important to understand the cognitive labor behind decision. So what I mean by that is, if you think about condiments, right, you think about mustard. How did that mustard get into your frigerator? Well, you can break it down from an organizational management, my decade long business into the home. And so I started to think about using that science in the home. And I realized that it's very simple. There's really three steps to how that mustard got there. There's the conception phase, which is someone had to know Sarah, that your second son Johnny likes French's yellow mustard with his protein, otherwise he chokes. Somebody has to be watching and observing that right and understanding that taking note of it, taking note of it, keeping that in their brain somewhere using attention on your children in that way. That's the conception phase. Then somebody has to monitor that mustard for when it's running low, right and put it down a grocery list with everything else you need for your meals for the week. And if your child has an allergy, or there's other issues, it's much more complicated. That's the planning Phase right you're serving everybody else for what they need. And then there's the get your butt to the store. Now it's more complicated and masks and gloves or whatever.

35:07

Yes,

35:08

for sure to go purchase the French's yellow mustard now that's in organizational management is what we would call the execution phase. And the problem with heterosis gender Holmes was that man invariably This is an invariable before is inevitable is not inevitable. But this was an invariable, that is really variable, but they were invariably stepping into the execution phase. And when you step into the execution phase, and you're going, you're the one going to the store, you're gonna bring home spicy Dijon right every fucking time when I asked you for French's yellow. Right? Why fairplay became a love letter to men was because the number one thing men told me was holding them back for doing more in the home was that they couldn't get anything, right? Mm hmm. Even if they tried to do more that they felt they'd be shut down and dismissed. That's a terrible way to feel.

35:55

No, it's a great point because it was going to lead into this other thing that's been on my mind since reading your book, and being the flexible neurotic is what things do we have to get more flexible on so that the other partner can start owning their shed?

36:10

Let's unpack that. So 100%

36:12

Yeah, it's like you talk about the gift wrapping, like, Who gives a fuck what the gift wrapping looks like?

36:18

We'll give the fuck exactly correct. And that is a big, big part of this system. So if you're going to talk about this as a one off, then you may be focused on the time on that gift wrapping, right, because you're not really thinking holistically about the things you can give up. And that's the beauty of the card system. So fair plays 100 cards, and it's about the life changing magic of mustard, if you can think of each card as its own conception planning and execution. If you're interested in to see how every step of each conception planning execution. I broke that out for you. It's on fairplay life website, you can actually go c p e, CP. And the beauty of that ownership mindset when you hold the full CPE is that it also alleviates

36:58

let's just break this down for a second. Yes. So you sat down and wrote down every single little task that you do in a day and you asked hundreds of other women to do the same. So then you get this master list of I buy the gift wrap paper, I wrap the president I take the dog to the groomer, I take the dog to the vet like 7000 million tasks that go on in your house. Yes, yes. So that is called the shit I do list. Right? Yes. Okay.

37:25

This started after that breast cancer March,

37:28

right? So it goes breast cancer March his stof he, yes, I need a solution to this shit, then it turns into the shit I do list. Correct, which is this long laundry list of everything you do in a day, a week, a month, and then it turns into a deck of cards. And each card in the deck has a specific task.

37:50

Right? Correct. And that's where I think Ben, you can put this on because he can actually do a better job of telling you because and then it goes to the next generation.

37:58

This is Eve son, I think who's about to come on now.

38:02

Yes, this is not planned. But since women get interrupted every three minutes and 42 seconds,

38:07

totally. I just did a conference call and the doorbell rang, but nobody got up to get the door.

38:13

Ah, we'll talk about boundaries and how my sons know that they have to interrupt their father as much as they interrupt me.

38:19

Oh, totally. Hi, Ben. How's it going

38:22

to talk about Tell me and what you do? What's your card?

38:26

My card is the laundry card.

38:29

Oh, so what do you do for laundry?

38:32

You have to get all the clothes from outside or inside? Uh huh. And then you bring them into the laundry room, and you put them in the washer. And then some people do this, like me. You put tide and bounty in the downy and downy into the secret door that my mom calls it, okay. And then you start the wash for an hour probably. And then you take it out after an hour and put it in the dryer for another hour.

39:06

So you actually have to remember to put it in the dryer. So you have to do the whole project from A to Z. It's not like you just leave the stuff in the washing machine and walk away. Yeah. You own the whole project. Yes. That's what we have to teach our husbands and wives. Everybody has to be in charge of the project from A to Z, right? Yeah. Cool.

39:29

So then you take it out of the dryer, in probably an hour. Yeah. Mm hmm. And then you fold all the clothes in the dryer, even if there's a little or a lot. Uh huh. And then you do that all over again the next day, and you put them back in their home, right? Yeah. Wow.

39:49

I'm impressed. So cute. Wait, how old is he?

39:53

He just turned nine in July.

39:55

Okay, so a nine year old knows how to do laundry. from conception to execution, so he owns it.

40:04

Absolutely. He owns it on the weekends. So obviously, we're doing a lot of laundry during the week there lots of loads. But we say that your weekend chores, because he can really focus on that his teaching executive function, because this is a basic life skill to be able to do something from start to finish. The main problem with sending somebody to the store with your list is that you have all the context, right? And that person is getting all the control. And so what you start seeing is that so many people say that they feel mad. And that's a very gender term. So I call it really what it is in the book, I call it the rat fog, right? Where if your home was infested by rats, you're not gonna want to live there. And for men, that idea is like getting random assignments of tasks, like go pick me up a glue stick, right or go back out to the store before 10. It just feels bad.

40:47

Yeah, no, you'd be better off just saying make the fucking diorama with the kid and do everything that's related to it.

40:55

That's right, exactly the diagram. And you know what? And if it doesn't go in, then you carry through the mistake with the report card and with the teacher, right?

41:03

Yes,

41:04

I agree. You're customizing your defaults in advance. And we don't do this. And it's because we never treated our home as our most important organization.

41:13

I like how in the book, you define that as a preschool helper versus a true collaborator. Nobody wants like a preschool helper to like hand out popsicle sticks. Exactly. You want someone who's thinking that we need popsicle sticks, putting it on the list going in the market, buying them bringing them home and using them. That's what we need.

41:35

Sara, even my Aunt Mary and spa, john group, literally has more clearly defined expectations in the room than the home because you have to be responsible for bringing the snacks.

41:44

What about all the women who are saying, but it's just so much easier for me to do it myself? It's so annoying to have to explain it. What do you say to that?

41:52

Okay, so let's really unpack the core finding a fair play here, which is that you can make lists for 100 years, you can say that you want help, and you want to have more time for things like your life and your podcasts,

42:05

right? No system,

42:06

no ownership mindsets gonna work. Unless we start changing a very core part of us the number one rule that you see in fair play, right, this idea of all time is created equal. So what I found the core finding a fair play, which was, besides the fact of all this identity loss a month women that was reported to me that made me feel really sad and made me also feel like I had to write about it, which is where unicorn space came from.

42:30

But it's also great in the sense that it normalizes it, you realize that we're all going through it. And the best part is, like you said in the book, you didn't just create the shit, I do list and then just leave us all to sort of stress about it actually created a solution to solve this shit. I do.

42:47

Yeah. And it's working. It's working. And it's a movement. And so anybody here, like I said, who has a partner who's equally doing the housework with you Come and join our movement. If you don't, then listen to what I'm saying here, which is this idea that your time is diamonds. So traditionally, in society, we see what the research shows us is that we treat men's time as finite. And we guarded society, women, men, we guard it like it's diamonds, and we view and value women's time is infinite. And we treat it like sad. Some of your listeners are probably too young. But if you remember Days of Our Lives, just think about like the hourglass where the sand is falling through it. Right? That is women's time. And this is how it plays out. A lot of women end up opting out of the workplace, like I did, based on the fact that their husbands made more money than them, right. And so that sort of what was happening to me. But I would argue I work in philanthropy, my husband works in private equity, my job is more valuable. So in the workplace, we know that men are paid often more than women, even the same jobs. So we know women's time is not valued. If you're a woman of color, you're paid 50 cents of the dollar, on average to a non Hispanic white men. So already we know our time is valued in the workplace. But what's fascinating to me, Sarah was it was women. That's why I ultimately ended up writing to women and not to men. It was women who were guarding men's time, the most. I know, it's such a strange phenomenon. It was what I started writing down cry Oh, and all my notes complicit in your own oppression. So let's just talk about how we unpack what society has done to us. Well, women were saying to me things when I said, Why are you the one picking up the call from the school or the one begging your husband to do carpool once a week, but the default is on you. Right? He does do it every morning, though. I have to give them a gold star for that. Good, I'm happy because then I would have to like put makeup on that early in the morning. No, and you do not because you're gorgeous without it. But I will say that one of the top things women said to me was well, of course I'm the one who picks up the call from the school, you know, because my husband makes more money than me We already talked about that's a losing argument because women already make less money. And so that will be an argument we would have to go over for hundreds of years, right? Until we get pay equity. So that can't be the reason for you to More invisible work. The next argument was well, I'm a better multitasker. My superpower is sensing my children's needs and knowing everything that they want. And I'm a better multitasker. I'm wired differently. So Sarah, that was the only other day that actually, I sobbed like literally sobbed in a neuroscientist office. When I asked one of these really taught neuroscientists whether women are better multitaskers than men, and we had a very scientific nerdy conversation. But then we ended up going deeper as I was telling him about the fairplay ideas and the guilt and shame I was feeling and what I was saying to myself about being a better multitasker, and being wired differently. He said to me, this man, white man lab coat, you know, very traditional badges hanging from his coat. When I asked him are women wired differently? And he said to me, You know what Eve? Imagine we men can convince you women that you're better at wiping acid and doing dishes. Hmm, that means I get tenure, it means I get to still have be a great dad. And so I've been what I want to, but it means I have much more uninterrupted time and attention for the things that I love, unicorn time, unicorn time, and work time to go for those drinks without guilt and shame. Because I have a spouse now who thinks they're better at it. And so it's working for me, right? How awesome I've convinced them as a society.

46:19

Bingo.

46:20

So I cried that day, Sarah, I really cried. I felt so bad about myself, and so well that I never wanted another woman to ever feel that way again, to say that I was blaming myself right that I was a failure. And then the other thing that I heard a lot, which my friend Professor Dan Ariely helped me unpack was the other toxic time message, which was in the time it takes me to tell him or her they what to do. I might as well do it myself. Totally. And so I went to a behavioral economist for that one, because they look at how time use

46:50

you dug so deep in this Eve, you must have had a really long shovel.

46:54

I did. I did. It was so fun, because the research was the best part for me.

47:00

Yeah,

47:01

I still love it. I can tell you about the study of communication that just came out. But Dan Ariely said to me, that's a terrible argument for women, because of course, it makes sense to quote unquote, teach someone how to wipe the acid or do the dishes, because it's at the expense of your finite time. Right? You do not have a bit of time, unless you can fuck with the space time continuum, which I wish we could do in COVID, and move us forward.

47:23

Right? Totally.

47:24

But we can't there's just a different expectation, Sara over how women are supposed to use their time. Yes. And God forbid, I do not fulfill those expectations. And I'm going to be guilt and shame for it. Right. So what I'm here to say is that all women's time is diamonds. And until you believe, do you believe I'm asking your listeners? Have you ever permission to be unavailable? Do you believe your time is equally as valuable as your partner's time until we as women believe that our time is also diamonds, because we only just get 24 hours in a day the same as men? There's nothing I can tell you here that will write any imbalances in our society.

48:02

Wow, that is very impactful, for sure. And I think that I and I hope listeners are really listening to that. Because it's not a judgment thing. It's like, let's stop. Let's think about it. And like, let's figure out a way to make life more meaningful by getting rid of some of the shit we don't want to do.

48:21

100% and that takes aligning with your partner right on your values, right? From everyday housework to what kind of relationship you want with your in laws to what religion you want to raise your kids, right. These are conversations that sometimes you have in pre Cana right? But then we stopped communicating Sara, we stop using our voice in the home.

48:42

But you have a solution in this book, Eve, it's like you have the shit I do list that turned into the cards, right? And then you take those cards and you say, you can have it all if you do a 20 minute meeting a week with your spouse to deal those cards. So I want listeners to think like, Oh shit, I can take this away today and do so you get the cards. And then what happens?

49:08

Yeah, so let's go really practical. So 100% when I started to say to Seth, I want you to treat my time as diamonds as well, right? And really sat down with him to say how I was feeling everything changed. And so many men said to me, I cannot believe that you're telling me my wife says that she can't talk to me about domestic life.

49:25

So you had to become the game changer, which is one of your rules.

49:29

100% you have to

49:32

so tell us what a game changer is. It's someone who sits down and says what?

49:37

It's Nora Ephron, where she says you can be the victim of your own life or you can become your own heroine, its agency.

49:43

It's not even about being like a ballbuster. It's just about being like, hey, let's make our relationship and our household better in 20 minutes a week by dealing these cards of tasks, and then I won't bug the fuck out of you to take the garbage out.

49:58

You won't be nag We will have better communication,

50:02

better sex, more sex,

50:04

better sex. Basically, it was saying to Seth, if we invest in our relationship, like we invest in every other area of our life, then things are going to change. We've stopped investing in our relationship, we invest in our kids, we invest in our kids creativity, we invest in our exercise routine, that at the time was investing in his meditation, right? But we're not investing in our most important practice. And that's what this takes, it takes it back to the ownership mindset. So the fairplay system is very basic. It's three things, it's one boundaries, do you believe you have a permission to be unavailable? That's the all time is created equal, once you believe that, that you deserve unicorn space, right? And it's much easier to come to the table to say I want a system that makes things more fair, right?

50:47

That's hard to do. Because if your spouse doesn't really innately believe that, too. It's like, where do you start? I mean, I'm lucky because mine does mine actually came home from work today to make sure this fucking recording went well. Because he knows how important is to me, and I screwed it up last time. So he was like, I will be there by two o'clock, don't stress. But we've invested in that. And we have these conversations, especially since reading your book. I'm like, I am going to like make it my best effort to do this.

51:19

Absolutely. And the thing is that it doesn't mean that I'm saying women have to do all the work. The system is a two player game. I wish it was a three player and a four player game. I talked about that with our governmental institutions and our corporations, which is what we're doing with the fair play movement. But in the home, it's actually really, really simple. And if these crazy HBO show succession, HBO show succession families that I work with can do it, you can do it. Ultimately, you're you're investing in your communication. And so the beauty of the cards is that it takes away the personalization of back to what I said, the home being dangerous, where you think you're fighting over garbage or mustard, right, but you're fighting about accountability and trust.

51:58

Yeah. And then you tell them everything else you hate about them to.

52:01

Exactly.

52:02

And this is like garbage soccer schedule. There's nothing personal about it. So just facts.

52:09

There's nothing personal. It's an invitation and my good friend, Daniel Stillman. He's a conversation designer. I love his job so much.

52:16

Oh, I love that.

52:18

And what he says is so many people miss the invitation, right? They miss the invitation to sit down to talk. So it's usually someone busting in on you saying you didn't get me the thing I need for the kids school, right? Or you're talking at times or there's no invitation. Oh, where's my iPad? Thanks, Zack. You want to come in? This is my older son here.

52:36

Zack. You're the older son.

52:38

Yeah.

52:39

How old are you?

52:40

I turned 12 yesterday.

52:42

Are you a CP expert and a fairplay expert?

52:47

Yeah.

52:47

has it taken over your whole life and house?

52:51

Pretty much but I think it's a

52:54

good answer. My kids are like, Can we not talk about the flexible neurotic one more time? Can we not do that? We love you. We're proud of you. But I get it. It's a lot. Tell us what car do you own in the fairplay deck.

53:07

I hold the dishes card. And I have to CP the full task by washing the dishes, putting them in the dishwasher. And then about an hour later coming back to the task and putting them where they belong in their cabinets and places you need to do the full task instead of just doing part of.

53:30

That's amazing. Can you teach everyone in my house that?

53:33

Yeah, you'll give a kid's workshop, right?

53:36

My kids don't even close the cabinet doors. I'm like, somebody's gonna poke an eye out. Oh, my gosh,

53:41

you know what? It's a system. It's the idea of you get your family involved and say that this is not a gender role.

53:48

No, no, no. It's a division of labor.

53:51

This is treating our home with some respect and rigor. But it's also saying our home is our most important organization. Yeah. And we would never walk into our boss's office and say, hey, what should I be doing today? I'll wait here to tell me what to do. We don't

54:03

do that.

54:04

So annoying. And how do we put that in our home? So it's really this idea that yes, it's a system, but it's about an invitation. And if you're going to use the system and the cards as a list, it's not going to work. So we've been making lists for 100 years including, as we said, the beautiful Should I do spreadsheet that had over 2000 items of invisible work on it, but it's the idea of you aligning first you line together to understand what you value and like you said, Sarah, what you can throw out

54:30

like I don't give a shit what wrapping papers on a gift. It's not important to me, but I have some friends like that would be really important to them. But I have other junk things that are important to me.

54:40

And we often don't bring gifts places and we say we'll give an experience your kids.

54:45

Right exactly. Like I want a certain iced tea but maybe somebody else doesn't care what kind of iced tea they have. I totally get it and I'm okay with sort of being a quote bad mom, like my kids go to a party. I'm like, yeah, we're gonna email the Amazon card. Later. We can't all be perfect. You got to give up on some shit and other mothers understand. They just do.

55:05

Absolutely. But also, how about that? Is your husband's card always write birthday parties? Yes. And that means that they're responsible for the gift. That means they're responsible for putting the RSVP into from the paperless post, right. They're responsible for organizing the carpool to get them there.

55:20

No, I get it. It's like my kids with playdates, my daughter's almost 14, my son's 16. I haven't planned something for them, either one of them for two years, at least,

55:30

that's how you are going to get more uninterrupted attention and focus there for the things that you love.

55:36

Yeah, it's like if you want to have a plan with a friend that's on you, I know all the parents, they know that I'm happy to have their kids whenever that's been made clear. So as long as it's not some weirdo from another planet, you know what I mean? They're all familiar faces, make the plan and you conceive of it, plan it and execute it. And I don't need to be a part of it unless you need to get somewhere.

55:59

Absolutely. But that's also kids. It's a family system. Because this is about saying that we all want to treat our home with respect and rigor. And so the beauty, though, is that a lot of people say right, well, it's the invitation that I have a hard time with, like you said, Sarah, my husband doesn't or my partner doesn't believe our time is valuable. They won't sit down with me. And typically, those are people who have not been investing in their communication practice. Yes. And so what I mean by that is that so many people they've been taught, well, a we've never been taught to communicate. But what I've learned in a mediation as a mediator for 10 years, and a lawyer for these highly complex families is that we often think of communication as a means to an end. So when I say to people, why do you communicate with your partner, it's like, well, I had to tell him to take them to the birthday party, or I had to tell her that she didn't leave me the cash to put as a tooth fairy, right? So it's always these means to an end things in the home, whereas instead, I was I challenge your listeners. And this is something they can do today is to just change your mindset, which part of the ownership mindset to investing in communication just as a practice, so I don't care what you say, but I care how and when you say it. So do you have a few seconds just to do one communication vulnerabilities quiz with me? Sure. Okay, let's do this. Because part of understanding the very quick rules we can take away from today about communication is understanding our own vulnerabilities. So many people are more likely to tell me what their partner's vulnerabilities were, but couldn't really tell me their own.

57:27

But Eve aren't a perfect example.

57:30

We all are in our brain.

57:31

Oh my gosh.

57:33

So this is a list I developed sort of watching families over a decade. These are the top seven vulnerabilities so tell me your partner's name again Sarah, Jeremy. Jeremy Okay, so I don't really care what you think of yourself I want to know the last time say you had a emotion is high cognition is low moment any sort of argument you could think of or something in the past that was triggering for you and Jeremy, I want to know what Jeremy would say about you how you react to those types of things. Just pick one when he once a year long winded while while while you're talking? No one's listening to you use sharp commands that your tone and drill sergeant delivery isn't popular with the troops but Jeremy say three that you have bad timing, or as my friend Claudia calls herself of her husband calls her a verbal assassin, you drop your grievances and requests for help into the conversation inopportune moments. Thanks for that flowers, honey, but you forgot dishwashing detergent go back out to the store before 10 or like the verbal assassin where she says things like I'm just so confused. How you became just like the worst Father of all time. How did that happen? You know,

58:34

right?

58:35

That's toxic word choice. So that's four or five we have Oh, sorry. That's bad timing. Then toxic word choices. The verbal assassin Sorry, that was the I wasn't gonna say anything but I really hate it when you or the How did you become such a horrible father then we have five which is all or nothing you never replace a toilet paper roll. You always leave the seat up six dredging up the past this is just like the last time you forgot to or seven boiling over. I wasn't going to say anything. I didn't say anything. I avoided this conversation as long as I could. And now I'm really pissed. We have long winded sharp commands bad timing, toxic word choice, aka verbal assassin, all or nothing dredging up the past or boiling over what we would say about you.

59:13

I think I actually am all of them.

59:16

Okay, pick one, pick one that Jeremy. You can give me an example or Yeah, what do you say?

59:22

I think verbal assassin might be good. I think that might be all encompassing for me.

59:27

Okay, so give me an example how that may play out.

59:30

Like when he told me that he didn't like the way that I lined up the silverware on the top rack of the dishwasher. It turned into like a whole fight on every single thing that I hated about him.

59:42

That's toxic words.

59:43

Yeah. How he's OCD. And he doesn't have to care about what the inside of the dishwasher looks like. And then he's like, Yeah, but have you seen all the packages at the door that you haven't gone through and your pile of shit that's waiting for you at the door that's been sitting there for days and it just turned into this like full thing when he should just be responsible for the dishwasher. And I'll do some other tasks.

1:00:05

Yeah. And so what was so beautiful about that is it sort of plays into what the three rules of communication are so perfectly, because in that example, what you're doing there is giving feedback in the moment. So one of the things that was really easy for me to say, as a mediator, but really hard for me to adopt Sarah, along the fairplay journey was this idea of how to stop giving feedback in the moment.

1:00:29

Oh, my God, that's like the hardest thing in the world to do. Yeah, maybe meditation has made me like 1% better. It's so hard.

1:00:39

It's really hard. And so the beauty of these rules, all I'm asking of your listeners today, which they can start doing today is a meditate on their vulnerability. Think about what pattern you fall into, when you are fighting, and I gave you the top seven, you may have a different one. But there's probably one of those that you could probably relate to, or all of them. But yeah, or all of them. Number two, typically, many of those vulnerabilities long winded is different than for that you set a timer, right. But a lot of those vulnerabilities are happening, because we're communicating when emotion is high, and cognition is low. And when emotion is high, and cognition is low, you're more likely to get feedback in the moment. And what I'm here to tell you is from science, your partner cannot hear you, they cannot hear you, when you're giving feedback in the moment, automatically, it goes straight to our defense mechanisms, systems, we shut down parts of our brain that are sort of open to learning and listening are not there. When emotion is high cognition is low, the type of cognition you need for someone to actually change their behavior. And number three, so one, know your vulnerabilities. Number two, think about not giving feedback in the moment. But the problem with that Sarah was so many women especially said to me, Well, I don't give feedback in the moment. And there's not another time that I can give that feedback. So number three, is what you started with, which is the beauty of a check in. It works in the workplace, we see all the feedback now around more consistent communication between managers and employees, and how important that is for psychological safety. The same thing in the home for you to feel psychologically safe to start really owning a system of dividing up housework starts with the psychological safety, of being able to use your voice. But that requires having a time when you're communicating as a practice.

1:02:22

Right. So you're saying that I mean, this whole episode could be called 20 minutes a week to getting a woke household? Right?

1:02:29

Yeah.

1:02:30

So you're supposed to sit down with your spouse or partner with the deck of cards, maybe a glass of wine and be like, Okay, what should are you doing this week? What should I do a what are the weekend chores, and then each person has to own their shit. That's it. And if you're pissed off about something in the moment, wait until later, because you're probably gonna forget about it anyway.

1:02:51

And write it down. I used to write everything down. And like, examples. One time I had yellow rag and all caps I still to the day this day, I have no idea what yellow rag was. Apparently, I was yelling at set in the moment, right. But by the time we got to our check in, and now I will say because we both have very dynamic careers. And by dynamic, I mean things that move around a lot. Yeah, we've had to move our checking up during COVID every day, right? And so we sometimes will do very 1980s parenting right where our kids are staying home and I say to my 11 year old, I've Anna wakes up right? You'll call us, right? But we take a walk around the block. Mm hmm. And we notice the days we don't check in the next day is a shit show. Right? So just like the days I you know, you don't exercise. Maybe you feel worse.

1:03:37

Yeah, no, I've noticed that my husband lately has been like, so what's your plan for tomorrow? Like, what's your schedule for tomorrow? Because like, he wants to know how he fits into that picture. Like, okay, you told me you an interview with Eve, you told me like two weeks ago, I did put it on my calendar, and I cannot let you down or you're going to torture me. But I have noticed. And because he's doing that I'm actually doing it more because I'm kind of like a sole operator where I'm like, Okay, this is my plan. Like most moms,

1:04:09

that's it. It's like get on my train or get off.

1:04:12

Yeah, I normally haven't incorporated him in the past. Yes. But he's been home so much with COVID. But like he is part of the daily plan now. So I'm like, Okay, this has changed the dynamic a little bit like yesterday, I was preparing to talk to you. And I was like, I know it's Yom Kippur War. And I shouldn't have done this. But the kids have dental cleanings because I knew we weren't going to temple. And he's like, I got it. I'll take them and pick them up. And I was like,

1:04:39

Yes, exactly. That is so beautiful. And I will say thank you, Jeremy. Yes, for giving your wife to the world like this, and for evolving with her evolution, right, because the couples that I see that do best are ones that and my friend Jennifer Petrie, glary she writes about this. She's a beautiful book. That's called couples that work. She's looking at dual career couples, but they're not dual career couples that have always like you said, Sarah, we started off saying, right that have this exact formula figured out, right? Nobody understands what the fuck balance means or anything.

1:05:12

It's about being okay with discomfort, a little disorganization? Yes. But knowing at the end of the day that you guys are connected, you're on the same page connected.

1:05:24

Yes. And also so the way she talks about his power, and the way I talk about it is empowering somebody else. Yes. Because when I say to Seth, like, I trust you to handle all extracurricular sports for our kids, right, and you carry through that mistake, but we talked about the minimum standard of care and fair play. And I say the only thing I care about is that they get to practice on time, because I remember as a kid, I was always late. And I feel very triggered, and they get nervous when they're late, and their coach yells at them, practice on time protective gear, but otherwise, you rings a carpool your snack Dad, you can do the coach's gift, you can do whatever else that leader is responsible for.

1:05:59

Yeah, but I think that's really important. It's going back to that flexible neurotic thing. It's like, as a woman or one half of the relationship, you have to give up some of your neuroses. And you're wanting to control everything. There's no way that you can function if you don't, or you're giving up your own personal time. And if it's that worth it to you to have that specific wrapping paper, then fine. But like you wrote in the book, like that woman who married the wealthy guy who told her to give up her design business, and then he left her 10 years later than she was left with nothing.

1:06:35

Yeah, well, she heard quote, right, that I lost permission to be interesting and interested in my own life. That also was like, stabbed me in the heart. Because I did feel like I was becoming a great version of myself, Sarah, and this is exactly back to that.

1:06:48

And especially as our kids get older, like minor, 16 and 14, it's like, they're busy. And I've hopefully taught them to like run their own lives. They're like doing zooms for themselves. Thankfully, I don't have to sit and manage them. But like, it also leaves me more time with myself of Okay, what what's next? What am I gonna do now?

1:07:09

Absolutely.

1:07:10

That's why I didn't have another kid, a third kid. I never wanted one. But I also felt like if I have another kid, it's no judgment on anyone else. And I've talked about this before. In another episode, I knew for me if I had another kid right now, I'd be doing that in 10 years. Okay, what now? And I didn't have the ability to do me and do kids at the same time. Or if I did, I was judging myself too hard that I wouldn't be able to, quote, do it perfectly. Like you said, I can't be a perfect mom and a perfect career person. So I have to pick one. And in retrospect, I probably should have combined the two and been okay with him perfect. Well, I

1:07:48

think again, it's back to exactly we started right, the life changing magic of long term thinking, yeah, who do you want to be? It may not look like that. But do you have an idea? All I wish for women, my collective wish for us all, is that we and what I really believe the 21st century version of women's liberation is is that we get to have as much time choice, yes. over how we get to use our time as men do.

1:08:11

And let's not judge other women for their choices.

1:08:15

No, but that you just get that time choice.

1:08:17

You stay home great. You go to work great. But like let's stop judging each other.

1:08:22

As long as it's your choice.

1:08:24

Yes, everybody has to do it their way. And we need to just support other people's choices. Like I mean, I have people kind of like, oh, you're not working? Oh, you're just like a stay at home mom. And it was so insulting.

1:08:38

It's terrible. And I will say that this is also back to the value of care. Do you believe in our holding your child's hand? Maybe admissions office is just as valuable in our in the boardroom when we believe that right? Then we will understand and we will one of my favorite means of zoom was like, okay, motherfuckers. Now, you're never going to ask a stay at home mom what she does all day ever again. This invisible work has to be done. It's often borne by women. And that's why 43% of us 43% of us take a career detour after kids. Yes, it is untenable the way it is now, we cannot do it alone. We cannot do it without social supports. And without inviting men into the home.

1:09:16

Yeah, I mean, it can even be simple things Eve like I adore my daughter, but she's home and she's 14 and she wants to talk to me, which is still great. But like sometimes at night, I'm like, Oh my God, my brain hurts. So he came up with this thing where he they watch an episode of The Amazing Race together every night. And that's 40 minutes where like, I don't have to be asked anything or spoken to you. I can just sort of like to now and be in another room. And it sounds crazy, but it's like a gift.

1:09:45

And also they're getting their own part of the pun, but amazings are a bonding experience over that experience. And by the way, I was on season three of The Amazing Race. So that could be a whole other thing.

1:09:54

Oh, yeah, totally. I don't even know what season they're on because it's like my time to just be like gotta get out of here. Bye. Okay, but wait before we end on the fairplay, I want to summarize because we didn't go into each one because we got so deep into self identity and self recreation, which I fucking love. But I want to just sort of summarize for the readers because they're self explanatory. And they're also in your book before golden nuggets of fair play. Number one, all time is created equal, right?

1:10:24

Yes, that is exactly what we said.

1:10:26

Sand versus diamonds. Right. Number two, reclaim your right to be interesting. unicorn space,

1:10:33

the act of pursuit of what makes you you is linked to your longevity and mental health.

1:10:37

Amazing. Number three, start where you are right now, either game changer.

1:10:43

We just said this, your fair is not my fair, the idea of 5050 is the wrong equation. Start where you are now

1:10:50

and initiate that conversation.

1:10:52

yet. Don't ever feel judged for where you are. But just know that your time is your choice. It is diamonds. And so start where you feel like today and move forward from there

1:11:01

and invite your spouse or partner to the conversation. It's awkward and it's hard. But like you said in the book, do you think it's better to put out the awkward invitation to the fairplay deck of cards? Or do you think it's better just to be a total nasty partner with like eye rolling and faces and being passive aggressive? Might as well dive in,

1:11:23

you're ready communicating about domestic life. I'm asking for a conversation shift, not a start. Whether you're dumping those wet clothes in your husband's pillow when they forget to put them out of the dryer, or you're about to break up over a glue stick. We're all communicating about domestic life. And so this is about a shift to intentional conversations, intentional check ins, we're investing in your relationship more than you're investing in fucking toilet paper by now.

1:11:46

Yes, or gift wrap our gift. So I want to say that I am so impressed and inspired by your self free creation fairplay lens that you've given to all of us. In this podcast. We've talked about small steps in the golden shovel like what small steps I can take today. It seems like you took that first small step after getting that blueberry text from SAS and you made the shit I do list and then you created a solution with fairplay I'm impressed who knew that your shit list would turn into two books will almost your second book and become a cultural game changing phenomenon.

1:12:27

Thank you, Sara. I want to just say that fairplay is not just a two player game, join our movement to make the value of care matter in our society.

1:12:37

And I want to say that you did have a quote in the book is having it all doesn't mean you have to do it all

1:12:45

under percent. I think that if that's all everybody takes away that having all does not mean doing all then we're going to be in a better place. 10 years from now, we're doing this for the next generation of women including your daughter, Sarah, yes, so that her relationship feels fair to her.

1:13:00

It's supposed to get better every generation ready.

1:13:03

I hope so. Let's pray.

1:13:05

Oh my gosh. Well, before we wrap up, I like to do a little thing at the end of the episode just so we can learn more about the guests. So we're gonna do a quick fun shit about Eve. You ready?

1:13:15

Ready?

1:13:16

what's next on the bucket list?

1:13:18

Book number three fairplay for business taking the organizational management concepts that were in fair play and actually reapplying them back into the workplace because we need work life integration more than ever.

1:13:30

Oh my God, you are a nerd. Okay. Anything that you have learned that's on your bucket list now after quarantine.

1:13:37

Oh my gosh. Anything that doesn't have stretchy sweatpants on the bottom. I'm a mullet literally I will never wear denim again. I call myself a zoo mullet. I'm just like business on the top party in the bottom.

1:13:49

Totally. I had to do a zoom call like that this morning. But I actually put jeans on for you so they're feeling a little tight right now. Oh my god. Amazing. Okay, your secret pleasure.

1:13:59

As we talked about before anything with trans fat in it? or corn syrup?

1:14:02

Ah, amazing. It's like a dopamine complete hit. favorite beauty treatment.

1:14:07

Definitely used to the people their products. They have this amazing face masks that's I've been using and quarantine.

1:14:14

How often do you use it?

1:14:16

I say like once a week but all their products are clean products. That's one thing I've been trying to do is use a little bit more clean products. Since I don't eat clean. I figure I might as well put things into my face.

1:14:27

Right exactly. Something has to be clean, right? Yes, yes. Okay. What whoo things you do crystals meditation.

1:14:36

I used to do Tarot. I haven't done it in a long time, but I used to read tarot cards, and I can chart the stars. I have a deep love of astrology.

1:14:45

Wow. Okay, favorite TV show that you're watching now or you used to watch?

1:14:50

Well, back to the show that I told you that I was a contestant on season three because I didn't have money for a bar trip. But just like your husband, I still love The Amazing Race.

1:14:59

Okay. What was the last thing you ordered from Amazon?

1:15:02

Candy jars actually, to put all the candy that's now on my pantry and overflowing?

1:15:08

Oh my gosh, I hope you're having a lot of trips to the dentist, you have to see a good texture your picture? What do you think about intuition? Is it natural? Or did you have to work at it?

1:15:18

Oh, I think intuition 100% has to be practice and believing there are clues along the way. But listening to your clues is something that we're not taught to do as women. So 100%, it's there, but you really have to be still. So those times of focus attention on things that you love will actually help bring out your intuition. I guess

1:15:36

it's not waiting until the blueberry text sends you over the edge. I mean, there were probably 10 million versions of the blueberry text you just ignored for 10 years prior to that, right? 1,000,000% What's the smallest thing that we can do today to start our shift toward self recreation.

1:15:54

If you have a partner, it is 100% investing in your communication practice. If you don't have a partner yet, it's understanding the expectations of what you want out of your life. And if you're a single parent, it's understanding that having it all does not mean doing it all and looking to your community for support and knowing that we are all see you and we're fighting for you for better policies on your behalf.

1:16:16

I love that and what would your bottom line advice be on finding the sweet spot in the second half of life?

1:16:24

I would say that there's always going to be shift work to do. So finding your flow is really important. embracing your shit, embracing the shit work because you know, you have times of focus attention for things you love.

1:16:36

Yes. Okay, so now that we have shit shoveled for today, I hope you have loved Eve's fairplay golden life changing nuggets as much as I have. Eve I have love digging deep with you with our golden shit shovels today on this podcast. If listeners want to find you, where can they find you?

1:16:55

They can find me at Eve redsky I we answer DMS and also a fairplay life. And again, the fairplay life comm website has a lot of tools, okay, and your Instagram, your website, your book, whoosh. Think about what shit you can start doing today. One small step.

1:17:12

I want to thank you for revolutionising the tools for equalizing the household distribution of tasks and inspiration that helped us to enhance our personal identity for ourselves and our families in the second half of life and hence this podcast to have it all We don't have to do it all you Brodsky.

1:17:33

Thank you, Sarah. You're amazing.

1:17:35

Thank you. Oh my God, love you. Thank you. Hi, it's me again. I listened to this episode with Eve Brodsky so I could summarize the golden nuggets for you to have actionable items to start living more flexibly today. In this episode, we dug deep, we found the sweet spot in learning how to create a more equally distributed family and household workload for all members, moms and women and even dads who can't be responsible for everything. Even explains that women are responsible for two thirds of household duties. We need to reclaim our time to start recreating ourselves or we won't have the time. The first Golden Nugget is all time is created equal men's time is equal to women's time. It's time for us to redefine how we see our time. We need to recognize that our time is not sand. It's not infinite. We can't view our time like the hourglass and the Days of Our Lives soap opera, our time is as valuable as men's time. The first step, view your time as diamonds. Eve says that research shows that we treat men's time as finite, and we treat it like diamonds and we treat our time like it's infinite. We also need to understand that a woman cannot be the automatic default for the call from school that a kid needs to be picked up or that we have to do carpool every morning. All Time is created equal. It's not about who makes more money. Eve is basically saying that we need to culturally recognize that our spouses being on the phone for two hour business call is equally as important as being held captive with your daughter trying on clothes at Brandy Melville for two hours. That's me. Second golden nugget. Find your unicorn space. It is not self care time that you pay for like a CBD pedicure although that would be nice. Eve says unicorn time is about a woman's active pursuit that is not paid for like a manicure. unicorn space is like the mythical equine space that does not exist for women unless we fucking reclaim it. listening to a podcast is self care. Making a podcast she says is the active pursuit of unicorn time. learning a new skill is unicorn time time for you and only you the steps for this Deciding what is your unicorn space? A identify a passion? What would you like to create more time and mental and physical space for today? It might seem like a fairy tale to carve out time to play the piano or research the business idea that you've had for five years. But you need it be what gets you excited, something you do with your hands, something that connects you to others something that gets your adrenaline pumping, something that builds your mind or something that gets you higher or spiritual peeps, even saying that fair play is about redistributing household duties so we have time to reclaim our rights to be interesting and interested again. I'm gonna repeat that. Eve says that fairplay is about redistributing household duties so we have time to reclaim our rights to be interesting and interested again. It's the permission to come alive. You can do a volunteer role, you can take a flamenco class, you can become a cook in your own home to entertain. The small step is giving yourself the permission to be interested in something outside of your family and household. You don't have to become a CEO or an Instagram influencer. Just find something that gives you some pep in your step. Think about your identity before you are married or a mom, how is it different? Are there things you want to claim as new or reclaim from your past? Eve is also calling this your right to be interesting. We couldn't dive deeply into this since we covered so many things. But in Eve's book, fairplay you can dive more in depth, you will love it. We all have a right to be interesting to others, by being interested in ourselves and cultivating time for ourselves and our interests. The third Golden Nugget, give yourself permission to be unavailable. This might be one of my favorites. We all want to be able to say I'm unavailable from this time to that time without needing a huge explanation. Men have an easier time doing that than women do. Eva saying let's give ourselves permission to do this. This relates back to unicorn space. Take that time for yourself, carve it out. Eve says that with thousands of women she interviewed the number one thing is that women don't believe they have permission to be unavailable. When you don't give yourself permission to be unavailable. You will never have that unicorn space to call your own. The fourth Golden Nugget start where you are right now be a game changer. Start where you are you think you are being judged. Do it anyway. Your time is diamonds believe it own it. Eve says that we are the game changers. We are the ones who have to bring up the idea of fair play in our homes, and the redistribution of household tasks. It's not like your husband or spouse is going to come home one day and say, Oh gee, I think we should really divide up the tasks you're doing too much. She's saying we have to do it. And her book and her fairplay deck of cards is literally spelling out how we can all do this. You can buy the deck of cards, you can buy the book, check out my show notes. If you are too scared or you stall or wait, you will stay in that holding pattern. The fifth Golden Nugget, be intentional in what you do. Eve says take stock of intentional living, intentional conversations intentional friendships. Don't over invest in the type of toilet paper you have. But if you love paper, start a paper company that's unicorn space. Or if you love table decor, think about carving out time for table design. Eve also says that she finally realized the magic of long term thinking in the day that she got the text from her husband that she forgot the blueberries for his smoothies on her market run. She realized she had not been intentional in her long term thinking. She says I realized that with the legal contract in my lap on my way to pick up my preschooler and a diaper bag for my newborn that I have been pushed out of my own fucking life. Having an all doesn't mean you have to do it all. Reading and adopting fairplay in your home is a recipe for how to get household management woke in 20 minutes a week. read about it in her book. Eve says The bottom line is that household equality is not a fucking favor. Thank you III for revolutionising these tools for equalizing household distribution. The gold is dripping off these nuggets, grab it, use it. The resources and products mentioned in this episode are in the show notes. Go to the flexible neurotic.com click on episodes and then click on show notes. share this episode with a friend and subscribe to the flexible neurotic for more golden nuggets and please write a five star review. It helps me grow as a pod Good peeps. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed finding our sweet spot today and digging through layers of shit with your golden shit shovel, Subscribe, Subscribe, subscribe. DM me on Instagram at the flexible neurotic. Tell me which golden shit nuggets resonated with you, the ones that you're going to start using today to start getting your shit together to find our sweet spots, screenshot it, send it to a friend. This is Dr. Sarah Milken, the flexible neurotic, inspiring you to gather, curate, incorporate, maybe even meditate.