All language subtitles for Fair.Play.2022.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-AOC

[Eve]
All right, guys, let's go.

-[clapping]
-[boy] Mom, [indistinct].

[overlapping chatter]

[chatter continues]

All right,
you want a few chips now?

Go for it. Go for it.

Chips for
breakfast, everybody.

[boy]
It's not breakfast.

[Eve] You're getting
turkey today, okay?

-No, thank you.
-[Eve] And crusts.

Crusts, okay?
I can't do it with--

[chatter]

Out, out.
Everybody out, out.

I'm late. I'm late. I'm late.

[children chatting]

[footsteps]

[up-tempo music]

I'm gonna tell you
a story about blueberries.

♪

This was probably rock bottom.

I had the breast pump
in the diaper bag

in the passenger
seat of my car.

I had gifts
for the newborn baby

to return in
the back seat in my car.

I was racing to get Zach

at his toddler
transition program.

And I had
a client contract in my lap.

The pen that was
holding in between my legs

for the contract
would stab me in the vagina.

Seth decided to send me a text.

And that text said,
"I'm surprised

you didn't get
blueberries."

So, I pulled over.

I remember thinking to myself,

"My marriage is ending
over off season blueberries?"

My marriage should
be ending over my affair

with-- with an NFL player.

Like, that's how
my marriage should be ending.

Or some dramatic affair
in the Caribbean, right,

where I have, like,
my hair blowing back

and I'm really tan.

I was sobbing,
sobbing on a side street.

[dramatic music]

That was
the day that I woke up.

Thinking like,
"How did I get here?"

[energetic music]

All right. So, if-- if I were
to put a percentage

on how much I do
the household tasks,

I would put it between,
like, 30% and 40%.

-Yeah.
-Is that right?

I was gonna say, like...

Yeah, yeah, that's go--

-[laughing]
-It's worse than that?

I do 70% of the childcare.

I do 70% of the childcare.

Hey, he thinks he does 70%.

I think I do 70%.

I definitely do a lot more
in the summer and the winter.

Uh, Maggie does all my laundry

in the spring
and the fall, generally.

-[laughing]
-And--

-You don't do the laundry--
-I do.

-- in the summer
and the winter.

No, I do some, I help.

But, like, when I'm--
when I'm--

When I'm working, like--

-I'm a seasonal laundry girl.
-Yeah!

The laundry, I did the cooking,
I did the cleaning.

I took Halima
to ice skating,

piano, ballet,
gymnastics, swimming.

Allergist appointments,
dentist appointments.

Um, and she gets allergies

from your side
of the family, so...

-So, the p-- there's--
-No, no, no, no, no.

I haven't finished.

No, this is
a risky newlywed game.

Forty percent.

I was actually gonna say
I do 70% of the domestic work.

Fifty, maybe-- maybe
60% of household, um, but--

You don't do dishes, though.

-And you don't do the laundry.
-Give or take, 40/60.

[laughing]

Amir,
eating the food doesn't count.

But I'm not saying that.

I would say my first duty

is staying out of my wife's way

and letting her
do all of those things

that she does, the way
she does them, you know?

I could probably do more,
there-- there's no question.

Um, Sometimes, you know,

it's not quite as efficiently
done if I do it, anyway.

So, Emily
ends up having to redo it

and that causes
even more tension.

I would fill in the gaps,
you know, wherever she--

There were never
any gaps to fill in.

Wh-- whenever she said,

-"Hey, I need--"
-I want attention.

What?
[laughing]

This is-- this is
just so interesting.

We're talking about things
that we've never talked about.

This interrogation's fun,
isn't it?

-It's really interesting.
-Intervention, I should say.

♪

Now, you're gonna meet
the expert

who's been
called the Marie Kondo

of relationships in
her book, Fair Play.

[presenter]
Eve Rodsky is the author

of the best-selling
book, Fair Play.

Which is all about
dividing household labor.

[announcer] No reminders,
no nagging and no excuses.

Well, with Fair Play,
her goal is

to create
the 21st century solution

to this ancient problem.

[blender whirring]

[boy] Yeah.

It's so loud.

Yes, finally.

-Yay!
-[Seth] Okay, guys, let's go.

Who wants it first?

[boys] Me.

Every morning,
it takes, like, ten hours

for that thing to blend.

Are you gonna drink some
smoothie? Or you want some--

It's not like
I expected to grow up

and be a gendered
division of labor specialist.

It's definitely
not what I thought about

when I went to
sleep holding a diary

and my lovey when
I was seven years old.

But I guess psychologists

would call me
a "parental" child.

My father left the family

when my mother was
pregnant with my brother, Josh,

and then we all
migrated to New York City

and we lived in
a rent-stabilized apartment

at Avenue C
and 14th Street in the '80s.

It wasn't a physically
safe place to grow up.

Everyone was afraid to
come to my birthday parties.

I remember my mother
started to work nights

because she really
wanted to get her Ph.D.

She was doing it all.

And so, she'd often
leave me and my brother,

if she could,
with a babysitter.

If not, I was putting
my brother to sleep on my own.

Very early on,
I recognized that he had

pretty severe
learning disabilities.

It was just a lot
of picking up after my mother

and especially for my brother.

I remember
the first eviction notice

that came under our door.

I think it was second grade.

I'd just learned to read
and it said something like,

you know, "You have 30 days
before you'll be removed

from your home."

I didn't want
that notice again.

And so,
when my mom admitted to me

that the reason she had
gotten that eviction notice

was because she was
often late paying our rent,

and a lot of it was
because she didn't have

the time to pay our rent,

I thought, "Okay, well,
that's a great place for me."

I would take the mail
and open her mail for her,

look and make sure

that there was
no late utility bills.

And so a lot of that
cognitive labor of remembering,

I think,
affecting my life later on.

This-- this idea
that I could do it all.

I did it all for my whole life.

I don't need anybody.

Never rely on anybody.

I will never rely on a man.

I'll never rely on friends.

Always this attitude
that I can do it myself.

[muttering]

Okay.

[birds chirping]

[children chatting]

[child] Mommy!

We got pregnant six months
into our marriage with our--

our oldest child.

We said three years, so,
you know.

Anybody who says three years,
you're kidding yourself,

it's probably gon' be six
months, like...

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Going into
marriage, I'm like,

"Okay, so my husband is
gonna be the provider

and the protector
and-- and I'm going to be this,

you know, '40s housewife
and mop the floor

on my hands and knees

and make
everything from scratch.

And that's not
what real life looks like.

[laughing]

I actually graduated
with my MBA a week before

our daughter was born.

When I became a mom,

I felt like
my identity completely changed

and it was, um,
honestly a little traumatic.

I was really
confused and overwhelmed,

and also in love.

I feel like I went from
this super ambitious person

to this person that
was all about her child.

I was so focused on
providing and my career.

I put all
of my energy and efforts

outside of the home
to bring in an income

to make sure that
we were taken care of.

And my expectation was that

she would take
care of the rest.

And I really
didn't understand, I guess,

the amount of, like,
work that she had to endure.

I don't understand
what you just said.

Calm down.
I'm going to show you, look it.

Mommy!

He was working
like 80 hours a week,

and then
he would come home

and I'm like,
"I need you to be on."

And he's like,
"I've been working all day long

to provide for our family
and you're not being grateful."

I was so tired.
I was so lonely.

While he got to
go to work all day

and talk to people
and then come home,

eat and watch TV
and then go to sleep.

And it was really isolating
and really frustrating for me.

He looked at the other people

that were on his path
to success in this company

and almost all
of them were divorced.

[kids chattering]

And one of his
friends came into town

and, um, he was like a step
above Christian in the company.

And he was telling him, like,

"Yeah, man,
I'm getting divorced."

During the argument,
I said, "You know what?

I'm going to go
stay at my parents' house

for a little bit."

And he was like,
"Absolutely not.

That is the first
step to us breaking up."

-You hit record?
-[Seth] Yeah.

Hi.

[Seth]
Where are you going?

I'm going to my shower.

Seth and I are
getting married.

I wanted a big wedding.
I wanted a diamond ring.

I wanted a equal
partner in the home.

And I vowed I would have
an equal partner in the home.

Seth did
the cutest thing for me.

Rose petals.

We were really
growing our careers.

We were each
other's best friends.

And there was
no reason for me to think

that that wasn't going to
be what I would always have.

[Seth] This is Eve's
supposed due date.

Go to the side.
Let me see the side.

Pick up your
shirt a little bit.

I had a really
traumatic birth experience.

Yup.

I was having
a really hard time recovering.

I was having
a hard time breastfeeding.

And when Zach was born,

it was the most
isolated time my life.

I don't think
I slept for another year.

Seth went back to work
two days after Zach was born.

No one ever used the word

postpartum
depression or anxiety.

I had no words to--
to talk to Seth

about the isolation,
the sadness,

um, the physical pain.

Seth started
saying things, like,

"There's just not
much for me to do."

That divide between
Seth and me just kept growing.

[phone ringing]

I remember feeling so
excited to get back to work.

I was at J.P. Morgan
at the time.

We had this
very open office plan

and so I would ask,
"Where's the lactation room?"

I ended up
pumping in a stairwell.

It sounded like sex.

[imitating breast pump noises]

Everywhere I went,

I was sound like
I was fucking somebody.

I'm trying to figure out,
"where would I breastfeed?"

Where would I take breaks?
What if I want to leave early?

So, I left
the corporate workforce

and decided to
start my own firm

because somehow I had this idea
that working for myself

would somehow give me
more time, more flexibility.

When we met, she made
a ton more money than I did.

Like, I was trying to figure
out, you know, my career.

Um, and she was
a very accomplished,

Harvard Law School
trained attorney.

You know, as I sort
of went down my career path

and started
having some success,

I did have somewhat
archaic notions of, you know,

"Hey, I'm the breadwinner

and now I'm making
more money, and you know,

you should be more
responsible for the home."

I think that's
whether intentionally

or not ingrained in your head.

Let's just talk
about Zach's application.

I can't get him
to write his last essay.

Okay, so what do
you wanna do about that?

Yeah,
well, I feel like you--

There are a few things
that were happening to me

that started to wake
up my eyes to the fact

that maybe something
was wrong in my relationship.

One was a breast cancer march.

I was with ten friends
who were a lot like me.

Really powerful
women marching for equality

around breast cancer.

My friend had
died in law school,

we were honoring
her in downtown LA.

So we had this reservation
at 12:30 at Dim Sum.

12 o'clock, turns around,
our phone started blowing up.

[phones ringing and buzzing]

First text comes in.

"Where'd you put
Hudson's soccer bag?"

Okay.

Next text comes in,
another friend.

Um, "Where's the gift?
You didn't leave me a gift,

if you want me to take
Jack to the birthday party."

My friend Kate's husband
was my favorite.

It was a text that said,

"Do the kids
need to eat lunch?"

What I noticed that day
was how the women reacted.

The nine women
I was with said to me,

"I left my partner with too
much to do. I have to leave."

And so these beautiful,
powerful, strong women

said goodbye to me.

And that was the first day

where I had an
act of resistance.

And that act of
resistance was to count up

every single
phone call and text

we received during that time.

30 phone calls,
46 texts for ten women

over 30 minutes.

I became obsessed
with a quest to figure out

what was happening to us.

So, I read every single article
that had ever been written,

and book on what's called,

the "Gendered Division
of Labor."

Um, apparently,
it has a couple of names.

It's called the "Second Shift."

It's called "Emotional Labor."

It's called the "Mental Load."

[Pooja]
The Mental Load is essentially

the cognitive and emotional,

invisible labor that's
going on every single day

when you're
managing your household

and you're
taking care of a family.

So, it's keeping
track of everything

that needs to be done,

everything
that's already been done.

Anyone can go to
the store to get a pint of milk

or change the baby's diaper.

It's also about knowing
that you're out of milk

and that you need
a certain amount every morning

and knowing that it's
time for the baby to be changed

or the baby to be fed.

So, it's really
that executive labor

that keeps
the household running.

That's where women
often report the most inequity.

That even when their
partner is stepping up

and doing a lot
of the everyday tasks,

it's still on them

to anticipate
and assign those tasks.

And that's
something that, you know,

when women are
also trying to perform

in the workplace and juggle
these multiple roles,

it's that mental load
that really starts to chip away

at their ability to accomplish

as much as they
could in another domains.

But my favorite term was

written by
a sociologist in 1986.

And it was a term
called "Invisible Work."

Arlene Kaplan Daniels,
a sociologist,

argued that because women do it

and it's in
the domestic sphere,

it benefits society
if we devalue it,

if we consider it worthless,

because then we
don't have to pay for it,

or we can pay and undervalue

women of color
to do that work.

♪

Caring and emotional labor,

whether it's somebody
doing it for a family member

or it's done as a profession,

it' just never
quite seen as real work.

You get paid less if
you're taking care of babies

or old people
than if you are involved

in the work
of people in their prime.

And that's just wrong.

It benefits
society to be on the backs

of the unpaid labor of women.

And so that's
why it's invisible.

♪

-[girls yelping]
-Grab my purse.

All right.
Well, did we get everything?

We didn't leave
anything in the car, right?

-Yeah.
-Okay.

We were married for
five years before we had kids.

It was great.
We were almost five years

of having fun,
being newly married.

So it was-- it was, uh...

relaxing,
I would say, relative to now.

[Emily] Ainsley,
you got your pencil case back

-Uh-huh
-Good.

I'm like a mobile desk here.

Now, let's think about your
laptop. Let's go get that.

Okay.
I have to work on my laptop.

-Do you want--
-I want fluffy.

Did you look
for her upstairs?

So, I saw your notes.

How are you on time?
Are you good to, like, 3:30?

I've had a social
media marketing business

for ten years now.

Freelancing
isn't a new concept,

but it's the whole like
investing in yourself, right?

I did work in
corporate America.

That was my first taste

of seeing
how women would become mothers.

That really lit a fire
for me to figure something out

before I became a mother
and be able to make choices

of "What does it matter

what time I go to
the doctor's office?"

Or "What does it matter
if I want to do

a field trip
with my kids one day?"

I need to make
work fit around my life.

[Niall] I work for an
automotive group

here in Detroit

and my role is to handle
the relationships we have

with about a dozen
of our manufacturers.

You know,
we're a traditional company

with both long hours
and very traditional values.

Not bad.
Could use some [indistinct]

The idea of flex time
or family focused stuff

or long paternity leave,
maternity leave,

whatever that may be,

that would not be
part of our normal culture.

We had our oldest kid
at midnight on a Friday

and I was in Monday morning.

We used to joke
that either I was dead

or I was on a plane,
if I wasn't responding.

Uh, family, I'm going
to cook some dinner,

you can get food ready.

[Niall] I thought that's
what you were doing.

I'm going to get
that going right now.

So, when you guys can,
come on in the front

and we'll take off
all of our wet clothes.

-[girl] Let's make a snowman.
-[Niall] Yeah.

I am shutting this,
so I can't hear you.

-[Niall] Yeah.
-[girl] Hey.

[Niall]
What's the ETA?

What time?

-That's the time it is now?
-[Emily] Yeah.

Yeah, I've two phone
calls from work already.

[Emily]
It's absurd to act like

you don't have
people that rely on you

and it's absurd to be judged

for having responsibilities
outside of your office.

I literally just gotten home

and promised Emily
I'd watch the kids.

Ten minutes, so.

If I don't have
to ask anyone for permission

to take my child to the doctor,
then that's the easier route.

If Niall has
to ask, then it's--

it's-- it's a debit, right?

Like he has taken a favor.

-Hey, Niall.
-Yeah?

Uh, after dinner, do you
want to do math worksheets?

I could use someone to help me,
please, set the table.

The fact that
I haven't brought more things

to Niall's attention
that I do, that falls on me.

Sit on your bottom.

Claire?
What are you going to say?

Say our prayer.

But yeah, it goes back
to the twisted notion of,

"Well, you just got
to ask for their help."

I don't want to ask.

This is not the first time

our children
have needed a meal.

This is not the first time

that our children have to
go to bed at a certain time.

And so, the fact
that I have to bring it

to your attention
like it's the first time

you've ever heard it
and that I'm getting a favor

out of asking for this
help is exhausting to me.

So then, I just go back
to just keep doing the work

because it's quicker
than asking for the help,

it's quicker than "training,"

but yet it
doesn't solve the problem.

I still have some
work stuff to wrap up

after they go to bed.

[Amy]
At least once a day,

I feel like
the worst mom in the world.

And I cry in my car.
[crying]

Asking for help in America
really is seen as a weakness.

There is a sense
of shame that comes up

that you're going to
be burdening other people

and it's not
their responsibility

to be taking care of you.

It's rooted in long
standing bias and stereotype.

It's rooted in public policy.

And this sense
of rugged individualism.

Individual
and personal responsibility

are part and parcel
of American society.

But, it can also
be really detrimental

when we think
about what the flipside

of this looks like in
the context of families.

It takes so little to
be considered a great dad,

and it also takes so little
to be considered a shitty mom.

Oh my God,
I can't believe he comes

to all your
doctor's appointments.

He is so supportive.

He's the hero for
playing Candy Crush

while I get my blood drawn.

For mothers, it really
comes from these unrealistic,

contradictory expectations.

You've been gone
for 300 hours.

I know,
I work a full-time job now,

you all know that.

And I see this phenomenon
where mom is doing everything

and helping everybody else.

But she's suffering so much.

-[screaming]
-[baby crying]

-Hey, Mom, can we talk now?
-No!

It starts really young.

[Nicole] Teenage girls
spend more time than

their counterparts on
care-taking responsibilities.

And it doesn't get better.

It gets worse as they,
uh, enter the workforce,

have families of their own.

When I was starting my career,
there were three stories

that we told
ourselves effectively

about how to have it all.

How to have career
and family together.

And one was, you just
have to work hard enough.

You just put in the hours,

you buy ten more
books on time management

and squeeze every
second out of the day.

The second was, you know,
if you married the right person

and they would share the work

of having both
career and family.

And the third was you--
you-- you can have it all,

but just not
all at the same time.

The problem
with all these stories

we tell ourselves is that
they blame individual women.

They say it's up to
individual women to make it,

rather than
recognizing the systemic

and structural
bias against women

who are trying to make it
on the same terms as men.

[pan sizzling]

I remember thinking to myself,

"Oh my God,
I'm the default."

Or now I call it the "Shefault"

for literally
every single household

and domestic
task for my family.

I became obsessed
with invisible work

and visible work,
because there's a modicum

of a solution in there.

How can you value
what you don't see?

And so, I had this
brilliant idea in my mind

to make the invisible visible.

I called up all those women

from the breast cancer
march and I said to them,

"I'm counting up every
single thing that women do

that takes more than
two minutes of our time.

So could you
please text me anything

that you can think of?"

[phone beeping and buzzing]

Making school lunches:
ten minutes.

Attending doctor's
appointments, one hour.

Picking up the kids from
the school if they're sick.

But then things
I didn't even think about

started coming in from
people I didn't even know.

So, the spreadsheet
started growing.

It was an Excel spreadsheet,

which I named
"The Shit I Do Spreadsheet."

Then another
woman I didn't know said,

"I received your spreadsheet,

you know, I see you wrote
two minutes for sunscreen,

um, but what about
the 30 minutes for the chase?"

[indistinct murmuring]
health insurance, homework...

And the list kept on growing
and growing and growing.

So finally, I had 98 tabs,

and about 2,000
items of invisible work

on this giant
19-million-megabyte spreadsheet

that I decided to send
to Seth with zero context.

Just a subject line,
an email that says,

"Can't wait to discuss!"

I don't know the difference

between
megabytes and gigabytes,

but it's like
crashed my computer

when she sent me the attachment

and I sort of
said, "Holy shit."

I didn't get the reaction

that I thought
I-- I was going to get.

I got that--
The monkey, you know,

the one that's covering
its eyes like I didn't--

He didn't even
give me the courtesy

of the three monkey trio.

I got it, right?
See no evil.

I-- I don't
give a shit about this.

I don't want to see this.

I started to think
about the Pandora's Box.

What if you
unleash consciousness,

but there's no solution?

I said to him, "I'm going to
make a Shit I Do list.

And you know what?
It's going to be so long.

My running checklist
through my brain,

it's just-- It's always going.

I'm the one who is
like vacuuming regularly,

dusting things off,
cleaning up the bathroom.

I gotta do this,
I have to be here.

I have a grocery pickup, then
I've got to be at the school.

You know that--
that never goes away.

I'm trying to pick my words
very carefully right now.

-Um...
-You won't hurt my feelings.

There's a lot
of pressure on women

to be doing it all

professionally
in their careers,

at home,
within their marriages,

within their communities
at large, like volunteering.

The emotional
part of it so intense

that from
the moment that I wake up,

for example,
I wake up at 5:00,

she wakes up with me
and throughout the day

I'm talking to her,

I'm sending her
pictures and videos.

[indistinct]
throughout the day,

even though I'm super busy.

A lot of times, I don't
automatically

recognize things
that need to be done.

And so, we went for a long time
where I didn't recognize them

and Charisma would just do them
and then she'd be upset with me

for not doing them when
I didn't even recognize that

-it was supposed to be done.
-Mm-hm.

♪

[Katie]
When we ask men and women

about how they divide the work

of taking care of children
and running a household,

Men over-report.

They're actually
doing about 35% of the work.

They think they're doing half.

Women undersell
what they're doing.

In fact, they're doing
about two-thirds of the work.

The dominant
household configuration

in the United States right now

is the dual-earner
couple with kids.

You essentially
have two full-time jobs

and then another
full-time job, right?

Running a household
and raising kids

is a full-time job.

We found that in couples

where wives were
doing more housework,

their cortisol
levels weren't showing

a stress system recovery

at the end of the day
that we would expect to see.

[Ai-jen] It definitely
feels like at times

the walls are closing in on you
because there's so many demands

and so many needs financially,

emotionally and otherwise.

Often when
we think about stress,

we think about
big life events, right?

Like an earthquake
or losing your home.

But there's increasing evidence

that it's really
sort of small, everyday,

chronic stressors that
can create wear and tear,

that chip away at our health.

Our immune pathways,
our sleep health,

risk of heart attacks,
stroke, cholesterol.

So stress can
really accumulate over time

to damage our well-being.

Married men
live longer than single men.

That's a really
well-established finding.

But there's evidence
that unhappily married women

actually live less
long than single women.

♪

Women's work, family conflict,

stress and exhaustion
and burnout are not new,

and it also is not something
they can fix all by themselves.

Guys, it's time to eat.

[children] Okay.

Thank you.

Wash your hands.

[indistinct]
Wash hands quickly. Thank you.

[speaking Spanish]

[indistinct], what do you need?

[speaking Spanish]

-I miss you much, baby.
-[indistinct]

[Katie]
What else do we need? Forks?

Paul, did you
put the salt and pepper on?

Oh, yeah.
I was supposed to do that.

Um, Betsy, do you want to
bring me the dinner bell?

-Yeah.
-[bell ringing]

[indistinct]
all the way downstairs.

That's not how you do it.

Have I ever felt at the end of
my rope as a working mom?

Hell, yes.
And if you interview someone

who doesn't say
that they have felt

at the end of the rope
as a working mom,

they should come
get one of my children

because they'll
drive them straight to it.

What do you mean,

you don't like the regular
rice? It's just rice.

It's not.
It's like weird and stringy.

I'm a single mom,
and I know firsthand

that we have a child care
crisis in this country.

In only one state is child
care considered affordable.

Let that sink in.

So I remember, you know,

saying things to leadership
in Washington, you know.

"What time are we
going to be done this week?

"Am I going to be flying home
on a Thursday or on a Friday?"

And one of the things I keep
hearing when I would raise

these concerns is,
"Well, you know, your situation

is just so unique.
We can't all work around you."

But to be honest,
my situation isn't that unique.

There are millions and millions

and millions of single
parents in this country.

They are more
pressed to try to figure out

how to make
childcare arrangements.

They have less flexibility.

They don't
necessarily have a backup.

And so in that sense,
my situation isn't unique.

It's actually
a lot of the people

in Congress who are older,
whiter and wealthier.

They're actually the unique
ones when you look at the--

the overall population
of the United States.

[jazz music]

[crowd cheering]

Last I checked,
it was mainly men

who are running workplaces.

They might have assumptions

that don't even
include the realities

of looking after kids.

Maybe they never
had to be the ones

rushing from work to
pick up the kid at school.

[jazz music]

The proverbial straw
finally hit the camel's back

after Ben was born

and I was going
to Seattle for just one day.

God forbid I would
spend the night away

from my newborn baby.

I have my extra clothes

because I'm going
to leak through my shirt.

Legal documents for
the client that I work with.

Breast pump again.

And as I'm right
about to go to Departures,

I get another text from Seth,
and that text said,

"Some guy left his beer bottle
and jacket on our lawn."

Okay.

So the fuck am
I supposed to do about that?

I ignored the text
and I got on the plane.

Arrive in
my client's boardroom,

facilitate this
really amazing meeting.

I ended up pumping
in a dark stairwell,

ran back to
the airplane, pumped again.

Eleven o'clock
at night, I pull up

feeling really excited
and empowered by my day.

And then out
of the corner of my eye,

I see a shattered beer
bottle and a wet jacket.

It was still there.

And so I decided to give
Seth the benefit of the doubt

because I figured,
you know, "What if he's dead?"

And it turns out
he wasn't dead.

But he was
outstretched on the bed.

And he actually nicely,

and really
enthusiastically told me

that he had three hours
after our kids went to bed

to watch SportsCenter,
to finish a PowerPoint deck

and to work out, right?
So, plenty of time.

Um...

So, yeah.
So...

Yes, the truth is
I walked by it multiple times

without picking it up
because I was that guy.

And I was expecting somebody
besides myself to pick it up.

The sociologist
I remember from college,

C. Wright Mills
said something like

"Private lives
are public issues."

And so when I start
to see patterns,

I realized this
is why the home is dangerous,

because it presents so small.

My quest was to start stopping
men and women in airports,

anybody I could
get my hands on,

to just collect
data to ask them,

"How do you do division
of labor in your home?"

You're not
fighting over blueberries.

You're fighting
over bigger systemic issues

around inequities in the home.

And it was
this idea that as a society,

we view and value
men's time as finite,

like diamonds.

And we view and value women's
time as infinite,

like sand.

And there were three reasons

which I now
call Toxic Time Messages.

Reason number one was
my job is more flexible

and my husband
makes more money than me.

But still,
because I make less money,

I have to do all
the housework and childcare

in addition to my job.

But the other two
were even more insidious.

Argument two
was I'm a better multi-tasker.

Women are not
better multi-taskers.

There's no gender
difference in the brain.

When I was
interviewing neuroscientists,

this guy
in a lab coat says to me,

"Imagine, Eve,
that we, men,

could convince you,
women,

that you're better at wiping
asses and doing dishes.

How great for my tenure?
How great for my golf game?"

I ended up crying
in his office that day.

And then finally,
the third saying,

"Well, in the time it takes me
to tell him, her, they,

what to do,
I should just do it myself."

Of course you invest
now in teaching someone

how to wipe
asses and do dishes.

You'll devalue
all those future hours

of wiping
asses and doing dishes

by thinking about
how you save time now.

This is it.
This was my ah-ha moment.

I can finally look at
Seth and sit him down and say,

"I don't think you value
my time the same as yours."

And we give you so much
time choice over how you get

to use your day, however
you want to use your day.

And we treat my time like
it's never going to run out.

But what if I'm here
to tell you, Seth,

that I only
get 24 hours in a day?

And it was the first time

in our life where I felt
like he could hear me

because he saw the pain,
like the deep pain that I had.

Because I felt
like every hour

was already pre-decided
for me by society.

God forbid you're
not working, it better be

in service of your housework
or childcare.

We have gymnastics run.

I have to
put that in the calendar.

[narrator] All America
salutes its women of steel.

Isn't this pretty hot for you,
Miss [indistinct]?

Well, I hear
it gets kind of hot

around the kitchen stove, too.

As everyone probably knows
the Rosie the Riveter imagery,

women were called
into the workforce

in unprecedented
numbers in World War II

to take the place
of men going off to war.

There is this dilemma.

Who's taking
care of the children?

[narrator] Shipyard working
Momma, put that baby down.

The big solution was
to provide child care at work.

And so in 1942,
all of these child care

centers started
popping up across the country.

It was government subsidized,
and U.S. was spending

at the height of the war
about a billion dollars a day

on child care
out of necessity.

But when those men came back,
women are summarily dismissed.

♪ I wish my living
room were all redone ♪

We see in the '50s
this kind of drop

in women's labor
force participation.

And we have
this period of the classic

Leave it to Beaver family.

The stay-at-home mom,
the husband who goes off

to work, the two kids.

But starting
in the '60s, we start seeing

more and more women going to
work and we start seeing women

trying to combine
motherhood and work

in ways that
we hadn't in the past.

[upbeat funky music]

There is this idea
that women were largely

working to have, like,
something fun in their pocket,

and maybe so they have
a tiny bit of independence.

The truth of the matter is,
for many women in this country,

that was never the case.

Women always were working
to support their families.

The majority of working
women fit that category.

What happened was,
"okay, you can work,

but you're still going to have

to meet all of your
care-taking demands at home."

It was a set up for women.

[crowd chanting]

Women started to advocate
and really push for

government-funded
childcare.

We were hoping
for a childcare revolution,

but in 1971,
Nixon vetoed that.

Saying that providing such
care would be a fiscal waste

and also would
weaken the family.

From that point on,
pretty much women entering

the workforce had to really
figure out care on their own.

♪ I can bring home
the bacon (Enjoli) ♪

♪ Fry it up
in a pan (Enjoli) ♪

♪ And never, never,
never let you forget ♪

♪ You're a man ♪

[woman] Despite the barriers,
women are entering

more of these
male dominated fields,

like law
and medicine and business

that had effectively
been firmly closed to women.

But if they're
going to be successful

or ambitious,
they have to behave

and act like
men in the workplace.

Women would
go to job interviews

and take off
their wedding ring.

But fatherhood
was a benefit for your career.

Oh, you have a family
to take care of now?

You're going to get that raise.

You give that promotion
to Bob Enright instead of me?

I've got five
years seniority over him.

I know that. He does
have a family to support.

[Violet] And I don't?

Then toward
the end of the 20th century,

women's labor
force participation

appeared to be plateauing.

Why is this going on?

We saw that the rise

in the skill premium
or the returns health education

was significantly
faster for male workers

than for female workers.

And there's a real
speed-up to what we call

Overwork Environment.

50, 60, 70 hours a week.

Thanks to
the wonders of technology,

you really don't
have those boundaries

around your
traditional work time.

At the same time
that we see the shrinkage

of traditional extended family

and community
networks that provide support.

Some women opt out.
Very few do.

Most are pushed out.

Pushed out by husbands who feel
entitled to be ideal workers

and think their wives
should pick up the pieces.

Or they're pushed out
by employers

who assume that the women are
less competent and committed,

so stop giving them good work.

And so the women leave
for lack of opportunity.

They step back or they
try to juggle a lower-paid job

so they can make it work,
and it doesn't work.

And it has
consequences for everybody.

At this moment in
the US, the average woman

is more educated
than the average man.

But still, the average earnings
of women are much lower

than the average
earnings of men.

We're making it way,
way too hard for women

to work and have kids.

[upbeat music]

Ow...

I did everything I could.

I spent nine months on this--
this "Shit I do" spreadsheet.

But I've learned that
lists alone don't work.

So my choices were divorce.

Eat, pray, love my life
and just blow everything up.

Start over.
But I have children.

And I saw how that worked out
for my mother; not so well.

And I really loved Seth.

I didn't want
to break up my family.

My choice
number two was to just

resign myself to doing it all.

Or the third option
was to get my ass in gear

and become my own client.

What makes a good,
healthy organization?

I'm a philanthropic advisor.

What it means
is that I work for families

that look like
the HBO show Succession.

Ladies and gentlemen,
the first fucking thing

my son's ever
done right in his life.

Now, we're really going through

some of the harder
things around--

But what I do
for those families

is I help them create
systems around shared values

to make their most
complex organizational

and financial decisions.

And so I thought,
what if I decide

to create a system for me?

Now, early on
in my mediation practice,

what I would do
is tell these families,

"You're already communicating."

I'd start with a family,
we'd be in our first meeting.

The second
son would start to speak

and Dad would
walk out of the room.

Just walk out.

So a lot of passive
aggressive communication

happens in my practice,
but also in the home.

I sat down with a very
high-powered woman who said

that she doesn't communicate
about domestic life.

And then 20 minutes
later, she says,

"Well, every time
my husband forgets to put

the laundry in the dryer,

I dump the wet
clothes on his pillow."

The biggest
vulnerability I found

for families was
giving feedback in the moment.

Whether it's passive aggressive
feedback or me saying to Seth,

"Why don't
you log Zach onto his Zoom?

Why is the sponge in the sink?

You left
the car keys in the car again."

It just-- it's this
feedback in the moment

and you feel like you
have to get it off your chest.

What? No, really,
what's the issue?

Why would you
let him eat sugar?

Because people who don't
get sugar when they're a kid,

they end up eating
gluttonous amount of sugar

when they're adults,
like all of your friends.

But when I realized
that I could say to myself

the same way
I said to my clients

that feedback
in the moment is toxic.

Feedback in the moment
is toxic.

That practice of communicating

when emotion is low
and cognition is high

was literally
life changing for Seth and me.

We started with just this
idea of what would it look like

if we spent ten minutes
a day walking around the block,

get that ten
minutes a day in, like,

we would exercise
where we're connecting?

That was crazy.

So what are
we doing this weekend?

Should we do it by child?

-Yeah.
-So Zach has...

Peeling the curtain back,
I really had no idea.

Like, the amount
of thinking and plotting

and planning
and having all of that stress

and all of that
burden on one person.

And I kind of said to myself,
you know, probably have to

do something about this
because this definitely

doesn't feel
fair nor equal nor equitable.

As long as you
have them from 11 to 3,

I really don't care
where they are.

All right,
I'll take them, not a problem.

Our daily
check-ins consist of a walk.

We check in about what's
important with the family,

kind of coordinating, you know,
who's going to be where

at what time,
who has what.

And just kind
of resetting and downloading,

kind of entering the next day
with some sort of coherence.

All right.
Well, it's busy, busy day.

-[Eve] Yeah.
-Excited, though.

Really motivated
to make our

relation--
relationship much better.

I may be, like, the task
master and it's, like...

[Eve] What's been really
important to me in my research

is to be rigorous
about capturing people

along different
parts of their journey.

I'd say I spend
half my time on basic

research
and talking to researchers

and then half
my time reading books.

"The Way We Never Were."

There is this myth
of the nuclear family.

"Burnout, burnout, burnout."
"Why We Can't Sleep."

And then one of the most
important things is that

we learn from people
who are in same-sex marriages.

Instead of putting
them into our gendered boxes.

What can we
learn from you guys?

The aspect
of being liberated

from predefined,
heavy burden roles,

it frees up space
for you to share in duties

that otherwise you somehow--
you don't want your boys,

your friends
to see you do X, Y and Z

because sometimes
is it too feminine?

Well, with a household
of two guys,

ain't no, there's no choice.

Every job is for everyone.

Like, we can all-- we
can divvy up the house chores

and we can both have jobs.

It just comes down to
talking about the things.

It is not easy.

It is sometimes terrifying
to do that with your partner.

There are times
when we are good at it

and there are
times that we're not.

What we try
to do is try to work

at it when it's not working

and try to figure
out how to make it work.

The commitment
to having the conversation

is sort of like the--
the great starting point.

Nothing-- nothing is assumed.

Just take all those assumptions
and set them at the door

because they're--
they're just going to make

the conversation harder.

Our relationship started
out in a very interesting way

because soon after we met,

there were
a few people involved

in his professional
life who told him basically,

you know, you can't
really be an out gay man.

And because of that,
I think we had to have

a lot of the hard
conversations first.

Our son is adopted.

So beginning
the adoption process,

we did a lot of planning

and thinking because we had to.

We had answered all
of the tough questions.

We had talked about everything
from division of labor

to finances ten years out
and our plan,

and it really helped us
be partners, um...

in those first few days

that are really
scary raising a newborn.

Ultimately,
you are becoming a better

version of yourself
and that's going to make

you a better partner
and a better, you know,

in a better
relationship in the end.

-Right?
-Yes. Yep.

[laughs]

I am not
a licensed therapist,

even though I did interview
many of them for Fair Play.

What I am is a mediator.

What you're doing
is you're giving people tools.

Tools to have
difficult conversations.

If I don't take it up,
no one will.

So you're being
a good helper to me.

Emily,
so good to see you.

-You too, Eve.
-So picture a time

when maybe emotion was high
and cognition was low.

Yeah, I can tell you,
it always happens at night

after I've come downstairs
from putting the kids to bed.

It's the first
free window without kids

and it's the last hour
of the day before we go to bed.

So it definitely always
happens at the same time.

-How interesting.
-It's a pressure cooker.

It builds up, it builds up,

then it happens,
and then we repeat.

It's doing the same
thing over and over again

and expecting
different results.

Like, I'm going insane.

[Emily] Are you gonna
hang out down here,

Niall,
and get some work done?

No, I was gonna read the story.
--Ow!

-Okay.
-[Niall] Hello?

Hey, Niall. My-- my assumption,
please correct me

any time that's
not true is that

you don't necessarily
think about your relationship

in the context of being some
problem. That you probably...

I was thankful that
Niall was willing to speak

to a complete stranger,
and a man,

because men don't
really talk about these things.

You probably feel
a sense of contentment.

And-- and maybe
the biggest problem

is the suggestion
that there is one.

I mean, to be totally honest,
I don't know a lot of that.

I mean, I-- I do get home
from work and I am sometimes

absolutely emotionally wiped.
I just wanna veg out.

You know,
that can be, I think,

a little bit
frustrating for Emily.

Does she verbalize it much?

Not a ton,
other than, you know,

a couple of snide
comments here and there

about, well, "It'd be nice
if you did the bath tonight"

or "It'd be nice
if you did this tonight."

In a situation like that,

do you remember
what was Niall's reaction

to a boiling-over moment?

He asked me if I was
acting in a local theater.

He's like, "What,
like, what is all this?

Are you trying
out for something?

Because what is that?"
I was dumbfounded.

He shut down and then
added insult to injury.

Right, so completely
sort of dismissed--

dismissed the blow up,
but also said you're

-over-dramatic, basically.
-Yes.

I love you.

They're ready.
Do you wanna say goodnight?

I understand
you put in 10 hours

of solving
other people's problems

and now you're
trying to recharge at home.

And Emily may desire
connection and support,

but she would
rather do it herself

and stay silent than
upset you or come off as--

as particularly
harsh or critical.

Yeah. Do I think
she probably holds back

on saying some stuff?
I'm sure.

Well, has there ever been
periods where you've had

a consistent,
we're sitting down

with tacos and tequila
or cookie dough

and just a ritual
around communication?

No. I don't know
if I've conditioned him to--

It's like the "Okay,

what do you wanna talk about?"
Bracing.

"Oh, this isn't
going to go well."

So-- so who wants
to keep inviting someone

to that when that's
the-- the-- right?

What you get back,
so I've just given up.

Sometimes Seth
and I in our check-in,

we sit there, we just say,
"I fucking hate your face."

Like "I'm so sick
of looking at you," you know?

Like, "Go--
go trim your nose hairs."

Like, whatever it is, but
I don't care about duration.

We're just there.
We're there for each other.

And so that's
what I want to ask of you.

-Okay.
-Yeah.

That I mean, that resonates.

I think the really,
really common way

we respond to our partners
is to simply defend ourselves.

To try to convince
my wife that whatever

she said happened,
didn't happen.

Or "Why are you making
such a big deal out of this?"

-Yeah.
-The thing that does happen

in all of these
default response patterns

is our wives,
our partners, anybody

we're talking to
experience invalidation.

They experience
a human being deciding for them

whether what they think, what
they feel, what they believe

-is justified or not.
-Yeah.

The accumulation of those
when the pile gets big enough,

trust goes away
and then safety goes away.

Yeah, I mean, I will-- I have
found myself saying at times,

"Dude, you're making a mountain
out of a molehill here.

You don't have to make
such a big--" So I do get that.

-Yeah.
-What my goal might be,

I think, is the expression

"Happy wife, happy life"
might apply here.

Maybe so that it doesn't get

to some sort of
breaking point where, um...

you know, the dishes
become more than the dishes.

-All right. I love you ladies.
-[Niall] Love you girls.

[relaxing piano music]

[whimsical music]

[interviewer] What grade
is your daughter going in to?

Ninth grade.

[buzzer]

[interviewer] What color
are your daughter's eyes?

Brown.

[interviewer]
All right, let's look.

-That is incorrect.
-[buzzer]

They're blue.

Men aren't bad or evil
or just self-interested.

They feel themselves
legitimately constrained

by society not to engage
in the kind of roles

that would
involve them in care.

Excuse me. She's been
like crying for hours.

Sorry, but this
is a group for new mothers.

On that sign out
there it says, "Parents."

I'm a parent and I don't
know what the hell I'm doing.

Constrained
by what other men think.

I think one of your
children's just walked in.

I mean, shifting, shifting...

[Andrew] Constrained
by their social obligations

or professional
obligations.

And constrained
by women's ideal

of what an attractive man is.

Many of us
are operating, you know,

like on remote control
from a subconscious,

from a place of tradition,

not
any negotiated deal,

just the way
things always have been.

Men grow up feeling,
"I've got to prove myself,

I've got to show
I'm a man."

It's one of the reasons
why men

don't go to the doctor
as much as women.

Don't go to
psychologist as much as women.

Men are scared to say,
"Yeah, I need help.

I need physical help.
I need emotional help."

The expectations
for men in our society,

they're destructive
of caring relationships

and the kinds
of things that make life

meaningful and worthwhile.

-Will everybody just shut up?
-I'm sorry.

We have a few special
years with our children

when they're the ones
that want us around.

The expectation for fathers
is that you're the person

who is continually available
to work and that to be invested

in your children's
growth and development,

is to be less than
committed to your work.

I liked helping
the school today

and I think the kids
like having me there too.

I want ways of doing this more.

Many of us as men, we don't
want to fit into this box

and be held hostage to
these rigid notions of manhood.

But we're afraid to get
out of this box

because then we're held
accountable by other men.

Pete Buttigieg Judge
has been on leave

from his job since August
after adopting a child.

Paternity leave, they call it,
trying to figure out

how to breastfeed,
no word on how that went.

I'm the king of this tree.

Respect our boy.

And we love this tree.

[baby] Dad.

Dad.

No, that's not,
that's not the case.

Or do you expect me
to drive cross-country

with a newborn by myself?

I will come and get you.
I don't think it's fair that

you're so salty at me when
I'm trying to do what's best.

I don't think it's fair
that you're trying to make

decisions for our family
without consulting me first.

I looked at where
my relationship was with

my wife
and I had to make a choice.

You know, I could be
very well sacrificing

the very thing that I'm working
so hard to provide for,

which is my family, for this
position, for this status.

And ultimately,
I decided that I was

going to take a salary cut,
go with another company

where I was able
to have more of a balance.

Dad!

My parents
called and they're like,

"Would you guys consider
coming out to California

and taking
care of your grandmother?"

We found out
she had Stage 4 breast cancer

that metastasized to the bone.

Her memory started declining
and it was just-- it was a lot.

I'm just trying to figure out
how to make everybody happy,

how to keep
my grandmother alive.

I really became
the person that paid

attention to the squeaky wheel.

Now, she's not just my wife
or you know, my kid's mother.

She's now a sister.

She's now a granddaughter.

She's now a daughter.

I felt like, you know, I wasn't
really being appreciated,

you know, like, I'm sacrificing
all this stuff for my family.

And I come home and it's like--

it doesn't
feel like it's enough.

We weren't really
able to hear one another.

We weren't really able
to see one another because

we were so
focused on our hurts,

our pains
and the way that we felt.

Well, listen, why don't you
want to have the conversation?

Because it's stressful.

My parents,
they would just say little

things like,
"Is Christian okay?

Do you guys
need some, like, time away?

Do you guys need to talk?"

And so those little
questions made me start

to look at him like,
"Well, I mean, is he okay?"

Having them point
that out made it easier

to be able to open up
that communication

to talk about
some of the hard things.

So we created
some rules for communicating.

You're going
to have to help me with these.

-Mm-hmm.
-Um...

The first rule is
we don't yell at each other.

Which is a struggle
for me, because

if I'm passionate,
my voice gets-- gets loud.

Another thing
is I couldn't say

-that she was crazy.
-Mm-hmm.

and she couldn't tell me to--
to a shut up, right?

-Or dismiss you.
-Or dismiss me.

We don't say never or always.

Like "You never do
this or you always do that."

I say it and she corrects me.

Yes. But that's a rule.

Having the rules
as a foundation for us

has really helped
frame our conversations

to always
be loving, respectful.

You can't ever
take your words back.

You can't
ever take back the way

your words
made somebody else feel.

Yeah, I got that.

I like that.

[gentle music]

Okay, so last
where we left off,

I remember,
is that we were going

to start doing
a ten-minute a night check in.

And then I know
you've had a lot of things,

life has happened,
to anything you can tell me.

Oh, well, first of all,
we started off

doing pretty evenly,
but then there was some times

where somebody had a great
day or a bad day, whatever,

so somebody would bleed
into somebody else's time.

And so it's easy
to find excuses not to do it,

-especially if you're tired.
-It's like an exercise, right?

As soon as you
stop going to the gym,

it's hard to get back into it.

Ten minutes
can feel really long.

Sometimes
it's hard to come up stuff

to talk about,
at least about myself.

So, I talked about
the weather so much.

Emily, what about you?

Um... Gosh, I thought it--

So I hope you really--

I hope you really
didn't find it hard

to talk to
me for ten minutes a day.

I said it's hard to find
the time to sit down to do it.

It wasn't that it was hard
to talk to you necessarily.

It's ten minutes. Like, if
we can't talk for ten minutes,

then we've got
bigger problems ahead.

I have not completely
figured out if I'm repeating

the same patterns
that I saw growing up.

I go in these waves of thinking
"Well, everyone has a choice."

And just because you grew
up one way doesn't mean that

you can't choose
to do things differently."

My parents didn't
communicate very much at all,

and when they did, it certainly
wasn't in a functional manner.

I saw my mom do so much
and then she would

all of a sudden just blow up.

And now, as a parent,
I realized that it's just,

you know, a human
reaction to being overwhelmed.

And if there was more
fairness in the first place,

then that
wouldn't have happened.

My parents got
divorced when I was in college.

My own childhood
and my own background

we were progressive in
the sense that both my parents

worked in a very
male-dominated industry,

the medical profession.

The concept of my dad
coming home from work late,

having dinner
with us and then going

to his study to work,
that was just normal.

Literally,
his parents were peers.

Same job,
same hospital system,

same accolades,
except that his mom

had the three children in
the household to take care of.

I think Niall feels
like if he comes home,

has dinner,
plays with the children

and is involved
with some of their evening,

he's already checking
more boxes than his dad did.

I feel like we can do better.

[Niall] Last page.

[birds chirping]

-Seth?
-[Seth] Yeah.

Hi, first of all.

[Seth] How are you doing?

So when Seth
and I started to connect,

I started to ask to go to
the second tier of my journey,

which was what if
we started to treat our home

as our most
important organization?

What would that look like?

Dad.
That was a bad throw.

I wanted to bring
to Seth the ownership mindset

where you own
the task from start to finish

because that
alleviates the mental load

and it allows
men to own something,

to have more autonomy
and to know their role.

First up was garbage.

I was still
Seth's garbage shadow.

So when I tell you
that this is Seth sort

of walking around
the house on weekends

and this is Eve
walking behind him,

just-- he'd turn and be like,
"Hey, what's going on?"

I go, "Nothing,
just seeing what you're

doing in the kitchen," right?

He said to me, "So what's
the deal with the garbage?

You know, you're
stalking me over garbage."

One night during our check in,
I said to Seth,

"You know, I grew up
in a single mom household."

I remember walking
to our little apartment kitchen

and our feet would
sort of stick to the floor.

And more importantly, my
mother started working nights

and she asked me
to put my disabled brother

to bed and
he would ask for water

and I'd go into
our kitchen after dark.

I'd turn on the lights
and there'd be cockroaches

and water bugs everywhere.

And so actually,
when I see a banana peel

that's about
to overflow our garbage,

I'm a latchkey kid again

and I don't
want to be that again.

I can't live like that again.

What happens when you're so
divergent over something

that has to get done
every single day?

Well, what I found
out is that 25% of people

divorce over these things.

We're divorcing over
that discrepancy over garbage

or that sponge in the sink.

We come into our relationships
with all of this baggage

that we never fucking address.

We never fucking
address this baggage.

And so for me, thinking
about myself as a child,

getting really vulnerable,
tearing up about it, which

I still do today, thinking
about that time in my life,

Seth could at least understand
why it mattered to me.

Garbage went out with an
ownership mindset once a day.

I never had to mention
the word garbage ever again.

It was a fucking miracle.

It was like Moses
parting the Red Sea.

It was the first time
in my life where Seth

was handling a full task for us

from start to finish
with no reminders.

When you start with
the buy in with your why,

everything changes.

Seth and I were
in a great rhythm.

And then COVID happens.

The World Health Organization

has now officially
declared a pandemic.

Daily life, the way
we know it, is on hold.

Schools across
the country are closed.

At the onset of COVID,
we asked women to do something

that I couldn't
have imagined we would

ever ask anyone to do, right?
We asked them to work

and at the same time
engage in care-giving.

The pandemic exposed
things to the larger public

that have long
been known to people

who study these issues
of work and family.

The pandemic
has shown us this--

this second shift on steroids.

It highlighted
how fragile our entire

care infrastructure
actually is.

Overnight, our whole
child care system eroded.

[dramatic music]

Schools closed, daycares closed

and women had to
make a difficult choice.

Within a matter of two
months more than 2 million

women dropped
out of the workforce,

four times
as many women as men.

What that's done is set
us back almost two generations

in terms of women's
participation in the workforce.

Women that we as a society
have invested

in training,
in internships, in college.

So it's really, really
important that we understand

that if we
do nothing, the result

is that we will
have permanently lost

very talented women
from our workforce.

We are in a, not inevitable,
it's fricking evitable,

very predictable scenario
where once we have a crisis,

women become
our social safety net.

Your world kept moving.

Yeah, my world
didn't change a lot.

Mine stopped,
and I was in the middle

of three projects,
and I had kids home.

I could not focus on--
I could not do both,

I couldn't
work and home school.

And I had a hard-- and that
was really hard for me.

One of the biggest impacts
that COVID had on our family

and on me specifically
is the loss of our community,

of our village.

Not having those people
daily to be like,

"It's okay,
your kids aren't going to die.

You're doing a good job."

And it just--
yeah, it was hard.

It's-- it's-- it's a valuable
thing to have

those people in your life
that you are rooting you on.

Our son, Carter,
he has a rare disease

called Sanfilippo Syndrome,
which is like

a childhood version of
Alzheimer's, and currently,

there's no cure or treatment
option for these kids.

I've had to become
his occupational therapist,

his speech therapist.
I had to become his teacher.

And I'm not
qualified in any of this stuff.

We have the most
family hostile public policy

in the developed world.

The United States
is one of very few countries

on the planet with no mention

of the word family
in our Constitution.

We have no
federal minimum standard

for vacation or sick days.

We have no
universal health care.

We have no universal
child care.

The federal minimum wage
hasn't been raised since 2009.

We have no paid parental
leave at a federal level.

The United States
and Papua New Guinea

are the only two countries

that have no federal
paid maternity leave.

That's insane.

And it's quite embarrassing
when you think about it.

We hold ourselves out
as a model

in terms of democracy,
in terms of our economy.

And the fact of the matter is,
when it comes to care,

we're so far behind.

[dramatic music]

Our social structures,
our institutions

and our systems are still kind
of built around the expectation

that there's going to be
a stay-at-home parent.

So whether
it's banks that are only

open during the workday

or the post office
or the fact that

schools are
out for the day at 2:30,

there's just that
missing gap of time

in which parents
are scrambling to kind

of find private solutions

for what's
really a public problem.

Why does America shit on moms?

I mean,
sexism is the obvious answer.

Every time
we press on expanding

support for things,
like child care

the very first thing we
hear back is it's so expensive,

It costs so much.

But there are
lots of things that

we do in
government that cost a lot.

There's a hidden message there,

which is it's just too
expensive to support women.

Wouldn't it be
cheaper if we just let

women keep
doing it all for free?

We're saying
we value work in the workplace

and we value capitalism

more than
we value our families.

And I don't think that's how
we actually feel as a society,

but because
we haven't valued this core

infrastructure for what it is,

we are putting
capitalism above our families.

This stuff makes me so mad.

I've been saying
this for 40 years

and it still makes me so mad.

[sighs] Okay.

So tomorrow,
they each have soccer.

Different field, same time.

You take one,
I'll take the other.

What do you
have going tomorrow afternoon?

Nothing.
The fair play journey.

I mean, I definitely didn't
know what I was getting into.

Bye.

I would have friends that would
run for the hills from this.

This is not the kind of thing
you talk about at happy hour.

So I think it takes some
level of confidence in yourself

and confidence
in your relationship

to take a look in the mirror
and realize the reality.

Okay, great. So I want
to start with you, Niall.

I want to go into "I'm proud
of my partner because..."

Um... all right.
So I just-- ouf. Um...

Great mom. Great wife.

[choking up]

[gentle piano music]

And it takes
a certain kind of person to be

[sighs] that good of a mom,
that good of a wife.

Um, and which
is why I agreed to do this.

And for my kids as well.

[laughs]

I'm crying now, too.

So, I have
these sheets, right?

We're just going to be
behind our sheets for a minute.

I have no idea
what had happened.

Uh, hardworking, ambitious.

Uh... [sighs]

Oh, my God.
You're so sweet.

-Um, courageous and brave.
-Oh, thank you.

I think this is beautiful.

I think this is so
beautiful because to me,

this is about
the why, you know?

Like, you guys
have so much in common

and you fought
so hard to, like,

get out of these boxes

and you don't give
each other that credit.

I took my first
business trip

since 2019 by myself,
on an airplane by myself.

In a hotel by myself.

I had some moments
leading up to it

that I thought, "This
is going to be impossible."

But I am so proud
that I didn't give up on it,

like, lighting the fire again
of what self-care feels like.

You don't want to waste these
years and look back and say,

"Shit, why did
I spend all those hours

working on God knows what

when you could
be out doing more

beneficial things
for the whole family?"

All right, Ladies.

[Niall] I think
she knows that I'm trying.

We're probably
never going to be 50-50,

but she's got, I think,
a little bit less tension,

a little bit
less emotional stress,

knowing that
there is some level

of partnership versus
it being completely one-sided.

I got to sleep in.

[indiscernible chatting]

Good morning.

It's not even, Quinn.

Is there
a puzzle fest down here?

Oh, Quinn is crushing,
but she needs to learn

how to do the corners first.

The most important
is working in a team

because José
is helping me a lot.

Yeah, he's my lover,
my husband, my--

my friend, my everything.

The gas.

[guitar music]

[children mumbling]

When COVID hit, I didn't
expect to get laid off, right?

That wasn't something
that was necessarily planned.

But when it happened,
it was like, "Okay, well,

what's the next step?"

We started a business
as we're working together

and now,
I'm home most of the time.

All of a sudden, he's at home
with four kids all day long.

You know, I say
I got the kids one at a time

and he comes in
and all of a sudden,

all four want
his attention, 24/7.

All done?

[boy] Eggs.

-Eggs?
-Eggs.

What about you?

I remember him saying one time,

"I'm not
a domesticated husband, like."

[laughs]

"I'm just not--
This is not what I want."

And what's funny is,
is that the transition

wasn't necessarily
easy for her.

Because, like,
when I'm observing things,

you know, I'm like,
"Okay, this can run better."

Or if I'm starting to
engage more in a particular

area of our life, I'm going
to take ownership of it.

So she said
to me once, you know,

"Hey, listen, you're
entering into my world, right?"

So like-- like
this was like her world.

And I'm now just entering,
I'm like,

"No, this is our world, okay?"
You know what I mean?

I would say Christian does
90% of the domestic work now.

I would say 80,
but...

No, I'm going to
give you that extra ten.

He does 90% and then
I probably do about 10%.

And childcare, I would
say we split about 50-50.

Yeah, yeah.
I would say that's

that that's probably accurate.
Yeah.

I am a lot more
relaxed now when it comes to

parenting and domestic work,
because my kids are watching.

Like, they're watching
how I show up as an example

of how they should
move through the world.

Putting away their desires
or their hopes or their dreams

to respond to whatever
seems loudest at the moment

is not the life
that I want for them.

And so I have to model that.

My relationship
with the youngest, Windsor,

is drastically
different than it was

with the older
three at that age.

With Windsor,
because I'm here all the time,

her first words was Daddy.

She would come
to me if she was hurt.

There's nothing
like parenting that

really gets you to--
to look at yourself, you know.

It's allowed me to show up in
ways that I didn't even foresee

in other areas of my life.

Christian being home,

it's-- it's just--
it's given me so much.

I hope I don't cry.
Um...

It's given me so much.

It's meant
so much to our family.

Um...

It's given me the freedom
to build my passion.

I think that there are moments
like that that happen in life

where we have to find
our way into ourselves.

And I'm so grateful
because I can be an amazing mom

who loves
spending time with her kids

and I can be
a beast speaking in front

of thousands
of people on stage.

But it took me a while
to find that it was okay.

It was okay for me to lose
my identity and find it again.

One of the biggest
lies that we were told

on our wedding day
is "Enjoy this,

this is going to be
the best day of your marriage."

Absolutely not.
Absolutely not.

I see you, all your flaws
and all your imperfections.

You see me and all
my mess and all my baggage.

And I got you.

-I love you.
-I love you, too, babe.

[inspiring music]

I think we're
really on the verge

of a paradigm shift here.

Partly because it's
so unsustainable to not have

a plan in place for how we're
going to care for our families.

I mean, what else
could be more important

to making everything
else in the economy possible?

We've never said,
"Hey, what do women really need

to stay in the workforce?

How might we accommodate them?"

Let me tell you something.

If I worked
at a job and there was

child care,
I would never leave.

[relaxing music]

It's really about
investing in capitalism.

If we made sure there's
equal pay for equal job,

if the tax system
did not discriminate

against the secondary earner
who is usually a woman,

then we could see
large progress.

These norms
and expectations that

we can't be flexible with work

and people can't spend
some time working at home.

That's all been
thrown up in the air.

So companies can be much
more flexible with work hours

for their employees.

Here's what paid
paternity leave does:

it allows men to go home
at the point in time

where the chore gap
gets exponentially longer.

It allows men
to experience things

like, "Is this cry
a hungry cry?

Is it a tired cry?"

You build capability in
care-giving from the beginning.

And men who do that come back
to work energized, grateful.

They come back
more inclusive leaders.

It's really
important if we are going

to make this into
an effective movement

to realize that
work-family conflict

it's not even about women.

Women are just the roadkill.

It's about men
and gender pressures on men.

It is for men
what feminism is for women.

It's a profound
change in our ideals

of what it means to be a man.

What my capacities are.

Of what I should strive for,
what it should celebrate.

When we poll men
at the end of their life,

what they tell us is that
their deepest lifetime regret

is not that they
didn't get another book written

or make another $10,000.

It's that they
did not spend more time

with family and friends.

♪

Men who play an equal
or at least a near equal role

in raising their
children and housework,

they are healthier.

They are less likely
to be on prescription meds

or anti-depressants.

And here's the kicker.

Not only is he happier,
but he has sex more often.

I mean, talk about
a win-win situation.

♪

Kids need attention.

Kids need more than one
parent

giving them attention--
when possible,

I'm not putting down
one parent families.

But where possible,

kids need all
the attention they can get.

So we need
the society supporting it.

Ben, you're playing
with your friends at 3:30.

Good luck with school today.

The most important
thing that I learned

in my fair play journey

was think about
who did laundry in your home.

Who taught
you how to ride a bike?

Who put that
dollar under your pillow?

We call it unpaid labor.

We dismiss it. We diminish it.

But being allowed to care,
being allowed to parent,

being allowed to have the time

to forge relationships
with your children,

that's a legacy
that we all deserve.

It's our humanity.

I'll do the dishes.

It was about two years ago
when I was ten years old.

I started really
embracing the housework.

It makes me feel really
good when you do the full task

from start to finish.

I'm really proud
of my mom for taking a stand

and talking to both woman
and men to teach them both

how they should
be making it fair.

And my dad
has really modeled that for me.

You know, they say sunlight
is the biggest disinfectant.

And so she really
put a spotlight on it,

she took a megaphone to it.

Coming out the other side,
everybody's much happier.

I don't think
we have to talk about

it anymore
because we just do it.

See you later.

The kids, they've actually
seen my transformation.

-See you later.
-Bye.

Ultimately,
the torch gets passed

and I think
you can't, you know,

break this chain
unless you model it as a man

and as a husband
and-- and as a father.

We're never going to
get to gender equality

until traditional
women's work is valued

as much
as traditional men's work.

And men do it as much

as women are
doing traditional men's work.

This really is our moment
and we just got to keep going.

[laughs]

Rule one,
all time is created equal.

Once you re-frame that to say
"My time is equal to yours,"

an hour holding
my child's hand in

the pediatrician's office

is as valuable to society,
as an hour in the boardroom.

I started seeing men
wanting to take on more.

The biggest benefit
in implementing Fair Play

was 100% getting time back.

You have to be able
to get some of the shit

off your plate
to have optimal experiences.

And so when women
are interrupted every

3 minutes and 42 seconds--

[children] Mom!

There's very little time
to get into your flow state.

And so that
idea of time, uninterrupted

attention
for things that I love

is what fair play has given me.

[kid] Ready?

-♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
-♪ To me ♪

♪ Happy birthday, dear mom ♪

[laughing]

I really believe
honestly that for women

to step into their
full power in the world,

it requires men to step into
their full power in the home.

[conversation din]

Care matters.
It's not all on us.

It is valuable work.

And societies cannot be built

on the backs
of the unpaid labor

of women any longer.

[upbeat music]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[relaxed music]

♪

♪

♪