Splitting up work at home equally doesn’t mean you do the dishes and I take out the trash. It means both partners share the mental load of running a house, raising children and tending to all the things that crop up. Kate Mangino spent time with 40 men who are equal partners to their spouses – as verified by their spouses – to write her new book Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home. What she found was the upbringings of the 40 weren’t always traditional – some were raised by single parents, some felt different growing up, some came from violent households. But their willingness to take on more of the mental load when they got married was summed up in a positive way: they felt it was better for them to be equal contributors in their relationships and they didn’t feel like that was a sacrifice. Admirable stuff. But listen to learn why so many of the 40 asked for anonymity and still don’t know each other.
What Makes An Equal Partner?
Interview with Kate Mangino / Gender Expert, Researcher, Author
Hosted by Paul Sullivan
Transcript
00;00;05;00 – 00;00;23;17
Paul Sullivan
I’m Paul Sullivan, your host on the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, sublime, strange and silly aspects of being a dad in a world where men were the primary parents often feel they have to hide, or at least not talk about their roles. One thing I know from personal experience is being a dad is not a traditional role for men.
00;00;23;20 – 00;00;47;05
Paul Sullivan
Whether you work full time, part time, devote all your time to your family. Parenting is so often left to mothers or paid caregivers. But here at the Company of Dads, our goal is to shake all that off and create a community for fathers who are only dads, and to welcome other dads who want to learn from them. Today, my guest is Kate Mangino, author of Equal Partners Improving Gender Equality at Home.
00;00;47;07 – 00;01;08;14
Paul Sullivan
Kate background is an international development with a focus on social change and gender. For her book, which just came out a month or so ago, she found 40 men who were equal partners in their relationships, and that means they did at least half of the physical and cognitive labor in their homes. And I’m pretty excited to talk to to Kate.
00;01;08;17 – 00;01;11;26
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company Dads podcast.
00;01;11;28 – 00;01;13;18
Kate Mangino
Thank you for having me, Paul.
00;01;13;21 – 00;01;15;25
Paul Sullivan
Where were these 40 guys?
00;01;15;27 – 00;01;23;20
Kate Mangino
They were all over the place. Three of them were Canadian or are three of them are Canadian and 37 of them are from the US.
00;01;23;21 – 00;01;29;25
Paul Sullivan
I didn’t realize they were Canada. Like they had to leave Canada. After talking to you, they’re like, oh God, we talked to Kate. That’s it.
00;01;29;26 – 00;01;44;13
Kate Mangino
We’re still in Canada. I had men from the Pacific Northwest, New England, southern Louisiana, a bunch in Texas. Couple in the Midwest. Really? Yeah. I’ve worked hard to find diverse backgrounds.
00;01;44;20 – 00;01;56;07
Paul Sullivan
Well, as I say, how did you find it? How did you find these? These these 40 men? Did you start with, you know, 80 and kind of, you know. Some guys didn’t make the travel team or how did it how did it work?
00;01;56;09 – 00;01;59;03
Kate Mangino
The bus was full.
00;01;59;05 – 00;02;04;02
Paul Sullivan
And it was a rambunctious bus I’ve ever been in. I do half now. You do half. We all do half.
00;02;04;05 – 00;02;25;18
Kate Mangino
I mean, your podcast is great because I think it’s starting to work towards something that didn’t exist several years ago when I was starting my research is that there’s no like if you want to find, you know, I don’t know, Republican. I, you know, a Republican Ohioans who are in the PTA. There are networks to go to to find those people.
00;02;25;20 – 00;02;49;21
Kate Mangino
Right. But when you’re trying to find equal partners, men who do half of the physical and there’s no listserve, there was no Facebook group. So I started by reaching out to all of my gender colleagues who I work with, explaining the kind of person I’m looking for, who is also interested in being part of research. And a lot of them said, yeah, I don’t know anyone like that, but several of them said, I do.
00;02;49;23 – 00;03;09;27
Kate Mangino
And so when the someone was recommended to me, I would follow up with an email and I had a rubric and I said, you have to answer yes to all of these questions. And you also have to be willing to talk to me about your life. And it would be, you know, in my book. And several men came back and said, I’m sorry, this isn’t me.
00;03;10;00 – 00;03;16;15
Kate Mangino
But this is interesting to know it will have us. It’ll be a good conversation to have in my home. Several of them said, yes, this is me.
00;03;16;16 – 00;03;21;18
Paul Sullivan
What were some of those questions? I mean, how many questions were there that they had to ask yet? Answer yes to all of them.
00;03;21;20 – 00;03;47;03
Kate Mangino
Some of those questions had to do with work. You know, I asked, are you as comfortable with a female boss as you are with a male boss? Because I was trying to just get at, you know, people’s general approach to women and gender and equality and, and then some of the questions were pretty nuts and bolts, you know, sort of like, tell me about do you do 50% of the cognitive labor in the home and give me some examples?
00;03;47;05 – 00;04;07;18
Kate Mangino
When your partner leaves for a trip for a week, are you aware of everything that needs to be done, or do you have to enlist help? Right. It was just trying to get it sorted, how you live your life. And so once they said that that that was fine and they I that that was them. I would ask to talk to their partner just to make sure that they weren’t over inflating what they did.
00;04;07;18 – 00;04;26;20
Kate Mangino
And most of the partners were, in agreement. A few of them would then say, no, that’s not he’s making that up. He doesn’t do math. And then they would drop away and then it would start. They would get to the interview stage. And I only think there were three that I can think of that dropped out during the interview.
00;04;26;20 – 00;04;28;23
Kate Mangino
That stage that even though them themselves.
00;04;28;23 – 00;04;33;05
Paul Sullivan
Because it wasn’t them or because they just became uncomfortable with the process, it.
00;04;33;05 – 00;04;51;02
Kate Mangino
Became obvious that they weren’t equal partners because I would ask them for examples and stories and what they would tell, you know, one man would say that, you know, sort of like, well, my partner really does all the thinking. And then she tells me what to do. Okay. Well, right. So it would just come out in the interview, but they weren’t really equal partners.
00;04;51;02 – 00;05;10;10
Kate Mangino
And then once I would finish interviews I would say, do you know anyone like you? And again, about half of them said, no, I really don’t. I feel kind of lonely. I’m the only man I know who lives this way. But a couple of them said, yes, my college roommate or my neighbor or my brother in law. And so it became a snowball research project.
00;05;10;10 – 00;05;11;28
Kate Mangino
And I would just sort of go from there.
00;05;12;00 – 00;05;29;11
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah, because I’m attempting that. Of course you went and you cross-check this with their spouses because this is, you know, one of the things it’s common to dads, we want to have fun, but we’re trying to end some of the silly stereotypes or one of the silly stereotypes that men say, oh, yeah, I do, you know, 70%, of the work in my house.
00;05;29;11 – 00;05;49;10
Paul Sullivan
And then you ask the spouse and she says, you know, maybe 70% of what it’s like, you really do like five. Like, how did you do do you not do well in math? Like, how did you come up with that? And this is one of the things I did when I started the company dads is I went to senior female executives to see how many of them had the dad in their life, because I figured they would tell me the truth.
00;05;49;10 – 00;06;11;28
Paul Sullivan
And if I went to men being a man. Knowing a lot of men, that they might not tell me the truth, particularly in something like this that required them to open up and admit that, hey, I am the dad. I do a lot with the parenting. I’m there to support my wife and her career, you know, and so with what you were doing, you know, with this research, as you once you had selected, you’re 40.
00;06;11;28 – 00;06;31;07
Paul Sullivan
Once you started, you know, really questioning them intently. You know, it is an interesting group, obviously. That’s why we’re talking why you wrote a book about it. But what were some of those common threads? What were some of those common things once you got past that? Okay, these guys are legit. They’re telling me the truth. These are some things that they they share.
00;06;31;09 – 00;06;52;19
Kate Mangino
So the first common thread I noticed was the way that every conversation began was with a little bit of discomfort. And I think every single one of these guys started the interview process by saying, I don’t really have anything to share. I’m not famous. I haven’t done anything remarkable. I’m just a guy. And I’ll say 30 of them were dads at the time, ten were not.
00;06;52;20 – 00;07;14;12
Kate Mangino
Now, since I published the book that’s gone up to 32 because two babies have been born, during publishing stages. But I was talking to men that had kids and some without kids, and but none of them saw themselves as remarkable. And I think that it you know, I had to reaffirm. But you are remarkable because you don’t do the status quo.
00;07;14;14 – 00;07;33;27
Kate Mangino
You have made a conscious effort to do something different. And I think media is great about calling out mistakes that men make. And that’s important. You know, we have to call it the Harvey Weinstein’s out there and we have to talk about what is inappropriate for sure. But we also, I think, don’t talk enough about what is appropriate.
00;07;34;00 – 00;07;53;26
Kate Mangino
And I think people need to hear about what we should do as much as what we shouldn’t do. And so when I framed it that way, they all were kind of like, oh, okay. Yeah. And we’d start talking and sharing stories. And I think I asked questions that men don’t often get asked, you know, like, tell me about your story, about how you met your partner and how you found love.
00;07;53;26 – 00;08;28;06
Kate Mangino
And what was that like? I found out a lot of them are romantics, and they love telling the story about how they met their partner and how they came together, and that by the end of the interview, you know, process, it was hard to stop talking because there was so much to share. So that was actually lovely as there was sort of this process of realizing the ability of the, you know, otherwise considered average guys, in terms of their background, you know, I, I found some threads, 25% of them were from single parent households.
00;08;28;08 – 00;08;38;29
Kate Mangino
And they talked to me about how that had a huge influence on them, that there wasn’t this parent kid divide. It was a team in the house. Everyone who lived in that.
00;08;38;29 – 00;08;41;17
Paul Sullivan
House from an early age, from an early age to.
00;08;41;17 – 00;08;43;15
Kate Mangino
The very early age, it was that.
00;08;43;17 – 00;08;44;04
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, for.
00;08;44;04 – 00;09;05;24
Kate Mangino
Sure. That parent could not work all the hours they needed to work to bring home money and do everything in the house. It just wasn’t possible. So the kids had. So growing up knowing how to do all those little things in the house, that was, a common thread. Another thread was access to caregiving at a young age, babysitting, being a camp counselor.
00;09;05;28 – 00;09;08;24
Paul Sullivan
That they were caregivers at a dinner they had.
00;09;08;28 – 00;09;28;18
Kate Mangino
Yeah, they had the opportunity to be caregivers when they were in their teenage years and found out they really liked it, that they really liked being around kids, and they were good at it, you know, tapping into maybe you would call it a paternal instinct. Yeah. So that was something else that I found. But they did come from all different backgrounds.
00;09;28;18 – 00;09;32;28
Kate Mangino
There wasn’t one thing that held all of them together in terms of their history.
00;09;33;00 – 00;09;50;26
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Here’s a question. When you said, you know, when you started talking to them, they said, you know, well, I’m not that remarkable. You know, just a guy. But of course, I have friends, who are not doing, 50% of the labor at home. I have friends who, you know, are certainly not the dads.
00;09;50;28 – 00;10;06;11
Paul Sullivan
You know, some of some of them who are not dads understand and think that’s cool. And the flip side of that, you know, some of the moms who don’t have the dads in their lives and who are, you know, sort of full time caregivers themselves, they actually don’t like the idea. They like that this is what they’re doing.
00;10;06;11 – 00;10;35;13
Paul Sullivan
So this is a different dynamic here. But those guys that you’re talking to, this subset, the 40 here, obviously they’re talking to their buddies. They’re going out and they’re hearing stories. Were they not like talking about that part of themselves that they were like the 5050, you know, worker or is it just something they just took for granted because it’s just what they did the way, you know, you know, some people like to just, you know, pick stuff up around the house, but put like, I like I do I like to turn the lights off as I go around.
00;10;35;13 – 00;10;38;19
Paul Sullivan
Just something they did. And that’s why they didn’t think it was remarkable.
00;10;38;21 – 00;11;09;11
Kate Mangino
We talked about that specifically. Some of them are in social circles where there are other men around them that if they’re not equal partners, they’re very close. At least they have a value of gender equality. And they’re trying really hard to, you know, do more in the home to be a, an involved father. And so it was, it seemed perhaps less remarkable to those men, to the guys who were, you know, I had this one interview with a man from southern Louisiana, and he’s like, I have never met another man like me.
00;11;09;11 – 00;11;34;07
Kate Mangino
I don’t know if I ever will. My work friends, my social friends, very traditional behavior in actually outwardly sexist behavior, in the jokes, in the stories that were told in the treatment of women in their families. And so he said, I’m not going to put it on a hat, like like it’s hard enough to fit in. I’m not, you know, I don’t I just don’t tap into this when I’m at work.
00;11;34;07 – 00;11;50;23
Kate Mangino
Or and he said, my colleagues actually know this about me and they needle me about it sometimes. You know, I never go to a happy hour because I always go home and help out with my family, and they know that and they jab me, but I just I don’t care anymore. I stopped listening and so they kind of get tired needling me.
00;11;50;25 – 00;11;58;14
Kate Mangino
So I think he was very aware that he was different, but didn’t have any expectation of influencing anyone around him.
00;11;58;17 – 00;12;20;14
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. It’s amazing you said that. I spoke, a week or so ago with a guy named Mike McGee. And Mike Bigi is a sports executive, but he also is the husband of Annika Sorenstam, who is, one of the greatest golfers of all time and certainly the greatest female golfer of her generation. And when they got married, he became, the lead dad.
00;12;20;14 – 00;12;40;07
Paul Sullivan
And and he loves it. But he has a good sense of humor. And he said when it’s all started, these guys are needling him, and they’re calling them, you know, Mr. Sorenstam. Hey, Mr. Johnson, what are you going to do? Which is, of course, a variation on the very childish Mr. Mom’s like him as a surname, and he tells the story so well, he gets very serious and says, look, you are not going to call me Mr. Sorenstam.
00;12;40;09 – 00;13;03;23
Paul Sullivan
We’ve worked too hard on the brand. The brand is Annika. It is one word you’re going to call me Mr. Annika. And it was his awesome response because then the guy’s like, oh, okay, I guess that’s kind of a good thing for me to do. Maybe I shouldn’t do that. When you think about, you know, the obvious and non-obvious things that got these men to being equal partners.
00;13;03;23 – 00;13;24;26
Paul Sullivan
You know, you talked about, you know, early caregiving, you talked about, you know, some of them from a, you know, single family, you know, household that, that, that I put that in the obvious bucket that, that sort of makes sense. You were there other non-obvious, you know, factors that their choice of partner was it where they what they did for a living?
00;13;24;26 – 00;13;38;24
Paul Sullivan
Was it, you know, the anything was it political affiliation? I’m I’m kind of spitballing here, but I’m just wondering, are there any non-obvious things that you that. That’s kind of strange that these guys share this or if not all 40, you know, a couple of them like that.
00;13;38;26 – 00;13;59;06
Kate Mangino
You know, I tried to find one thing that held them all together, and that was going to be the title of my book, right? I mean, I was hoping to to find something as a researcher that, you know, they all have sisters or they’re all right, I don’t know, something bizarre. And I couldn’t and I was really frustrated with that, to be totally honest, for a while.
00;13;59;06 – 00;14;19;22
Kate Mangino
And then I realized that the the flip side of that is kind of cool and that if there’s no if there’s not one thing that binds them all together, then that means that everyone has self agency to be an equal partner if they want to. I would say they all have support. They either have a supportive partner that kind of helped them get to where they wanted to be, or they had.
00;14;19;27 – 00;14;43;05
Kate Mangino
Several of the men I interviewed came from violent and abusive households and, high school programs. Therapist mentors got them to where they are today. Only two of the 40 came from parents who role model parity. So 38 of them had to figure it out from somewhere else. And I think it took a lot of self agency, but it also took a community of support.
00;14;43;05 – 00;15;00;05
Kate Mangino
It was either an aunt and uncle that they got to see once a year in the summer, or one, was really influenced by a boyfriend that his mom had for a few years. And then when they broke up, he never saw that boyfriend again. But that man had a really big impact on him for the years that he was in his life.
00;15;00;08 – 00;15;10;11
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. The, you know, differences between the 30 who had children at the time of your research and, and the ten who didn’t.
00;15;10;13 – 00;15;32;10
Kate Mangino
Give you the honest truth that I haven’t told anyone up until now. The 30 that had kids made themselves available to me immediately, like they just found the time. And the ten that didn’t were always so busy that they had to schedule a month out. And I thought that was really interesting, that dads parents I think were. And I’m, I’m, I’m a mom.
00;15;32;10 – 00;15;50;17
Kate Mangino
So I think we are so used to our time not being our own, and we’re so used to being flexible and rescheduling and making it work and changing on a dime. That the 30 dads were like, yeah, you want to talk tomorrow? Okay, I think I can get the kids down by 835, right?
00;15;50;19 – 00;15;56;02
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And then that would be texting you right before, like, I’m running 3.5 minutes late, so if you could just.
00;15;56;06 – 00;16;12;13
Kate Mangino
Like, okay, the baby. The baby isn’t down yet. I just need 4 or 5 more minutes. But I got a trick. I know I’m going to get there. I just need a few more minutes. And the ten on dads, we’re like, I think I have an opening on November 22nd, you know, and I didn’t mind. That was fine too.
00;16;12;13 – 00;16;27;12
Kate Mangino
I had I did this research for over a year, so it but it was okay. But I do think there’s something that changes with us when we become parents that sort of we think of time in a different way. So that’s the I mean, that probably doesn’t answer your question, but I did think that was really interesting.
00;16;27;14 – 00;16;46;08
Paul Sullivan
I don’t know, does answer my question because my wife and I often look back to, you know, this this period is sort of two years when we lived in Boston. So, so we, we met in New York City. We moved up to Boston for her job for two years. I was, you know, working as a journalist. And then we decided to move to Connecticut, where we live now because of a job opportunity for me.
00;16;46;11 – 00;17;08;29
Paul Sullivan
With The New York Times. And then, you know, we thought, okay, we’re going to have kids. But we look at those those two years as sort of pure because it was the two of us, a dog and a cat living in, what we thought of was the nicest, sweetest apartment in Boston. And we get up on a Saturday and like, whenever we wanted to get up, we’d, read this thing called the newspaper.
00;17;09;02 – 00;17;31;20
Paul Sullivan
We’d go for a walk. We’d decide that we want to go into a store or go see a movie or whatever. And so there was just there was no need to schedule anything on the weekend. And then if during the week one of us needed to do something after work for work, well, we did it. And the other person was fine because he or she would just do whatever, read a book, you know?
00;17;31;27 – 00;17;47;14
Paul Sullivan
Right. And but once you know, I have, you know, as I’ve said, a million, I have three kids of three dogs until allergies intervened. One of my daughters with three cats, the three girls are all on different schedules and it’s just like, okay, well, you got to make this work. You got to fit. It’s almost like that.
00;17;47;14 – 00;17;54;28
Paul Sullivan
That ad is it, you know, busy. You want to hire busy people because busy people get things done very quickly because they just they don’t have time to operate on it.
00;17;55;02 – 00;18;15;13
Kate Mangino
That was my exact experience. And I talked to I mean, I did one interview with a with a dad who I think he was the I think he had the youngest kid. His daughter was weeks old when I started to talk to him. And so I would talk to him and he said he had his cell phone, like tucked in his ear, and he would be walking the infant up and down the hallway to try to get her to sleep.
00;18;15;15 – 00;18;36;15
Kate Mangino
I had one dad who he said, I’m sitting on the floor of our bathroom with the lights out because I can’t get privacy anywhere else in the house. I also did these interviews during the lockdowns, so, you know, everyone was in the house together all the time. A lot of the, a lot of the conversations were done in backyards because that was another space where you could go and get a bit of privacy.
00;18;36;17 – 00;18;57;00
Kate Mangino
Dad’s just just like all parents, you know, make it work. You figure it out. And, they just seemed really kind and genuine about wanting to share their stories, you know, sort of doubtful. Like, I don’t know if any of this is going to help anyone else, but if there’s a remote possibility that it can. Yes, of course, I’ll talk to you.
00;18;57;02 – 00;19;04;19
Paul Sullivan
What did they complain about? What didn’t they like about the 5050 rule?
00;19;04;22 – 00;19;05;23
Kate Mangino
Nothing.
00;19;05;26 – 00;19;06;02
Paul Sullivan
Really.
00;19;06;04 – 00;19;32;08
Kate Mangino
They what did they I mean, they they said, sure, we’re tired and we’re stressed and we don’t get as much free time anymore. But that’s just parenting. That’s not you know, they said we you know, all of them would say, like, I can’t imagine taking a weekend off, like taking every weekend off, knowing that my partner was at home slaving away, you know, like if it’s equal, like if we each get a weekend a year with our friends or whatever, that’s fine.
00;19;32;08 – 00;19;52;08
Kate Mangino
But you know this idea. But what did they they didn’t. They complained a lot about gender norms. They complained about how hard it is to be unequal partner, how hard it is to push back, how, one man, you know, this was a really kind of a sad story. His, wife was a physician and made great money.
00;19;52;15 – 00;20;16;04
Kate Mangino
And the kids were little, like one and three. And, they just had this, this day where they realized we don’t need any more money right now, but we need more hours. And so he said, why don’t I just become a stay at home dad for a while? Like, I want to do this. And so he did. And he said that the blowback from his family, and from her family in particular, was really unsettling.
00;20;16;04 – 00;20;36;06
Kate Mangino
He said that his sister in law had done the exact same thing he did a few years ago to be a stay at home mom, and the whole family rallied around her. You’re making the right decision. You’re putting your family first. We’re so proud of you. He did it. And he was called lazy. And they were jokes made on his expense that he just wanted to go to his, you know, woodworking bench more often.
00;20;36;08 – 00;20;54;01
Kate Mangino
And it’s sort of, worn down that after a year he ended up going back to work. And, he told me the story in hindsight that he regretted that decision. So the complaints I heard were more about social expectations for men and not about the life they had with their partner.
00;20;54;03 – 00;21;12;19
Paul Sullivan
You know, there is a sort of mental health component to what we’re trying to do at the company of Dads, because in our private group, this is so common. When you hear in a man who decide to go the route of being an at home dad, it’s not accepted. It’s not accepted, and they can’t go and talk to the right now.
00;21;12;21 – 00;21;28;23
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I feel fortunate myself that I have a pretty decent sense of humor because I used to think, you know, I play golf and finish up on a Friday, and I always wanted to do this and I never did it. But you see, all my buddies who were the typical go to work dads, the guys who, you know, took the whole weekend off to go.
00;21;28;23 – 00;21;56;06
Paul Sullivan
You know, I never play golf on a Saturday, Sunday. I don’t never do anything without my kids on a Saturday. But they take the whole week. And I looked at them like. Like I was Cliff Gertz. Like I was one of those great old anthropologists, like, how are you with this tier? Like, are you a dodo bird? But I always used to think, like, what if I sat there after a round of golf, having, you know, my my beer and my sandwich, and they’re all complaining about their wives or they’re complaining about work or what have I just slammed my head on the table and say, Jesus Christ, you have any idea how
00;21;56;06 – 00;22;15;26
Paul Sullivan
hard it is to get a five year old into ballet class in this town? You got? I know you guys have all done it right. I mean, it’s it’s impossible here, like five years old and ballet and they would, you know, they just would. Yeah. If they ever think that I’d had 17 drinks on the golf course. But it that’s the, the joke around a really serious problem.
00;22;15;26 – 00;22;34;13
Paul Sullivan
And so to that end, were you able, to get these 40 men in contact with each other. So at least they would have, sort of a, a group of people united by your book, but also united by the fact that they do this and they have, you know, a common set of experience.
00;22;34;16 – 00;22;53;02
Kate Mangino
I mean, I’ve always that’s actually something that’s been on my mind. Maybe they should do it on your podcast is just a I don’t know, I’m sorry. I’d always love to bring them together I think. So they all entered the relationship with me as anonymous. Obviously I know their names and addresses, but I use synonyms in the book and some of them were had told me outright.
00;22;53;02 – 00;23;16;14
Kate Mangino
I don’t mind if people know who I am, and I have other people who, have more of a they’re none of them are famous, but more of a public image. I mean, one of them is an NCAA basketball coach, and, you know, one of them’s, wife is actually, known in her field. And for those, you know, there there were also people that specifically wanted to remain anonymous.
00;23;16;14 – 00;23;47;06
Kate Mangino
So I think it would just have to be an invitation for anyone who’s interested. And but but finding community is another theme that came up over and over again. And the lack of communities available. I mean, as a mom, I’m probably part of, I don’t know, ten different chat groups. Yeah, not because I want to be just because it ends, you know, every grade that your kids in just different spaces, you find yourself in life, you know, someone’s always going to find a chat group or a Facebook group and WhatsApp, whatever.
00;23;47;06 – 00;24;13;04
Kate Mangino
Start it up. And I know that these don’t exist for men nearly as often. And it’s yes, it puts more onus on women because it’s like one more thing you have to manage, but it also keeps men away from information, because if you were on a chat group, you would know how to get a five year old into ballet in your town because you put it on your thing and within five minutes you would have eight recommendations about how to make that happen.
00;24;13;07 – 00;24;32;11
Kate Mangino
And so I think that, there’s a lot of, you know, gender equality means work for every everyone needs to put the work in. And I think that, you know, as you were saying earlier, we can’t say we want men to be equal, but then make it difficult when men are stay at home fathers. You can’t do that.
00;24;32;11 – 00;24;41;14
Kate Mangino
You have to be equal means equal. You know, we we we need to work really hard to. We all have to look at our own internal biases and work through those.
00;24;41;16 – 00;25;06;07
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, a mom of one of my daughter’s friends tried to get me on our town’s Facebook group, and they would not let me they would not let me, in the group. And so what I end up doing is if I need something, I take my wife’s phone and go in as her and say, hey, we are looking for, a babysitter, for this Saturday night, so we can go out.
00;25;06;07 – 00;25;24;09
Paul Sullivan
Is there anybody there? And, of course, they come back right away. And, you know, the for any you guys listening in on the coming days podcast? I mean, the dirty secret, just nothing goes on in these Facebook groups. It’s literally, you know, babies babysitting. How do you get into a class? And I’m selling my table. I mean, that’s literally the.
00;25;24;11 – 00;25;28;07
Kate Mangino
Whole thing, you know, the occasional meme about happy hour, but. Right.
00;25;28;09 – 00;25;35;01
Paul Sullivan
Exactly. But no guy’s going to show up to that anyway. They don’t really want the babysitting and getting the class and buying a new after.
00;25;35;01 – 00;25;57;16
Kate Mangino
You’re absolutely right. I think it’s 98% information. And this is information that women have access to very easily. And I think that it’s, unfortunate. I’m sorry that you were. I mean, I can’t imagine being that person who says, no, I’m not going to let Paul in the group because he’s female. I mean, really, doesn’t that’s sad.
00;25;57;19 – 00;26;22;00
Paul Sullivan
It is sad before, again, for to have a good sense of humor. But it, you know, I talked to, Stephanie Coontz, who’s the director of research at the Council on Contemporary Families. Really interesting, person, an academic. And she said that. So something that I hadn’t heard before, when it comes to parenting, you know, women had to be careful not to succumb to what she says or what she calls mom splaining mom splaining.
00;26;22;00 – 00;26;42;16
Paul Sullivan
And I’d never heard that term before. But essentially, you know, micromanaging, their husband or partner on parenting and, you know, other things to mean in these equal partnerships. Did you find that these couples were able to work because there was, a level of trust that they would get everything done and it wasn’t either, you know, mom planning or mansplaining.
00;26;42;17 – 00;26;45;04
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And that’s why I work academically.
00;26;45;04 – 00;27;05;05
Kate Mangino
I think you would call that maternal gatekeeping. And that can look like lots of different. That can look very differently depending on the household. But maternal gatekeeping is a a sociological thing. Right? That’s what it is exactly. That that mom, is the gate between dad and the kids and that mom knows best. And mom’s going to make those decisions.
00;27;05;07 – 00;27;20;22
Kate Mangino
And it can be everything from, you know, dad gets the baby ready to go out, like, oh, you’re not dressing her warm enough, what’s wrong with you? And then go back and changing the clothes. That’s maternal gatekeeping. Yeah, but more gatekeeping could also be, you know, you folded the laundry wrong. Now I have to redo it, right?
00;27;20;22 – 00;27;50;03
Kate Mangino
That anything that is, like, makes the mom the expert. And I know what’s going on in you in the syllabus. And don’t. And I think it comes from a place because historically, women have had power in the home. That’s where women have had power traditionally. And we a lot of women draw their value to how much control. And, you know, that’s where you can showcase your skills and that’s your value, is that you take care of your family.
00;27;50;05 – 00;28;17;18
Kate Mangino
And I do think that if you want equal partnership, then that, yes, we want women to excel in the professional space, but that also means we have to create space for men to excel in the domestic space. So this is another one of those examples of sort of how gender equality becomes really uncomfortable for everyone. I interviewed a lot of the spouses of the 40 guys, and this is one thing that came up a lot, is that you have to sort of push back.
00;28;17;24 – 00;28;34;10
Kate Mangino
You have to identify it in your own mind, like, wow, I’m doing that right now and I need to stop. I don’t need to refill the clothes. Okay. So the towels are in thirds as opposed to haves. It’s not how I would have done it, but that’s okay. My way isn’t better. It’s just different.
00;28;34;10 – 00;28;37;27
Paul Sullivan
And so for the record, thirds is the right way. I mean to say it needs to be said.
00;28;38;01 – 00;28;55;28
Kate Mangino
I think I do thirds to actually not think about, but I you know, if it’s a if it’s an issue of, for example, I’m not the kitchen person in my house and apparently I wash pans poorly. And so my husband’s always getting on my case, and he’s explained to me when I leave food on Pan and then your.
00;28;55;28 – 00;29;06;15
Paul Sullivan
Husband is insane. I would never do that. Ever. I like I’m the dishwasher guy, like, oh, it’s clean enough for me. I mean, we’re going to put it on and heat, when we put something in it again, it’s.
00;29;06;17 – 00;29;23;08
Kate Mangino
Like if you put it on the heat, then it burns and it messes up the taste of whatever I’m cooking next. And he’s explained to me why important it how important it is. So, okay. Or if you’re doing the laundry and you don’t read the labels and you shrink all of the clothes, like there are things that you can do that could be considered wrong.
00;29;23;08 – 00;29;41;03
Kate Mangino
But I think a lot of, a lot of our household actions are just about different styles. And if you truly want your partner to step up, that means you’re probably going to have to step back, and you’re going to have to be okay with a different way to fold the clothes, or a different way to fill in the blank.
00;29;41;05 – 00;29;56;11
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I think that’s the only way to happiness, because as you get, you know, more kids and more responsibilities and the things that kids want you pets or after school activities or whatever, it’s just not possible for, you know, for perfection is not possible.
00;29;56;13 – 00;30;17;17
Kate Mangino
Yeah, precisely. And intense parenting, you know, we read about that. I mean, I think, I think there’s a lot of, a lot of sort of self-reflection that moms have to consider, like where there’s social pressure to be this perfection. Right? And first of all, it’s it’s never going to happen. It’s it’s unachievable to begin with. And it’s certainly not going to get you closer to parity.
00;30;17;19 – 00;30;41;21
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Kate. Man, Gina, thank you for being my guest today on the Company of Dads podcast. One last question before, I let you go, men who are listening to this and they’re thinking, that is, you know, can I do this? How do I get to, you know, parity? Are there are there any tips that come to mind when you think of things that you learned from the 40, like anything?
00;30;41;21 – 00;30;53;16
Paul Sullivan
Any quick tips hacks that you can give some of the listeners it okay, I want to do this. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to get, if not 50%, you know, 40%, I would get closer to parity. What were some of those tips be?
00;30;53;18 – 00;31;17;18
Kate Mangino
So the two things that come to mind are, I mean, I would say, read my book or another book like it because I think that the more you understand, how are our socialized gender norms lead to our behaviors is really helpful. But that’s that’s more time consuming. Quick tips. The two things that come to mind are, number one, you have to get past the mindset of being a helper.
00;31;17;20 – 00;31;37;06
Kate Mangino
You can’t help in the house because if you’re a helper, that means someone else is in charge. And so to get passed beyond thinking of a helper, I’m not going to help my wife with the kids. I’m not going to help with the groceries I have to take over this. And so finding domains or responsibilities in your household that you can own, and that’s just your job.
00;31;37;06 – 00;32;00;13
Kate Mangino
And then your partner can be the helper for you. So the second thing that, that I found from the guys I interviewed is being 100% responsible for pockets of time forces you to become an equal partner. And let me give you an example. It started because I interviewed a man whose wife is in prison, and she works 12 hour shifts in the air.
00;32;00;20 – 00;32;16;22
Kate Mangino
And unless someone is going to the air themselves, you can’t contact her. She’s not. You can’t text her. She’s not on her phone. So he’s like, for those 12 hour shifts, I am on my own. And I have two little kids and I do not want to make a Costco run during that time because that would be awful.
00;32;16;24 – 00;32;30;09
Kate Mangino
So he said, I, I’ve learned to plan ahead. I have learned to anticipate needs. I know what I need to have done in the House for those days, but the 3 or 4 days a week that I got them, I know what to pack in their lunch because I have to do drop off on the day she’s working.
00;32;30;15 – 00;32;54;13
Kate Mangino
I have to know the pediatrician’s number because on those days that she’s working, it’s all on me. There’s no there’s no other helper. Once again, it’s that helper mentality. There’s a there. I have to be the one in charge. So that worked out great for them because his his spouse had this job. But you could fabricate that, you know, when your partner’s at just say okay for the next month, think of her is not available and I have to problem solve.
00;32;54;13 – 00;33;03;02
Kate Mangino
And once you’re forced to problem solve, it’s easier to anticipate needs. And then it’s not. It becomes more routine and less difficult.
00;33;03;05 – 00;33;11;13
Paul Sullivan
Awesome. Again, Kate Mangina, author of Equal Partners Improving Gender Equality at Home. Thank you so much.
00;33;11;15 – 00;33;12;18
Kate Mangino
Thank you for having me on.