It's not 'emotional labour', it's kin work

>When people form a couple there’s many things like this where one part of the couple has the bar set in a completely different location. Which I think is ok. It’s ok for one half of the couple to not do as much card writing. The workload of a relationship should be split evenly overall but if one places waaaay more importance on a particular aspect than the other it’s ok for that one to bear more of the load in that case.

Yes, but there still needs to be a recognition of where the bars are and the work needed to reach them. If not, it can easily become a problem when one person doesn't value that work at all and therefore doesn't see that work being done as being part of the even split. If one partner doesn't care about the Christmas cards, they should still recognize that the other partner's work on sending out the Christmas cards is in fact work that needs to be done. That is part of what the article is about, recognizing that this emotional labor/kin work is "not dispensable" despite there being a notion it is due to historic and systemic issues.

A common issue with this in my view is that in many cases the incentives are all wrong. A man might care a lot about a traditional thanksgiving meal but by consciously or unconsciously presenting a lower bar he can offload responsibility. He might not care about the cards, but he does like getting invited hunting with his BIL which only happens through the maintenance of those relationships. Avoiding acknowledging that those two things are connected allows for pushing off responsibility while reaping the benefits.

There are obviously ways to balance this (she does the cards, I organize the July 4th BBQ) but it definitely requires honesty with each other and ourselves to make that work and avoid falling back on (often gendered) patterns.

> I’ll say it again: kin work definitely does not need to be carried out by any particular gender. It is just work

The author addresses that and it fits into her desire to move away from 'emotional labor', as 'emotional' is seen as a feminine domain. 'kin work' can also be expectations to manage all home, car, and lawn maintenance tasks. Someone being able to walk in, say 'the sprinkler's broken', and walk off again is a prime example of kin work.

This is true to an extent, but I think there are two important things to caution against.

One is that it is super easy for a lazy person to say "you just care about this more than me" when in fact they care about it a lot and will complain if it doesn't happen. This is extremely common, particularly among men, even if I assume in good faith you are not one of these people.

The other is that when you enter into a relationship with someone it is just not possible to completely ignore the things they like and are emotionally invested in. If you marry someone who is a super-christmas-enjoyer then guess what, you are a super-christmas-enjoyer now too (or, to be fair, you are now both somewhere in the middle). Ignoring that you have very different expectations will just cause friction. (so if you really really don't want to care, you are going to have to consciously discuss this and agree to it, and even then I don't actually believe it will work)

Yep. I imagine that in the culture described, the women care a lot more about Christmas being organised just so than the men do.

I came here to say precisely the same thing. It's all down to personality. For example, in a relationship between a person high in orderliness and a person low in orderliness, the resultant complaint usually is "I do all the cleaning up around here!" But the complaint could easily run in the other direction: "If your need for orderliness wasn't so high, we wouldn't have to do so much cleaning up around here!"

The same thing is often the case in a relationship where people set the bar around "maintenance of social ties" very differently. The typical couple (in my totally subjective field of experience) is one where the husband is like: "Hey honey, how about we just order pizza for all of our guests for the Thanksgiving party we're hosting this year?" and the wife is like: "Over my dead body!"

Interestingly, those roles are reversed in my own marriage: We recently got married at the courthouse with a vague plan to throw a wedding party at some unspecified future date. It's increasingly looking like my wife just can't be bothered. Meanwhile, I love to cook, and when my wife suggests using stock cubes when we cook for guests, I throw her out of the kitchen and finish the job myself.

> The workload of a relationship should be split evenly overall but if one places waaaay more importance on a particular aspect than the other it’s ok for that one to bear more of the load in that case.

A different take-- imagine the love your spouse would feel if-- even a single year out of your entire life-- you were enthusiastically engaged in a task she almost certainly already knows you have no interest in. A task, btw, she almost certainly sees as being somewhat of a burden-- no human ever finds it 100% fun to do tasks like writing a bunch of cards.

I mean, you've publicly declared how little you value that task. So it would be clear you're helping because you know that your spouse values that task, and because you know she would consequently value and enjoy doing it even more with the person she loves.

Either that, or you end up pentesting your own position here, she ends up not wanting the help, and you prove yourself right. Everybody wins!

If anyone ends up trying this out and proving me right, please track me down and pay me $10,000 as a small token of gratitude for the priceless joy I will have added to your life and marriage.

It's apples and oranges. Subjective Theory of Value is the only reliable economic model here.

Everyone on my dad's side of the family gathered for xmas each year - maybe 20 of us. Full house. And everybody felt obliged to buy personal presents for everyone else.

Finally someone stood up and said "Instead of everyone stressing about buying twenty cheap gifts, how about a secret santa where everyone gets one nice gift".

Made the holidays less stressful for everyone. It just hadn't occurred to us - we bought into the obligate gift ritual without thinking.

A very precise word or phrase may over time get broadened in usage to the point of incoherence. I have seen "gaslighting" broadened to include "having a contrary opinion" and "emotional labor" broadened to include "writing items on the grocery list."

Once such nuance is that maintaining familial relationships is a shared responsibility whereas planning a night out with the guys is not. That said, I don't know your wife but I bet if you said "Bob is getting divorced and needed support but it was brutal so I just I need some alone time", she'd probably be receptive to that.

I think the nuance is between you and your wife and it is truly a pity if you feel you can't tell her that you need a rest. The other nuance is the continuing pressure on men to show no weakness. I keep hoping for some change here but I feel the pressure only increases and is to some degree self-reinforcing. If you aren't willing to admit weakness even to your life partner than what chance is there that other men will.

Luckly, that's not what the author was suggesting. Now, if you were tasked with planning a dinner party, getting groceries, and cooking for a group of family friends, then asking for a break afterwards would be reasonable.

> Somehow, though, I suspect that insinuating I need extra rest after giving my emotional labor to "plan a night out with the guys" wouldn't go over so well with my wife.

In my culture, events with the guys seems much easier to plan.

The guys will have a great time even if I only feed them takeaway pizza and beer. Barbecue hasn't been assembled? They'll assemble it, light it, do the cooking, and do most of the clean-up too. If we go out for food, we can walk into pretty much any restaurant, we all have money and we'll all eat anything. Staying the night? The guys will show up with camp beds and sleeping bags if they need to. For the first event I had a backup barbecue prepared, in case the halal guy and the vegetarian guy wanted to keep their stuff separate - turns out no worries, just do our stuff first.

And everyone has a great time! This counts as absolutely crushing it, in terms of planning events with the guys, in my society.

On the other hand, big family events? There'll be a giant spread of home cooked food. Vegetarian options, vegan options, gluten-free options. Special food for the fussy nephew who'll only eat baked beans. Some people will show up with four different cakes. Some people will have baked practice cakes in advance to test out the new recipe before the big day.

> Somehow, though, I suspect that insinuating I need extra rest after giving my emotional labor to "plan a night out with the guys" wouldn't go over so well with my wife.

Why not? That's perfectly reasonable thing to do.

I mean, the article is saying that planning a night out isn't "emotional labor", so you agree.

They are saying it's kinwork

I can understand that I'm not alone. It's reasonable to think so.

I cannot find support anywhere, though. Which makes me feel isolated. I have nobody to share my struggles with. No place to vent. No space to process it.

Only thing that has helped is therapy. After so many years I'm craving a group, though.

we've banned gifts for adults and we just go out to eat anymore.

We don't need the junk and we are sick of stressing out about buying gifts.