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And so that day was a day that I felt less shame, because even these strong women that I really admired were going through the same thing that I was, and so I felt like, oh my God, if none of us are immune to these issues, then maybe this is a bigger problem.
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And so that's when the researcher hat really came on to understand that this phenomenon that we're talking about had a name, a couple names actually the second shift, unpaid labor, emotional labor, cognitive labor and invisible work.
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That was my favorite one, jess and Brandon, because it came from 1986, an article I read, and the woman, the sociologist, was arguing that unfortunately she didn't believe that women's work in the home would ever be visible, because visibility in our society equals value, and if we gave value to the unpaid labor, we'd have to pay for it or we'd have to acknowledge it.
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And the invisibility is what is allowing America to have women as our social safety net, and that is something that we need for a capitalist patriarchy to thrive.
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And so she argued that we would never make the invisible visible.
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So then I got mad at her and said well, I'm going to make the invisible visible, and I started with the Should I Do?
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Spreadsheet.
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And that's how Fair Play began, hey, babe.
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What are we talking about?
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Something that I think every mother, parent, working person, especially working person with a family, feels deeply in their soul, and that is that second shift, that mental load, the five to nine after working, a nine to five, the oh my gosh, who's going to do the tooth fairy money?
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What about the goodie bags for the classroom party?
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The crap that inundates our minds.
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That is what we're talking about today.
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And before you're like, no, I don't want to hear abouting because I read her New York Times bestselling book, fair Play, when we had a one-year-old and we were drowning and then we found out we were pregnant, and then we were in a pandemic with two under two and I was like, oh my gosh, how do we come up from air?
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And Eve really, really helped us come up for air.
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And so, eve, we are so, so thrilled to have you with us today.
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Oh my gosh, I'm so happy to be here and it's been fun to listen to you and I love your banter and I'm just happy to be here oh, thank you.
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Well, I think you know partially, our banter is because we're still happily married.
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Because, thanks to your book, we figured it out.
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You helped us get there, so thank you so much.
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For anybody who is not familiar with Eve's work, let's get into this incredible bio, because you really have put in the work for this book and to help families come up for air and really figure out a system that works in their home.
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And it's all about equity, not equality.
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I think we all realize nothing will ever be equal in a home, but we can find equity between the roles, whether you're in a heteronormative relationship or otherwise, finding what works for you.
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All of our relationships, of course, are our own and they're personal, but you've really put a system in place to help us figure that out.
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So let's get into this bio and then we'll follow up with your money memory and get into how this all came to be.
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Okay, perfect.
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Her New York Times bestselling book and Reese's Book Club pick Fair Play, a gamified life management system that helps partners rebalance their domestic workload and reimagine their relationship, has elevated the cultural conversation about the value of unpaid labor and care.
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So much unpaid labor.
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In her highly anticipated follow-up Find your Unicorn Space Reclaim your Creative Life in a Too Busy World.
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She explores the cross-section between the science of creativity, productivity and resilience, described as the antidote to physical, mental and emotional burnout.
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Rodsky aims to inspire a narrative around the equality of time and the individual right to personal time choice that influences sustainable and lasting change on a policy level.
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Her work is backed by Hello Sunshine, reese Witherspoon's media company, whose mission is to change the narrative for women through storytelling.
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Rotsky was born and raised by a single mom in New York City and now lives in LA with her husband, Seth and their three children.
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Welcome, eve, thank you.
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Oh, thank you for that bio.
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Oh, how do you feel about it?
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It's a big bio.
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You should be so proud.
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It's.
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You know, I actually feel more aligned with your statement about raising children during the pandemic.
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That's what really triggered me.
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It was a hard time.
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It was.
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It was a hard time for so many of us and I'll tell you I listened.
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I'm an audiobook girl through and through.
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If I read a book I'm going to fall asleep.
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So I have to do audio audible or audio.
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And when I heard your voice talk about the blueberry breakdown, when I tell you I don't know that I've ever felt so seen in my entire life.
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So for anybody who is an audio book person, I cannot recommend Fair Play enough, because it really is just like the conversations that you have with your girlfriends around, just all the stuff you know, the never ending to do list.
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And so we're going to get into that blueberry breakdown because that is, I know that's really the catalyst.
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I know it really is the catalyst for this extraordinary journey you've been on.
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But before we get there, raised with a single mom, I'm sure you have an incredible first money memory.
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Can you walk us through that?
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Oh, absolutely.
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My first money memory was getting an eviction notice under the door.
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We lived in a place called Sives in Town, which is a rent stabilized sort of middle class working class housing project in Alphabet City in New York City, and I remember my mother worked nights.
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She was a teacher, a professor, so she worked nights and I would be home with my younger brother and I remember a blue piece of paper being pushed under our door and what I remember about the eviction notice was I think I was a relatively new reader, I must have been like third grade and and all I could you know as a young reader process was something that said you will be, you know, basically out of a home, and so I didn't understand the context that my mother was overwhelmed with all the unpaid labor and that she just had forgotten to pay our bills, or that you know it was.
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She was paying rent on credit card debt, but I didn't have the context for that.
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All I thought when I saw that blue piece of paper was that we were going to be homeless and, and so that that was probably my my first and and one of my most formative money memories and one of my most formative money memories.
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Have you been listening to our podcast and wondering how am I really doing with my money?
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Am I doing the right things with my investments?
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Am I on track to reach my financial goals?
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What could I be doing better?
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If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it's time for you to reach out to Brandon to schedule your free yes, I said free 30-minute introduction conversation to see how his services could help make you the more confident moneymaker we know you could be.
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What are you waiting for?
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It's literally free and at the very least, you'll walk away feeling more empowered and confident about your financial future.
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Link is in our show notes.
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Go, schedule your call today.
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I mean that being able to read part of that notice even I mean that would definitely be formative.
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What do you think you have gained, or how has that shown up in your life today and the work that you thought you would do?
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I mean, obviously you are a Harvard trained attorney by background.
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I mean you don't get there without hard work.
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So did you have like a moment where you're like this is never going to happen in my adult life?
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Or how have you absolutely, absolutely.
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Yeah, yeah, I mean, for me it was absolutely formative.
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I did not want to be my mother and until Fair Play and I really started to understand and become an expert on the gender division of labor Jess yeah, I'm an expert on the gender division of labor.
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Brandon, not probably your most anticipated podcast to have?
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to sit through.
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But, but.
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But that wasn't on my third grade.
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What do you want to be when you grow up?
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Bored right To be an expert on the gender division of labor?
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But it all actually started with, you know, the explosion of having a mother who did it all and saying that I didn't want that life and trying to build a life where I had an equal partner, and then watching that completely break down in shame and exhaustion.
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I did everything to try to be the antithesis of a single mother raising two children, working nights, and I thought I had built that partnership until, as you said, jess, I had a lot of breakdowns, but one that was really memorable, which I write about in Fair Play.
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As you said, my blueberries breakdown.
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The blueberries breakdown.
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Well, thank you for sharing that formative memory, because that I'm sure was hard to process then and even reflecting now.
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I mean that's you know, these memories shape us and they stay with us.
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And then having your own children, you're like I'm going to do it different, you know, which is a whole nother added level of stress that I think any parent who strives to be a good parent and do better know better for their kids, you know, deals with on a daily basis.
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So thank you for sharing that.
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And later with the fair play cards.
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I just want to say I want to play something with you to remind me I want to play the game.
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Oh, I've got them right here.
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Perfect.
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The therapists have been using them in a way that sort of helps us tell some of those stories that you ask about.
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So I was thinking when I was listening to you about money memories, I was like, ooh, I want to just ask them a question later on, but not yet.
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Sorry, brandon, you go.
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Let's do it.
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No, I was just going to say that I always find it very interesting to hear people's stories of being raised by more than likely a single parent, but most often a single mother, because I was raised by more than likely a single parent, but most often a single mother, because I was raised by a single mom as well.
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She raised my brother and I, but I'm so blessed and lucky that finances was not an issue in our household, thankfully.
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So, it's, you know, looked very different.
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I would say that my upbringing was much better than probably most people that have two parents, and it's just always interesting to hear you know those dynamics of what happens, you know, with a single parent.
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Now, granted, I know she was overwhelmed, I know she would have the same problems that you're, you know your mother probably have from being overwhelmed, because they're doing everything outside of just working.
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Yeah, but I think that that's the key, what really resonated and I'm sure you would say this too is even when you have great spouses like Seth or like a Brandon, sometimes it's still not enough, right, because we're missing that foundation of a system in our home.
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And so that, I think, is really what spoke to me in the book.
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Is that, no, I have a husband who does laundry.
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I have a husband who will empty the dishwasher.
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I have a husband who will do my daughter's hair, or our daughter's hair.
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How is that not enough?
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And then you know, my heart breaks for the people who don't have that and are really, really doing it all.
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But putting that system in place really is so, so important.
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So can we kick it off with the blueberries breakdown?
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Before we get to that real quick, I do want to, you know, specify to the men out there.
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You have to be open to having this conversation and not taking it as criticism or an attack on you.
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So please listen to this podcast without getting upset.
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Just be open to the idea of, you know, making your relationship better.
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That's a good call.
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Thanks, brandon.
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What I will say is that I had this one CEO who said to me, you know, I got through your book, which I was like, oh, thank you for saying that.
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And he said and the reason why I got through the whole thing was because the first half, you know, I didn't.
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I thought I was going to put it down because it was so full of anger, but the second half is so full of solutions.
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And I was like well, thank you for accepting female anger.
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I appreciate you getting through it, but, but I but again, I do think that if you stay along with us, some of this will go dark, but then we do go light, because the good news is that fair play works, the systems work.
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The only way to end bias, as we know, one of the best ways is structured decision making.
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So we're going to talk about how great it is when you have tools to make things more efficient.
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You get time back, but I do think it's important to give context, which is anger and sadness, which is exactly where you know sort of that blueberries breakdown starts.
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Yeah, let's get into it.
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Tell everyone and you know, don't listen to this podcast and then not read the book.
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Read the book because it is a gem of a book, and then get the cards as well.
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But we'll get into that.
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Thank you, look for me again.
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As I said, I did not aspire to be an expert on the gender division of labor.
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It was not what I had written in my what Do you want to be when you grow up?
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Bored in elementary school, it wasn't, in fact, what I answered when Elizabeth Warren she was our orientation teacher before she was a Senator from Massachusetts in law school and she asked us, jess and Brandon, what do we want to do with your law degree?
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And without sarcasm, I legitimately said something like president of the United States, you know, senator from New York and Nick City dancer, and preferably all at the same time, because it was sort of that legally blonde era where you know what, like it's hard, well, it turns out, it is really hard.
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But so in in 1999, when I said that I thought, you know, I'd be smashing all these glass ceilings.
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And then, you know, if you really look at my life, when I had the blueberries breakdown in 2011, 10, you know, basically 10 years later, the only thing I can actually, you know, legitimately say I was smashing, you know, was like peas for my toddler, zach, while nursing a newborn baby, while desperately trying to grasp at straws, to hold on to a corporate job that didn't want me back, that gave away my direct reports and told me if I wanted to breastfeed it would have to be in a supply closet.
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And that context is important because that is the context in which I was operating a workplace that abandoned me my dreams that I thought I was going to have 10 years earlier sort of you know by the wayside.
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And then, on top of it, sort of the person closest to me, my husband Seth, as I was racing to get my toddler from a toddler transition program which in America you know they last like seven minutes and they cost our entire salaries Around this time sends me this text that says you know, I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries.
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And if it wasn't for that context, yes, I don't think you know, without the context it's understandable, especially to men, men, why that would have caused an entire movement, not just a book.
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But at the time, what happened to me was, when I got the I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries text, I pulled over to the side of the road which we don't do lightly in LA because of traffic and I was late to pick up Zach, that toddler, and I just sat there crying, and I was crying not just because Seth was ascribing to me that I was the fulfiller of his smoothie needs, but I think what I was really crying for was that I was the default.
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I started to feel like there was no end to this mess of a tunnel that I was in, where I was the default or, as I call in Fair Play, the she-fault for literally every single household task for my family, and what I realized was I was living a statistic, jess and Brandon, that I didn't even know at the time, which is that women shoulder two-thirds or more of what it takes to run a home and family, regardless of whether they work outside the home, and actually the amount of invisible, unpaid work that they handle increases as the money they make increases.
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And so we know this is not a work problem, this is a gender problem.
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And so that breakdown on the side of the road.
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I think back now to that day, and even if I hadn't created the Fair Play system, even if I didn't have an institute that's fighting for paid leave and childcare and to make things easier for all of our families, even without that, if I had just known that statistic, that I wasn't alone that other women shouldered two thirds or more of what it took to run a home and family, I think I would have been in a better place.
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Yeah, especially when you have young children and you're working, and whether you're career oriented or not, whether you're in a corporate lifestyle or not, there's so much about motherhood, especially, that's so isolating, even when you know you're not alone.
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And so when I listened to that book and I was thinking this is a Harvard-trained attorney.
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I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you were talking about you had file folders on your lap.
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You had the breast pump next to you.
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And then here's the audacity of Seth asking you about the blueberries, and it's like, oh my God, I god, I felt the rage yeah, he chose violence that day yeah, yeah, I felt the rage.
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You know what else could I do for you, seth?
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What else could I fucking do for this family, you know?
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she knows I would never send her that text, only because there's certain there might be things that you think in your head.
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But then like you gotta take a second and pause, like yeah, this is probably not going to come through the way that you had just walked out of the grocery store, Right, it's.
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It's that context of what you described about, you know, feeling rejected at work, and just I mean there's just so much that goes into.
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And let me tell you one other area I was rejected.
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So around that time, or maybe even like the day after I had the rejection from work and, as you said, I'm trying to start a new law firm with all these you know papers on my lap, I have Seth with this bizarrely passive aggressive that Brandon wouldn't send texts.
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I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries.
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Okay.
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So that means right, like I failed you right, or whatever that the context of that was, which was so frustrating, but at the same time, I was so I was actually very hopeful because I just started that toddler transition program I was telling you about.
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That's where I was on the way to when I had the breakdown and that's where people told me it was going to get easier.
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Guys, I don't know if you felt that way too, but people said to me, like when you get to school, you're going to start having a community, you're going to have people who help you, you'll have more time.
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And so when I get to the school, not only am I being failed by my husband and my workplace, but I get to the school and the preschool teacher echoes.
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You know, welcome to the transition program.
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We're all happy to see you here.
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These are going to be people around you that are going to be friends for your lifetime.
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They're going to know you better than anyone's ever known you.
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And then, as she's saying this, I'm looking down at my name tag and my name tag says Zach's mom.
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Talk about not having an identity.
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These people are going to be the people who know me better than anyone's ever known me.
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They don't even know my name.
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This is definitely must be an LA thing.
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I mean, but that's just like icing on the terrible shit cake.
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At that point I mean that's exactly.
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it was this idea that there was no identity for me outside of being Zach's mom or the filler the filler we have 10 years later, that women, constantly in 33 territories and countries where fair play exists and we have data say to me that they don't believe they have a permission to be unavailable from their roles as a parent, partner and or professional, and that breaks my heart.
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It is heartbreaking because it's so much pressure.
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You know it's so much I mean think about what we do and I'll speak for women in heteronormative relationships but what we do when we are sick, when we have a fever, when we have a migraine, when we don't feel good, compared to no offense what men do.
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I don't get sick often, he doesn't get sick often, but there are times where he'll be like what men do?
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I don't get sick often, he doesn't get sick often, but there are times where he'll be.
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Like babe, do I have a fever and I'm like all right.
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You're fine.
00:22:34.500 --> 00:22:40.685
I'm like suck it up, buttercup, you'll be okay, You're going to make it when I get sick, since I don't get sick often.
00:22:40.685 --> 00:22:43.786
I get sick, sick, yeah, yeah, but's still.
00:22:43.786 --> 00:22:44.628
You know what I'm?
00:22:44.749 --> 00:22:46.702
saying you know what I'm saying?
00:22:47.023 --> 00:22:59.131
the man flu is a thing yeah I agree yeah, let's transition from the blueberries breakdown into what happened, because it lit a fire in you.
00:22:59.131 --> 00:23:08.473
And now you've got, you know, two best-selling books, you've got an entire institute of research behind you, decades of experience.
00:23:08.473 --> 00:23:14.250
What happened after Zach's mom and the name tag?
00:23:16.093 --> 00:23:16.835
Well, what was?
00:23:16.835 --> 00:23:28.817
I put my researcher hat on because, as you you know, you kindly said, I'm a, I'm a lawyer and a researcher and and, and I decided that I would start to understand what was happening to me.
00:23:28.817 --> 00:23:39.579
And one of the best things that happened around that time that I write about in Fair Play that Jess knows, was because of the blueberries breakdown.
00:23:39.579 --> 00:24:02.523
I was more open to see what was happening around me, and so I write about this experience right after that, where I'm at this breast cancer march for a friend who had been recently diagnosed and being with very powerful women we had like a stroke and trauma doctor there, like a award-winning producer, and they're not all married to men, but the ones who were I was more aware of all of us.
00:24:02.544 --> 00:24:29.876
It was a Saturday morning, so that's extra hard because you're leaving little kids, you know somewhere and at home and asking for childcare, and so we're all together at this march on a Saturday morning and then around noon everyone gets really quiet and we were supposed to be going to lunch and then I started hearing like moans, like oh, I probably should get home, I'm going to skip lunch, and and so then I start to look over people's shoulders, the women I'm with and I'm like, ooh, what's happening over here?
00:24:29.876 --> 00:24:35.734
And what I realized was that the women married to men were responding to texts and phone calls.
00:24:35.734 --> 00:24:41.394
And they were texts and phone calls like where did you put Hudson's soccer bag?
00:24:41.394 --> 00:24:45.184
Um, what's the address of the birthday party?
00:24:45.184 --> 00:24:46.507
Did you want me to take?
00:24:46.627 --> 00:24:49.153
You know, lily, and did you bring me a gift?
00:24:49.153 --> 00:24:51.656
Um, do the?
00:24:51.656 --> 00:24:55.269
You know where's Anna's pants?
00:24:55.269 --> 00:24:57.455
You know I mean questions like that.
00:24:57.455 --> 00:25:10.954
But my favorite, my favorite question that I screenshot and I had on a bulletin board for a really long time was my friend Kate's husband Remember this is noon on a Saturday and his texts said to her do the kids need to eat lunch?
00:25:14.105 --> 00:25:14.666
It's just.
00:25:14.666 --> 00:25:16.673
I cannot wrap my head around it.
00:25:16.673 --> 00:25:17.435
I cannot.
00:25:18.586 --> 00:25:20.894
I don't even have to say, because they're just making.
00:25:20.894 --> 00:25:22.810
These guys are just making all of us look bad.
00:25:23.445 --> 00:25:25.073
I mean yeah, yeah, it's true.
00:25:25.444 --> 00:25:30.704
Yeah, yeah, and, and remember, you know it's also, this is uh, 2012.
00:25:30.704 --> 00:25:39.836
So, you know, we, we, I, I do believe we've made progress, but, um, but back then, uh, nobody was talking about these issues.
00:25:39.836 --> 00:25:42.792
There was not even social media in any meaningful way.
00:25:42.792 --> 00:25:50.734
But what was fascinating to me was that that was my first act of resistance, cause Justin Brandon you're asking me about.
00:25:50.734 --> 00:25:53.349
You know what happened after the the?
00:25:53.349 --> 00:26:21.909
I got to take some power back because, even though those women weren't willing to stay to eat the dim sum and stay for lunch, because they left their partners with too much to do, and so they did leave me to go bring a perfectly wrapped gift to a birthday party and find Hudson's soccer bag, but what I did ask for them to do is count up how many phone calls and texts we had received, and it was pretty jarring it was 30 phone calls and 46 texts for 10 women, over 30 minutes.
00:26:21.909 --> 00:26:43.336
And so that day was a day that I felt less shame, because even these strong women that I really admired were going through the same thing that I was, and so I felt like, oh my God, if none of us are immune to these issues, then maybe this is a bigger problem.
00:26:43.336 --> 00:27:00.500
And so that's when the researcher really came on to understand that this phenomenon that we're talking about had a name, a couple names actually the second shift, unpaid labor, uh, emotional labor, cognitive labor, um, and invisible work.
00:27:00.825 --> 00:27:25.905
That was my favorite one, justin Brandon, because it came from 1986, an article I read, and the woman, the sociologist, was arguing that, uh, unfortunately, she didn't believe that women's work in the home would ever be visible, because visibility in our society equals value, and if we gave value to the unpaid labor, we'd have to pay for it or we'd have to acknowledge it.
00:27:25.905 --> 00:27:36.215
And the invisibility is what is allowing America to have women as our social safety net, and that is something that we need for a capitalist patriarchy to thrive.
00:27:36.215 --> 00:27:42.830
And so she argued that we would never make the invisible visible.
00:27:42.830 --> 00:27:45.396
So then I got mad at her and said well, I'm going to make the invisible visible.
00:27:45.396 --> 00:27:47.201
And I started with the should I do?
00:27:47.201 --> 00:27:47.605
Spreadsheet.
00:27:47.605 --> 00:28:00.913
And that's how Fair Play began, with a giant Excel spreadsheet of 98 tabs and 2000 items of invisible work I compiled over a year from women married to men now in 17 countries.
00:28:00.913 --> 00:28:09.738
That basically asked the question what is invisible to your partner that you may be doing that they don't see An Excel spreadsheet with 98 tabs.
00:28:10.767 --> 00:28:11.910
I know the entire book.
00:28:11.970 --> 00:28:20.055
I mean I binged it, I think it took me, I think I finished it in two or three days, and I mean as soon as she was done, she was like we need to talk.
00:28:20.055 --> 00:28:26.438
Yeah, we're going to have a conversation but you know, again because of the systems and we.
00:28:26.438 --> 00:28:33.289
This is something we're going to be revisiting over and over again, right as our children get older, as our goals change.
00:28:33.369 --> 00:28:35.232
Yeah, it's a practice, absolutely.
00:28:35.633 --> 00:28:42.882
But I will tell you, I was changing the laundry earlier and I was so impressed because Brandon did the towels.
00:28:42.882 --> 00:28:44.496
You're probably like, where is she going?
00:28:44.496 --> 00:28:45.060
Yeah, I'm wondering.
00:28:45.060 --> 00:28:45.565
Now I love this.
00:28:45.565 --> 00:28:48.595
And all of the hand towels were in there.
00:28:48.595 --> 00:28:53.306
The kitchen towels were in there, the kids' bathroom hand towels Amazing.
00:28:53.306 --> 00:28:57.886
When we got married eight years ago, I don't know that brandon would have washed a hand towel.
00:28:57.886 --> 00:29:02.726
They just magically are always clean and always ready to go and perfectly folded that's a single man.
00:29:02.767 --> 00:29:08.201
I don't think I had hand towels right, right so.
