Stop Blaming Mothers for Doing Too Much

We are doing our best

A few years ago, I went on a bachelorette trip to a city about 2.5 hours away from Zurich by train. Five of us were supposed to go wine-tasting, swimming, eat a nice dinner, sip some drinks, stay overnight in a little boutique hotel, and have brunch. The whole trip would take approximately 36 hours. As we were having prosecco in the train, one of the women (“Sophia”) announced: “I’m sorry, ladies. I have to go back home after dinner. It’s a lot to have both kids overnight alone, and I’m not sure my husband can handle it. It’s just not fair to the kids. I’m sure you understand.”

The thing is … I didn’t understand. Why did Sophia allow this dynamic to develop, where she was indispensable to her family’s functioning? Why could her husband not take care of his own two kids? And … why didn’t Sophia seem more bothered, or embarrassed, or apologetic about the situation? When I told my then-boyfriend (now husband), he looked puzzled: “I would be so ashamed if my wife didn’t think I could take care of my kids by myself for a single night.”

Now that I have a child and one half-baked on the way, I know precisely how Sophia felt.

Just kidding: I don’t. I never made myself indispensable to our family so that it couldn’t function without me. My partner and I have worked hard to maintain an equitable parenting relationship, with an emphasis on “hard”: It takes hard, purposeful, strategic work to be equal parenting partners when this is still far from the norm. In 56% of Swiss households, mothers do most of the care work, compared to only 3% of fathers.

Ok, stop.

I wrote this introduction a few weeks ago and promptly developed writer’s block. In my head, this was going to be a provocative essay about how social norms can serve as a crutch, nay, excuse for individual choices, and how we are responsible for our own care-sharing decisions. Except when I reread my own words, I realized that I was placing the blame for the care work inequity squarely on the shoulders of women (in my hook, blaming Sophia for her care-giving choices rather than her husband) and insufferably smug about the relatively equitable parenting approach I had built with my husband (when, in reality, luck and privilege played a significant role).

Pictured: Me, placing the blame for the care work inequity squarely on the shoulders of women.

In my work on increasing gender diversity in the corporate world, I frequently encounter a particular brand of liberal feminism: the push to educate women about the consequences of their choices. “Women need to be made aware of the pension gap that accrues if they work part-time,” or “women need to understand that full-time commitment is necessary to make it to the very top of the corporate ladder.” This “fix the women” approach rings condescending and infantilizing. Trust me: The women know, and many don’t like it one bit.

What is more, this approach to equalizing the playing field doesn’t work precisely because it doesn’t address the underlying structures and (dare I say) norms that undergird a system where women in heterosexual relationships are still the default parent. The Swiss Federal Statistical Office recently published a statistic that made me stop in my tracks: Even if they work (for pay) full-time, mothers, on average, spend 14.3 hours more per week on care work than their male partners. I’ll go out on a limb and assume that this isn’t because they want to do more work. Mothers are tired. Leave them alone.

A brief history of care work inequity to illustrate how our gendered work norms developed: The notion that mothering should preclude paid work emerged in the nineteenth century with the rise of the male breadwinner model and the ideology of separate spheres (home versus work), which redefined (house)wives as dependents and devalued their labor. Capitalism has reinforced gendered divisions of labor by prioritizing economic productivity over care work, thus perpetuating inequalities in domestic labor distribution and reinforcing traditional gender roles.¹ Sure: World War II necessitated women to take on essential production labor previously done by men, positions they were expected to vacate for the returning heroes.² In the post-war 1950s, the deeply gendered roles of male breadwinners and female homemakers became aspirational.

Since the 1960s, there has been a seismic change with women entering the (paid) labor market. However, men have not made the same change when it comes to a significant increase in (unpaid) care work. Parenthood still essentializes gender roles more than possibly any other life event. For example, a study in Britain convincingly shows that the gender revolution in the division of labor among parents has stalled, and family policies have not been successful in increasing mothers’ paid work time and fathers’ unpaid work time.

Parental leave (and parental support) policies don’t help. In the EU, mothers are guaranteed 14 weeks of paid leave, while fathers are entitled to just ten days. Substantial paternity leave would be highly effective in setting up couples for long-term success when it comes to sharing care work, enabling both parents to pursue satisfying careers, and disrupting the traditional gender roles of male breadwinner and female caretaker.

Imagine that the mother is the only parent at home with a child for the first few months or years of a child’s life, while the father (or second parent) keeps working as usual. In this case, the mother will establish the entire routine and know when and how the child eats, sleeps, and enjoys playing. She will know best how to soothe the child. She will know when the next pediatrician’s appointment is and when the family is likely to run out of baby formula. The family will develop a habit where the lion’s share of care work falls to her, leaving her to carry most of the mental load.

And yet, we are talking (a lot more) about “fixing the women” than “fixing the men.” And by “we,” I mean me.

There is a term for women who are doing too much and not “letting” their partners do their fair share: “Maternal gate-keeping,” or “mothers’ beliefs and behaviors that inhibit greater father involvement in family work,” as coined by Allen and Hawkins. According to some experts, maternal gatekeeping has deleterious consequences. Crystal Clancy, therapist and former director for a pregnancy and postpartum support nonprofit, argues that “maternal gatekeeping is a vicious cycle, because the more you do, the more your partner backs off. And then, the less your partner engages with your child, the less confident they feel.” In other words, the partner is framed as a passive participant in the parenting relationship, and the unequal nature of caregiving is attributed to the mother’s actions or inactions. Curiously (or not), there is no equivalent, simple term in the English or German language for fathers who are involved parents but who are simply not doing their fair share.³ Language shapes reality, and words have a profound impact.

Image taken from a Forbes article on maternal gatekeeping, depicting a mother happily gatekeeping care work.

Although the term “maternal gatekeeping” was coined by academics in the 1990s (and scholars are now becoming critical of its prevalent use), the internet is still overflowing with advice on how mothers can stop gatekeeping care work. The Bump advises mothers to “leave the house,” “read together,” “take a class,” or “share your schedule and contact info.” Marriage.com emphasizes the importance of delegation, seeking external perspectives, celebrating shared accomplishments, and engaging in self-reflection. What do all of these pieces of advice have in common? They are all adding more items to mothers’ lengthy to-do lists and putting the responsibility of fixing the care inequity solely on them.

In other words: We are expecting mothers to carry even more of the mental load. The typical mother not only does most of the care work but also part of the paid work, as well as the invisible, cognitive, and emotional labor involved in managing a household and family, including anticipating and balancing diverse needs. Yet, these “gatekeepers” are expected to manage care-sharing actively, delegating parental responsibility, making sure that their co-parent is doing their part, treading lightly, and holding themselves back.

I’m not arguing that women are somehow not active decision-makers and participants in their (care sharing) relationships. Of course they are: they have agency and power (and there is power in care work and managing home and family life). They make choices for which they are responsible. But I’m sick of people pretending that “fix the women” is the logical first step in fixing the deeply entrenched (care) work inequity.

Can’t we expect more from fathers? Shame the employers propagating career norms and structures built for men (with housewives) by men? Can’t we start by giving women a break?

Let’s take a hard look at ourselves: Why are we so quick to want to “fix the women”? Perhaps because it’s easier: If women are a central part of the care-inequality problem, then we don’t have to look closely at the gendered, inequitable system we’ve built, where men are still coming out on top.

1. For example, as argued by Doucet (2023), who is building on Fraser (e.g., 2016, 2022)

2. To learn more about the gendered labor history of WWII, consider reading Rose (2018) for a good summary.

3. “Dead-beat dad” seems too extreme. Care withdrawal? Emotional abdication? Learned helplessness? None of these terms have “paternal” or “father” in them; they don’t feel personal in the same way “maternal gatekeeping” does.