Shweta starts her day at 6 AM, gets the kids ready for school, gets breakfast ready while also telling the help what to make for lunch. She gets thirty minutes to get ready, swallow breakfast and leave the house at 9 in order to reach work on time. With the position she is in and the pressure from work she is left exhausted by the end of the day. She goes back home, gets dinner ready, sets the table, and serves her husband and kids. Her husband occasionally helps by dropping the kids at school and picking them up from tuitions. By 12 after the cleaning and when her energy is depleted she gets into bed to catch a few hours of sleep, feeling like there is no who understands what she is going through and often times feels like no one does the same for her.
This is perhaps something that a lot of us feel. We don’t recognize all these pressures and expectations as stressors, which they clearly are.
Imagine a situation where Shweta asks her husband to help her to clean the house and he asks her what exactly to do, where to put things, how to clean it, with what to clean it, etc. Answering these questions is work in itself. And quite often Shweta may just prefer doing the tasks herself, rather than hand-holding her husband through them.
Shweta’s story is something that we all might be able to relate to. However, most women take this for granted as a part of their life. However, the emotional energy expended in remembering to remember everything often gets missed out when we look at the amount of work we do on a daily basis.
This feeling of being expected to manage your emotions while doing everything else is something that we can all relate to, and this is what is called ‘Emotional Labour’.
Why is it called emotional labour? Because it ends up using and often draining our emotional resources.
Traditionally women are taught that their work doesn’t only involve cooking, cleaning and caring for children. But also bearing the emotional labour of relationships, meetings, contributing to finances, solving fights, taking care of the kids and much more. Predominantly men are seen as fixers and women as the more emotional beings in a household.
How burdened are you?
Start small and ask yourself:
How much of the emotional labour do you like?
For instance, doing things for your family also makes us feel in control and feel loved, which a lot of us might like.
How much of work and emotional labour can you take on and how much do you want to take on?
Can you cook, clean, take care of the family, the kids' homework and work all together? If you can that’s great but also ask yourself if you really want to take on so much.
What does it cost or take away from you on a daily basis?
Like for Shweta, it took away energy, time for herself and peace of mind.
List out the pros and cons of the role you are playing that causes emotional labour: Read them and ask yourselves if you want to make changes and what they are.
Example: Pro: helping my family and Con: Leaves me feeling miserable and tired.
Communicate your troubles to your partner:
Negotiate to create a balance and equal amount of work for everyone at home.
Be aware of your limits and boundaries:
Remember you have the choice to ask for help and the choice to say no.
Ask yourself if you are giving the required amount of importance to self-care; are you doing things that bring you peace, joy, etc.?
If this is a concept that you are able to relate to, but have come across, it might be a good idea to take time out to assess for yourself what emotional labour is doing to you and see whether you want to do something about it. This might still be confusing for some of us, while others might wonder what we can do even if we know these things. This is where counselling plays a role for both women and men.
References
Cavanagh, S. (2015, October 1). The Hidden Toll of Emotional Labour. Retrieved from Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/once-more-feeling/201510/the-hidden-toll-emotional-labor
Hartley, G. (2017, September 27). WOMEN AREN'T NAGS—WE'RE JUST FED UP. Retrieved from Harpers Bazaar: http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a12063822/emotional-labor-gender-equality/
Psyched in San Francisco. (2016, June 4). Why Women Are Tired: The Price of Unpaid Emotional Labor. Retrieved from Huffington Post: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-women-are-tired-the-p_b_9619732.html
If you would like to discuss this further or need some help or support in this or any other area, our counsellors would be happy to help.