EP61: What's Fair Play Mean for Working Moms and Lead Dads

Interview with Eve Rodsky / Fair Play Advocate, Bestselling Author

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Eve Rodsky is changing the way working couples coexist. Starting with her bestselling book "Fair Play: A Game Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much To Do and More Life to Live," Eve is helping couples find a better way to divide up the tasks of life, of parenting, of the house, of the chores, and of all the stuff that isn’t fun. She created the Fair Play Institute to bring this method to more people. Listen to Eve's thoughts on what every couple can do to find harmony free of resentment.

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Transcript

00;00;05;09 - 00;00;27;06
Paul Sullivan
I'm Paul Sullivan, your host on the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, sublime, silly and strange aspects of being lead dad in a world where men wear the go to. Parents aren't always accepted at work, among their friends or in the community for what they're doing. The dads, whether we work full time, part time, devote all of our time to our families, are here to step up.

00;00;27;06 - 00;00;48;09
Paul Sullivan
In a world where the assumption is that childcare is still done by moms or paid caregivers, the company of dads is here to bring together other the dad and show that what we're doing is good for fathers, mothers, and the whole family system. To learn more, go to the company of dads.com, backslash the Dad and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

00;00;48;12 - 00;01;14;28
Paul Sullivan
Today my guest is Eve Rodsky who is changing the way working couples coexist. Her book, Fair Play A Game Changing solution for when You Have Too Much to Do and More life to Live was a bestseller when it came out in 2019. Its premise is there's a better way for couples to divide up the tasks of life, of parenting, of the house, of the chores, of all the stuff that isn't fun but needs to be done.

00;01;15;00 - 00;01;40;16
Paul Sullivan
And in addition, for women to recapture what Eve calls their unicorn space, that space to live, to be creative, to be full people. But what she advocates for helps the entire family. What couple doesn't remember those pre-COVID days, maybe even pre-marriage days when weeknights were relaxed and weekends were unstructured? That book spawned an empire. She had a card game to help couples understand what each other does.

00;01;40;22 - 00;02;00;21
Paul Sullivan
She has a second book, Finding a Unicorn Space, that came out last year, and she created the Fair Play Institute, which she partnered with Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon's media company. She also made an awesome documentary that premiered last year at the Tribeca Film Festival. Eve. Welcome to the company dads podcast.

00;02;00;23 - 00;02;03;28
Eve Rodsky
Wow. I'll take you on the road with me. What an amazing intro.

00;02;04;04 - 00;02;23;17
Paul Sullivan
Not this entry. It'll be fun. I it's hard to, to understate, are hard to even overstate the impact of what you're doing. And I remember, you know, you and I met on fall of 21, right after I left The New York Times. And I remember writing you an email in May of last year. I have to share the story.

00;02;23;17 - 00;02;42;28
Paul Sullivan
My wife, who is an elite runner. The University of Kentucky has had all kinds of, surgeries, all kinds of orthopedic surgeries, and one of them was to replace her hip. And there she was at she just had her hip replaced. She's at the hospital for special surgery in New York. This wonderful nurse is helping her get up and walk.

00;02;42;28 - 00;02;59;08
Paul Sullivan
My wife is delirious and telling the story about the company of dads and and what we're trying to do. And this woman is, is. It's so wonderful that your husband is here. I don't know if my husband would be here. And she says, you know what? This nurse is the company that. Any chance you know everybody? And I say, yeah.

00;02;59;14 - 00;03;18;20
Paul Sullivan
And my wife is, like, delirious, like wobbling all around sick. You know, she my husband, I we're about to get divorced. And she's like the cards, the book. We do everything. And literally my wife faints that moment. And the two nurses, and she's still talking about you. And I was like, Eve is wonderful, but could you just pick up my my wife, please?

00;03;18;22 - 00;03;28;18
Paul Sullivan
When are you here? And this is not the first time you've heard stories like this. I mean, what has this been like for you? I mean, the impact is just been fantastic.

00;03;28;21 - 00;04;07;05
Eve Rodsky
Thank you. Paul. You know, I think it's it's so interesting because when I started this journey in 2011, it was so different. And I know you felt that way, too, I'm sure. Right. For how people would be receptive. To even the idea of a lead now. And I do think we've made a lot of progress. But when I started this, I remember, feeling like I was being abandoned by my partner, because all of a sudden, as soon as I had hit all these assumptions, as you said earlier, that all this unpaid labor and childcare would fall on me.

00;04;07;06 - 00;04;30;11
Eve Rodsky
This was happening in a relationship with my husband, Seth. I'm still married to you, by the way. But, I started to feel extremely unfair after a second son came along. But also, my workplace was treating me terribly because there is something wasn't I wasn't going to stay after my second son because a lot of women didn't, and they didn't want to give me a day from home to work.

00;04;30;14 - 00;04;52;29
Eve Rodsky
They didn't want to give me a place to pump. That wasn't like a dark stairwell. And so I think I love that you say that there's an impact of this work, because when I started this work, I was probably at the darkest place in my life, which was that everything I'd been told I could be, with my Harvard Law degree and with all the accolades and everything I tried to do, it was all a lie.

00;04;52;29 - 00;05;13;22
Eve Rodsky
Because all those milestones, Paul, that I was supposed to be smashing. Right? But like, I wanted to be president of the United States. I wanted to be a senator. I wanted to be a dancer. I had all these dreams. And I remember thinking I was going to smash all these glass ceilings. But really, the only thing I was smashing was like, peace for my toddler.

00;05;13;22 - 00;05;28;26
Eve Rodsky
Zach. And I think that reality of the darkest place in my life is sort of where fair play came out of. So that's what I always think back to that. You know, I can't believe how far this movement has come, and I just feel so grateful for it.

00;05;28;28 - 00;05;50;03
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And I didn't go to that bar because, I mean, your your bio is so impressive. But before you became, you know, before we became even, you know, when you were just Eve, you were, you know, you went to Michigan, you went to Harvard Law School, you were working at, you know, I'll leave it up to you if you want to name the farmer you're working at, a very prestigious, bank in New York.

00;05;50;06 - 00;06;17;07
Paul Sullivan
And you're an attorney. And let's let's place all this, you know, yet you were, you know, being treated as if you were, a second class citizen, as if by some means, you know, having a child or a second child was going to compromise your, your brain. And I think, and again, I don't put words in, but I think that that is I see it with my own wife and, and you know, we have three kids and what she, when she works in asset management and what she went through and I mean, how much of it do you think?

00;06;17;07 - 00;06;45;11
Paul Sullivan
I mean, you are very identifiable with a certain slice of successful, smart, you know, women working moms in America who have been getting, you know, the shaft for a long time. Do you see? You know, is that when you look back, is that do you think that's part of the reason why this movement has, has really, you know, caught on because you gave a voice to the people who were just, you know, you know, kind of working and trying to get on with it.

00;06;45;14 - 00;07;11;07
Eve Rodsky
Well, I think it's similar to what you're doing, Paul, because, and it was actually funny, I, I'm obsessed with this woman named Suleika Jaouad. She, she writes a book called between two Kingdoms about her, her struggle with leukemia. And she actually has this newsletter where she was talking about the struggles of writing about people who are alive, like, can you write a memoir if there's people in it that are alive?

00;07;11;10 - 00;07;35;16
Eve Rodsky
And it was such an interesting, exposition, this newsletter about a lot of people waiting to write their memoirs or write about their parents when they're dead. And I, I remember that struggle because to launch the Fair Play movement, what I felt was that I had to tell my own story. But by telling my own story, what I had to do was expose the cracks of my own marriage.

00;07;35;18 - 00;08;00;29
Eve Rodsky
And I think again, back in when this process started of thinking about writing this story, because I was doing a lot of the fair play work for, for years, since 2011. But what I wanted to bring this to a book that was around, you know, 2016, I think, and I had to really think about what was this going to do to my marriage, what was this going to do to this idea of perfectionism?

00;08;00;29 - 00;08;23;12
Eve Rodsky
Because there's all these articles that now show that women, do not admit, that they have help in the home. They don't admit often that maybe they have a stay at home partner in the home, because we get shamed for it. Either way. So, women do not admit that they're having struggles with their partners over these issues because they always have to say like, oh, my God, you know, Seth is great.

00;08;23;12 - 00;08;52;04
Eve Rodsky
I have the best husband. I should feel grateful. He's not abusive. We've sort of been we've been at the at the very low bar. That's how we should be. Yeah. Of what we should be expecting from our partners. So the idea that I had this, you know, wonderful partner in the home, but I had to expose the cracks in my marriage is probably why many, a lot of other people haven't done it, to be honest, because I actually think it's it puts you in a very vulnerable place where people obviously can criticize you.

00;08;52;04 - 00;08;55;20
Eve Rodsky
And, you have to be willing to take those risks.

00;08;55;23 - 00;09;13;22
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I can identify with that because, you know, I don't know if I would be the dad. I don't know if I would have know left the times. I don't have the company of dads, if not for my own, you know, childhood, which was, you know, my parents were divorced and I said, you know, my parents were really bad at being married.

00;09;13;24 - 00;09;32;05
Paul Sullivan
And turns out they're even worse at being divorced. And so if I hadn't seen that as a model, but my dad is a wonderful grandfather. And so I, you know, I play that down because and I focus on the positive of, okay, I've got three daughters. My wife has his career. I was thoroughly fulfilled at the New York Times and I was the only dad.

00;09;32;12 - 00;09;51;12
Paul Sullivan
But, you know, as you say, it's and I don't want to misstated or overstated. It's almost you know, I was the lead dad for almost the entire time I was at the New York Times, but I didn't talk about it. I called Paul Sullivan, New York Times columnist. Paul Sullivan, author of X, Y, Z book. You know, you know, Paul Sullivan coming to a conference near you.

00;09;51;14 - 00;10;10;23
Paul Sullivan
But as soon as I started talking about it, in terms of the dad, I, you know, I live in, you know, Fairfield County, a, you know, affluent, you know, commuter part outside of New York City. I had all these guys that I've known forever who suddenly stepped forward and said, you know, I'm a dad, too. And it was always been very gratifying because it was, you know, naming it.

00;10;10;23 - 00;10;27;00
Paul Sullivan
And that's what, you know, made the difference. And it's the dad is positive. It's so is, you know, fair play. You're not saying like, you know, yell at your partner or no, or get that lazy guy off the couch, you know, that's it's that's not great branding, but this is.

00;10;27;02 - 00;10;51;06
Eve Rodsky
Well, you know what? Honestly fair play is a love letter to men. And it's funny, one man said to me, well, I was willing to accept your rage and hear the female rage in in the first part of your book because the system felt very familiar to me. It was a man who was in the military. And the truth is, I tell some stories that hopefully have some humor, but but there is some rage that came from that period of my life.

00;10;51;09 - 00;11;17;07
Eve Rodsky
As I said, that dark period we started with. But the beauty of fair play, similar again to the idea of lead D&D, is that you can't measure what you don't. You don't manage what you don't measure, as Peter Drucker would say. And so, the way I look at the world, which I think was very resonant to men, which is why I think fair play has done very well with in hetero cisgender couples, because I don't look at the world.

00;11;17;07 - 00;11;34;13
Eve Rodsky
I'm not a therapist. Not that that's a bad way to look at the world. But, I remember we had a couples therapist who said, you know, just start communicating, use I statements like I feel and I what can I say? I fucking hate that. Think that's an I statement, right. So, you know, it's in feel like enough to me.

00;11;34;13 - 00;11;57;23
Eve Rodsky
So what I had to do is I wanted to elevate this conversation about who does what in the home away from just like, oh, you're incompetent, you know, you do nothing. I have to redo the cleaning when you do it. Which is sort of the trope of the incompetent man in the home and really start to understand that our home is our most important organization.

00;11;57;25 - 00;12;26;19
Eve Rodsky
Because my training as a lawyer is in governance and organizational management. I work for families that look like the HBO show succession. Paul. And, you know, you should feel bad for me, but and so does your wife, by the way. And what but what I've learned from working in these very difficult families was that even with very, very difficult conservative patriarchs who I, who their family offices brought me in to work on their succession planning for their family businesses and big ones and nothing.

00;12;26;19 - 00;12;56;12
Eve Rodsky
I work for the times per se, but the New York Times is a family business. There's there's a lot of big companies out there. They're actually family businesses. So that's who I work with. But so I be brought in to talk to these men, and we'd sit down and I'd ask some questions early on. And when I start to do this work, and I remember I, I started to get so many of my clients these, again, these sort of reticent patriarchs, saying to me things like, well, I don't know why you're here because I'm not going to die.

00;12;56;15 - 00;13;22;26
Eve Rodsky
Seriously. And so what I would say is, okay, well, all right, I'll see you, you know, later. No, I had to have a way to break through conversations. And what I realized was that Card Decks games was actually a really wonderful way to break through, especially to men. And so fair play became a game. And to me, it's an easier way to have hard conversations because there is a card game that's forcing you to do it as opposed to your partner.

00;13;22;28 - 00;13;37;19
Eve Rodsky
And I learned again that having difficult conversations in game form, again, especially to men. And then you couple that with systems thinking, which is sort of where again, I'm trained. That was very, very again, very resonant. I felt like with men.

00;13;37;21 - 00;13;58;04
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And you know, I think every, every movement has a foundation story that you come back to. And, and in my final column, The New York Times, I wrote about, you know, years ago, being on the phone call with Laura Tyson, who'd been in the white House Council of Economic Advisers. She was then the dean of the Berkeley Business School.

00;13;58;04 - 00;14;15;01
Paul Sullivan
And I'm talking to her out in front of the ballet studio. And she on my my dad has taken one of our daughter, the other daughter at the time to the pediatrician, and my dad is calling from the pediatrician's office. And we know that if I don't take this call this time, I'm done. You're not getting it back.

00;14;15;01 - 00;14;31;23
Paul Sullivan
And I don't know if my daughter as a fever or is dying. You don't, you know, because your kids are, you know, not. And so in the midst of this call mid question, I hang up on her, I hang up on, you know, the former, you know, council economic adviser chair. I hang up on it and she starts calling me back because who hangs up on her.

00;14;31;24 - 00;14;49;07
Paul Sullivan
Nobody hangs up on her. And when I finally you know, resolve over the pediatrician, I, you know, take the call and then I say, okay, I can't lie because I'm a New York Times columnist. Can't lie. So I say to her, I'm very sorry. We got disconnected. The cell phone service in midtown is horrible. Where were we?

00;14;49;09 - 00;15;10;04
Paul Sullivan
It is. It is true. It is. It is for you. That equivalent is is the blueberry story. And I know you've told the blueberry story. Quite often. It was in your documentary, which is remarkable. But talk to it because it's like, you know, resentment doesn't happen overnight. It builds up and happens. It builds up like, like dust bunnies under a couch.

00;15;10;04 - 00;15;23;22
Paul Sullivan
You know, it's only you look at that call. It got a lot of dust under that for you. It came to a head at the blueberry moment. And to talk about that, that that moment and that story and how it really, you know, helped catalyze what you've done in the decade since.

00;15;23;24 - 00;15;31;18
Eve Rodsky
Well, it's funny you said that because I had one man say to me early on in my Fairplay research that he was divorcing over a glue stick. So we get we could go.

00;15;31;20 - 00;15;35;09
Paul Sullivan
A glue stick is a glue stick. Man makes a mess. I mean, come on, let's be honest here.

00;15;35;10 - 00;15;58;06
Eve Rodsky
I think it turned out that it was his wife decided to leave and her story was, you know, she was done doing all the homework projects, and he couldn't even bring home a glue stick, you know, so. But but in my, my mind was my metaphor. Non metaphor. Literal break down, my blueberries break down was over a text that says, then me.

00;15;58;08 - 00;16;16;14
Eve Rodsky
I love stories. You and I both have that cell phone in common. But when when I was, when my second son, Ben was born, that time I was telling you about where I felt like at the low point in my life, and my job was giving me a lot of hard time. And from coming back for a second child.

00;16;16;14 - 00;16;41;00
Eve Rodsky
So I was already having issues with my workplace, and feeling really nervous about coming back around that same time, I was taking my son Zach, to picking him up from his toddler transition program, because we had just gotten into preschool. And on the way to pick up Zach and the toddler transition program, when I had a breast pump in a diaper bag in the passenger seat of my car, I had gifts for the newborn baby to return in the back seat of my car.

00;16;41;04 - 00;17;00;25
Eve Rodsky
I had a client contract in my lap. Seth decides to send me a text that said, I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries. I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries. So passive aggressive. But I think about it now. But, there was something about the way he said that. Paul, I don't I don't know, I still triggers me to this day.

00;17;00;25 - 00;17;20;24
Eve Rodsky
And that was again in 2011. That it made me stop. And actually, I was going to be late to pick up Zach, which I never do, similar to, like, we don't pick, you know, you pick up for the pediatrician, but I decided to pull over to the side of the road, and I just started to sob. I it was like, what is the point of all this?

00;17;20;24 - 00;17;43;15
Eve Rodsky
Like, why did I choose to have kids? Why am I in this relationship? It's not like I wanted to eat, pray, love it. That was like the narrative back then. Like out of my life. Yeah, I just I felt like I had no solutions to this, unfairness because what I was thinking in the moment was not only was I the default or as I call it in Fairplay, the fault, even though again, it could lead to lead.

00;17;43;19 - 00;18;07;19
Eve Rodsky
The dads have the same issues, but because it falls predominantly on women, or has been until you're, you know, you company of dads is disrupting that narrative. That she felt was me. But on top of it, the idea that I felt like I was no longer Eve, I had no agency in my life that I was my time was completely set for me by all these expectations.

00;18;07;21 - 00;18;31;22
Eve Rodsky
And one of those expectations was that I was going to be the fulfilling of my husband's really needs. And that's really that was it for me, right? That I sort of lost. And then around that same time of that breakdown in my workplace abandoning me and set sending me this text when I went to that toddler transition program with with Zach, they asked us to sometimes sit in on classes and back.

00;18;31;22 - 00;18;53;23
Eve Rodsky
Then again, I didn't have any dads with me. It was just moms and a couple of gay fathers. But when we sat in that circle, Paul, this preschool teacher, said, this is going to be your social safety net. These are to be the people who will carpool with you, be there for you when your kids are sick. And I remember looking down at my nametag and it said, Zach's mom, right.

00;18;54;00 - 00;19;17;08
Eve Rodsky
And I remember thinking, these are the people that are going to know me better and support me better than anyone has ever known me. They don't even know my fucking name. Yeah. And so I think it was that over whelm and erasure at the same time, like my identity being erased. Erased. And to Zach's mom. Plus the overwhelm have being the she fault for everything, including being the fulfillment of Seth really needs that.

00;19;17;08 - 00;19;26;02
Eve Rodsky
I just felt like I there was no there was no recourse. I couldn't live like that anymore. It really was like, I have something has to change.

00;19;26;06 - 00;19;52;07
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And, you know, this catalyzed the movement. The book comes out in 2019, wildly successful. But then nobody could have, you know, expected or planned for this. Yes, we go into this pandemic when suddenly you're not in an office anymore. You're not going to any toddler transition times, nobody is leaving. And you are, you know, stuck inside together, at least those of us who who are privileged enough to be able to work, you know, remotely.

00;19;52;09 - 00;20;13;08
Paul Sullivan
And that to me was the genesis of the company days. I started thinking, you know, differently, but for you, it was really when, you know, fair Play went from the book to, to, a movement. And I can imagine you suddenly, you know, husbands and wives saying, wait a second, you're not really that busy. Like, what the hell have you been doing?

00;20;13;08 - 00;20;37;13
Paul Sullivan
Like what? What's the hold on to nonsense. Like, what? Do you watch another. You're watching golf. Like, are you? The kid is like how that you know. You know, serendipity plays into a lot of successful movements. You can, you can pretty. But but it worked. And suddenly you had, you know, this, this groundswell of support when you look back like how have you, you know, when you think of things you're most proud of and how you've helped couples because, you know, you and Seth are together.

00;20;37;15 - 00;20;38;26
Eve Rodsky
Yeah. We're together.

00;20;38;28 - 00;20;41;13
Paul Sullivan
We kids. You everything's gone, you know? Yeah. Married.

00;20;41;16 - 00;20;42;09
Eve Rodsky
Not go away.

00;20;42;12 - 00;21;02;25
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. It's gone. Well, but you helped a lot of people and, you know, talk about how that felt. Talk about how you you found a way. You know, you can't just do retail politics. It had to be wholesale. You had to find a system to help hundreds and thousands and thousands and thousands of people coming out. How did that how did that happen?

00;21;02;25 - 00;21;05;16
Paul Sullivan
And how do you make it work for all those people who need it? You.

00;21;05;19 - 00;21;29;03
Eve Rodsky
Well, I think the most important thing for me to realize was, that there there was no evil there. There really? I started to talk to men in 17 countries. And what I realized was there is no like, evil back. There really weren't very many or not at all, that I really spoke to men who said to me, I just don't want to help in the home.

00;21;29;03 - 00;21;47;18
Eve Rodsky
I don't want a relationship with my kids. Like I wasn't hearing that. And so I think I had this narrative that there were all these men sort of sitting out there being like this is amazing. I want my wife to to wait on me. But even in the most patriarchal cultures, because I come from a very religious, Orthodox Jewish background, I wasn't hearing that at all.

00;21;47;18 - 00;22;09;06
Eve Rodsky
I was hearing on an individual level, the women were feeling overwhelmed, and these were partnered with men, but that men weren't saying, I love it this way. Men were saying to me things like, I don't know my role. I don't know my place. One man said to me, we decided to take the dog out right when it's about to take a piss on the rug.

00;22;09;09 - 00;22;24;11
Eve Rodsky
And so I was sort of laughing because I was like, that is when you don't have a system in place, right? Right. Even my in Marion's Margene group, I found out, has more clearly defined expectations in the home. You don't bring snack toys to that group, you're out. But when I would ask couples if there's any.

00;22;24;14 - 00;22;28;13
Paul Sullivan
That is mahjong, though, that that's pretty intense. Like I'd be afraid to take it.

00;22;28;16 - 00;22;49;29
Eve Rodsky
I know, but how is it? Marion's mahjong group? You know, this is a CEO telling me he doesn't know he's taking his dog out. And I'm thinking this person has systems probably everywhere else in his life, right? I know, we know now that the most successful companies have a dry mentality, like a directly responsible individual mentality or a context, not control mentality.

00;22;50;01 - 00;23;14;16
Eve Rodsky
This idea that you give someone context to complete a full task. Even our kids, we teach them executive function, do something from start to finish. But in the home, what I realized was it wasn't working for people that way. And so the big insight that I think worked really well during the pandemic, was that the 5050 wasn't working, that this idea of 50, like, what does that even mean?

00;23;14;16 - 00;23;36;13
Eve Rodsky
Like, you take out the trash ones, I take out the trash ones. We have to have it on the scoreboard. You take the kids to school ones, I take the school. No, no, no. If we back up and we realize again, that's not how it works in that most successful corporations or organizations, we're not sitting there saying, you're going to take, you know, minutes once and I'm going to do this and you're going to be the CFO for one day, and I'll be the CFO the next day.

00;23;36;13 - 00;24;02;04
Eve Rodsky
No. Yeah, we have job descriptions. We have, ownership mindsets when it comes to something, you own something. So that was, I think, the breakthrough that worked really well in the pandemic, was people understanding that fair play is not about 5050. It's about ownership. Yeah. It's about the fact that if you are holding a card, because that's the metaphor of the game, there's 100 cards you don't have to hold them all.

00;24;02;07 - 00;24;10;08
Eve Rodsky
But if you decided to family collectively, you were going to hold one. So I'll pick one right now. So say money manager. Yeah money manager we'll do that.

00;24;10;10 - 00;24;11;12
Paul Sullivan
I've got I've got my cards.

00;24;11;12 - 00;24;36;12
Eve Rodsky
Attack. Yeah. Or if I pull another one gifts. Nothing. You have to hold this quote unquote card forever. But if you're holding gifts right for for one Christmas, then you're in charge of of all the gifts. And then you can reveal at any time. But this idea was very revolutionary because in my before, right before the pandemic, when Seth and I were really I was trying to explain fair play.

00;24;36;12 - 00;25;01;27
Eve Rodsky
What he said was he wanted me to tell the story of extracurricular sports, because for him, that was the biggest moment for him and fair play that I was holding most of the cards. He was pitching in a just the execution stage, right. So I make the metaphor right, that the ownership mindset really was the breakthrough. And I got to that breakthrough by asking couples like you, Paul, how does mustard get in your refrigerator?

00;25;01;29 - 00;25;05;22
Eve Rodsky
And and that was such a beautiful question because you can ask that in 17 countries.

00;25;05;24 - 00;25;13;22
Paul Sullivan
But they didn't quite often in my refrigerator because I have like seven jars of mustard, kind of like I like mustard, but I like sometimes I think, is there any like, relish?

00;25;13;24 - 00;25;33;29
Eve Rodsky
Yeah. Great. Well that's it, there's so many mustard. But I think the issue was that women were reporting that they were the ones noticing their sudden, like yellow mustard, not spicy Dijon with their with their protein. They were the ones monitoring the mustard for when, when it was running low and getting stakeholder buy in for what the family needed.

00;25;34;01 - 00;25;55;20
Eve Rodsky
And then they were asking their partner to go to the store for the mustard. With zero context. You guys bring home the spicy Dijon every fucking time. And then and then all of a sudden I heard all these women out there telling me that they didn't want Paul to be in charge of their living well, because the dude can't even bring home the right type of mustard.

00;25;55;22 - 00;25;57;27
Eve Rodsky
And once I realized that there is a.

00;25;57;27 - 00;26;00;07
Paul Sullivan
Comma you want to have Dijon, everyone said, know.

00;26;00;08 - 00;26;25;02
Eve Rodsky
Yes, come on, come on people. Yellow, mustard yellow for this, for your son Johnny. But I think the issue was that once you have that conception, the planning and execution, when it stays together, similar to what we do in our workplaces where we own a task, it really is helpful again to men because then they don't have what typically is called this nagging I call the rat sock or or the rat infestation of a home.

00;26;25;04 - 00;26;46;27
Eve Rodsky
Most men, even the dads, and many in many cases where conception and planning was still staying with a mother. A lot of men were getting what I call the rat infestation, which is a thousand random assignment of tasks over and over again in a day with zero context. And that's like a terrible way to live with zero psychological safety.

00;26;47;04 - 00;27;13;07
Eve Rodsky
So I think that was the big insight. During the pandemic, people were willing to try a new system, Paul, because they realized decision fatigue wasn't working for them. And 5050, they didn't even know what that meant. So ownership was something that they were willing to try. And that was my big breakthrough. And it really helped. And we know now we have literally, as you said, thousands and thousands and thousands of couples who sort of use the Fairplay system however they want to use it.

00;27;13;09 - 00;27;21;00
Eve Rodsky
I don't tell you how to live, but I give you the tools, and it's been really fun to watch people move from scorekeeping to ownership.

00;27;21;02 - 00;27;38;17
Paul Sullivan
But in so many ways, you can get it to work in, in the home. You know, my wife and I, you know, pre play just happened to work for us that we were good on certain tasks. And like I schedule everything I do the doctor appointments. But she loves you and we celebrate Christmas. She loves doing the Christmas and it's holidays right.

00;27;38;17 - 00;27;47;04
Eve Rodsky
You have all the holiday cards. She holds a holiday. You hold the medical and healthy living card. That's very. You were already living fairplay. So we were living it. Yes, you were living it.

00;27;47;06 - 00;28;07;25
Paul Sullivan
But there are headwinds and there are headwinds in our communities because, goddamn it, if the school will not call me first, it's like I, poor Doctor Anna, are dentist. I always curser because I'll make the appointment and then they'll confirm it with my wife, who has, you know, no idea. And you know, how do we get past that?

00;28;07;25 - 00;28;24;21
Paul Sullivan
So you know the person whose name is at the top of the call list is actually the person who's called? Because if you want full ownership, you know, you go back to your office metaphor, which obviously I love because I was a business, you know, reporter like you call the right person, there is a tree and you know, who reports to whom and you call the right person.

00;28;24;21 - 00;28;29;09
Paul Sullivan
But we can't figure that out in society. How do we break that?

00;28;29;11 - 00;28;51;10
Eve Rodsky
That's why this is I call fair play a movement and not a book, because I think if private lives are public issues, Paul, which is something that you've this is exactly, again, similar why Company of Dads became a media company because it is private. Lives are public issues. You can be a leader in your community, but it's not going to break through the culture unless you understand that this is a public issue.

00;28;51;12 - 00;29;14;02
Eve Rodsky
And so I think, of course, we need people like you, right? We need lead dads out there and everybody in your community, is also part of my fair play movement, and I'm part of your movement because we have to do this all together. And I think the biggest issue that we're trying to break, is that care work is just so undervalued.

00;29;14;05 - 00;29;47;01
Eve Rodsky
It came out of a legacy of slavery. It's often done by women of color. We had this very toxic, 2000 where I think outsourcing became like the narrative. Right? You can just outsource everything. But what does that mean, really? That black and brown women will do it for you. Very problematic, language around caregiving. And so really, the movement, which is why, again, we have to get people to it's not as easy to get people to call the right person the phone tree.

00;29;47;01 - 00;30;17;14
Eve Rodsky
The movement is understanding that in our holding our child's hand in the Patrician's office, what you were just talking about, is as valuable as an hour in the boardroom, because if we believe that it's a society, if we believe that as a society, then we will actually believe that men are doing it. Because right now, what happens is that in a patriarchal society, we've chosen to value men's time as is, as diamonds, I like to say, and women's time as if it's infinite, like sand.

00;30;17;16 - 00;30;36;17
Eve Rodsky
So. So again, if you became a dad and you enter, quote unquote, a woman's world, it's going to be really shocking for men, I think, because it'll be the first time in your life probably will you start to feel devalued, which is how women do all the time, because our work is always devalued, right? Our time is always devalued.

00;30;36;25 - 00;31;08;01
Eve Rodsky
You just have to look at every single health department in, in our country has had a brochure at some point that said breastfeeding is free when it's really 1800 hours a year. It's a full time job, but women's time has been devalued and women's work has been devalued. So again, I think until we realize that an hour holding our child's head in Patrician's office is as valuable as an hour in the boardroom, then men who enter women's fields like like, Lee dads are going to feel the same devaluing of that work and care work as women have felt for all these years.

00;31;08;03 - 00;31;25;01
Paul Sullivan
I obviously agree, but it's one thing that, you know, I say a lot that if you were having the most important phone call of your day with the person who is going to advance your career or the biggest sale ever, you would not drop that phone call if somebody else called. And I think the same thing should be with your children.

00;31;25;01 - 00;31;45;12
Paul Sullivan
If you are with your tone for that 45 minute period, hour and a half period, treat it as if it is the most important phone call of your day. Don't be interrupted and then you can catch up with it later. We had a guy on the podcast, end of the year, who is a CMO of a financial services firm, and he puts on his calendar that he has his two hours each day to get his son ready for school.

00;31;45;12 - 00;32;01;15
Paul Sullivan
But it's really impactful because, like you, he is on the West Coast and his firm is based on the East Coast and at first nobody believed him, nobody believed that he was actually doing this. And they would call him and he would answer the phone like, why are you calling me? You can't read my calendar. Oh, sorry. And then they stopped calling him.

00;32;01;15 - 00;32;07;23
Paul Sullivan
That was good for him. But it was also great for his organization because he was setting this example and people, you know.

00;32;07;26 - 00;32;31;03
Eve Rodsky
Yeah, I do believe this is a movement like and I think so it was a financial services firm, and this was a couple who was trying Fairplay before the pandemic. And but it was a pandemic for them because, his wife, I'll call her Julie. She was getting really, really burned out. And her mom was dying. She was in hospice.

00;32;31;05 - 00;32;45;24
Eve Rodsky
So she wanted her husband to take on more tasks. During the holiday. And I remember this thinking, this is a terrible time. Like, considering that you don't ever want to enter a new system when emotion is high and cognition is low. But I thought, okay, well, that fails at least is a good data point for me because I'm still in edits.

00;32;45;26 - 00;33;08;26
Eve Rodsky
I was still in edits for the book even though the story didn't get into it came too late. But what was so fascinating was this was a, a man who was on the road all the time. All the time, for work at this financial services firm. But he wanted his wife not to collapse in stress. And so I said to her, well, what what card in the deck would you wanted to take over?

00;33;08;26 - 00;33;27;14
Eve Rodsky
Ideally right now, let's start with one card since you're holding them all. And she actually just said it was the homework card. Because there was at the end of the year, there's all these Secret Santa projects, you know, thank you. Schools for me. So stressful for us. But it was it had to be homemade. Okay.

00;33;27;16 - 00;33;27;27
Eve Rodsky
It was really.

00;33;27;27 - 00;33;30;06
Paul Sullivan
Quite a card. Can you do 17 cards?

00;33;30;06 - 00;33;31;08
Eve Rodsky
Oh my gosh.

00;33;31;11 - 00;33;31;19
Paul Sullivan
Yes.

00;33;31;19 - 00;33;53;13
Eve Rodsky
All this was homemade second son Secret Santa project. So that let's say that that is like a tongue twister. But what's so interesting about this project was again, they had to I said, you have to do with the ownership mindset. And typically Julie was saying to me, well, I can't tell Ed I would. I need to tell where to go for the thing, and I need to tell him what to build because he'll forget.

00;33;53;13 - 00;34;17;03
Eve Rodsky
And I said, honestly, ownership mindset, if it doesn't work, will come back after. So she does this. She gives Ed the second grade Secret Santa project, but instead of telling him where to go and what to do, I ask her just to take a step back, which is what I'm asking most couples to do who may be new to Fairplay and start thinking a little bit more about your why.

00;34;17;03 - 00;34;41;03
Eve Rodsky
When you give context, it's a good way to do it at work as well. And so I ask her why she cares so much about this project. Because why? So you care so much that this is the one thing you want to hand over to Ed right now? And she said it was two reasons. One, like your wife Paul, she loves the holidays and she felt like her child was starting to ask for $100 Nerf guns.

00;34;41;06 - 00;35;03;12
Eve Rodsky
And she wanted to instill in him that actually a homemade gift there is value and making something for somebody with your hands there. It's not just the commodified stuff at the store. And then she said, the other reason was the little girl who wrote her son, drew, was new to the school. This was December, and she should have friends by now.

00;35;03;12 - 00;35;25;23
Eve Rodsky
But with the mom notice was that she said lines up with her backpack, waiting for recess to be called, and nobody like goes over to her and runs. And they don't. She doesn't play the hula hoop or a handball. She just sort of waits there. And so she said, her son is really popular and how cool would it be if, like Brody, the sort of popular kid says, like, welcome to the school, here is this really beautiful project.

00;35;25;23 - 00;35;53;05
Eve Rodsky
So that's why she cared. She didn't want to not have it turned in because she felt bad for this little girl. So I said, well, why don't you just tell Ed that, like, over, I don't know, a cocktail or like, cookie dough or something. So it actually is the one who responds to me after the holidays and tells me that he heard Julie's, why he took on this project with his son with full ownership, they started to Google on YouTube secret Santa projects for little girls.

00;35;53;07 - 00;36;10;11
Eve Rodsky
His son is the one who decides on a popsicle stick jewelry box with a knob because the little boy, Brody, wanted her to be able to open it with one hand, which I thought was a really cute detail that this man had told me. And then he says to me, well, I discovered this is really cool store store called Michaels.

00;36;10;14 - 00;36;34;07
Eve Rodsky
And like, you can buy all of, like the stuff in one place. I'm like, oh, that's cool, and I'll go check out that store. And then they build this project. But I think the beautiful thing was what Julie reflected on to me, which was two things. One, she had never seen her husband on the floor before. And when she came home, they were building this project on the floor.

00;36;34;07 - 00;36;54;09
Eve Rodsky
She had actually never seen that before. He had never been on the floor before, which I thought sort of made me tear up. And the other thing she said was, out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Ed had glitter on his hands. And I think the beauty of that, she said to me, was it was the first time that glitter, besides the fact that it gets everywhere now he has that glitter.

00;36;54;12 - 00;37;12;27
Eve Rodsky
Yeah, he knows that too, but that it was the first time she felt like he was like truly in it with her and Paul. This was one project, and I think that's when I understood the beauty of fair play, that it didn't have to be a complete systemic change in how things run. But there was this beauty of ownership.

00;37;12;27 - 00;37;32;04
Eve Rodsky
And not only that, but later on, Ed told me that Brody actually cried in the car because he was like, my grandmother's dying. This was Julie's mom. Yeah, yeah. And I and I never asked why he told me that. But I'm going to think that he told me that because most men don't have experiences like that where my kids cry to me all the time.

00;37;32;04 - 00;37;46;03
Eve Rodsky
I wouldn't be calling you today, Paul. My kids are crying at me again, but I'm not sure I'd had many experiences like that where his son opened up and was as vulnerable emotionally with him, so I don't. That's a small story, but I think that.

00;37;46;03 - 00;37;54;07
Paul Sullivan
But it's a big story. Yeah, it's a bit, but it's that story that that hopefully, you know, set their relationship in a different direction.

00;37;54;07 - 00;37;54;22
Eve Rodsky
So I feel.

00;37;54;22 - 00;37;56;27
Paul Sullivan
And that's the point where everything pivoted.

00;37;57;05 - 00;38;20;25
Eve Rodsky
Yeah. Now I and by the way and this man is actually one of the only financial services firms where they stayed hybrid as opposed to calling people back to work. I'm not saying that there is a reason, but I do think that I'm sorry. I mean, I have to feel like there's some sort of correlation between his new involved, willingness in the home to understanding the beauty of hybrid work.

00;38;20;28 - 00;38;35;00
Paul Sullivan
If I could talk to you forever, I want to thank you for being on the podcast. But one last question for you. Because at the back of my mind, we're talking about what the Fair Play movement has done for other people. I think of what the company of dads can do for, for, you know, working moms and dads.

00;38;35;00 - 00;38;56;28
Paul Sullivan
But we both have, you know, three kids. And I often think of, you know, the example that my wife and I are setting in our home for our three daughters. How has you know what you're doing, what you've done already with the Fair Play movement? How is it, you know, influenced, the way your, your two sons and your daughter think about about about life, about about their futures?

00;38;57;00 - 00;39;19;24
Eve Rodsky
Well, I think, it's so interesting because the, the it comes out so practically in a lot of ways actually for my kids, like, where they're shocked that, you know, boys their age like, don't know that baby girls get their vaginas, get wiped from front to back because my kids have been changing diapers since they're like six.

00;39;19;27 - 00;39;45;13
Eve Rodsky
We were listening to Trevor Noah's book, with my older son. And, there was a big clash between his mother and her new husband around, him wanting her to do all the dishes. And he's like, wow. Even in South Africa, mom, you know, there's they have fair play problems. So I think, it it's we're sort of inculcating this idea that, executive function, owning a task is something you should know anyway.

00;39;45;15 - 00;40;09;28
Eve Rodsky
And if we can move from assumptions about who does what to actually talking about it, guys, we're going to have a much stronger family unit. And I do feel like that will change society if everybody did that in their homes. And as one woman said to me, you know, she was actually okay doing it all. Paul, but she decided that she wasn't okay having her daughters watch her do it all.

00;40;09;28 - 00;40;40;00
Eve Rodsky
And so can you imagine this model? That's why again, why I think our our our work is so beautifully inter mesh. Because your lead dads are the key. Yeah, they're the key because it shows us that people come in and out of being intense at work. Intense at home. We can reveal these cards. It doesn't have to be static, but the one thing that the dad does the best in the company of dads does the best.

00;40;40;00 - 00;40;55;12
Eve Rodsky
And this idea is that it upend assumption, and it moves towards, more structured decision making. And we know that when we upend assumption and we move towards more structured decision making, then, that ends bias.

00;40;55;15 - 00;41;17;13
Paul Sullivan
It's a great place to end. Thank you again, eras guy, for being my guest on the Company Dads podcast. Hey, thanks for listening to Company of Dads podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. But I'm here to tell you it is just one of the many offerings we have at the company of Dads. We've got another podcast, we have a weekly newsletter, we have various features.

00;41;17;13 - 00;41;41;26
Paul Sullivan
We have events that we put on both online and in person. If you want to know about all of those, the best place to learn about them is to go to the company of dads.com backslash the dad. There's a company of dads.com backslash. The dad. What do you get if you do that? That's how you sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Dad, which is a one stop shop for all things the dad.

00;41;41;29 - 00;41;43;10
Paul Sullivan
Thank you again for listening.