EP131: Why You Should Care About Care

Interview with Elissa Strauss / Expert on What Care Does For Us

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Male caregivers are increasing in number. They're Lead Dads to their children and their wives. They're more vocal in the office. They're taking on roles that have been traditionally assigned to women based on outdated gender stereotypes. And care has changed them in positive ways. So why does it seem so strange for men to be taking on these roles? And why do they get mocked for doing so? Elissa Strauss, author of "When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Other," has great insight. 

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Transcript

00;00;00;08 - 00;00;22;08
Elissa Strauss
Listen. Relationships are places for self-growth, and we know this about friendships, and we know this about marriages and romantic partnerships, but we don't really think of relationships that way. But they are. They're a place of tremendous self-growth. So you have to find your way to open yourself up to what that could look like for you.

00;00;22;10 - 00;00;44;03
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dead podcast. After 120 plus episodes, we're doing something different this season. I'm still your host, Paul Sullivan, and we're still focused on lead dads working moms, and how small changes at home or work can have a big impact on their lives. What's new is each episode now promises to deliver actionable advice on some area of concern at home or at work.

00;00;44;06 - 00;01;10;08
Paul Sullivan
Short. Direct. Again. Actionable. Five questions. Five answers. This week, our guest is Elissa Strauss, author of When You Care The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others. She's a married journalist and mother of two boys, seven and 11. And today she's going to give us actionable advice on caregiving. Welcome, Alissa, to the Company Dads podcast.

00;01;10;11 - 00;01;12;10
Elissa Strauss
Thank you so much for having me.

00;01;12;12 - 00;01;28;23
Paul Sullivan
Elissa. Who cares? Oh, wait, wait. That came off the wrong way. Wrong. Right question. Wrong way to phrase it. How does caring for others change us? And I'm guessing you're going to change this in both both positive and maybe less positive ways. But how does caring changes?

00;01;28;26 - 00;01;56;17
Elissa Strauss
I think that care has been for most of its history, been subjected to overly simple narratives that really don't match the experience. And the first one, it's familiar probably is a fairy tale characters this like amazing, wonderful experience, and you feel so connected to your children and you know you're on the grass and the checkered blanket and the birds are chirping and it's harmony and it's ease.

00;01;56;19 - 00;02;23;09
Elissa Strauss
And if you fail to live up to that, you're somehow a failure. And in addition to the fairy tale, we have the nightmare narrative that carries just the hellscape. And it's demanding and parents are just exhausted zombies who never experience joy or transcendence through the care of their children. And that would also include other types of caregiving stories to old, ill and disabled individuals.

00;02;23;11 - 00;02;45;24
Elissa Strauss
And I think what happens when we have those two frames on care, the fairy tale or the nightmare we're missing? Actually, the most important thing that we need as individuals to have meaningful and enriching care experiences. And that's curiosity about care. There's no curiosity when care is a fairy tale and there's no curiosity, and terror is a nightmare.

00;02;45;26 - 00;02;46;26
Elissa Strauss
When we seek care.

00;02;46;26 - 00;02;51;29
Paul Sullivan
I think there's curiosity. When care is a nightmare, like, how in the world did I get myself into this position?

00;02;52;02 - 00;03;22;07
Elissa Strauss
I don't think it's deep curiosity. I think it's right. It's like practical curiosity, but it's not a deep curiosity about the experience of care. It becomes a problem to fix. And. And it is. Yeah. That's real. It's a problem to fix. And I think that what and of all of our cultural scripts have denied us is ability to seek care, as is hero's journey to seek care as the messy middle, to seek care as something like climbing a very tall mountain.

00;03;22;08 - 00;03;32;19
Elissa Strauss
You know, you ask. My dad's a big mountain climber. You know, half the time he's actually doing the work of climbing the mountain. He's miserable, you know, it's cold there. He's hungry or his foot hurts you. Really?

00;03;32;23 - 00;03;35;25
Paul Sullivan
You don't do it here with this analogy of this. A you were really low because.

00;03;35;25 - 00;04;05;00
Elissa Strauss
No, but you get to the top of the mountain, right? And you're changed and you do it because it's a journey. And, you know, it's challenging, but you believe that the challenges will enrich you ultimately. And that's like this frame on care. When we have deep curiosity about ourselves and we open ourselves to the potential for care to change us, and because it's challenging us, because it's forcing us to wrestle with what is meaningful in our lives, also what kind of people we are.

00;04;05;02 - 00;04;29;11
Elissa Strauss
That's where the real beauty and care comes from. And I think that's, you know, and that's how care can really fundamentally change you philosophically, psychologically, spiritually when you see it as this hero's journey, you see it, you know, it's a think of it as a Greek myth. It's, you know, in the Odyssey, there's so many challenges, there's so many uncomfortable parts.

00;04;29;13 - 00;04;51;04
Elissa Strauss
But but there's a movement towards greater awareness of self and other. And to me, that's the beauty and magic of care. Not because it's easy. It's not the sanitized version. It's not the sentimentalized version. It's the dark night of the Soul Hero's Journey version that I think is the place where the real potential lies.

00;04;51;06 - 00;05;00;21
Paul Sullivan
I like, I like the frame is curiosity, but I think the next time my seven year old throws a tantrum, maybe I pick her up by her Achilles like Achilles in one of those great Greek myths and carry upstairs like that. No.

00;05;00;23 - 00;05;17;28
Elissa Strauss
That's not the case. You could try, but I think you could wrestle with the fact that, like, so much of our lives were uncomfortable and we're not getting what we want. And what's it like to be her in that moment? And what's it like to be you to wrestle with someone else's needs and desires that are inconvenient for you?

00;05;17;29 - 00;05;37;00
Elissa Strauss
What questions is it begging about your life like? Is there room enough for the quote unquote inconvenience of care in our lives and our, like, overly programed productivity obsessed lives? You know, like it's so or maybe she just sucks in that moment and maybe you're like, you, you find a place to be like, I don't like this part, and I'm okay.

00;05;37;00 - 00;05;47;25
Elissa Strauss
Just quote unquote being a good enough parent, not giving her what I need and like, tuning out. I mean, I have a line inside my head with my kids, like, I don't negotiate with terrorists. Like, if they're.

00;05;47;25 - 00;05;49;05
Paul Sullivan
Use that line. So many times. Yeah.

00;05;49;11 - 00;06;07;27
Elissa Strauss
Being terrorists, I just don't, you know, so it's but I think the wrestling, the dance like being and again, that's where the curiosity piece comes from. Like what what is actually wrong at that moment is she, is she inconveniencing you in a way that actually she should be able to, but we don't have a society that's built for that.

00;06;08;00 - 00;06;22;00
Elissa Strauss
Are you? I'm not assuming anything about you, but like, are you in touch with your own vulnerability and needs and frustrations in a way that can make you empathetic to her, even if you're not going to give her the cookie that she wants in that moment or, you know, stop.

00;06;22;07 - 00;06;26;26
Paul Sullivan
I just ate the cookie. So I think that's the problem because I ate the cookie that you wanted.

00;06;26;28 - 00;06;46;16
Elissa Strauss
Yeah, well, then that's something to wrestle with. You know, that's where lesson relationships are places for self-growth. And we know this about friendships, and we know this about marriages and romantic partnerships, but we don't really think of relationships that way. But they are they're a place of tremendous self-growth. So you have to find your way to open yourself up to what that could look like for you.

00;06;46;18 - 00;06;48;02
Elissa Strauss
It's different for everybody.

00;06;48;05 - 00;07;08;06
Paul Sullivan
I like it. And so the question on curiosity, self-growth question two though, you know, we talk an awful lot about hair these days. But it's not it's not framed in necessarily the hellscape. You know, the dichotomy you framed in the beginning, but it's, you know, it gets framed as, you know, moms, dads, caregivers of friends, relative spouses.

00;07;08;08 - 00;07;38;29
Paul Sullivan
There is almost this this tug and pull of, you know, you're caring for somebody else, but are you also making the time to care for yourself so that you don't get burnt out or resentful? So the question to how do you talk to people about balancing caring for others and some degree of of self care to help them get through the day?

00;07;39;02 - 00;08;09;21
Elissa Strauss
I think to start to frame this, I think because as a culture, we've had so little curiosity about care, we've denied the reality that like we were not designed as humans, we did not involve it's humans to do all this care alone. That's unusual for our evolutionary history. So right now, caregivers, parents, everyone are just totally overburdened because we're living in this fiction, that this is something we can manage on our own without help from society, without help from community, without help from partners or friends.

00;08;09;23 - 00;08;34;11
Elissa Strauss
And that makes care really difficult. That's kind of myth number one, working against us. Myth number two. And the thing I'm really going to focus on here is that we think of care as requiring selflessness. I just wrote a story, Philharmonic. I talked to this care ethicist, this corner of philosophy where people dive into care. And I love this one line.

00;08;34;11 - 00;08;59;22
Elissa Strauss
He said to me, he said, care is not altruism. And let's unpack that a little bit. You know, care is not just that is I like this this saintly, self-sacrificing, self-abnegation person constantly giving to another person. So that person, other person who's depended on them gets everything they need. That's not what carrots some people believe. That's what care is, and that's what gets us in trouble.

00;08;59;25 - 00;09;22;21
Elissa Strauss
You cannot care well for another person if you yourself don't have a self. You don't have this sense of like, this is who I am. This is what I need you. You can't attend to someone else's needs. If your own needs aren't being attended to, you will not do it well, like it's not even a running out of gas situation, which it absolutely also is.

00;09;22;21 - 00;09;45;22
Elissa Strauss
Where if you don't take moments to care for yourself, well, you won't have the physical or emotional bandwidth to care well for others. That's the gas tank thing, totally real. But it's so much deeper than that. Like if again, let's go back to the daughter with the tantrum. You know, like if you're not really in touch with your own vulnerabilities and needs as a human, how could you ever help someone else navigate theirs?

00;09;45;22 - 00;10;06;24
Elissa Strauss
And what kind of model am I as a mom if I never express my frustrations to my kids? If I never express my neediness to my kids, if I never say I need a break, like that's that's good parenting too. And so I think that's like the biggest thing that parents need to do is understand that care isn't actually about self-sacrifice.

00;10;06;24 - 00;10;23;11
Elissa Strauss
That's a myth, and it needs to be thrown away. Care is a true relationship, and the caregiver matters so much in it. And if the caregivers are depleted, then they will not be able to fulfill the role of caring well for that other person. It just can't happen.

00;10;23;16 - 00;10;42;09
Paul Sullivan
I love that, I mean, we often in our house, kind of narrate what's happening. So we sort of break that fourth wall and we don't treat it as some sort of patient like, wow, right now you're talking at me, but I'm trying to read something that you asked me to read, and your sister is screaming, so that means I can't concentrate on what I'm reading that you need right now.

00;10;42;09 - 00;11;00;05
Paul Sullivan
But if you give me a second and if I can see what your sister needs, then I'll be able to come back to you and be fully involved. And that's a simple example, but. But my wife and I just had a certain point because you need to know everybody has needs at once. Yeah, but everybody's needs and they have to be prioritized.

00;11;00;05 - 00;11;09;07
Paul Sullivan
The kid burning himself on the stove. Not happening. Just using it as a fiction. No, I think I'm lifting my daughter up by her Achilles heel. That's also fiction. I've never done that. But.

00;11;09;10 - 00;11;10;17
Elissa Strauss
Let us know if you try it. Yeah.

00;11;10;24 - 00;11;28;03
Paul Sullivan
I don't like my I don't think I don't think I have the pincer grip. You know, you really developed that pincer grip early on, and I didn't go to a high quality, early childhood program like she did. But, you know, you have that hierarchy. But some of us know that. Some of us realize that some of us live in a nonfiction world, not a fictional world.

00;11;28;06 - 00;11;43;15
Paul Sullivan
But why am just staying on question two here? Why does that fiction persist? And how do we show that that fiction is not only not real, but actually pernicious?

00;11;43;17 - 00;12;09;10
Elissa Strauss
The fiction exists because there really was a big blind spot to care, and so many of these big systems and lenses on the world that we use to make meaning and understand humanity. The quick way I explain this is I took in university College, let's say philosophy 101, economics 101, anthropology 101, psychology 101. And I also was an English major.

00;12;09;10 - 00;12;36;00
Elissa Strauss
I read the great books and like care and dependency and parenting were pretty much missing entirely from those classes. You heard about parenting and psychology, but it was almost always so much of 20th century psychology on parenting only focused on the child. The parent was a fixed variable in the equation and the child so the parent was like the fixed part of the equation, and the child was a variable.

00;12;36;02 - 00;13;00;19
Elissa Strauss
And there was little curiosity for the parent, how the parents being shaped and changed and challenged by parenting. And so you just care and parenting was has been missing from our scripts of understanding ourselves for so long. So we just really don't have when we go into the relationship, we really don't have this like framework, but this is something happening to us too.

00;13;00;22 - 00;13;21;13
Elissa Strauss
And in my book, what I do is I look at how that happened, how did care get left out of economics, out of care, get left out of philosophy, also theology and spirituality and meaningful ways like the real rough, tricky, dark night of the soul. Parts of care, you know, not really something honored by the world's, major religions.

00;13;21;16 - 00;13;50;27
Elissa Strauss
It gets left out and it's up to us. And I interview and write about the work of so many amazing care thinkers in my book and actual parents and caregivers for, like, seeing care as a way to be a better Buddhist, for example, you know, putting that care lens on all these things they do and understanding that it was left out of our story, it was left out of the way we understand ourselves and we work hard to make it a way to understand ourselves and our growth as a human.

00;13;50;29 - 00;13;58;06
Elissa Strauss
It kind of, does this really simplistic notion that we're supposed to just give, give, give, give, give.

00;13;58;08 - 00;14;19;23
Paul Sullivan
I'm getting at, t shirt after this call, after the zoom that says be a better Buddhist. I'm going to get that. That sounds very t shirt. With question three. Not any shock here that this chapter in your book was one that I read and reread. It was my favorite, the chapter in the book. It's in a New Man on the rise of male caregivers and how care changes men.

00;14;19;23 - 00;14;39;05
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, you and I were emailing before this podcast, and I seen a recent quote in a Wall Street Journal piece about men being what, but we call it the company dads, be that these are men who are the go to parents, whatever they do for work, they're there to support their their spouses or partners, and they're advocates for for working moms and caregivers, in the office.

00;14;39;05 - 00;15;01;24
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, the reaction online to this was really predictable, and predictable in both good and bad ways. This split between people who are the dads and working moms and sharing their stories about how this is how this had worked for them. And then the other side of that was men, almost entirely men, ruthlessly criticizing anything but, traditional gender role.

00;15;01;26 - 00;15;19;23
Paul Sullivan
Why does the idea of, you know, er, being something that both men and women can do equally if, albeit differently? Why does that notion win people up so much? And how do we get away from it?

00;15;19;26 - 00;15;50;01
Elissa Strauss
Oof, such a good, good big question. I think, you know, kind of the the top layer of the soil here is people don't like change. Change is scary. And men today are doing more care than they've done, certainly since the industrial revolution. And we all lived on family farms. Men were involved in care. In fact, back then, according to historian Stephanie Coontz, if you were out in public and your kids misbehaved, it was the dad that got the stink eye, not the mom.

00;15;50;01 - 00;16;10;23
Elissa Strauss
So, it didn't mean mended all the layers necessarily, of intimate care, but they were more active caregivers. And back then, and the Industrial Revolution happened, quote unquote. Women stayed home. Men went to work, even though not all women, not all men. And we really got this division of labor and it was like that for a long time.

00;16;10;26 - 00;16;42;14
Elissa Strauss
And now it's changing. And I think people don't like that change. But I think there's something also deeper of the way care can kind of challenge some of our scripts around masculinity in this culture and bring men into these spaces where they are pushed to either expand or adapt to. Like this. What we already talked, spoke about about vulnerability and neediness.

00;16;42;14 - 00;17;11;27
Elissa Strauss
So we're not actually things that benefited men much in history. Right? Like you don't want to bring vulnerability and neediness to an office job necessarily. You don't want to bring it to the battlefield. Certainly. So it's not I personally do not believe men are just like constitutionally incapable of being vulnerable and needy and sharing vulnerability and neediness, but they certainly have not been rewarded for it for a very long time, if almost ever.

00;17;12;00 - 00;17;36;21
Elissa Strauss
And now you have men coming into those carols and taking on those parts of themselves and exploring them. And it's a big change. It's a really, really big change. It's a big change for men. It's a big change for women. It's a big change also, as much as, many, many women say they want their husbands or male partners to be more involved.

00;17;36;23 - 00;17;57;03
Elissa Strauss
It's also scary for them when the partners do get involved and they're responsible for a big holiday meal, but then they don't make the quote unquote right foods, right, or dress the kids the quote unquote right way for church on Sunday. So there's there's a lot there's a lot of growing pains right now. This is a huge change.

00;17;57;03 - 00;18;28;19
Elissa Strauss
I mean, that, you know, I you know, I write about this in my book and I understand why there's so much attention paid to dads needing to do more care and to take that invisible burden away from women, and why that threatens women's economic security and, and professional kind of progress. That's so real. But right underneath that is actually this massive societal shift of dads being way more involved parents and caregivers and homemakers as well than they ever have been.

00;18;28;22 - 00;18;44;00
Elissa Strauss
And I think we need to sit in that to, like, really be aware of that shift and pay close attention to how it actually challenges all of us, men and women in many ways. And it is different, and it's new and different and new is uncomfortable.

00;18;44;03 - 00;19;06;29
Paul Sullivan
Didn't change how, you know, midway through that answer, you talked about, you know, vulnerability at the office, but also the inevitability on the battlefield. And, you know, if if you're in a theater war and, two of your two fellow soldiers, are injured, three of them are injured, and you care for them. If you get them for safety, get them to safety.

00;19;07;02 - 00;19;32;24
Paul Sullivan
High probability that you're going to be recommended for Bronze Star highest, you know, honor you can get because you've shown care on the battlefield, you've shown selflessness. You've taken care of somebody else at the risk to your own life and well-being. Yet, and I love your answer to this. It still is that to struggle, to care for something that you participated in, in creating most of the time, that is.

00;19;32;24 - 00;19;33;17
Elissa Strauss
Yeah.

00;19;33;19 - 00;19;51;27
Paul Sullivan
A child, who had different parts in his or her life is as vulnerable as anybody could. Could be. I don't know what my question is exactly, but when you think about that and you think of that connection, what? Like what comes to mind around, you know, men and care for their for their own children?

00;19;51;29 - 00;20;19;04
Elissa Strauss
Yeah. And I think that's such a great example because it, it kind of shows like the place as men are and aren't allowed to be vulnerable. So you have the vulnerability and an act of bravery is rewarded. Right. So it's kind of a vulnerability combined with a real strength. But if afterwards you have PTSD and you're falling apart because your friend almost died and one of them had their legs blasted, I mean, you know, the just the horror of horrors.

00;20;19;07 - 00;20;47;07
Elissa Strauss
You. Right. Exactly like you're not your permitted vulnerability in the context of bravery, but maybe not later. And I think that, you know, so much of what goes on is that, again, this is these are not traits that men, you know, have been really allowed to experience in their fullness without serious consequences. You know, we can add also sports to this mix, right?

00;20;47;07 - 00;21;08;11
Elissa Strauss
You know, there's crying in sports. There's actually a lot of crying in sports. It's like there's there's high emotions. But weakness is not you know, is not is permitted. And like you said, when like you have a child, my older boy, Auggie, is 11. I'll be 12 in a few weeks. For the first time in his life, he's really having some social issues in school.

00;21;08;11 - 00;21;28;29
Elissa Strauss
Maybe it's like it took this long, but he's being bullied. There's some kid that just decided that he wants to make all his life miserable and make fun of Auggie all day, but. But just friends with him enough. You know what I mean? It's like just one of those gaslighting situations. Exactly. Like, like, just gives him enough to make him stay connected to this person.

00;21;28;29 - 00;21;45;10
Elissa Strauss
And they're part of the group. And, you know, I was up last night, and then the kids are away on a, like, little camping trip with school. And I was up last night just in pain that, like, Auggie was there, stuck with this kid that was mean to him. What if they were doing mean things in the cabin?

00;21;45;13 - 00;22;10;09
Elissa Strauss
And, I mean, you know, I've been socialized as a woman and I've been socialized to, like, be more comfortable with vulnerability and sadness and pain. And that was so heavy on my heart last night. And I, you know, I understand kind of what, like a man maybe more conditioned to want to, like, fix the problem, maybe punch the guy.

00;22;10;09 - 00;22;28;02
Elissa Strauss
And I am not too good for a little bit. Don't tell anyone I said this. But, you know, I do feel like I kind of want to punch this kid to sometimes. I would never, but I'm not too good for the instinct. I'm not going to pretend that, the urge hasn't risen up from the back of my head.

00;22;28;04 - 00;22;53;19
Elissa Strauss
But yeah, it's just that it like to live with your kids through the impossibility of life, to do the heaviness and to not be able to fix everything for them is really hard. I mean, it really takes you somewhere. And I think this is the thing. Like, for me, I went into parenthood. I my parents got divorced when I was 13.

00;22;53;19 - 00;23;15;28
Elissa Strauss
I was very much kind of a preventive child, not an entirely unhealthy way, but I felt like it was my responsibility to kind of keep things organized. And our family life. After my parents separated and I had, like, a real Mrs. Fixit approach to like, you know, I felt like if there's a problem, I can solve it.

00;23;16;00 - 00;23;34;12
Elissa Strauss
And I have pretty I'm pretty good, like executive functioning skills. I'm organized. You know, I like communicating communication with people. So I was, like, decent at the gig. You know, I really I was not too bad. And like, having kids was the first time in my life I really had to wrestle and grapple with the fact that, like, I actually cannot fix everything, right?

00;23;34;17 - 00;23;35;28
Elissa Strauss
And nor should I.

00;23;36;00 - 00;23;37;26
Paul Sullivan
Should you step in and fix everything for your kids?

00;23;38;00 - 00;23;54;01
Elissa Strauss
No. Should I? Right, but I but I lived with this idea coming from my parents divorced that like that's that's kind of like, I can do this. I got this, like, I'm going to help. I'm going to help. I'm here. And it was the first time I really saw that in myself, first of all, like, that's part of where we started.

00;23;54;01 - 00;24;14;00
Elissa Strauss
Like that was this deep self-knowledge. I didn't realize I was as like this as I was until I had kids. And I realized, hey, I cannot fix everything for them. And I have right now sitting in the heaviest thing, really that's ever happened. So my child's are one of my children, which is really just like it. You know, there's the one really mean kid.

00;24;14;00 - 00;24;23;01
Elissa Strauss
And then there's his former best friend that's now being mean to him, too, and really just sitting in the pain of that middle school. It's not good. Yeah.

00;24;23;04 - 00;24;42;09
Paul Sullivan
Now I'll let me I'll share one that you shared, what not to do or it kind of backfired. My oldest daughter in third grade was bullied by a little girl and I. My parents also divorced, and we became very downwardly mobile. And I was at a really crappy neighborhood. And I got bullied until my grandfather's and sort of this World War two guy who, you know, every solution is you punch a guy in the nose.

00;24;42;12 - 00;24;55;22
Paul Sullivan
And I was not going to tell my daughter to solve the bully problem that way, though it was effective at the time. I told my daughter, she said, you know, if this girl keeps bothering you, tell the teacher, will she? She won't. I can't tell the teacher. You won't come with me, I said. Well, she keeps bothering you.

00;24;55;24 - 00;25;14;09
Paul Sullivan
Just. I was just mad. Did I say grab her by the yarn, twist her ear and pull her over to the teacher, and then the teacher will have to listen, see what you're doing. And so my daughter gets in there and and we have this meeting later on. And then the school psychologist is like, yeah, you know, Miss Sullivan, I don't know what's going on, but, I'm in Virginia.

00;25;14;09 - 00;25;30;00
Paul Sullivan
I know this is not true, but Virginia said you told her that it's the bullying process that you just must have at hearing over here. And I was like, well, I gotta I gotta come clean here. I did say that. And yeah, I believe you should, you know, be better at managing the bullying in the school. Listening at home.

00;25;30;00 - 00;25;33;13
Paul Sullivan
That is bad advice. Do not do not take that advice. Question.

00;25;33;15 - 00;25;36;06
Elissa Strauss
And we get it. If you have those instincts, let's just.

00;25;36;08 - 00;25;37;17
Paul Sullivan
Sit down here.

00;25;37;21 - 00;25;41;16
Elissa Strauss
Let's do it. Let's tell your kids. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00;25;41;18 - 00;26;07;11
Paul Sullivan
Question for us is about, you know, how we can get fathers, you know, more comfortable in care. And I'd like you to start by defining two words that you use, in the, the book, two fancy sounding phrases that, have inhibited men from getting involved in that maternal gatekeeping and the fatherhood penalty. What are those phrases mean, and how do they impact that?

00;26;07;14 - 00;26;29;07
Elissa Strauss
The maternal gatekeeping. And I alluded it a little bit to it. You alluded a little to it in the last answer. Is the sense that like, well, you know, to their husbands, like, you take care of it, you get them dressed for church, you figure out the menu for Thanksgiving, you go food shopping, you know, for, you know, your daughter's birthday dinner.

00;26;29;07 - 00;26;58;23
Elissa Strauss
Like, just like, can you just take this from me? I'm so overwhelmed. Totally real. Like, we get it. Why moms sometimes need their husbands to do that. Kind of, you know, what we call invisible or emotional or domestic labor. But then the dads do it. And maybe they don't have the exact same taste as the moms, or they don't worry as much if they get snacks for the birthday party and they don't meet certain nutritional or organic standards, and everyone knows the dads don't care.

00;26;58;23 - 00;27;21;11
Elissa Strauss
But there might be some moms that show up at that party and are looking at a little mom of the child's for like, totally. It happens. And no one's looking at the dads. So this is where maternal gatekeeping comes into play. And I you know, I won't say it's a victimless crime, but because sometimes someone could be a little the dad might be like a little bit too checked out of.

00;27;21;12 - 00;27;40;08
Elissa Strauss
Just like we're trying to remember that you need forks if you're going to eat cake, you know, like there's some, you know, or the mom might be a little too neurotic about, you know, God forbid there's Lay's potato chips at the party because they're not organic, you know? So there's sometimes people can be extreme, but I think big picture this is like this growing pains thing.

00;27;40;08 - 00;28;07;02
Elissa Strauss
And women still face the consequences of not succeeding, quote unquote, and this kind of caregiving and home keeping tasks. And if the kids look too messy at the school concert because dad dress them or right, there's the there's not the right variety of acceptable organic or quote unquote healthy snacks at the birthday party. The mom will face the consequences.

00;28;07;02 - 00;28;23;29
Elissa Strauss
So then the mom is going to tell the dad to prevent that from happening. The mom's going to maternal gatekeeper, and she's going to say, like, oh, you're in charge of this, but then the dad's going to come back from the market, and the moms would be like, how could you ever, ever get Lay's potato chips? Don't you know anything?

00;28;23;29 - 00;28;45;23
Elissa Strauss
And the dad's going to be like, wait, really? I grew up eating. These are like, they can't possibly be this fatal mistake. And the mom's going to say like, no, it's horrible. You know? And that's maternal gatekeeping. So the that's trying to be an involved parent and the mom's actually locking that gate from the inner sanctum of quote unquote, good parenting and being like, wait, you don't get it.

00;28;45;26 - 00;29;06;05
Elissa Strauss
You have to go back to the market now, and I'm going to give you this exact list, and no longer will I ever trust you with buying snacks for the birthday party again. So that happens all the time. Moms are scared they're doing things wrong and they're going to get judged. Dads are failing. Like you say. You want me to help, but every time I try to help, I do something wrong, you know?

00;29;06;05 - 00;29;28;07
Elissa Strauss
So why don't I help? It's no fun for either of them. And honestly, I think that I want to encourage. I know, you know, maybe more of your listeners are dads and moms, but I want to encourage moms to see, like, a little opportunity here to let go of the perfectionism and kind of ridiculous standards we place on moms by letting dads do more.

00;29;28;09 - 00;29;46;02
Elissa Strauss
You know, if the kid has mismatched socks at school concert day and everyone can see that, like maybe the effort it takes to make sure their socks are always matching, like, is it really worth it in your family unit? Maybe it's okay. You know? And also, I want men to understand why sometimes does the matching socks do really matter.

00;29;46;02 - 00;30;06;25
Elissa Strauss
And it's a sign of respect for the choir teacher. So I think we actually can learn so much from each other when we see maternal gatekeeping as something that's part of the growing pains of breaking away from ways, the ways that care has gone down in history, and be kind of empathetic with each other, like where a dad can be like, you know, you're right.

00;30;06;25 - 00;30;25;07
Elissa Strauss
I should be a little more attentive to the details. Thank you for being paying attention to those details on your own for the last, you know, ten years. And the mom could say, like, you know, you're right. I'm a little bit too caught up with these external ideas of, like, what makes a good birthday party? And I should relax a little, and I do, who cares if we serve Lay's potato chips?

00;30;25;07 - 00;30;41;02
Elissa Strauss
And, you know, I mean, this kind of conversations happen all the time with my husband and I. It's like, who cares if you know the balloons aren't blown up in that corner right now? Or if we didn't sweep the pine needles from this one corner of our backyard before the birthday party, I'm like, no, we must do it all, you know?

00;30;41;02 - 00;30;49;11
Elissa Strauss
So. And he's he's not always wrong. And I'm not always wrong. But this conversation is actually really healthy for both of us. So that's maternal gatekeeping.

00;30;49;18 - 00;31;04;26
Paul Sullivan
Just to have one list. My my teenage daughter went to homecoming dance, in that beautiful dress with all of her friends. And they were high tops because that's what they wanted to do. They were high tops. And when she got home, she had a blue sock on and the other sock on, and somehow she still had a good time.

00;31;04;26 - 00;31;09;14
Paul Sullivan
And she picks out her own socks at age 15. So yeah. But now.

00;31;09;14 - 00;31;10;00
Elissa Strauss
Right.

00;31;10;03 - 00;31;24;25
Paul Sullivan
Fatherhood. You just get the mother. The maternal gatekeeping is is something that's happening in that it home sphere largely. And the fatherhood bounty is largely something in the office space. So it's a talk about, you know, how the father had penalty holds on.

00;31;24;27 - 00;31;51;05
Elissa Strauss
Yeah. Yeah. It's really yeah, it's really important because we hear a lot about the motherhood penalty and it's very real. It actually does not usually happen to the most high achieving, high earning women. But for kind of woman under that class, they actually get a motherhood boost. By the way, the wealthiest, most, you know, woman in this country broadly speaking, actually get a boost with the moms.

00;31;51;05 - 00;32;20;04
Elissa Strauss
But many, many moms underneath those income brackets gets set for something called the motherhood penalty. And that's basically when you become a mom at work through kind of systemic discrimination and implicit bias, you end up earning less money, like you're less likely to be, put up for promotions. You're less likely to get certain jobs because people assume that you are not going to be as dedicated to your job because you're a mom.

00;32;20;06 - 00;32;39;27
Elissa Strauss
So something happens with men that's generally the opposite. They get something called a fatherhood boost. And when they become dads again, this is outside of that top, top bracket. And people assume they're going to be more dedicated to their jobs because now they're they're earners, right? They they have to make money not just for themselves but for their family.

00;32;39;27 - 00;33;06;14
Elissa Strauss
That's they have a whole extra incentive system. So they're going to be more likely to get the promotion. But and this is important, the twist and this is Brad Wilcox's work. When dads show any sign that they are active caregivers in the office place. So they're not just the earner dad, but they're actually the in the muck dads that they're going to try to.

00;33;06;14 - 00;33;11;28
Paul Sullivan
Get the the lead dad the lead dad as a to the event dad who just leaves to go to the recital or the.

00;33;11;28 - 00;33;12;17
Elissa Strauss
Game. Right.

00;33;12;23 - 00;33;14;26
Paul Sullivan
The lead dad is deeply involved.

00;33;14;29 - 00;33;49;23
Elissa Strauss
Yeah. Or maybe it's more 5052. Right? You know, it's that they're it's that maybe even if there are 6040s, I think the dad and dads that are doing more than only bringing home a paycheck. Dad's already going to everything in there. If they're showing up at the workplace as people who need any kind of accommodation, because it actually is their responsibility to get Bella to her orthodontist appointment at 415, and they're going to have to move that meeting around, if they take paternity leave, you know, if they show any sign that they're not just going to be the earning dad, but they're going to be a lead dad, or they're going to be,

00;33;49;25 - 00;34;14;24
Elissa Strauss
you know, involved dad in any capacity, they experience a fatherhood penalty, just like women experience the motherhood penalty. So it's, you know, there is a gender piece to this, of course, but there's the big picture, really, what this research shows us is that there's just a deep bias against people who have caring responsibilities and workplaces, and it's something dads will suffer from just as much as moms.

00;34;14;24 - 00;34;35;18
Elissa Strauss
And, you know, I've, I've spoken to a lot of dads casually and it's like, oh, they have paternity leave, but they could never take it, you know, God forbid they take it because no one will like that. So we just have a whole culture that really gets in the way of dads being more involved. And it runs so deep.

00;34;35;20 - 00;34;53;13
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, it's a lot in the the student of behavioral finance. And that is, you know, so many cases we show that that the anchoring bias, that's the confirmation bias. I got to be the XYZ EVP of one, two, three because I never took parental leave, because I missed all of these things, because I worked, you know, 80 hours a week.

00;34;53;13 - 00;35;08;00
Paul Sullivan
And then, you know, I miss it. And when people tell those stories, when managers tell their stories, you know, man. Sure. But also when when they tell those stories implicitly, they're defeating whatever HR programs have been put in place to help.

00;35;08;01 - 00;35;08;18
Elissa Strauss
Yeah.

00;35;08;20 - 00;35;25;03
Paul Sullivan
Be normal human beings, be engaged and be not just caregivers, but be, you know, non sociopathic parent. You know, we don't want companies to hire people who only want to birth children. And then, you know, say, see you later. Nor do we want to hire people who don't really care of somebody in need. And they don't they have no empathy.

00;35;25;05 - 00;35;29;14
Paul Sullivan
Yet. It's those confirmation biases that I think keep a lot of these things in place.

00;35;29;16 - 00;35;31;06
Elissa Strauss
Absolutely.

00;35;31;08 - 00;35;45;00
Paul Sullivan
This has been great. So we're now at question five and the kind of dovetailing nicely, what we're just talking about. Is there a corporate case for supporting working parents and caregivers.

00;35;45;03 - 00;36;11;19
Elissa Strauss
I think yeah. I mean, yes, yes and yes. I think when we extend our conversation to other types of care to old, ill and disabled humans, and we see right with with the rapid pace of America's aging, that even if you're not a lead parent or you're not a parent at all, like the odds of you are going to have some care, responsibilities are just going up and up and up and up.

00;36;11;21 - 00;36;37;25
Elissa Strauss
I mean, it's you add elder care to this mix and there's really overwhelming odds that at some point some employee is going to have care responsibilities. We're still have the mindset of basically 50 years ago where people weren't sandwiched caregivers, people had children younger. So, they would move, maybe just have one kind of care responsibility at a time, right?

00;36;37;25 - 00;36;55;25
Elissa Strauss
They would be caring for their kids and then maybe they'd caring, be caring for their parents. Today it's more and more common. And I just read an article how the millennial generation is like has aged into sandwiched caregiving way faster than they've ever they did. So I think when we talk about corporate case, where can we expand that window on care?

00;36;55;25 - 00;37;23;14
Elissa Strauss
Like there has to be a corporate case for care, right? It's not the way that all the social shifts are happening. We have to acknowledge that care is a fact of life, because care is increasingly a fact of people's lives, not just, again, as America, aging and a rapid pace. We live long. I mean, we we live a very long time now, and that means we live a much longer period in a state likely of dependency.

00;37;23;17 - 00;37;41;04
Elissa Strauss
So we're just like, life is drastically different really than it was 50, 60 years ago for all these reasons. So yes, there's a corporate case for care because there has to be. Right. And I think that's not it sounds kind of silly. Well, you just have to do it. But this is just the reality of your workforce.

00;37;41;04 - 00;38;08;20
Elissa Strauss
Like this is this is just two employees. This is, you know, half our employees at some point, or 60, 70% of your employees really at some point. So we got to think about it. I think on another layer, I genuinely believe, and especially with technological advances with AI, that the relational piece of work is going to be more important than ever, you know, and I and I hear the least scary case for AI.

00;38;08;23 - 00;38;38;00
Elissa Strauss
It's going to take on a lot of that transactional piece of work, making more space for the relationship part of work, but really understanding who we're working with, motivations, trying to see big picture systems. And there's research that proves this. You know, if we are kind of present and active, caregivers are getting back to where we started, really, and we try to seek that care experience of something through which we can learn about ourselves and learn about others.

00;38;38;02 - 00;38;55;22
Elissa Strauss
That's absolutely a skill set that you can take to the workplace. I mean, being a better listener, which to care well for someone, you do have to learn how to listen to them and find a way to bring in your own needs. Like we talk about, like you bring that to the workplace. You're going to be a more effective team member.

00;38;55;24 - 00;39;16;27
Elissa Strauss
You're going to be a more effective, person engaging with clients or, you know, potential clients like this. These are really, like, good skills to have as a human being. And I think, you know, also in terms of real practical level, the corporate case of care, employee turnover cost a tremendous amount. Right. Like this is it is not.

00;39;16;27 - 00;39;32;26
Elissa Strauss
You want to find a way to hang on to good people and not have them leave just because care interrupted their lives. And now that it's more and more likely for care, I hate it. I hate that I use the word interrupt, by the way, because care is not interruption. It's just, an absolute reality of human life.

00;39;32;29 - 00;39;54;08
Elissa Strauss
Care happens like you need to find a way in better, more practical solutions to keep these employees around during these moments of higher needs in their caregiving part of their lives, so they can return and still be wonderful employees when those needs die down.

00;39;54;11 - 00;40;05;22
Paul Sullivan
Alyssa Strauss, author of When You Care The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others. Thank you so much for being our guest on the Company Dads podcast today.

00;40;05;24 - 00;40;07;09
Elissa Strauss
Thank you so much for having me.

00;40;07;12 - 00;40;22;03
Paul Sullivan
All right, bonus question. Rare bonus. We say five of bonus question here. What one thing, Alyssa, that you'd tell you, the men and fathers who may feel that they have to hide their role as a caregiver.

00;40;22;06 - 00;40;47;01
Elissa Strauss
I think that I've heard that just once one person shares a little like the sharing can beget. Sharing can beget sharing and start small. You know, you don't have to go in and lay it all out on the table. How might your child's being bullied and how you were up all night thinking about it? That might be too much, but you know, just the small things of asking for permission to go to that orthodontist appointment.

00;40;47;01 - 00;41;15;10
Elissa Strauss
You know, it's I found overall with care needs men. I'm usually like the right the most scared to kind of share them because it's most at stake for them. But overall people are broadly woman men. Everyone are scared to kind of express their caring selves in other parts of their lives because of the consequences. But when you start small and you share a little, I often find someone else shares, and then they share and then they share, and then suddenly it's something you're talking about.

00;41;15;12 - 00;41;36;19
Elissa Strauss
And I really like the work of Alexis Ohanian, who's really brought his care self into his professional life in a way that I think is really inspiring and hopefully will be a model for other men. You know, he has a podcast business that it's there's not the business guy over here and the dad over there. There's one human trying to make it all work.

00;41;36;21 - 00;41;42;29
Elissa Strauss
And the business self and the dads love each other. And I think it's just like a beautiful, inspiring model for moving forward.

00;41;43;02 - 00;41;47;20
Paul Sullivan
Start small, I like it. Thank you again, Alyssa, for being our guest today.

00;41;47;22 - 00;41;49;28
Elissa Strauss
Thank you.

00;41;50;00 - 00;42;15;11
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company of Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do at the company of Dads. Possible, Helder Mira, who is our audio producer, Lindsay Decker. And as all of our social media, Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;42;15;11 - 00;42;33;02
Paul Sullivan
And many things that we do here at The Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter. The dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.