Episode 112: Red, White, and Worn Out

You love the cookout. You really do. So why are you the one stacking plates while everyone else sinks into a lawn chair?

If the planning and the cleanup always seem to land on you, this episode is for you.

In Episode 112, you'll learn:

• See the hidden shape of hosting work — the part that starts days before and ends long after the last guest leaves
•  Meet the one woman in Scripture who would completely understand your kitchen 
• Walk away with a simple three-part adjustment for the next gathering, without giving up the parts you love

Scripture: Luke 10:38–42 (NIV)

Research note: Allison Daminger's research on the cognitive labor of running a household (American Sociological Review).

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi there, and welcome to your next best step. I'm Coach Janet J. The fireworks are over, the paper plates are in the trash, and if you are the one who put them there, this episode is for you. Let's talk about the cookout, the cleanup, and the woman doing both. You love the cookout. You really do. So why is it that the moment everyone else sinks into a lawn chair, full and happy, you are the one stacking plates. There's a reason that this keeps falling to you, and it has almost nothing to do with who is the better cook. Here's the kind of fourth that I know well. You are up before anyone else. There's a grocery run because you remembered at 10 p.m. you were out of ice, and there's the one cousin who can't have gluten. There is marinating, prepping, and finding the serving spoons that live in the back of the drawer. You set the table, you pull out the bug spray, you text the person who always gets lost. And then everyone arrives and it is lovely. The food is good. The kids run through the sprinkler. Somebody tells the story that everyone tells every single year. And this is exactly what you wanted. Then the meal winds down and you are up again, clearing plates, wrapping the leftovers before they sit out too long, hunting for the lid that goes with that bowl, topping off the drink cooler. You are moving through the whole back half of the evening. You're there for it in pieces between trips to the kitchen, and when the good part comes, the fireworks, the toast, the moment everyone will bring up next year, you catch some of it over your shoulder on your way to handle the next thing. Maybe for you it's not a cookout. Maybe it's the Sunday dinner, the church potluck, the birthday, the holiday at your house every year. The shape is the same. You build the gathering, and then you spend it working. There's a woman in Scripture who would understand your evening completely. In Luke chapter 10, Jesus comes to visit, and a woman named Martha opens her home and welcomes him in. She is the host. Her sister Mary sits down near Jesus and listens. And Martha? Martha is in the words of the text, distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. Then she does something so human it is almost hard to read. She walks over to Jesus and says, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me. That right there might be the most relatable sentence in the Gospels for someone who has ever hosted. Her frustration is not really about doing the dishes, it's about doing it alone while everyone else gets to enjoy the room that she worked so hard to fill. And notice how Jesus answers. You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed. He sees her spinning. He invites her to come be in the room that she has been working so hard to create. The work was real, someone did have to host, and the gathering she was making for everyone else, she was allowed to be inside of it too. Here is what makes the imbalance so hard to argue your way out of. A sociologist named Alison Dominger wanted to understand who actually carries the thinking behind running a home. Not the cooking and cleaning that you can see, but the planning underneath it. In a 2019 study in the American Sociological Review, she interviewed 35 couples in depth about how invisible work gets divided. She found it breaks into four parts anticipating what is needed, finding the options, deciding, and then monitoring whether it all actually happened. And here's the pattern that fits your cookout exactly. The deciding tended to be shared. Couples choose the menu together, pick the date together. The anticipating and the monitoring, the very beginning and the very end, fell to the women. The bookends. Think about what that means at a cookout. Someone may happily run the grill. The menu might get decided as a team. And yet the weeks ahead anticipating and the after the fact monitoring is everyone fed, is the trash bag, who is taking leftovers, what still needs to soak, that is the bookends. And the bookends are what land on the host. That is the shape of it. The work is a set of bookends. You have been holding up both ends while the gathering everyone remembers happens in the middle, in the book. Once you can see the shape of the work, the heavy front end and the heavy back end, you have somewhere to aim, and the aim is small. One thing set down on purpose. One part of the evening claimed for yourself. That alone is enough to change how the next one feels. This load touches all four pillars at once, which is exactly why a cookout can leave you so depleted. Mentally, it is about running the list that starts days before and does not switch off until the last bowl is dry. Emotionally, it is Martha's question living in your chest. Does anyone notice I am doing this alone? Physically, it is a body that has been on its feet since seven in the morning and deserves to sit down well before midnight. And spiritually, it's the ache of building something beautiful and warm. A table full of the people you love and never quite stepping inside of it yourself. You do not need to overhaul any of that today. You only need one adjustment. Your next best step is one adjustment in three small pieces. Release one thing. Before the next gathering, pick one task or one expectation and let it go. The dessert can come from the bakery. The kitchen can wait until morning. Choose one and release it on purpose. Enjoy one thing. Claim one part of the gathering that you will actually be inside. Sit down for the whole meal. Or watch the fireworks all the way to the finale with nothing in your hands. Decide it in advance so the work doesn't swallow it. Simplify one thing. Change one piece of the structure so the next one is lighter on you. Ask everyone to bring aside so you are not cooking all of it. Set a stack of to go containers on the counter so leftovers send themselves home. Put a bin by the door and every guest drops one thing in it on the way out. Release one, enjoy one, simplify one. That's the whole step. The tiredness you feel when the last car pulls away has a shape. The before and the after, the book ends, holding up a gathering everyone else just simply got to enjoy. Martha said it out loud, and Jesus answered her by name and invited her into the room. Release one thing, enjoy one thing, simplify one thing. You built the gathering, you are allowed to be inside it too. If today gave you something, follow or subscribe wherever you are listening or watching so the next episode finds you without you having to go look for it. And if this past weekend left you running on empty, my free five minute daily reset is a small way to fill the tank back up. It's waiting for you at your nextbeststep.com. I will see you Wednesday. Take your next best step.