Posts tagged Dual careers
How do you know when the division of labor needs to be adjusted?

I got a lot of questions on my last post, specifically, how do you know when things aren’t 50-50 or fair and needed to be adjusted?

Discussing an imbalance of labor can be tricky. Because the person who’s shouldering the heavier load changes on a weekly (if not daily!) basis, it’s often hard to assess the division of labor at any given moment. Plus, bean counting “who does what” is not only petty and exhausting but also feels contrary to the spirit of a partnership.

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How do you initiate conversations - early on - to figure out whether a guy will be a 50-50 partner?

Sheryl Sandberg claimed that the most important career decision a woman can make is whether she has a life partner and who that partner is. I took this advice to heart. I had trouble putting it into practice, though: how do you figure out - early - if a someone you’re dating will be a supportive partner? In Lean In, Sheryl mentions a trick one of her friends used - she’d cancel a date at the last minute for work-related reasons and see how the guy reacted. But my need for assessment went deeper than that - I didn’t just want someone who would be cool with my unpredictable work schedule. I wanted a guy would make career and life sacrifices of his own for my career, learn about the challenges women face at home at in the workplace, and work to fight those challenges. 

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