Timing Belts and Tidy Kitchens

And I didn’t link that last week because I was linking just the program, but I’m going to link below this free Course.  Where I go over. The.  You know, 12 weeks of content. And an hour and 15 minutes. So it’s not quite as in-depth, but it is everything that I’m going to be teaching. And so I wanted.  To do that for people who.  Didn’t feel ready or. Wanting to invest time or money into the full program with a group of other Catholic women. 

I have already had. A lot of women sign up for that program actually. And so I just want to encourage you.  To check it out.  If you are feeling called to work on your marriage this season, you know, we have difficult things and it’s not always the time to do it, but if it is for you, I want you to come do it with us because.  It’s going to be really powerful and I think a very special group.  Of women. 

And so I think we’re at. I don’t know, 12 or 13 women who have signed up.  And I just know that.  It’s going to be a very healing experience.  So today I want to talk about.  Changing the timing belt in your cars. Versus husbands taking care of the kids and cleaning the house. So.  I’m going to make some gender stereotypes here.  And so don’t come for me for that. 

I do feel like the reason we have stereotypes is because they are so often true. Right? It’s so often true that then we just kind of make assumptions. And so, even though I am assuming that your husband is in charge of car maintenance and you are primarily in charge of childcare, I fully recognize that that is not a hundred percent true and that sometimes women are in charge of car maintenance and men are in charge of childcare.  But for this example, we’re gonna assume that your husband is mostly in charge of car stuff, tiny belts, oil changes, rotating tires, things like that, and that you were primarily in charge of how stuff, kits stuff.  Okay.  The next thing I want to talk about.  Is the cognitive load of parenting.  

And. There is a lot of information circling around. That’s talking about how women. Carry so much more of the cognitive load of parenting than men do. For example, uh, women are usually the ones who plan birthday parties and get all of the presents for Christmas. And they’re thinking about wrapping paper and what to get for your mother-in-law and you know, oh, we got to get all this stuff for Thanksgiving. 

There’s like all this information that, or. It’s rattling around in, in women’s minds. And a lot of what I’ve seen on the internet, which is perhaps not the best place to go for parenting and marriage advice. Um, is talking about how unequal the load is, and I’m not disagreeing with that.  What am I, what I’m going to teach you today?  Is not to say that we. Should just accept the unequal load.  And have it be fine. 

The point I’m trying to make is the load is not obvious to the other spouse.  And we often get upset when we think, oh, I have to tell my husband specifically what to do.  And then we get so frustrated about that, that we ended up not telling him specifically what to do. And then we’re upset that we have to carry and manage so much.  So.  Husbands generally are in charge of car maintenance. 

Okay. Oil changes changing the timing belt. I can’t even tell you how often the timing belt needs to be changed. I just know vaguely that it’s a thing. Um, rotating tires in general, but then also, depending on where you live. Putting on seasonal tires. So we have winter tires and then we take them off. On the snow goes away and then we have regular tires.  I don’t manage any of that.  And if my husband said, Hey, I’m having trouble.  Like I’m, my life is really full and I’m feeling really stressed right now. 

Sterling, could you manage. Changing the oil and the timing belt and rotating the tires. Okay.  Those three phrases are kind of obvious, right?  Change the tiny belt. Get the oil changed, rotate the tires. But, and I have gotten the oil changed in my car for a long time, but I still, when I go, I’m like, I don’t know what oil to, to pick. 

And they ask a ton of questions and then they want to check other things. And then they’re like, Hey, do you want another filter? Look how dirty this filter is. Right. And it kind of stresses me out. All these decisions. And I, and I think, oh, there’s a right way to do this. And I don’t know what the right way is. And I want to call my husband.  

And so even though it seems very straight forward, these three tasks.  I would feel. A little bit anxious. If all of a sudden he asked me to do them and I would just want to immediately ask him. Okay. But what oil. And they’re going to ask me a bunch of questions.  What.  You know, should I allow them to check and what should I allow them? 

Like, what should I buy if they suggest it? At the oil place.  And actually, I don’t know who changes the timing belt. I don’t know if that’s something you can do yourself, or if you take it to a mechanic or a dealership. I do understand tires. I would probably go to Les Schwab and be like, please rotate the tires. 

But that if they asked me any other questions, I’d be like, I have no idea. We were talking about. So I hope this feels silly to you a little bit.  Because I think that this is a little bit how it is to our husbands. When we say, Hey, could you watch the kids?  Or, Hey, could you clean the house?  Obviously watch the kids and clean the house. Our statements that he can understand.  But he doesn’t do it all the time.  And he kind of suspects that there’s a way you want him to do it.  And he may not even suspect. 

He may know very, very clearly that you have a very specific way that you want him to clean the house or watch the kids.  And so he might feel anxious and so we might kick it back to you and go, okay. But like, what should I do with the kids?  

And I understand that a lot of moms are drowning and I think modern day parenting is so difficult. Because of the four things that are talking about my book, you can go look at the podcast episode about that.  

And so there’s so much on us that then when he asks a question, which in our mind feels ridiculous.  Like well, but what do you want me to do with the kids? We then feel angry and then we are mean to him and disrespectful. Whereas, if we think about it, like the timing belt, where we’re like, oh, this is just kind of your zone of genius or, or where you are the manager. If we have all these departments, you’re the manager of the watching the kids.  And so it’s fine that you delegate it, but then it’s also find that the person goes okay, but how do you want me to do that? And it doesn’t mean that they’re playing dumb or they don’t care. Or they’re not willing to support you or that they’re not even willing to do it. 

He might ask and then be perfectly fine. Doing what you say? But just this.  This assumption that we have that. He should know, he should be able to figure out and he shouldn’t ask you. Is really causing a lot of problems for us in our body or feeling so unloved and.  Not supported.  And then we see that he’s very capable, right? You married this guy. He’s very capable.  At doing certain things. And so it, it does make sense to your brain that you’d be like, why is he so capable over there, but not over here.  And so I just want to offer.  I think it’s just pretty similar to.  Us not choosing, I have chosen right now, not to learn. About oil changes. And tire rotation.  And timing belts. And I fully know that I could get a book about that or go to the internet and YouTube it and figure it out. 

But I choose not to. I choose to just ask him every time. Cause sometimes he goes, Hey, can you take the car to Les Schwab? And then I go, I pull up my phone and I go, okay, what are the questions that I need to ask them? And I write it down. And then if they ask me something, I don’t know. I call him. And I’m just perfectly okay with that scenario. I think he is too. I should ask him. I should be like, is it annoying to you? That I do not retain any of this information and I ask you every time, but my I’m really, I really would guess that he’d say, yeah, it’s fine. Now, obviously car stuff comes up less frequently than watching kids and house stuff. 

But. If he doesn’t know what to do, then, you know, we can set him up for success. You could print out on a piece of paper, like things to do with the kids or things to feed the kids. And to me that doesn’t. Mean, he’s like a baby child husband who is helpless. It’s just that you have spent the time to figure out what they like.  Like, you know, You know, which kid likes sweet potatoes and which kid likes white potatoes.  And I don’t think it makes him a bad dad for not knowing that.  But you’re the manager of the department. And so you could really wouldn’t take that much time to just type up things to do with the kids.  And things to feed the kids. Or, you know, Things to tidy in the house.  

You’d probably make the things to tidy in the house for the kids, but then he could reference it. But again, like when you say, Hey, can you, you know, someone’s coming over, can you clean?  The house it’s so big to his mind. And he probably is worried that he’s going to get it wrong and he’ll probably just shut down.  But instead, if you could just be like, Hey, could you vacuum.  And make sure all the dishes are in the dishwasher and the counters are wiped down, like three things. And if you want him.  To not have. To be told what to do, then it will require more training. It will require you sitting him down and saying, Hey.  You know, there’s an unequal distribution of activities. I need more help in this area. Or you could say in any of these areas, here’s five. Which one do you feel the most comfortable? Helping me with, and then I am totally willing to train you.  On how to do it.  That’s how it works. 

When you get a new job, when you get a new job, they don’t just go up. I mean, if you cared about this company, you would just know what to do. They train you a lot. And they don’t make you feel bad for asking questions. And so setting him up for success and then it would be the same way if he said, Hey Sterling, I want you to start taking over car maintenance. Like if he asked me to do that, I’d be like, okay. And I would get out, I would get like a car maintenance notebook and I would sit with him and I would really ask him a ton of questions until I felt trained enough to do it. 

And I know I’m capable of doing that. It’s just not within our distribution of jobs right now. And so this came out because I was coaching a mom. And.  She was, uh, had like a special project at work.  So she was working a lot more than she normally did for maybe I think it was like six weeks and the time the timeline was known, like, oh, I’m going to be kind of extra working for this time. As we push this big project through. And.  She was saying, my husband knows. That it stresses me out. When the house isn’t tidy. And, but she was saying, but he’s not cleaning it. He’s not in this time. He’s not.  Picking things up in the living room or extra cleaning the kitchen.  And so I said, well, have you asked him to do that? And I don’t think she had even asked him to do that, but then I took it a step further and said, even if you did ask him to do that, would he know, like, if you said, Hey, can you just make sure the house is tidy?  Would he even know what that means to you? Because it’s just different. 

For men and women and children and personality types. And she acknowledged that no, she hadn’t really asked him and he wouldn’t probably even know what that meant. And I said, well, what ways is he supporting you in this time? Because he knows that you’re busy and she listed several things. That were amazing. I was like, that’s amazing that this guy is stepping up and helping you in these ways that are known to him and that he can do.  You know, it wasn’t like he was just.  Saying? Oh, well, forget this lady. I know she’s working a lot, but I’m not going to change my behavior. Like there was so much evidence that he was loving and supporting her.  

And. I don’t know while I was coaching, I just had this like,  Timing belt, car maintenance thing where I just realized. You know, we don’t for most of us naturally know how to do that. And that’s okay. But also our husbands don’t get upset at us for not knowing that. And that it is within our power to learn about car maintenance. And it’s also within our power to, with love and gentleness, teach him.  About what we mean by, Hey, could you tidy the house or could you watch the kids?  Now I’m also not a fan of us. Micro-managing husbands and making us tidy the house and watch the kids exactly the way that we want. Right. So. For me. If husband’s watching the kids, I don’t know that I have any requirements around that. I’m just like, keep them alive and I just let him feed them when he’s going to feed them and do what he wants. He probably has a.  Higher bar than I do, even for watching the kids.  

I really what it is. I don’t know. There’s a higher bar. Really. He just is like, they can go outside and stay outside.  Whereas I probably am creating more activities for them and doing more things with them.  And he’s a little like, okay, you had lunch now. Go outside.  And that’s fine. But sometimes I think our husbands are getting the job done. But it’s not exactly how you want it. And so you’re criticizing him.  

So I hope this just helps you. Rethink. The distribution of activities in your household and how you want to talk about them. I’m not saying that it’s fine. That it’s unequal.  But if it is unequal, are you asking for help? And in what way are you asking?  And are you helping set him up for success?  

Because if you are a manager and you ask somebody to, to move to a different department, You know, you would spend a whole month. Helping them learn how to do it. And I think that this is.  Very important for those of you that are not asking for help. And not spending any time away from the kids.  Like, you’ve got to spend some time away from your kids. And. I think it should be a goal that your husband can watch your kids for two hours. Whatever it takes to get to that point. And it might be that you need to lower your expectations for what happens, not two hours while you’re gone. And it might be that you need to just.  Help him out by giving him some ideas. Hey, this is, you know, you have a pulse on what.  The kids are doing and what phase they’re in.  

And you can share that with him without feeling upset that you have to share it with him. Right. Like, it’s not a problem. So. I just want him to have like a team husband’s episode.  And that came up in coaching last week and I just thought it was so great. That.  I think we can set them up for success and treat them with kindness. And. Ask for what we mean. Ask for the help that we need. All right. You guys. If you’re interested in checking out that free hour long class. About. How to cope with a painful marriage, the link will be in the show notes. And in the meantime, I hope you’re having a wonderful summer.  

We are in the membership. We’re doing the, keep your cool program. And we’re just managing our minds around vacations and spending lots of time. With snarky sister-in-laws and all sorts of things. We’ve been coaching on lately. So I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.