What counts as work?

Work versus “work”

In Maggie Smith’s “You Could Make This Place Beautiful” her husband’s divorce lawyer uses air quotes when referring to Maggie’s “work” as a poet during the divorce proceedings. Reading it, I felt shocked. Or maybe I wasn’t shocked at all, and that’s what was shocking. Maggie’s work is creative, not always billable, and worst of all, she enjoys it. So it doesn’t count, can’t count, as real work, right?

Since putting the book down I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this question. What constitutes legitimate work? In particular, what makes someone’s work more legitimate than someone else’s, especially in the context of a marriage with children?

Why it matters 

Why would a divorce lawyer use air quotes when referring to the opponent’s (in this case the wife’s) “work”? Because it probably mattered in the way things got divided. This probably mattered before the divorce too. It’s probably what led to the divorce, and it’s incredibly common. 

We feel the person who works harder, or who does a certain kind of traditional work, is owed more: more leisure time, more time to pursue hobbies for pleasure, more power in joint decisions like where to live or whether to buy nice furniture. In the context of the patriarchy, men, whose work is typically considered to be more legitimate and who typically take on the majority of the paid work outside the home, have had disproportionate control over financial decisions, spend more time in leisure, and do more things for pleasure. 

These patriarchal norms are so entrenched that even when gender roles are reversed and it is the woman who spends more time working outside the home, and even when she earns more than the man, the data show that she still does the majority of the housework and the childcare. How fair is that?

But my aim here is not to stoke feminist rage (although that is often my intention). In this case I am genuinely interested in exploring the question and attempting to get more clarity on what is “fair,” because it affects so many of us and feels so crucial to the happy functioning of a marriage. 

Why so many marriages unravel after kids

Parenthood exacerbates all of these issues. The issues may have been there before, but having children throws a spotlight on them. Why? Because of time, or rather, because of the lack of time. Before children, it’s possible to do paid work and still carve out time to pursue a side-gig, a dream. After children, it’s not (or I should say, it’s much, much harder). After children, everyone is stretched. No matter what your arrangement is. No matter how you decide to distribute the labor in and outside of the home, everyone is overworked and tired. 

This breeds resentment faster than a well-fed queen bee. Fights inevitably break out over who does what, who does more, what’s fair. Leisure is scarce. Rest is scarce. Sleep is scarce. Both partners are suffering. Everything needs to be paired back. All nonessential activities must go. 

In this context, if one person’s work is more enjoyable (maybe even fun on occasion!) and especially if it is less well paid, it becomes “work,” in air quotes. This is far more likely to happen to the mother, for innumerable reasons that are beyond the scope of this essay. 

What counts as legitimate work?

The dictionary definition of work is “activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.”

That’s a very broad definition. I don’t think everyone agrees with it or, even if we agree with it intellectually, it’s not how we act in practice. 

Whether we admit it or not, most people believe that paid work done outside the home is the most legitimate form of work. Do you disagree? Why, then, do we penalize the mother who leaves the office early to pick up her child from school, only to open her laptop later that night? If her butt is not in her office chair, it does not count (or does not count as much).

What about money? Do you have to earn money for it to count as work? No, you say again. Childcare is work. Domestic labor is work. Doing the dishes is work. Doing the laundry is work. Taking your child to the doctor is work. We say it is but do we mean it? Why, then, is my mother’s social security so much less than my father’s? 

What about work we enjoy doing? Does that count? Or do we have to hate our work for it to count? A woman who loves to write, who would write even if she didn’t get paid for the writing, but she does get paid, she manages to find a way to get paid for what she loves, does it then count as work? Not according to Maggie Smith’s husband’s divorce lawyer. 

What is the dictionary definition of play? It says, to “engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.” 

What, then, is the definition of recreation? It’s defined as “activity done for enjoyment when one is not working.” 

This is getting circular…

Is playing with your children work or play? For the most part, I hate playing with my children. I love them, but I hate playing with them. I find imaginary games to be mentally exhausting. Other times, when we are playing ball at the beach, and the sun is out, and I am in a good mood, I enjoy myself. I would pay a nanny $30/hour to do this for me, but I also enjoy it at times. Does it require mental or physical effort? Certainly. Does it achieve a purpose or result? I don’t know. 

Let’s make it a math problem

My husband is an engineer, through and through. He can make an equation out of anything. Here’s his equation for measuring the legitimacy of work:

Contribution to family well-being divided by pain and sacrifice. 

My take:

I like the numerator. It centers the value of work on the contribution to the family, rather than finances. Financial stability is certainly a crucial element in family well-being, but not the only one. Childcare and domestic work are also critical and should be valued.

I don’t like the denominator. Why does it have to be painful? Let’s imagine I love to do the dishes (I don’t). Does that make my doing of the dishes less valuable, less legitimate?

Let’s imagine another scenario: my husband and I do exactly the same work for a living. We have the same training and the same salary. Both of our incomes are necessary. One of us likes the work and the other one does not. Is the person that does not like the work somehow entitled to more compensation in the family equation? Do they deserve more leisure time to pursue hobbies outside their work? Do they get a free pass on the dishes?

I’m just asking questions.  

Conclusions, or lack thereof

I was hoping that by writing it out I might find some clarity for myself (and for you, the reader). I don’t think I got any. It’s a complex question.

If you’re a regular reader here, you know I like to always tie it back to our evolutionary past. How was work divided between the genders in the Paleolithic, and how did it affect marital power dynamics? Studies of work and leisure in hunter gatherer societies are plagued by the same issues we have discussed here. What counts as work? Depending on the methodology, researchers come to strikingly different conclusions. 

Nevertheless, a few things hold true: leisure is considered critical and is always fairly distributed among capable adults, regardless of gender, skill, or social standing. One’s “contribution” to the group or the marriage - whether in terms of calories provided, hours of childcare, or domestic labor - does not entitle one to more leisure or more power in group or marital decisions. The best hunter in the group does not decide whether or not to relocate camp. Such decisions are a matter of consensus, and everyone’s input is valued. 

Shouldn't it be the same today?

Like I said, I’m just asking questions.