Episode 232: Sharing the Load: Recognizing and Reducing Invisible Work at Home with Dr. Janelle Wells
/In this week’s episode, we’ll explore the invisible work we all do every day in our homes — the mental load, emotional labor, and all those tasks that keep our families running but often go unnoticed. To help me explore this, I’m joined by Dr. Janelle Wells, professor at the University of South Florida and co-author of the book Our (In)visible Work. Dr. Janelle brings both research and lived experience to this conversation, and together we talk about how we can start naming and shifting the unseen labor we carry, and move toward a more balanced and intentional family life.
Here are the main points:
Understanding what invisible work is and its effect on everyday family life
How invisible labor continues through generations and needs regular adjustment in today’s relationships
Using feelings like anger and frustration to raise awareness and set boundaries around invisible work
Making hidden family tasks visible by creating shared systems and distributing responsibilities
Recognizing and valuing the unpaid, unseen work women do at home and in the community
Appreciating invisible work in others can influence how we see our own worth
Helping parents identify and honor their own often unnoticed roles through self-reflection activities
Exploring respectful ways to ask for recognition and share invisible family duties
Resources:
If you enjoyed our conversation with Dr. Wells, follow her on Instagram @docjewells, Facebook @janellewells and X (formerly Twitter @docjewells.
Remember, invisible work keeps families running and acknowledging it helps create balance and connection.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody. This is Doctor Laura Froyen, and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we're going to be talking about the invisible work that we do in our homes every day. And maybe how to start shifting some of that, to help me with this conversation, I have Doctor Janelle Wells. I'm so excited to bring you onto the show, Dr. Well, why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do, and then we'll get into the research that you've been doing on this topic.
Janelle: Yes, well, thank you, Laura so much. Thank you number one for the space to have this conversation, right? Even listening to you in the show, you're like, yes, we do do so much invisible work. How do we bring voice and visibility to that work? And I love how you even say, how do we engage in this process of balancing. And so it's like, first, we have to make it visible so that then we can balance the work, you know? And so I love that. But, who am I and what do I do? You know, I love to say and describe myself as a learner and developer, and because, yes, I do that as a professor, at the University of South Florida, but I also do it as a consultant and a co-founder of a business that does talent development. And being able to marry that with my business partner, Doctor McCauley, who's also a co-author on here, which is so beautiful, right? Because when we first wrote this book, it came from a place of more anger and resentment, right?
Laura: I think we've all felt that.
Janelle: Absolutely. But that is, if, if you know Doreen and I, you're like. Wait a second, you all are like these little rays of sunshine. Sometimes this toxic positivity is too much. And so we're like, wait, this isn't really us. And so we had to go back to it because we also wanted to call everyone in, right? Because every one of us, no matter our roles or identities, have invisible work.
Laura: Tell me what you mean by that. Can you give us a working definition?
Janelle: Yes, absolutely, right? So we can all be at a baseline for it. So we define it as any work, and we say this could be physical, mental, or emotional, that is done for someone else without the acknowledgement of your time, effort, or contribution.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. So what does that mean in a, you know, an average person's daily life?
Janelle: Yes. Oh, a list of it. Well, let's just say like, let's take back to school, right? And it's back to school. Anyone who has children knows back to school means, okay, wait, do I have to go get supplies? Right? Do I need to get the list of supplies? Do I also need to fill all the forms? Do I need to get the wellness visits? Have we done? The wellness visits, did we schedule the wellness visits? Who took the kids to the wellness visits? You know, so sometimes that's not visible to your partner because, oh, we just handle it. I just do it, you know? Or I have an 8 year old. I do have 3 boys. One's 8, and they have these birthday parties that come up. Oh wait, did we get a gift? Like it's 30 minutes before.
Well, did you get a gift? Did you think of the gift? What are we gonna do? And sometimes it's not everything, but, but sometimes these things come up and we just take them on instead of like, hey, how do we share this workload? How are we shuffling them? And, and one thing that really came out just in my own life, I remember with our three boys. There was a time that my husband was taking them to their wellness visit, and he called me up, he's like, oh, honey, it's not at the same place. And I was like, yeah, they moved 2 years ago. And he just had this realization, like both of us did. He's like, I haven't taken them now. I have a little bit more flexibility in my job, you know, he lives in, he works in live events and sports, you know, I have more flexibility being a professor. And I was like, yes, in 2 years, our kids have been sick, right? And so again, it was just bringing visibility, but I didn't even have to bring that to life in the conversation.
He recognized it, you know, so it can be anything from, even if it's like a household with dual earning or working parents outside the house, did anyone think of, do we defrost anything for dinner tonight? Right? Or do we even have that in our fridge to defrost it to then cook it, you know, and then clean up after it and all that is work. You know, and it says, particularly it has been falling on women, you know, doing 75% globally, doing 75% of the unpaid domestic labor at home, but yet we're at record rates of working in the workplace as well. And so that's a lot. That's a lot on our shoulders.
Laura: It is, you know, I remember my mom, so I, I am a child of the 80s, and I remember her work. And I know now at the time, they were talking about it as the 2nd shift, as mother's second shift. So she was a school teacher, and then she would come home and she did pretty much everything around the house, you know. And I don't remember her challenging that in a huge way. I do know she wouldn't let me watch the Smurfs because there were only two girl Smurfs and one was evil and one did all the cleaning. And she was like, you're not watching that, you know. So, I mean, she had, she obviously didn't love it. And now, as a woman who's retired, her husband he's retired. If she comes to visit us, and leaves her husband at home, her friends are mystified that he knows how to take care of himself, that he knows how to, you know, that she doesn't have to leave meals for him.
And so I guess I just feel that this difference isn't new, but we're talking about it so much more. And at the same time, like I went into my marriage with my husband. Thinking we had things settled. We had an egalitarian marriage that we had agreed upon. You know, I have a very vivid memory of visiting his family for the first time. And his mom didn't even set a place at their table. She grew up, she raised 4 kids, 3 boys, and she did not even set a place for herself at this family meal, because she was just up and she knew she would be. And I was like, that's, I was like, dear, my darling love, who I'm planning to marry. This is not, like, if you're expecting that, that's not what's happening. So I thought we were going into it. With ideas about what we were going to be doing, and yet all of this invisible work does often fall on me until, you know, he's actively working on it, you know, and we are both actively working on calling it out, acknowledging it and shifting some of the load, but how is it so sneaky?
Janelle: No, it is, it is so sneaky, but what I love and I heard in your story. Is that your mom recognized it, but wanted to make sure when you said she didn't want you watching the Smurfs, because she did see. And what was that doing? How was that going to socialize you? But I wanted to empower you for it to be different, right? The world was already in the 80s for these empowered. The world is still in 2025. Particularly depending on what part of the world you're in, aren't ready. And we have been trained to be empowered women. But yet, like the saying is, did we train everyone else for the empowered generation of women?
Laura: Oh yeah, right?
Janelle: Yeah. And so we can see that in it in the shifting, even when my mother, you know, I was raised by a single mother. And now when she comes to my house, she's like, well, honey, I'll take the load off of you because she sees and she knows what it was like and the weight of the world that she carried, right? But she doesn't want the same for me. And now, yes, I have a very active and engaged partner. In life, but it still is the majority of mine. But I also love what you say is like, also, there's a recalibration that constantly happens and whether that means I'm recalibrating cause let's say I got a new job or a new job opportunity. And so we have to have a discussion, right? It's this, again, this process of balancing, because, yes, well, I knew what my old job used to have and how that affected our family and who's doing pickups and who's doing drop-offs, we do sports and taking to the doctors when we have a new job or let's say anything, an elderly parent, anything that can shock the system or the routine, we have to recalibrate, but we have to have that conversation about it.
Laura: We have to be really intentional about it.
Janelle: Absolutely, absolutely. Otherwise we hold on to the resentment, you know, I'm, right? Or I'm mad or I'm upset and they're like, wait, what are you upset about? I was like, wait, I have all of this on me. You know, how are we gonna recalibrate and so that's how we refer to it in our home.
Laura: I just like that phrase.
Janelle: Yeah, recalibration.
Laura: Yeah, I really like that a lot. I think that there, you know. I was talking about this with a friend, and you mentioned this earlier with your, you know, your colleague who, when you started this work, you were coming from a place of anger. And I'm, I feel kind of curious about the role that anger and perhaps needs to play, that frustration, that kind of the doneness and just done, the fed upness, which is a name of another book whose author we had on the show talking about some of this topic. Like, I feel curious about how much of that anger needs to be there in order for us to start that recalibration, start that conversation, to invite that recalibration to start happening.
Janelle: Yeah, and sometimes it was also invited me to create a boundary, you know, and I'll say, so Doreen and I, when we were writing this, it was, it was COVID. Like, yes, I said the impetus for the book really started in 2016 when I had a student. So at my program, our students work 3 days a week with one of our partners. We're in the sport entertainment industry, but then they're taking their MBA classes two days a week. And she was facing a lot of racial microaggressions, sexism that she was facing in the workplace, and she came into my office and cried. We cried together, you know, and she was just like, you see me, Dr. Wells. And I was like, absolutely. And I wanted to help her see her workplace. And we, we end up creating some training for this organization and make it better. And that's why in our book, like the parenthesis around the I and the end of invisible, because while it might be invisible to some, it's also visible to others.
It was very visible to her. It was very visible to me, but it was invisible to some of her colleagues. So that was 2016, you know, and but I was like, wait a second, I've also seen my mother. I've also seen my own experiences. So when you start to reflect on these things, you realize how it has been all around you. So we started writing this, but then in 2020, obviously the pandemic upended every one of us in this world, right? And Doreen and I were matched, to rebuild the class for it to go virtually. And Doreen has studied a lot about identities and roles and what that plays in the workplace. And I've studied career intentions, workplace and civility. And so we're rebuilding this class, but we also just got to talk about our lives. Like we really connected, even though we've known each other for about 6 years by then, but it was a time in our lives where we could connect and we could geek out on something.
But we were also frustrated because what was happening at that time, right? Just as faculty, you may know what your experiences are, faculty in higher ed, women generally do the majority of the service. But the service isn't based on the merit of getting promoted, like at your research, that does, but we were caring for our students. Like we were making, we were having additional calls, you know, and making sure their wellness, and their emotional wellness was good during COVID during this summer. So we're like, wait a second. And then we saw some of our other colleagues writing about, oh, I just wrote this extra paper. And we're like, what? wrote this extra paper? I'm a teacher for our 5th graders. I'm the counselor for our students. I'm redoing, you know, the curriculum. Like, what? How did you have time to write a paper? And so that's when, again, we're like, wait a second here.
And so we did find a boundary because normally both her and I would have said yes, and would have kept doing all this stuff. And we're like, wait a second, how can we bring light to this of what truly is happening in this invisible work behind the scenes that's keeping, you know, everything humming, whether it's in the workplace or your house. And so we were pushed to the brink of what wanted to create our boundary, but we also know we couldn't just go yelling at people, like that's not gonna solve it. What are some solutions? That we have. How can we bring this first to light so that together we can come up with some solutions. So it's kind of the story behind it.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, I like this idea of bringing it to light and then having some solutions. What does that look like in a family, right? So just thinking about how do we go about bringing it to light in a way where we don't raise defensiveness and the other one, we don't hit at their vulnerabilities and, you know, that we can bring this up as a team to our partners.
Janelle: Yeah, I love that even the word team, because that's what we are. And it's not just me and my partner, it's the team in our household, yeah, I have a new 14 year old, we have a 14, 11, and 8 year old. But it takes all of us. And whether that's washing the dishes, helping cook, I, I'll say the biggest thing is bringing it to life has been our calendar, right? Because what I was recognizing is that our kids would always come to me and be like, Mommy, when's my practice? And it was really the eight year old because he saw the older kids having all their events. And he's like, So excited, right, for his own events to finally have his own extracurriculars and he's like, oh when's that again, when's that again?
But he was just like chirping in your ear, you know, I think the Pelican and Nemo, you know, be like, Mom, Mom. And so I was like, wait a second. How can I help empower him? Because this is becoming frustrating to me, you know? And so we have this shared calendar. Now, yes, my husband and I have our digital one. You know that it's on both of us to put on each other's calendar. But we had kind of the family command center. And again, because they were bringing home so many papers, like, Mom, you didn't sign this. I'm like, well, I didn't see it, you know? And so now we have, we created a process in our house, right? They each have a little box, but it's under this main calendar. And they add things to it, right? If it's in the morning, if it's their practice time, it's their game time, or I have to go because I'm part of this ambassador program, and mom, you gotta help get there.
And so now instead of them coming to me, mom, when's my game? I actually had to practice. What does the calendar say? Is it on the calendar? Or like the grocery list, Laura, like the grocery list. Someone's like, oh, we're out, you know, we're out of they love Alfredo sauce. Like, we're out of Alfredo sauce. I'm like, well, did anyone put it on the list? Are we supposed to know? You know, we're like, Mom, we don't even eat in the house. I'm like, okay, am I supposed to know that? You right. So they're empowered, like, go put it on. The grocery list is on this calendar too, in this command center. But it was number one, we had to say, what's going to be in our new process, right? But then we had to educate ourselves on how we use it. But I had to change my behaviors and remember to go back to that, you know, direct them to that.
Laura: To support and make it visible, right? So you had to make, I think that, I think you're bringing up this really interesting and good point that sometimes We are doing the thing that keeps this stuff invisible, right? We are, you know, making it easy for it to just continue to fly under the radar instead of taking the extra step to make it more visible and help the kids feel more involved in their lives, right? More responsible for their lives.
Janelle: Yes. Taking their ownership in it, but you're absolutely right. So what might seem at first, like, oh, I gotta get this calendar, I got set up in this area. But wow, what workload has it taken off of my shoulders, right? For the longer term.
Laura: Yes, the longer term, and not just the longer term for you, but perhaps your three boys are going to go out in the world, seeing the work of managing a schedule, managing a home as valuable and important and part of their responsibilities. Like that's pretty magic too.
Janelle: Very magical.
Laura: Yes, yes, I would love for my girls, you know, if they end up partnering with boys to find a boy who has been similarly raised, you know. Something I've been thinking about, that I've been thinking about just since I was, as I was planning for this conversation, as I'm sure you know, there are a number of creators on TikTok and Instagram who tackle this topic. Do you know some of them?
Janelle: Oh, my favorite's the mom's comic.
Laura: Okay. I don't, I don't, I'm, I'm not super like social media savvy and connected. I've been taking a pretty long break from it, just for my own mental health. I'm almost 2 years old, which is awesome.
Janelle: Yes, disciplined. Love it.
Laura: Yes, but I do sometimes dabble in, check in on the topics that I'm covering here, so just so I can stay current and relevant. But what I've noticed for some of these, and again, I don't know the names, but there's this one guy who often is dressing up as a woman who presents these funny skits that really highlight the emotional and mental labor that's happening in the home. And then there's a woman creator who does very, very similar skits, but she often will use phrases like you just recommended using for your son. Well, what does the calendar say? And the comment sections in these two for these two creators are so wildly different. The man is getting so much praise, so much like, oh my gosh, you see it?
Yes, this is it. And even from the guys in the comments, they're like, oh yeah, you know, this is, that's true. I never thought about it that way. And then in this woman's comments, I just, you know, you're treating your husband like a child, you know, maybe that's why he doesn't do anything, like just all of these things where, where what she's doing is exactly what you're saying, calling to light and supporting a new process, right? So I just, I can, can you comment a little bit? Again, I don't know their names. I don't wanna call anybody out, but like, Yeah. Yeah, it's just we have responded so differently when we notice these inequities.
Janelle: Yeah. And I think it also goes back to like, how we, we can even say in the workplace, all the research that has been done about the evaluation, the same two people could, could be assertive in the workplace. And that's a leadership stereotype we want, but that goes outside of a gender norm. You have to be for, for women. So again, so this has been outside the norms of really how we've been institutionalized and across generations, right? So even how maybe our grandmother or our grandfather might interpret this, you know, compared to me or compared to my children, right? We've just been socialized a certain way. Not just institutional, we've been socialized, and what we've witnessed, and that's not going to change in a generation. Right, at all. Now some of us expected to, you know, but it's not, and sadly, it does take time for that. But I think we're going to continue to see that, because we are evaluated very differently, just as men and women, and I am gonna buy canary in that sense because that's what a lot of the research has been on in the past.
Laura: Yeah. So what are like, I guess the tension point for me then is the, like, what do we do? What can, you know, obviously we're doing the work in our own homes and stuff, but even just from a broader perspective, thinking about like the other organizations that were involved in as parents, our PTOs. What's the makeup of them? Yes, like thinking about like, so like I think about the school board of the small private school that my kids go to. The people on the board are men, and the people doing the support work, the hands on heavy, you know, are women. Like my husband is one of those board members, and I like, I have been pushing, like, we need a female president, like we need a female president of the board, and we're gonna get one finally, you know, but it's, it's interesting to think about like all of the ways that we are. I don't know that we, again, value that invisible work, because my husband's work as the treasurer on the board is very visible, as opposed to the class mom work that is consistent a lot and not necessarily seen or recognized.
Janelle: Yeah, and Laura, there will always be an invisible economy. There will, absolutely. What we're hoping through this conversation starter is, and it's also to say, so that means not everyone's going to be essentially compensated, right? But how do we value that time, that effort, and that contribution? Doesn't necessarily have to be from compensation. Right, but it's like, oh, I see you, thank you. How do we appreciate that PTO mom or that PTO president or the entire PTO being 99% women. Yeah, right? But showing what is that value of it and recognizing the value as a society, and that's what we haven't done yet, right? We haven't shown that we do value this, we do need this because again, there's always going to be in a visible economy.
Laura: That's a little bit more about that phrase.
Janelle: Yeah, I mean there's always going to be like we're going to volunteer. Think of how many volunteer boards I'm on, right? The service, but that's being a good citizen, right? I might not get paid to do everything, you know, but, if it's things that I care about, right, that I might have to go and volunteer, right? It's not necessarily a paid position. And so that's why we say, hey, the invisible Connie, and listen, we don't even want to see, I think it was, oh, it's in our book, but I can't remember the exact phrase like. It's $1 trillion like what we offer in the GDP, how much money we actually put in because of our volunteers, particularly as women and mothers. Right? They can't pay us.
Laura: There's not enough money out there. There's not enough money to pay us adequately, right?
Janelle: Right? But again, it's not necessarily paying me, but it's at least recognizing the amount of work because without that PTO mom in that room, this classroom is not going to run like it is.
Laura: So it, it's not necessarily even, I do think that it's helpful for people who are feeling like my work is not valued, my work and contribution to this family are not valued or seen or recognized. Totally that up, and, and because that is what we value. We value money in this, in this world, right? In this society, at least here in the US and to help tally that up so that you can see your contributions can be really helpful. Yeah, we don't, I don't think we want to be paid, right? We just want it seen and we want to feel valued.
Janelle: Recognized, yeah, and that could be from a simple and I love it because this is gonna be one of our next books. We're talking about the appreciation project because once we bring visibility to it, now how do I show you appreciation for that work? Is it? It could be a simple thank you note, right? It could be, is it a gift? Is it just quality time spent, right? It's different, we have love languages, you know, you have love languages in the workplace, but it's, how do I show you appreciation for this invisible work, right? That now is made visible. And again, it's not just money. There are other forms of appreciation that we're really trying to unpack next. So we're, we're excited for that next phase.
Laura: Yeah. Oh gosh, that's, I mean, gosh, wouldn't that be a great conversation to even have with your partner, right? Like, so being able to sit down and say, like, look, I know you and both of us do invisible work in this family. How do you want to be appreciated for that? How do you want to know that I see you and I value you on a regular basis, you know? My kids are
Janelle: Not even hearing you. Like it just, it's disarming.
Laura: Yeah, right? Yeah. You know, my girls are 12 and almost 10, and as you can imagine, there's more more moments in our house. There's mournings in our house where I end up doing a lot of emotional labor, just a lot of listening, hearing, empathizing, validating, problem solving, you know, that. The load falls on me, cause that's my role in our, in our house. It never fails that when we've had one of those mornings after my husband drops the kids off, he sends me a text message and says, gosh, that was a hard morning. Thanks so much for being there for our girls. You know, as he always does. And you know, that is also labor on his part that maybe I don't appreciate him enough for. I think I'll probably need to make sure I tell him how much I appreciate that.
Janelle: Yeah, and how meaningful those are. That's what keeps you going the next day, right? That simple text that might have taken 5 seconds, right? Yeah, but he had to remember.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely.
Janelle: Yeah. But again, that is, I think what's beautiful and it was, it was the acknowledgement, the words of affirmation for the work that you're doing, the appreciation.
Laura: Or even just seeing it as work. I think for me that that's the biggest thing, just seeing that it had like that it exists and has value, you know?
Janelle: Yeah. And there is one chapter just on emotional labor. Because you can't see that. You can't see the mental dialogue that's going in my head, the masking that has to go on my face, right? When I'm saying something to the two young girls, right? And being able to regulate my own emotions. And that's right. Or my own drama from when I was your age going through all those things, right? There's a lot in there and so emotional labor is absolutely a lot of the invisible work that we do.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely. I'm thinking now too about what would it be like if, you know, maybe we're not able to get this from our partners, or maybe we are raising our kids on our own. And I'm kind of thinking about like, what would this be like if we as a group of parents decided we're not just going to see the work that's happening in our own families and in our communities, but that's happening in our, you know, the families around us, our kids, friends, families and stuff. That would be an interesting thing too, to spend just a little bit of time, set an intention each week that I'm gonna recognize the invisible work of one of my friends, or one of my colleagues.
Janelle: Yeah, oh, I love that. Yes, and I, and we do talk about in the book kind of like, we say like a loose thread. And what, like I had a loose thread in my shirt right now. Do I leave it alone? Okay, it's there. I love this shirt, man. I've had it. I'm just gonna leave it, right? Do you keep pulling at it, right, that resentment, that anger, whatever emotion is invited and and it's fraying out more and more, or do we cut it off? Right? We have options in each of those, right? But depending, and they may have different outcomes, right? But we get to choose this journey, you know, but I love the intentionality that you said about setting this intention of recognizing others, because then, does that make you feel more, it's not odd, right? Like right now, people might feel this is odd, but I want to recognize the invisible work you did. Thank you for that. Because first, now we have language to put to it, right? And even though we've had language since the 80s. Right? We, we haven't, but here, making a comeback. It's making a comeback in 2025. Right? But we have language to it first, which is really important. And then having that shared language now and bringing visibility.
Because what happens to the snowball effect, right? You just thank them for the PTO, you know, or you know. In the coffee, you know, because I realized that that falls on you every time we have a meeting. Thank you so much. We just thank someone, just for organizing a group. We were going to go play tennis, right? I'm learning how to play tennis in my mid-40s. Good for you. Just to set up the group, like who's going to be there and who can't. That took time. Someone wasn't paid, but we all today thanked her. I thank you for organizing us, right? And she stood there, but sometimes we didn't receive because she just kind of looked like, we all don't have to thank me, no, no, this wouldn't have happened without you doing this, right? And so now does a snowball effect happen next time like they might see some invisible work and think of others, right? Really could we be with that?
Laura: It's lovely, it is lovely. I'm kind of curious about how for the parents who maybe have been going unseen, their work has been unseen and unappreciated. And they start bringing this up, even if they just start by noticing it in others. What does that do for, for us, seeing, being able to notice and value the value in others. I'm curious if you think that that has an effect on ourselves and how we view ourselves and our own value.
Janelle: Well, I think one too, that's really, I'd love more stories. We didn't have too many stories of, of the single parent. Because there is so much invisible work. Like I think of, yes, my mother's experience and listening to it, but I also didn't value just that experience as a mother until I was in those shoes, but sometimes we're not gonna be in every shoe, right? That's not gonna exist. No, no, but how can I empathize? How can I show some compassion, you know, for the work that they either did or are currently still doing. You know, and so it did create conversation. Like it allowed me to sit down and have a conversation. I did have to own and apologize for some things. Like I didn't understand there, but also like she might have had to let it go for a few years, you know, and again, put that boundary up for herself. But now I feel we can just have deeper conversations about it, right? And I have an openness now, probably that I might not have had before, to have that conversation. So it's kind of where I'd started.
Laura: Yeah, I feel curious about if we don't have any for those people who are listening who don't have anybody in their life who can reflect back to them the value of their work, especially this invisible work that we're talking about. How can we do that for ourselves?
Janelle: Yeah, how can we do that for ourselves? 11 that we've done for value, so we even have this tool and exercise is, you know, like, yes, I think at the beginning I said like all the roles and identities that we have. Right? And so yes, we might write that out. Like this is seriously a tool that we have had.
Laura: Yeah. Okay. So I love it. My listeners love it when I give them actual exercises. So pause this right now, get out your journal and write down all of your roles and identities.
Janelle: Yes, okay. Yeah, we say put at least 10 out there.
Laura: At least 10, because we're all wearing at least 10 hats.
Janelle: Yes. Sometimes all at the same time.
Laura: Yes.
Janelle: Right? And then put some tasks down before that, that you do on a regular basis, right? It might be like, hey, every friday, I just, I bring bagels in and I just do that because whatever it might be, whatever tasks that you do, right? Then we ask, circle the ones that maybe have never been acknowledged. And the next step would be, okay, so I've got my rules identity. I've got my, I've got my tasks, and I've now circled the tasks that are invisible. Yeah, that have never been acknowledged, right, right. How do you want them? To be acknowledged. How do you want them to be valued? How do you want them to be appreciated? Right? And so that step alone will help you bring visibility because, okay, wait, now I know, and maybe it's me just speaking up, be like, you know, Laura, I've been bringing the coffee and donuts for the last 6 months. Could you help out next week and do that? Right? And then I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't know that. You know, absolutely, I'm willing to help. Right. Yeah, so it's kind of one of the exercises that we have done.
Laura: Okay, I feel like that sounds scary to ask something. I wonder if there are other ways folks can, if they are like, so that, that question of like, how do I want this to be acknowledged and once we determine that. How do we go about asking for that? Like that, I mean, you just gave one example, but do you have any other, other ways of going about asking for that acknowledgement in a way that doesn't, I don't, you know, that it can be intimidating to ask for what you need, especially as women, you know, who are condition to not need anything, you know.
Janelle: You're absolutely right. It's scary. It can be intimidating. It's uncomfortable to all legitimate, all very valid feelings from it, right? That that sometimes have actually oppressed us and silenced us from saying things, historical.
Laura: I mean because there were real life social consequences for speaking, right. So up, speaking out, yes, 100%.
Janelle: Absolutely. And so if it's not an ask, maybe it's just bringing it to light, you know, let's say something in the home. I'm trying to think of one. You know, like I said there's a doctor's appointment and I just happen to always bring the kids to the doctors, you know, saying, hey, this tuesday, and I don't ask, you know, could you bring the kids to the doctors, right? Do we start with that?
Laura: Or even like, what's the plan? The kid, did you know? Yeah, did you notice they have a doctor's appointment on the calendar? What's the plan for getting them there?
Janelle: I love that. Yeah, because I know we're both kind of in this. And again, that's a team effort, right? Or what ideas do you have? Right? Those open-ended questions will help, right? Or sometimes it's, you know, we have a really busy Thursday coming up. What's our plan for dinner? You thought of that? You know? And again, it just creates the dialogue around it and the conversation around it, right? And so it can feel less intimidating, less overwhelming, less scary in that sense. But it also seems like I'm inviting you in. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm making this invitation for this conversation.
Laura: Okay. And what if there's some work that's been invisible that you've been doing, you just don't want to do anymore? Yes, you know, like I'm thinking about your coffee and bagels example. Like, what would happen if I was like, yeah, I've done that for 6 months. Nobody said anything about it, like, what would happen if I just don't bring them.
Janelle: Yeah, people will notice because that's marketing. You see the billboard all the time, but when the billboard's not there anymore, everybody perks up.
Laura: I know, right? So is that an option too, or is that too passive aggressive? I don't know.
Janelle: Well, my personal choice would give someone a runway, right? I would say, hey, at the end of February, I'm gonna pass the baton, who's ready to take the baton? That would be my like.
Laura: I like that, yeah, yeah, cool.
Janelle: Okay, because we still love them, but maybe I'm like, hey, it's time for someone else to take a spin on it. Maybe it's time for donut days. I don't know, you know. So, yes. But giving that runway because that is the hard stop great whoa, oh see. She's so sassy or what happened there, you know, a lot could be in that, or the passive aggressiveness, you know, so giving a little bit of runway would be helpful, but you have to verbalize it. Like the biggest thing is comes to our communication, and you know, in all of your work, right, is how to communicate. You know, and it could be like, hey, March is gonna be really busy for me. And. So I really like to pass this baton. Who's open to it? Anyone on the team willing to take this?
Laura: Yeah, yeah. Oh gosh, I even think that that would be a great conversation, especially as kids get older to have at a family meeting, you know, around things that you're like, gosh, you know, I've been doing this since you guys were born, but now you're 14. I'm ready to pass the baton. How are we, how can we handle this as a family in a different way? Now, you know, that's it. I think that would be interesting.
Janelle: Yeah. Well, we've even had to do it with, I say the recalibration, yeah. The feeding the dog. Oh my goodness, I was done. I didn't want to say, remember to feed the dog. Who's feeding the dog? Who's doing even if it's on the chore list up there, but now we only have one in elementary school that goes on the bus at, you know, 7:24, right? But there had to be a conversation. Yeah, who used to do it, got up, gets up later now because they don't have to be on the bus till 8:34. And so they had to negotiate, have some negotiations on which tours they would take, which, so again, that was the recalibration that was having to be had with the new school year.
Laura: I mean, and that's having that as a standard practice in a home, like having that just be like, this is the culture of families. There's lots of things to do. We all carry a load. We all need to recognize the load that's being carried and shift things around when it needs to be. Like that seems like a really good family cultural norm to have.
Janelle: Yeah, I look back and reflect and yes, it is, it has worked in ours, but I'm like, you have to find what's right for your family and your family, right? And what works for you all.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm thinking about something right now. So my family and I are in the process of working towards being ready to have a family dog. And my one child is very motivated for this to happen. She, the 12 year old, really wants this to happen, and she also really loves to have clearly outlined expectations. So she has created her own, responsibilities chart and timeline system, where all of the responsibilities that she's already doing, you know, that, that we just like are like, yes, we just need to be consistent on these things, you know, so she's already doing them. She's just formalized it and put it in a chart. She's really excited, really helpful, you know, excited to be moving through that process. It's helpful for her. The other one is panicked seeing all of these responsibilities that she's already doing. I was, you know, so she's 9, almost 10. I was sitting with her and she's just like, how am I gonna do all of this? How am I gonna do all this? I'm like, you already do all of this every week, you know, this is nothing new. And it was, it was just, it was interesting how different the visibility played out for both of those kids. Do you know what I mean?
Janelle: Oh yes, and how for one it organized all the thoughts and made it achievable. But for the other one, it threw it into chaos and made it seem like this is just too much of an undertaking.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, but she's been doing all of it. That's what I told her, you know, it's so interesting how that visibility for her made it seem like way too much. It's almost as if she needs it. Small like a visibility on a smaller scale than a big list of all the things that she does, you know.
Janelle: Yes, yes. Or sometimes also even showing how things sometimes couple. You know what I mean like, hey, maybe you'd like to talk to Grandma, you know, on Tuesdays after school, but you could talk to Grandma on the phone while you're walking the dog. Yes, you already do those things. So how do we partner or couple some of these tasks, right? So they're not individual.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. It was just, I thought it was really interesting how differently they responded. Like one, like saw this big list and it was like, oh, I already do this much, and the other one was like, oh. Yeah. I have to do the rest of this for, you know, do this all for the rest of my life, you know.
Janelle: And not just in our homes. This is the same thing if I had a team, you know, on the PTO, right? Or if I'm at work, right? All of us have a different reaction, right? And again, how have we been socialized? Have we been institutionalized, just our own behaviors?
Laura: And our own brains and nervous systems and neurotypes, you know, like my oldest is autistic, my youngest is ADHD, like they're. It makes sense to me that they're responding in very different ways.
Janelle: Yes, yes, and I love the openness of like, we are gonna, every person is gonna respond differently.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. Oh gosh, Janelle, this has been a really fun conversation. Parting, parting words of wisdom for and again we're thinking about parents who are, you know, are wanting to change the culture in their family, so that visible work or so invisible work is more visible, acknowledged and appreciated. last thoughts for them.
Janelle: Yeah. Absolutely. I think it starts with a conversation. Bring voice to it. Have the courage to bring voice to it and bring visibility. Welcome your partner in, your teammates, your children, whatever that community is to have the conversation, because there may be things that they even, they might have felt that are invisible that you haven't recognized. Right? So together, we can have this conversation and together we can be better, right?
Laura: Where it's not pointing a finger at anyone. It's a, let's sit at the table together and really recognize all that we do for each other.
Janelle: Absolutely.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, I really like that. Thank you so much, Dr. Wells. Will you make sure my listeners can find you, find your, your really great book, and connect with you?
Janelle: Yes, absolutely. So at Wells Quest, are our handles. We're on Instagram, we are next, and then LinkedIn, but then also our book, Our (In)visible Work is on Insta, Instacart. Yeah, so I love it. Yes, and also on Amazon.
Laura: Great. Good. Okay, well, thank you so much for being here with us.
Janelle: Thank you for the opportunity and the platform.
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