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(Seriously, this is not directed at any person on this platform (that I know of)

OMG, Boomer men SUCK at emotional labor & caregiving. Like EPICALLY BAD.
Like leave a toddler in a room with matches and gasoline for 6 hours bad.
Like cannot do paperwork BAD.

This was specifically about my uncles and my XY, for all of the offended menfolk.
Who are my prime examples of Boomer men & have a consistent track record of fail.
But...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjG_cHju8TrAhUCCs0KHfY9CTEQFjAAegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdrive.google.com%2Ffile%2Fd%2F0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk%2Fview&usg=AOvVaw2PPbH2sFjNfJ8HgXEP9c7i

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/upshot/pandemic-chores-homeschooling-gender.html

https://www.thecut.com/2015/11/why-men-think-theyre-doing-more-chores.html

And the notation in all of those recent articles is that young & middle-aged men are *considerably* better at being egalitarian members of a household than their fathers were.

Think on that.
Doing 30% of the work (and almost none of project management) is considerably better.

Pro-social behavior is kind of my jam.
How it gets broken, what actually works, how it gets corrupted, how to fix it.
So I understand *why* there’s this behavioral vs self-assessment mismatch.
But neither my colleagues nor I can help people *fix it* if they won’t see the problem.

And yeah, the only way to point out the problem is to *point out the problem.*

Subtle hints don’t work. (Because the socialization is broken!)
Concrete, blunt examples of failure (and the more exaggerated the better) do...
...
if people can see past their own defensiveness.

So... here’s my concrete example of failing to do the emotional labor.
My grandmother is 96. She has 3 sons, all in their 70s. Two are married & retired, one is many times divorced.
The divorced one lives with her.
Or at least, he gets his mail there, shows up on weekends.

She is 96. She doesn’t drive. She’s mentally sharp, physically healthy, but she’s frail. She needs someone reliably present.
And she has three sons who just won’t comprehend this.
The one with the Power of Attorney isn’t there. He sometimes throws money at the problem.

Son 2 lives nearby. He doesn’t take her to the doctor or fetch her groceries, he doesn’t even call to check on her. I don’t know why, but he’s always been checked out.

(I am 99% sure there was no abuse beyond the corporal punishment that was normal for Boomer kids.)

Son 3, Mr Divorce, still works. He seems to intentionally take contracts that keep him away most of the week.
To be fair: he’s always been like this. A week of parenthood made him squirrelly AF.
The whole of his long-term attention span goes to work, not people.

My grandmother has two daughters-in-law, one ex-DIL, 1 grandson, 4 granddaughters.
Mr & Mrs Checked Out are checked out.
Mr POA and Mr Divorce push all of the labor onto Mrs POA, one of Mr Divorce’s daughters, and (to an extent) X-DIL.

None of these men are stupid.

It’s not that they don’t care.

But what care they have is abstract at best & fails on the procedural logic of the project management of caring for another person whose needs are more complex than “I love you, Mom.”

They arrange their lives so they are absent, to avoid the work.

My grandmother fell. She broke bones.
At 96, that is no joke.
She’s recently decided that her goal of living to 100 is not enough, and she’s aiming at 110, maybe 120. She is simply NOT DONE YET.
(This would not surprise me.)
But she will need care. Personal care.

And the work of arranging that care is beyond the scope of her three sons.
They cannot manage to do the research to figure out what benefits she has.
The one who is responsible for her paperwork WILL NOT FILE for her VA benefits.
They’re the ones who HAVE TO do this.

And that? Having done this? The research & paperwork is the EASY stuff.
She’ll need help bathing & toileting, navigating movement...
The three of them won’t even think this through.

So that’s my concrete, blunt, exaggerated example of failing to do the emotional labor.

A person’s quality of life at the end of their life should not depend on how well or poorly their sons can use Google, or how emotionally available they are. Or if they had daughters.

And yet?
That’s often what happens.
My grandmother is lucky she has my sister nearby.

And my sister has me, and I’ve been down this road — alone — with our *maternal* grandmother.
So even though I’m 1000 miles away, I can help my sister negotiate this.
But there is no magic on the second X chromosome that makes us more capable in figuring out long-term care.

I didn’t use their names.
I’m not publicly shaming them.

But if you get nothing else? Don’t be like them.
Read this.
Learn from it.
Do *BETTER*.
Try to be someone who doesn’t make the women in your life cry with frustration.
It’s a simple ask. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk/view?pref=2&pli=1

A PS: This stuff?
It doesn’t really need a therapist. For the most part, learning emotional labor just requires being conscious of it & doing it. Therapy can help build tools.

But a therapist is someone you *pay* for emotional labor. Outsourcing it does not equal learning it.

A good therapist will call you on it (because not doing the work is avoidant and irresponsible).
But then we’re back to defensiveness and avoidance.
And this isn’t really a mental/behavioral *health* problem.
It’s an equality & equity & egalitarian problem.