When you’re really stressed, you may start making lists – simply to shake everything out of your head and get it in one place. This might help you visualize the household tasks and kid-related “to-dos” swarming around your head.
It can feel like a really good way to get organized and to snap your partner into action.
They even have a name – “Honey Do Lists” – a play on the word honeydew. But as you’ll see, Honey Do Lists don’t work.
WHAT’S A HONEY-DO LIST?
Honey Do lists originate from the romanticized vision of a woman at home with the kids, noticing leaky faucets and clogged gutters, making a list of those maintenance tasks for her husband to do when he gets home from his job that supports the whole family.
This vision is rooted in gender stereotypes that aren’t quite true – a heterosexual partnership, one partner at home (always the woman), and tasks that can only be done by a man. (Not to mention the diversity of family structures and economic realities of today.)
Home repair companies have even capitalized on the trend, offering their services to complete your Honey Do list, especially if you don’t have a “handy” husband at home.
WHY HONEY DO LISTS DON’T WORK
Even though making lists for your partner can seem like a good idea – I’m getting organized! Now he knows what to do! – they don’t work in the long-term for a few reasons. Especially if your goal is to create a more equitable division of household labor.
1. List-making makes you the Project Manager
The Honey Do list assumes that one person is in charge and one person is a “Task Do-er.” Satirical dad blogs on this topic joke about what will happen if you don’t do the list. Endless nagging, talk talk talk-ing in circles about the same subject, and an escalation from soft gentle reminders to analogies about water boarding. (I can’t even bring myself to link to this blog; just trust me.)
The whole joke is that “she’s in charge.” This joke is meant to be lighthearted and funny, even though it would be decidedly un-funny if gender roles were reversed.
The joke is a subtle, sometimes unconscious, tool to evade responsibility. If you’re not really in charge, you don’t have ultimate responsibility for the home or children. You DO have the luxury of waiting for reminders, and can shrug your shoulders when the whole ship sinks as a result of the forgotten task. (I call this “line worker mentality” – see this video for more.)
This means that Honey-Do lists keep the List Maker in a role they don’t necessarily want – feeling like they need to treat their partner like an employee or a handyman.
2. It doesn’t relieve the mental load
Lists feel like a brilliant way to get organized when your head is exploding with thoughts about play dates, soccer registration, oil changes, and buying the kids new sneakers. Unfortunately, organization ALONE – new planners, a family command center – won’t solve overwhelm.
This is because the “knowing” and the planning stay with you.
The mental load is created by noticing. Noticing that the gutters are filled with leaves, noticing that your child is outgrowing his shoes, noticing that preschool registration starts 7 months before enrollment, noticing that the toothpaste is dwindling.
Even with an excellent Task Do-er as a partner, your job as List Maker (a/k/a project manager or CEO) will keep the mental load firmly in your overcrowded brain.
3. Errors and communication breakdowns
Honey Do lists don’t work because with a List Maker and a Task Do-er, there is a lot of missed context. When you tell your partner to stop for a glue stick on the way home from work, and he comes home with liquid glue, errors happen. Without knowing that the glue stick was specifically needed for thin paper for your child’s science project due tomorrow, one partner will end up needing to make an extra trip to the store tonight.
Or it results in extra work for the List Maker. The Task Do-er calls from the store, asking where do they keep the tortillas, and do we need white or whole wheat?
When the knowing and noticing stays with you, there’s often missed communication – – or a whole lot of extra communication – – which leads to a less efficient and productive household. (Even though you thought that list would lead to more efficiency & organization!)
4. List-making keeps your family small and helpless.
A Honey Do list serves the same purpose as a chore chart for a 5 year-old. (And, to be honest, is kind of infantilizing for grown men.)
It tells the family that someone else (often a woman) has done the work of noticing and assigning the chore, because it’s ultimately her responsibility; one that she must ask other people to “help” with.
Chore lists often send a message that there will be unrelated punishments or rewards for completing or forgetting the list – because the loss of screen time (for kids) or heightened nagging (for partners) are framed as worse than the actual consequence of a household without toothpaste or an overflowing trash bin.
Until a family takes communal responsibility for the way they want to live and the values behind WHY you do the chores you do, your partner and family will not be empowered to meaningfully share this work and step into their power as competent team members who create a stable, loving, functioning home.
5. Your kids are watching
This isn’t meant to guilt you, but our kids are watching and learning. They observe, even subconsciously, the roles in the family, which shape their expectations for the future.
Who do they see running the home? Making decisions? Delegating to others? Who do they see having fun? Being a big kid? Taking orders?
Their expectations for adults are being shaped quietly. Ask yourself what kind of man you want your son to be. What kind of partner and parent? And what do you want your daughter to expect from her own future?
There’s still time to model a household that relies on teamwork and responsibility, rather than outdated gender norms.
What to do instead?
So if your seemingly natural compulsion to create more and more lists, and leave more and more sticky notes around the house won’t work, you might think – – what am I supposed to do??
The answer is to move from a delegation model (Honey do this, honey do that) to an ownership model. An ownership model helps you, your partner, and your family to take communal responsibility for the type of family and household you truly desire.
If the endless list-making isn’t working to relieve your mental load, you may need another solution. I use the Fair Play method to help families create more efficient, productive, and loving homes that are built on trust and respect; not nagging and punishments.
Contact me if you’d like to explore a proven system for relieving your mental load.
Leave a Reply