The white glove test won’t make you feel better

“I’d prefer if you were less protective of me,” says my 16-year-old son, entering my room. In the pre-pandemic days, I called it My Room, but as it became a space for evening binge-watching and frequent visits from my husband and son (not always preceded by knocking), I don’t know if it can be called that anymore. Considering the introduction of further restrictions (a lock and key?) I ask: “You want me to take less care of you?” I like being cared for, I could have more of that.

My son gives me a sceptical look. “Are you sure?” I say, deciding to check. “Then show me what it’s like to care too much,” I suggest, nestling into my chair as though it were a deck chair by a hotel pool.

He doesn’t need to be asked twice. “My God! Isn’t the sun blinding you? It has to be. Wait, let me move your chair. Aren’t you cold? I’m sure you are!” he concludes. “Wait, I’ll get you a blanket! And your phone’s probably dead,” he says, rushing to my desk. “Oh God, eight percent, it’s about to die. What if you get an important phone call?”

“All right, Szymek,” I say, slightly offended because I was looking forward to something more pleasant. “I get it.”

But he is just warming up: “Why don’t I make you some tea? Coffee? You look drowsy, have you slept at all?”

Now I am feeling increasingly irritated and completely neglected. I don’t want tea, I don’t want coffee and in the end, even if I wanted either of them, I’d pretend I didn’t.

MUMMY KNOWS BEST

On the gazillionth day of the so-called pandemic, thanks to a short scene played out by my teenage son, I discovered the obvious truth: overprotectiveness has little to do with the one we care for.

It’s about us: about our totally insane need to be useful to someone, about the fact that we have nothing else to do, about our fear that if we just sit in a chair and mind our own business, the world will end, taking us with it as the first victims.

For the other person – the one we are subjecting to the terror of alleged care – it is, paradoxically, an experience of abandonment. You tend to this person with so much effort, but they are not part of it.

“Have some chops. Come on, chops are good for you, even if you don’t know that, even if you think you’re a vegetarian, a chop’s tip-top! You think you don’t like it, but mummy knows better that you like it! Eat another, then you’ll come around!”

We consider ourselves indispensable and we think others see it that way too. “You want to make dinner? And when have you cooked anything besides boiling water for tea? Oh no, wait, you didn’t, you burned the kettle that time!” “You know what, I’ll go to that mechanic ‘cause he’s gonna sell you a load of rubbish and you won’t even know what he’s talking about.”

EMOTIONAL LABOUR

How come it’s always you that cooks? Or, on the contrary, how come you never cook? How come you’re the one doing the washing or how come you barely know where the washing machine is and, generally, you keep confusing it with the dishwasher?

In many households and in many relationships, the following division has been established: one person “puts the house in order” and the other “helps” or “doesn’t help”. The work of the one who keeps the house in order is not just about the activities themselves – a big part of it is what Gemma Hartley called emotional labour, which is the total effort, including mental work, needed to ensure that our homes function well enough.

This “well enough” means butter in the fridge and the child’s homework done, a review of everything that is to be done today and tomorrow, and, as a special bonus, the well-being of the household members – for example ensuring that people don’t argue and, if they do, that they make up afterwards. People who get things in order often burden themselves with the emotionally draining management of the household members’ emotions as well, often forgetting about their own.

For each of these roles, there is a scripted set of certain behaviours and ostensible benefits. The person who gets things in order often plays the role of the Sole Order-maker. Because of that, such a person feels that they are the only one who can handle it – as if hoovering the bedroom, placing three eggs in some water and turning on the hob, wiping the window or watering basil in a pot were things that a holder of a PhD in social sciences, who sits in a chair next to you, reviewing the statistics of coronavirus cases, surely couldn’t do.

The Sole Order-maker may throw a wobbly, accusing me of simplifying and trivialising the complexity of their tasks and arguing that in their household you don’t just eat hard-boiled eggs, but, for example, the gluten-free quiche with olives and cheese that they had yesterday, and that – which is undoubtedly true – I have not seen with my own eyes how much their partner can mess up while seemingly doing the simplest of activities. If they burden themselves with emotional labour as well, the Sole Order-makers not only cook, clean and remember the dates of anniversaries and birthdays for the others in the household, but also justify one member’s behaviour to the other, explain to the father what the son meant, defend the son from the father, defend the father from the son, mediate until the desired agreement is reached.

When the Sole Order-makers assume this role, they also acquire the right to whine. Although some Sole Order-makers can be quite creative in this matter, the majority are limited to a dozen or so proven sentences, drawn randomly by the lottery machine.

You can find ready-made sets of such complaints on Youtube in songs by a young man Mateusz Ciawłowski, who sings to the tune of a famous hit as a 50th birthday present for his mum: “You trip over it but you won’t pick it up!” he sings. “You wear it once and throw it in the washing! All I do is clean up after everybody! If it's not cleaned soon, I’ll throw everything out the window. I’m not a maid. Just wait till your father comes home. Don’t touch that! That’s for the holidays. Which part of the sentence do you not understand? Not in a minute, now! It’s lunchtime, not breakfast-time!”

While listening to these “songs”, we laugh with a mixture of relief and surprise that some boy we don’t know says almost word for word what we used to hear in our family homes and, even worse, what we often say ourselves.

The roles we have assumed with such ease were not written by us. We repeat the same old nursery rhymes that our parents used to stammer out a generation ago.

The Sole Order-maker puts everything in order, does things for others and often moans. The Non-/Helper waits for instructions as if they didn’t understand that dirty objects need to be washed and things that have fallen need to be picked up, endures the whining and sometimes takes the initiative, although without much conviction. Then they go for a beer, if only on Zoom, and complain to their friends about the Order-maker. Everyone dances the dance agreed upon, usually without words. And if we have children, they watch this dance – in a few dozen years, they will most likely re-enact a similar version of it in their own lives.

DUMPLINGS COMING BACK TO HAUNT US

And I’m sorry but that’s where the word “freedom” comes into play. Is that what you want? How can we not only continue to play our roles, but also consciously choose them? And above all, how can we move in our relationships beyond the responsibilities that we dislike so that we become sources of strength, joy and levity for each other, which we long for now more than ever?

What was that? I’m exaggerating? The bar’s set too high? It has to stay this way – like in Lao Che’s song – what are we having for breakfast today, pouting or grouchy problem overplay, what are we having for breakfast today?

Although we have the geraniums watered, the child gets a fresh pair of socks every day and the digital school diary buzzes to notify us of new remote achievements, if our relationships are out of balance, if different levels of the division of responsibilities are deeply asymmetrical and both or at least one of the parties considers it unfair, it will never work out.

And no white glove test will make us feel better. If one side does everyone else’s work, cleans, comforts them, serves them wanted and unwanted hand-made dumplings, the other side will have a false belief that this is the way it’s supposed to be and then wonder why the Sole Order-maker suddenly starts raging.

The Non-/Helper is also deprived of the opportunity to learn any of the things which the Sole Order-maker does for them – just as you can’t learn how to ride a bike without getting on one, you can’t learn to cook without cooking and you can’t reach an agreement in a domestic fight without taking joint responsibility for reaching this agreement.

The simple psychological truth is that giving more than one has to give doesn’t pay off – and what’s more, at least in a long-term relationship, taking more than we are offered doesn’t pay off either. One day those handmade dumplings will bring a sour taste to our mouths.

Therefore, balance – unstable, but better than no balance at all – is beneficial both for the seemingly disadvantaged and the seemingly privileged in the relationship; both for the one who trips over the parcel box left in the middle of the room, and for the one who either throws the box away or has to encourage someone else to do so.

This requires determination on both sides – the Sole Order-maker must confront their need for control, their perfectionism and the fear that cowers behind them; they have to learn not to do the work of those whose socks lie in the middle of the room, not to reconcile those whose raised voices come from another room, not to draw even lines in the notebooks of children who can only draw curvy lines for the time being.

If the Non-/Helper wants change, they need to face the following truth – you’re not doing your job, man. Someone’s doing it for you. And slowly, they might start taking responsibility. Then, in this new normality, we might all become closer to ourselves and to each other.

Author: Natalia de Barbaro

• Psychologist and trainer, she conducts workshops for women entitled “Own Room” as well as communication and leadership training for the company House of Skills. She has published two books of poetry – “Ciemnia” (“Darkroom”) and “Tkanka” (“Tissue”).

Article was published in "Magazyn Świąteczny” of "Gazeta Wyborcza” from 15-16 May 2020