Gaslighting women at the holidays: 'Your children don't need everything to be perfect!'

Why we love to pretend the work women do at the holidays doesn't matter.

“Your kids want your presence much more than a bunch of presents.”

“Those dishes in the sink can wait till tomorrow. Your kids need you today.”

“You don’t need to finish everything at work before you take your kids to the play.”

“Your kids need time with you more than you need time to rest, garden, or take care of the house.”

“Your husband is right that the kids need play more than they need a perfect house.”

“Let them stay up another hour! You’ll never have another day like today.”

“If you’re not treasuring every moment, does anything you do even matter?”

Every holiday, these are the messages women hear. It’s not just friends and family, either. The Internet is full of influencers and life coaches gleefully telling women that if they just stop doing all the work, somehow everything will be ok. Don’t worry about buying presents! Don’t plan the family holiday! The vacation will plan itself! Your family will magically show up with food!

It might sound nice to tell women to focus on meaningful time with their kids instead of “meaningless” activities like cleaning, Christmas cards, and buying presents. But the hidden message to women—and to the men looking for any excuse not to participate—is clear: This work is unimportant, and so there’s no need for men to participate in it.

If you’ve ever found yourself feeling awful when you read “inspirational” messages about slowing down or doing less at the holidays, it’s because these messages are often patriarchal tools designed to devalue your work and give men yet another excuse to do nothing.

So what’s going on here? And how can you push back when people feed you this bullshit?

Friends, families, and communities play an important role in convincing women to stay in exploitative relationships. Often, a woman finally realizes things are unfair, only to find that no one in her life supports her decision to demand better. So I’m writing a series, Gaslighting Inequality, on the ways society gaslights women. You can find the rest of the series here.