Relish Delegation

When this overworked mom asked her family for support, she got resistance, rebuttals, and, eventually, results.

- Amy Wilson

THE OTHER PEOPLE who live in my household tell me I'm “just better” at things like wrapping gifts, remember- ing passwords, knowing whose laundry is whose—tasks most women stuff into the crevices of their attention, add- ing a Lego set to their online cart for an upcoming birthday party while nodding along on a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Over the last few decades, the idea that women are better multitaskers has been generally accepted as scientific truth. A 1991 study found that women’s brains contained more “white matter,” which facilitates connections among the brain’s processing centers. Some social scientists suggested this might make task-switching less difficult for women. Within the larger Mars/Venus con- conversation of that time, there were two genders, opposites in every way—it seemed obvious. Our traditional ways had been fossilized over millennia because that was just how men’s and women’s brains had always operated!