Imagine a little potbellied pig riding a unicycle into a boardroom, hopping off, waddling up to the front of a conference table and then running through a PowerPoint about a brand-new app he designed called “SwineFeld,” an AI-powered streaming service that takes classic TV shows and replaces all the leads with pigs.
You’d compliment that pig, right? Even if the idea is objectively terrible (I mean, I’d watch a remake of The Big Bang Theory with all the main characters oinking like pigs, but I wouldn’t pay for it), you’d say, “Some pig!” Even if he was unsteady on the unicycle, or he tracked little hoof prints all over the floor, you’d turn to a colleague and whisper, “Terrific!” Even if he made the room smell like an unwashed gym mat after a middle school wrestling practice, you’d call your spouse later that day and tell them that the pig you saw was “radiant!”
That’s because we’re not used to seeing pigs do that sort of thing, so even if they do it poorly, they get way too much credit for doing it all. This is a phenomenon I’ve experienced myself, on several occasions, while helping out as a room parent for my children’s elementary school classes.
As a comedian, most of my day revolves around listening to podcasts and congratulating myself with a Nutella and Fluff sandwich if I make it out of bed before noon. So, when my children reached school age, it only made sense for me to block off some of that decadently voluminous free time to volunteer as a room parent, bringing in peanut-free snacks and competition-free games whenever their classes had a party.
The reaction I got from the other parents—all moms, mind you—made me feel like a unicycling pig. They simply could not believe that a dad (a dad!) would have the wherewithal to show up to a school event, almost on time, and carrying most of what he said he would bring. They stared at me with the same mixture of surprise and fear that Professor Lambeau had when Will Hunting solved the Fourier system.
It says something that even though we live in 2025, a full 10 years after Back to the Future predicted that I would be using a Mr. Fusion and wearing my clothes inside out, so much emotional labor is done by moms that a dad doing the very minimum of it seems as rare and unexpected as a Jets Super Bowl parade.
Despite what you might infer, emotional labor does not mean “crying while tarring a roof.” It’s a relatively new term that originally described jobs that involved managing the feelings of others, but in recent years has come to refer to the household tasks that a family has to do every day to get by: things like doing chores, remembering birthdays and buying Christmas presents.
Emotional labor is basically The Force. It surrounds us … binds us … it makes sure our birthday pancakes have chocolate chips in them.
Becoming aware of it makes me think that I’ve been celebrating my wife on Mother’s Day incorrectly these last 17 years. Sure, I get her a gift and say, “Thanks for being a great mom to my kids!” and let her lie in bed an extra hour as I conduct our children in a symphony of bad breakfast cooking. But if I’m being honest, I’m only doing that because everyone does that. It’s just what you do on Mother’s Day.
What I don’t ever do is seriously consider the monumental effort it takes for her to manage the infinite demands of three children and a barely functional husband. Because most emotional labor is invisible, we don’t recognize it.
You might be a man reading this right now and getting angry, harrumphing that you do lots of stuff for the family. And maybe you do, everything varies from family to family, but be honest with yourself. If a game show marched 50 dads and 50 moms into a room and you had to a chance to win $1 million by guessing which group would best be able to answer questions like, “What’s the name of your kid’s teacher, what time is your son’s violin practice and “what does your daughter want for Christmas?” you’d bet on the moms every time, right?
So, as we approach another Mother’s Day, and you trudge your way to Costco to buy flowers for your wife, maybe also take some time to consider the five million invisible things she does every week to keep your family functioning as, y’know, a family. Acknowledge it, and refuse to take it for granted. If you’re feeling especially saucy, make a Mother’s Day pledge that you’ll take some of that burden from her.
This Mother’s Day, be a unicycling pig.
