Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Round Table.
Coming up, ever ask your kid to help clean up a mess,
and they genuinely look confused like they don't even see the mess at all?
Well, turns out there's a name for that: cognitive labor, and it doesn't stop with kids.
Coming up, we'll get into it, and by the end of our chat,
you might start seeing your own house and the people who live in it completely differently.
You've done this, I'm sure, if you're a parent, because every parent has done this at some point.
You look at your kids standing in a room that is a total mess:
clothes on the floor, dishes on the tables,
backpacks exploded, seemingly, in the hallway,
and you say, "Hey, can you help me clean this up?"
They genuinely look around the room, and they say, "Uh help with what?"
Well, your first instinct as a parent, perhaps, is to think that they're lying,
or at least stalling, or maybe even being sarcastic on purpose.
But there's real research out there suggesting that they're not lying at all,
and once you understand why, it stops being a story about messy kids' rooms entirely.
It starts being a story about how invisible work gets divided in every household at every age,
including the one that you might be standing in the middle of right now
with all of your family members.