Nobody assigned me any of this. It just became mine.
The moment I realized I'd become the default parent & what I'm actually doing about it.
Meet George, our family labradoodle. He’s the dog we got after the other dog that didn’t work out — the one we had to re-home, the one that was heartbreaking for everyone. So when we got George, I was determined. I researched the training. I learned the schedules, the desensitization, the right way to set him up for success. I did it out of love and care, not just for the dog but for my family’s peace of mind. The last thing I wanted was to rip another puppy out of my kids’ arms.
And somewhere in there, without anyone asking, without any conversation or agreement or assignment—I just became the person who handles the dog.
That’s what it means to be the default parent. Not the one who does the most. The one everyone assumes will handle it. All of it.
The food, the schedule, the walks, the vet appointments, the grooming, the boarding reservations made far enough in advance so we are not scrambling when we go out of town. I trained him. I’m the only one who reinforces the training. The family gets all the snuggles and the giggles and the antics. I get the logistics.
About six months in, I was out one evening and called my husband to ask him to feed George. And I had to tell him not just how much food to give him.
I had to tell him where we kept the food.
He didn’t even know where we kept the food.
I want to be really clear about something, because this is the part that took me a while to actually sit with.
That wasn’t his fault.
It wasn’t a reflection of him being lazy or checked out or unwilling. It was the completely logical outcome of me letting every single responsibility for this animal fall to me from day one. My family had been trained—by me—to expect that I was going to handle it. And because everything was handled, it wasn’t visible to anyone as a problem. If he doesn’t see a problem, it genuinely isn’t registering as an issue that needs his attention. The box is checked. Mom’s got it.
This is where default parent resentment lives. Not in one big moment. In the accumulation of a thousand small ones where you looked around & realized you were the only one keeping count.
I created that dynamic. Not on purpose. Not because I wanted to be a martyr. But because I stepped in at the beginning out of care and capability, and there was no expiration date on that. So it just became mine.
That is how most of it becomes mine.
Not because anyone asked. Not because there was a conversation where we divided up the responsibilities and I drew the short straw. It happens because something needs to happen, I am capable of handling it, and I handle it. And then I handle it again. And again. Until everyone, including me, just assumes that’s how it works.
The resentment, when it comes, doesn’t always announce itself.
Sometimes it’s the eye roll I cannot stop. Sometimes it’s the audible exhale when I’m already exhausted and I look over and my husband is scrolling on the couch while basketball plays in the background, and I have just picked up the kids, worked on homework, driven to practice, come home and cooked dinner, tried to get everyone to eat the food, cleaned up the kitchen, and I’m about to start bedtime. And he’s just sitting there. Because as far as he can see, everything is handled.
The box is checked.
I have to choose my battles. I can’t complain about everything. And I’ve learned that if it’s something I’ve always been able to handle, it’s not something he’s going to see as truly requiring his involvement. That’s partly a generational thing. He is solidly Gen X, I am solidly millennial & there’s only so much I can do to shift that as one person. So instead of trying to architect the perfectly equitable marriage that the experts describe, I’ve stopped trying to fight that battle and started working on something more practical.
I ask for what I need in the moment. Specifically. Articulately. Without letting it build.
“Can you handle the dishes? I’m going to go upstairs and get the kids ready for bed.”
“I’m exhausted. Can you do bedtime tonight? Those thirty minutes would make a big difference for me.”
It is effort. I won’t pretend it isn’t. But it’s working better than shooting daggers with my eyes and grumbling under my breath and then letting it explode into a conversation that doesn’t lead anywhere except short-term begrudging compliance.
Here is the thing nobody tells you about the invisible load conversation.
Every article, every post, every podcast episode eventually tells you to talk to your partner. Have the conversation. Redistribute the labor. And yes, fine, that’s true. But what they don’t talk about is your role in how it got here.
I chose to take it all on at the beginning because I wanted it done right. Because I was anxious. Because the last time something wasn’t done right, it was heartbreaking. Because I am capable, and my capability made me the path of least resistance, and I took that path willingly because it was faster and less stressful than watching someone else fumble through it.
And there is something uncomfortable underneath that, which is that being the one who holds everything together—it gave me something. Certainty, maybe. A sense of being needed. Control over the outcome. And I think a lot of us have some version of that, even if we would never say it out loud. Even if the weight of it is crushing us. The familiarity of it is its own kind of comfort.
But familiarity is not the same as sustainable. And I know what default parent burnout feels like because I have lived it—not as a breakdown but as a slow, quiet drain on everything I actually wanted to be present for.
Which means letting go of it isn’t just logistical. It’s a reconfiguration of something.
I’ve watched older moms struggle when their kids leave. Not because they’re weak, but because so much of their sense of self was wrapped up in managing everything for everyone that when the everything disappeared, they weren’t sure who they were anymore. Still managing their kids’ bank accounts and travel plans well into their twenties and thirties. I watch that and I think: I do not want that to be me. I don’t want to look up in fifteen years and realize I optimized myself right out of a life.
So. That’s the real reason I’m working on this.
Not because the labor needs to be distributed more equitably, though that is also true. But because I want to be a person, not just a system. I want to have the emotional bandwidth to actually be present with my family instead of just managing them. And I want my kids to grow up knowing how to contribute—how to be the kind of people who see what needs to happen and do it, without someone assigning it to them.
That is an intentional long game.
The rest of this post is for paid subscribers. Below I’m sharing exactly what the handoff has actually looked like in our house—the specific asks I’ve made, what pushed back, what surprised me & where I’m still figuring it out. Not the ideal version. The real one. 👯♀️
Okay, I want to be honest about where we actually are.
