04/27/2025
THIS is the book every new heteronormative parent needs to read when they have a baby. These are the issues the come up in 100% of my postpartum sessions with patients.
I read Jancee Dunn's book the night after I'd hidden in the bathroom, silently sobbing into a towel so I wouldn't wake the baby—or my husband, who was sleeping through his third consecutive night shift that I was somehow pulling alone, despite us both working full-time. I wasn't crying from exhaustion. I was crying because I had just calculated how much child support he'd have to pay if I left him.
This isn't a book. It's a goddamn mirror reflecting the darkest thoughts of every mother who's ever fantasized about abandoning her family at 3AM, not because she doesn't love them, but because she's drowning and her partner is standing on the shore checking his phone.
1. The Maternal Rage You Feel Isn't Mental Illness—It's Mathematics
Dunn ruthlessly quantifies what most parenting books politely ignore: the raw numerical inequality of modern parenthood. When she tracks hours spent on childcare (her: 35 weekly, him: 9) while both work full-time, it's not anecdotal—it's violence. The liberation comes in recognizing your homicidal thoughts aren't hormonal or "crazy"—they're the rational response to systemic theft of your time, sleep, and identity while someone who claims to love you watches from the sidelines.
2. The "Mental Load" Isn't Just Unfair—It's Killing You Cell by Cell
What devastated me wasn't just Dunn's account of doing everything—it was her scientific exploration of what invisible labor does to a woman's brain and body. The constant vigilance of tracking every family need doesn't just make you tired—it restructures neural pathways, elevates cortisol, and accelerates aging. When her doctor finds her blood pressure dangerously high while her husband's remains perfect despite their supposedly "shared" stress, the physiological consequences of inequality are laid bare. You're not imagining it—this imbalance is literally shortening your life.
3. Your Husband Isn't Just Annoying—He's Been Systematically Trained to Disable You
The book's most chilling insight comes when Dunn investigates how her competent, intelligent husband develops "strategic incompetence" around domestic tasks. Her research reveals it's not accidental—it's subconscious warfare honed through generations of male socialization. The weaponized helplessness ("Where does this go?"), the learned blindness to mess, the performance of bumbling assistance—these aren't personality quirks but sophisticated tactics to maintain privilege while appearing supportive. I'll never hear "just tell me what needs done" the same way again.
4. The Fights You're Having Aren't About Chores—They're About Human Worth
Dunn's epiphany comes not in cataloging tasks but in recognizing the existential question beneath them: whose time and peace matter? When her husband unthinkingly preserves his exercise routine while she hasn't showered in days, when he sleeps through night wakings because he "has work" (as though she doesn't), when he requires praise for basic parenting—the underlying message is that his humanity outranks hers. This reframing transformed how I understood my own marriage's breaking points.
5. You're Not Control-Freaking—You're Preventing Catastrophe
The section that left me breathless was Dunn's dissection of "maternal gatekeeping." Her therapist suggests she's "not letting go" of child-rearing tasks—until she documents the actual consequences of her husband's cavalier parenting: a toddler left in soiled clothes for hours, forgotten medications, a child nearly hit by a car while dad texts. The gut-punch: sometimes the "perfectionist mom" narrative masks legitimate terror of what happens when the backup system fails. I've never felt more vindicated about my inability to "just relax."
6. Romance After Children Requires Blood Sacrifice—Usually Yours
Dunn's unflinching examination of post-baby intimacy problems goes beyond fatigue to something darker: the resentment poisoning attraction. Her account of faking interest while mentally calculating how many hours of sleep she's losing made me physically flinch with recognition. The breakthrough comes not through date nights or lingerie but through radical redistribution of invisible labor. Her documentation of how performing oral s*x feels easier than asking for help with dishes exposes how parenthood turns s*x into another form of female emotional labor.
7. The Solutions Aren't Cute—They're Nuclear
What elevates this beyond primal-scream therapy is Dunn's scorched-earth approach to reconstruction. She brings in hostage negotiators. Corporate efficiency experts. Therapists who specialize in high-conflict divorce. The message is clear: half-measures will fail. Her implementation of NASA's black box system for critical communication during arguments saved not just her marriage but possibly her husband's life. This isn't about better chore charts—it's about dismantling and rebuilding the entire operational system of your relationship.
This book should be handed to every couple in the delivery room, not as celebration but as warning. Dunn doesn't offer gentle suggestions for reconnecting with your spouse—she offers battlefield triage for the psychological trauma that parenthood inflicts on females and marriages.
BOOK: https://amzn.to/3S5kqIl
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