• got kid up and dressed
• made breakfast for all 3 of us
• went to pharmacy to pick up med for kid but was too early
• went to gym
• went to another store
• went to grocery store
• went to staples because my one amazon return at whole foods magically couldn’t be returned there
• went home, wolfed down lunch, made lunch for kid
• 2hr online class
• 2 loads of laundry
• roasted squash and broccoli
• woke up kid, took him to library
• took him to merry go round
• took him back to pharmacy to actually get the drug this time
• took him home, picked peppers and tomatoes with him
• cooked dinner for tonight (chicken, peppers, onions) and a squash soup for later this week while I’m out of town
• ate dinner, cleaned up kitchen
• cooked green bean dish for this week too
• got laundry, made up bed
• folded second load of laundry
• packed for weeklong work trip

This was a little more than an average amount of work for a weekend day. By bedtime I was barely coherent and my eyes weren’t fully focusing normally. I wonder how everyone makes it work. I have some hypotheses:

1. most parents just have less work than this! some of this is my own doing; I should order more takeout food and just care less about whatever errands or laundry don’t get done.
2. most parents have about this much work but they feel better about it. maybe they feel pride in their work or joy from the kid time that gives them energy.
3. most parents have about this much work but they just have more energy to start with so it’s fine
4. all parents are just dying all the time.

Counter-arguments to each:

1. tell me which of those I should skip! The gym is optional but feels like a bad idea to skip. The class was optional, and maybe I will bail on it at some point, but it was also the easiest part of the day. I don’t know how I could skip much on laundry or food. We already order takeout sometimes, and this is all reasonably easy “stuff in a pot” type food.
2. Eh, maybe. But I had some joy when I was with my son. I was like “ah this is a good moment, he’s happy, I’m doing ok, and I’m glad he’s here with me.” But it didn’t feel restorative at all; at best like a “runner’s high” where you feel good mid-exhaustion.
3. I’m so healthy! I am the fittest healthiest 40yo man, I get 7+ hours of sleep, I eat 8/10 perfectly, I exercise daily, even all my blood tests and stuff are perfect. There is no way I’m less than the 80th percentile of parents in terms of physical health.
4. Yeah, we joke about this, but it can’t be this. I realize this is not a counterargument! But it can’t!

I was talking with a friend about how work is so different in the US, China (“996”), and France (32 hour work week); and yet, people manage to have happy lives and families in each. How do people manage to scale up and down like this?