Brian Lair on WNYC and an extra happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there on this morning after.

I hope you had a great one.

And for the last few minutes of the show today, we're going to talk about one of the reasons Mother's Day still feels so necessary, such a genuine respite when it comes around. And that's the division of labor at home, right? Specifically, the persistent gender gap in housework, which almost certainly ties to the persistent gender gap in wages and employment.

It's closer to parity than maybe it's ever been in this country, but the gap is still very real.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey, among adults living in households with children under six,

women spend an hour more per day than men on

child care alone, three hours compared to two, and that's just the time we can count.

So what would it actually take to get to parity? Should that even be the goal? Jessica Gross

has been writing about this for many years these days as an opinion writer at the New York

Times, where she covers family, gender, and American life. She's the author of screaming on

the inside, the unsustainability of American motherhood from 2022 and the forthcoming mutiny,

the rise and revolt of the college-educated working class. Hey, Jessica, welcome back to WNYC. Hi. Just to note that, that is not my book. That's my colleague, Nome Shriver's book, which is great, and everyone should read it, Mutiny, but I'm not writing that. Sorry, but I don't know how we got that right.

But everyone should read that.

It's a great book.

Hi, I'm so happy to be here.

And the unsustainability of American motherhood, I can hear the heads bobbing up and down.

That book is four years old, but give us the premise to launch this conversation.

So the premise of that book in one sentence, we make American motherhood much harder than it has to be.

We have not much structural support for moms, but the housework division of labor problem is unequal everywhere in the world.

There's countries where it is a bit more equal, but everywhere mothers are doing more. And you're a mother yourself. How much of what you write about do you live

if you want to go there, but I'll note you wrote in 2021. My husband and I have a division of

household labor that is statistically speaking unusual for heteroparent. So maybe describe that.

...