My partner is a firefighter. So you can imagine how well it went down when he came home from work to find a pot I’d left on the stove, boiled dry and smoking black. I was mortified. Apologetic. Trying to piece together what the hell I’d been doing that morning that meant I could leave the house without turning the element off. Clearly I needed to slow down. Pay attention. Get my shit together.
Then it happened again. But before the next pot, there was the hair straightener. He sent me a photo while I was at work. I’d left it switched on, resting on my slipper. Yes, a slipper. And yes, it was smoking. By the time my son came home to another pot on the stove, I was starting to wonder what was going on with me. My son casually mentioned there’d been other times he’d got home and found it still boiling. Not quite smoking yet. So, this had been happening more often than I knew.
By now I was really starting to worry. I consulted ChatGPT and it replied with perimenopause and stress as potential reasons. When I look back at what life looked like around then, there was a lot going on that I hadn’t really clocked.
Let me explain. I was sharing my car with my two sons. My seventeen-year-old had recently got his restricted licence, and more and more frequently, I was allowing him to use my car if he dropped me at work and picked me up when we’d agreed. Except sometimes I was dragging him out of bed to take me, or waiting around for a late pickup. Then my older son’s truck was stolen, and he needed to get to work too. So for about five weeks, my usual routine went out the window. Every day I was working out who needed to be where, whether I needed the car for mahi, rearranging my day so I could make hui. Could I have put my foot down sooner? Absolutely. But at the time I was just trying to make it all work.
And there I was, heading into work with four or five bags. Laptop, handbag, food, gym gear. Everything I might need for the day, because I couldn’t just pop back to the car. I remember laughing at myself, thinking, “Well, this is what success looks like.” But even before I got to work, I’d already done all this thinking and organising just to get out the door. Who needed the car? How was I getting home? What did I need to take? Looking back, that’s the part I hadn’t really counted. I was counting the bags. I wasn’t counting everything else I was carrying.
What gets me is that, in my professional life, I spend a lot of time thinking about how people work well together. Making space to hear what’s getting in the way. Getting clear about who’s doing what. Checking whether the way we’ve always done something still makes sense. I’ve had plenty of learning and development around this stuff. But at home? How often do we actually stop to ask those same questions? My partner and I have been parenting and running a household for three decades, and whilst some of our tikanga have evolved as the kids have grown, there are lots of things I’m still doing as though they’re little kids.
It all came out on a trip home from Palmy. We were having a bit of a “make fun of Mum and her useless memory” sesh. The running around, the housework, the thinking ahead. I needed them to understand that I wasn’t coping as well as it might have looked. The conversation got heated. There was kōrero about spoiling the boys and not setting boundaries, and I felt defensive. There were two parents in this car. I wanted us to work out together how we’d got here, and what needed to change.
There are things both my partner and I could do differently. I want to leave room for compassion for both of us. Two people doing the best they can in different seasons of their lives, who can still miss what the other person needs. But I also want us to be able to say when something isn’t working, before it comes out sideways on a drive home.
We got onto the washing. Sometimes two or three loads a day, and somehow I was the one keeping track of it all. When I went away for work, I’d come home to baskets full. Someone might have done a load, but the rest would be there waiting. Then there’s the clean washing pile, which has its own bloody spare room. My partner said, “Just stop doing the washing.” And this time, I actually did. I got a double basket, wrote my sons’ names on it and told them, “I’m no longer doing your washing. You’re responsible for it now.”
And you know what? They’ve been doing it. Once or twice a week. No complaints. I can be sitting in a meeting, see the rain coming down outside and leave their washing entirely out of my thoughts. No message to send. No reminder to give. No load waiting for me when I get home. Such an ordinary thing, a basket with their names on it. But, fuck, I feel lighter.
The boys hadn’t needed me to keep carrying that job. I’d kept doing it, they’d kept having it done, and on we went. Once it was clearly theirs, they got on with it. One small change, and a whole lot less thinking for me. It does make you wonder what else we’ve left running on an arrangement nobody remembers agreeing to.
We’re a work in progress. There are Sunday chores that still need reminding about on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They’re making their own meals more often and next up is cooking something the whole whānau can eat. So please don’t imagine I’ve suddenly got this all sorted. But I feel lighter. And I’m learning to let something be unfinished without automatically making it my job.
Looking back, there were signs before the pot. Losing my shit over a plate left on the bench. Having very little patience left for the people I love. Carrying on because everything was still getting done, so surely that meant I was coping. That fucking superwoman vest. Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten I could take it off. Give myself some aroha before I reached the end of my patience. Let the washing sit there. Let imperfection be part of my story too.
And I keep coming back to what we make time for at work. We invest time, money and whole days into building great team cultures. We learn how to listen, reflect, get clear about responsibilities, work through tension and support people to do well. We expect to revisit things when the team changes or the workload grows. Yet in our own whare, we can carry on with the same arrangements for years.
I’m curious about how we can use some of that learning at home. Make space for a kōrero about the week we’ve had. What felt good? What was hard? What does a successful weekend look like for each of us, and how do we make room for that together? Some structure, sure, but some playfulness too. A chance to hear each other while we’ve still got the patience to listen.
So that’s something I’d like us to explore together. What tikanga do we want in our whare now, with the people we are and the lives we’re living? How do we each take responsibility for the work and for looking after one another? I want us to shape that together, rather than me coming home with another system to explain and remind everyone to follow. I want our boys to experience that shared responsibility here, and carry it into the homes and relationships they’ll build themselves.
So far, we’ve got a basket with two names on it. The rest is still a work in progress. But it’s made me curious about what else could shift if we gave the way we live together some deliberate attention. How does this work in your whare? What have you learnt elsewhere that’s helped you at home? And if you’re the woman reading this who’s carrying five bags and mentally checking whether there’s washing in the machine, I fucking see you. You and me both, babes.
