Caregiving is gendered. We made a cultural contract long ago that feminized caregiving, and the law reflects those antiquated norms. This means that regardless of your sex, gender, or voting history, when you make the decision to care for your young children in a full-time capacity, you are subject to the same set of social stereotypes and legal precedents that have historically been reserved for women. That is why it is imperative to be informed—pre-plan, have raw, open conversations with your spouse, and—by all means—do not forget how important and capable you are. Hours That Count can help you feel empowered and worthy even in the moments when you feel you’ve forgotten you are smart, driven, and deserve to take up space in groups of professional adults.

In her 1989 book The Second Shift, Arlie Hochschild studied 50 couples, all of whom were members of the paid workforce. Her observations of the couples were focused on the window of time between arriving home from work and putting the children to bed.

Her observations revealed that women, on average, spent an extra month of 24-hour days per year in their parenting role. She called this unpaid labor a “second shift.”

She argues that, despite the successes of the Women’s Movement — including more women in the workforce — the expectations and gender norms within the home remained mostly unchanged. She found this was true even in homes that seemed to prioritize a more egalitarian system of caregiving. The result, she discusses, is not more freedom for women, but rather, a “stalled revolution.”

Studies show that although women are graduating from university and entering the workforce at higher rates, the division of domestic labor has largely fallen on women's shoulders. In fact, across the world, a staggering 76 percent of women shoulder the labor of domestic responsibilities, including caregiving. In a 2025 University of Massachusetts study, published in Sociological Science, the concept of “gendered cognitive stickiness” is introduced and demonstrates that although women’s active participation in the paid workforce has increased, thus creating a more equitable distribution of household responsibilities, women continue to suffer from the cognitive burden of caregiving at much higher rates than their spouses.

“Twelve years later the memories of those nights, of that sleep deprivation, still make me rock back and forth a little bit. You want to torture someone? Hand them an adorable baby they love who doesn’t sleep.” – Shonda Rhimes