56 marieclaire.com.au
Instead of encouraging women to lean
in, reach higher and pack more in, she
offers a refreshing perspective: stop.
Dufu, like most of us, had a daily to-do
list a mile long. But she decided to cross
off all the jobs that didn’t contribute
towards the things that matter most to
her, whittle down to the essentials
(groceries, laundry, boring stuff) and
make an almost-formal arrangement to
split tasks with her husband.
The key? She resisted the urge to
remind her husband to do things,
to micromanage and take over. When
she “dropped the ball”, Dufu says, her
husband picked it up, and she flourished
at work and life.
I just wanted basic survival. But
flourish? Oh man. Sign me up.CAN YOU SAY
CONTROL FREAK?
Dropping the ball isn’t easy for women,
Dufu says. In Australia, full-time work-
ing women do an average of 25 hours of
housework, while their male counter-
parts do 15. But we can be our own
worst enemies: we want things done our
way, and we don’t delegate and relin-
quish our responsibilities easily. For
Dufu, this meant leftovers had to be
eaten in the order of their use-by date,
the children’s caregivers needed to use
a spreadsheet to log their every sleep,
poop and meal. Her own bra and undies
would have to match, which often led to
early morning washes and leaving the
house in damp underwear.
Pfffft, I thought. She sounds like a
controlling weirdo. Next chapter, please.
But then I remembered back to that
Thursday night when I had to work
late, and I’d decided the kids would
be having fish fingers, but Phil made
them pizza instead. I freaked out.
Pizza is for Friday night!
And ... oh no. What about my psy-
cho morning texts? Phil usually does
drop-off, and I send him an average of
five texts when I’m on the bus to work.
“Tell child care the baby has a cough,
and to keep an eye on her temp.” “Don’t
forget Clancy’s puffer.” “It’s really cold,
Drew might need a singlet.”
And what about the way I always
ask my husband to do things “for” me.
“Take out the bins for me?” “Put that
wash in the dryer for me?” And then I
thank him. I THANK HIM.NOW, FIGURE OUT
W H AT M AT T E R S M O S T
Right. Give me a solution, Dufu. Now.
The first step to dropping that ball, she
says, is figuring out what matters most
to you. In other words, what can’t you
delegate? In her case it was loving her
husband, raising her children as con-
scious global citizens, and advancing
women and girls in her work.
I couldn’t see a window in my calen-
dar where I could go to Bali and
meditate on what matters most to me,
so I grabbed a responsible amount of
bourbon and some leftover Easter eggs
and got into bed to do some good
old-fashioned goal setting on my laptop.
“Loving my husband” was a
no-brainer. Phil and I were knee-deep
in the domestic trenches, and our
relationship was sorely in need of some
prioritisation. I knew I wanted to raise
resilient children who can always see
the funny side of life, and “empoweringdisadvantaged and marginalised groups”
best reflected my work goals.
Making my daughter’s Pokémon
birthday cake from scratch suddenly
seemed ludicrous.GUESS WHO’S
JUGGLING?
If I needed any more convincing that I
needed to drop the ball it came a few
days later when Phil left for a work trip.
The night before I prepped dinners and
sent texts to arrange help with drop-off.
And then I seethed. He gets to leave! Not
only leave, but leave without solving any
of the problems left in his wake.
Dufu says the best way to overcome
this common default arrangement and
become “all-in partners” is to get clarity
about who does what. Then, allocate
tasks so both parties are clear about
what they already do. We gave it a go.
Turns out Phil was in charge of
traditionally “male” domestic tasks PHOTOGRAPHED BY JASON IERACE/RELOAD AGENCY. HAIR & MAKE-UP BY RACHEL MONTGOMERY/RELOAD AGENCYCHALLENGE