The Peacock limited series “All Her Fault“ about a playdate gone wrong has elicited a major response from moms who find it both triggering and validating to see their everyday experiences appear onscreen.
Peacock is owned by TODAY’s parent company NBCUniversal.
“I’m the default parent and you’re the substitute,” Dakota Fanning says to her onscreen husband. “It’s not equal. It’s never equal.”
Neha Ruch, a mom and author who is rebranding stay-at-home motherhood, defines a “default parent” as “the person who oversees all the nuanced work — intellectually, emotionally, logistically — that keeps everything running to expectation in a household. They’re the delegator, the keeper of the knowledge.”
In most heteronormative relationships, the default parent is most often the mother. In fact, the default parent role is more closely linked to gender rather than income.
According to a 2023 study from the Pew Research Center, women’s income has been steadily increasing through the years — and it is equal to men’s income in 29% of marriages — yet the way men and women divide their leisure hours is still unbalanced. The only time women are not spending more of their free time on caregiving tasks than men is when they are the primary breadwinners ... and even then, they are spending the same amount of time on household chores.
In “All Her Fault,” Fanning rattles off some of her invisible labor to her husband. “Your time off is to do your own thing and to be your own person ... and my time off is to grocery shop, to clean the house, to cook, to do laundry,” she says. “So I don’t actually have any time off.”
“All Her Fault” isn’t the only version of messy motherhood onscreen.
“Fleishman is in Trouble“ features a spiraling Claire Danes, Jennifer Lawrence’s current film “Die My Love“ explores postpartum depression, and in the upcoming “Oh. What. Fun.“ Michelle Pfeiffer demonstrates the mental load of moms at holiday time.
“In the end, what all of these shows are doing is showing that women, when they’re not supported, can crack,” Ruch says.
‘We Don’t Want to Be Amazing Anymore’
When mom of three Eve Rodsky wrote “Fair Play“ in 2019, she thought she was simply introducing an organizational system to make domestic labor more equitable. What she discovered from the “resistance” to her book was that she was actually attempting to upend 2000 years of the patriarchy.
“Society will force us to do it all and then blame us for doing it,” Rodsky tells TODAY.com. “I think women are waking up to that.”
She points to the moment in “All Her Fault” when Fanning’s husband (played by Thomas Cocquerel) tries to give his wife a heartfelt compliment by telling her that she is “amazing.”
Fanning responds, “I’m tired of being amazing. I don’t want to be amazing anymore.”
“Women are responsible for the cognitive labor of every task but garbage for the home,” Rodsky shares. “And we don’t want to be amazing anymore.”
She’s not joking about the garbage.
Rodsky’s Fair Play Institute completed a 500 person study with the University of Southern California in 2024 which concluded that women literally take on the cognitive labor (the planning/mental load) for virtually every household task. Men assume the planning and execution (physical labor) of just one task: taking out the garbage.
The “frustrating” male response to this, Rodsky notes, is: “Just tell me what to do and I will do it.” Actor Jake Lacey tells onscreen wife these very words in “All Her Fault.”
But women are no longer accepting that type of “help.” Rodsky says, “I think we’re saying, ‘No more. That’s not enough anymore.’”
‘It Means Everything’
Clinical psychologist — and mom — Dr. Amber Thornton has written about default parents and the “syndrome“ they can often develop, which may include burnout, resentment or declines in mental health and self-care.
“For women or mothers who find themselves as the default parent, they likely are so used to being very attuned to what others are expecting of them and or everyone else’s needs that they often have a really hard time hearing what’s going on for them,” she says.
Once you assess your needs, she recommends, find support and validation from a friend or a mental health provider. Thornton says sometimes that validation can come in the form of a television show or movie because “it means everything” to see your experience reflected back at you on screen.
“When you see it externally in a different way, it just kind of gives you that confidence to know, ‘Oh, I’m not crazy and what I’m feeling is actually real,’” she says.
Lastly, default parents should take the often “scary” step of being “very bold and clearly communicating what has not been working well for you and what you feel like you need.”
‘There Is Progress’
Thornton cautions that there is a definite gap between expectation and empathy between parents. Millennial dads, however, are closing some of those gaps.
“There is progress,” agrees Ruch. “Men are incredibly, incredibly competent. They do know their kids, and they want to know their kids. I think we need to raise the bar by talking about the good and encouraging the partners who do want to be a part of it.” She mentions anecdotally that she sees 50% fathers at her kids’ school drop-off.
If you want to make change in your own home, Rodsky suggests moving from a “helpership” to an “ownership” model. Encourage your partner to take on just one household task — like dishes or sports or homework — and own the entire process from planning to completion.
But if even that seems daunting, Rodsky recommends just taking a moment to remind yourself that “your time is equal to your partner’s time, and we have to culturally learn that together. No matter how much money you make or what family structure you’re in, you only have 24 hours in a day.”
