Fair Play

This book assumes all families look the same - I think there are three sentences in the entire book acknowledging not all adults have children (but these are great habits to get in place before the babies come) and one sentence acknowledging that some women might have female partners or live with roommates or by themselves instead of with a husband. I don't remember seeing any sentences acknowledging the existence of single moms, divorced moms, couples who don't combine their finances, etc. This book might be helpful to the target audience, but it definitely won't work for everyone who “has too much to do” and the heteronormativity made this an exhausting read.

I really think that if the filler had been removed, and that this should've been included with the card set. Most of it is explaining how the game actually works, and giving detailed descriptions on the cards, when I ended up ordering the cards after reading this book, I assumed the cards would have these descriptions on it. They do not. To be totally honest look up “Fair Play free Notion template” and that template has everything you need to get started. You don't really need to read this book at all unless you prefer a book format to understand how to fully play the game.

I also love the overall idea of this, but I really disagree with the authors tone, and the way that she goes about a lot of the method. This sounds like something that would be really important for a couple on the brink of divorce to hear, but if you're in a healthy, loving marriage, that shouldn't be that difficult or that hard to break up these tasks.

One of my biggest complaints is the fact that she will not budge on asking for help with the execution of tasks. She recommends pre-planning and having the other person completely take over the card or asking for assistance from people other than your spouse. First of all, this is very presumptuous to assume that you would have help outside of your marriage, your spouse is your partner, and they should be the first person to ask for help not the last. Second of all, there are times where the execution of a task does not make sense for the person holding the card. For example, if my husband is in charge of auto, but he won't have time to get to the DMV because of his work hours he may be able to set up my appointment and do all the things for me and let me know when something is due but I'm gonna be the one that's going to the DMV. I shouldn't have to take over the 50 other subtasks that fall under auto in order to make that work.

Again, all of this in theory is a great idea, but it just isn't realistic in normal, everyday life. I think it's best to take the ideas from this book and the card set and apply them in a way that makes sense for you and your family . If you feel the need for this much structure, I highly recommend marriage counseling over Fair play.

We've yet to actually “play” so I may upgrade or downgrade my rating based on how useful this winds up being in my life, but so far I'm a fan.

Most of the complaints I've seen about this book have been based on a voice/audience mismatch, and less about the substance, so I'll address that first. This book was written by a cisgender heterosexual woman in a marriage with children. Both spouses work in a white-collar capacity. The audience is primarily women in similar circumstances, though I think there is definitely value in the book for mismatched career levels and/or stay-at-home parents (especially if that arrangement arouse out of necessity rather than choice). She has a couple of drive-by references to LGBTQIA+ relationships, and if you are in a traditionally-arranged dyad I think this book is probably just fine as long as primarily husband/wife language is not offensive. (Now that I think about it, I guess there's not really any reason the game couldn't be played by more than 2, though most of the psychological references and dynamics are in relation to husband/wife arrangements.)

You may need to approach this with a “take what you like and leave the rest mentality,” but I think it's fantastic. There is one major area I have to adjust for my circumstances, and one minor one.
Major: She talks a lot about the prioritization/value of men's time over women's time. An example is when something goes wrong with one of the kids at school, it's often the “shefault” parent who has to adjust her day to go get them. This is totally true, in my experience, but I also have a milspouse who has an employer that is arguably even less flexible than your average similar civilian job. Granted, I think the reality of how flexible Uncle Sam is at his level is somewhere in between “parity with my job” and “as inflexible as he says” - and I think what I've gleaned from this book will help us suss that out some. (When we were both active duty, I was still the shefault, so there's that.)
Minor: We live a rural lifestyle and a couple of the cards needed to be adjusted accordingly. She doesn't address adding cards in the book, and I would be wary of doing so without considering whether a job that ought to belong to one person is being split unnecessarily. In our case, there's a real delineation between “pets” and “livestock” with different conception, planning and execution (CPE) needed. The book also has “lawn/plants” as one category, but for us it's more like “lawn/snow” and “plants/garden” based on the relevant CPE. So, I added two cards to account for those aspects of our lifestyle that differ from the ‘burbs.

I'm going to have J read this book, after some deliberation. I warned him that it's written for women, and that there are parts of it I could see making him feel defensive. However, I considered the book as I was reading from a male perspective and don't think it is man-bashing or patronizing. Some of the statistics are difficult to internalize as a woman living them; I suspect they'll also be difficult for men who don't actually intend to be part of the problem.

It did occur to me that older children could potentially be fully dealt cards, but for now I think the best way to do it is keep the cards held by parents so that an adult is accountable for the ultimate completion - even if it includes delegation as a kid chore.

Though we have yet to fully deploy the system, the book has already given me a new context for thinking and talking about recurring issues. I also like that it calls me out on a lot of my own bad behavior, which is one of the selling points I gave to J in favor of giving it a shot. After doing a lot of reflection on the cards, I realized I don't even want him to take over that much more. What I'd like is the cards that nobody is really holding to be owned by somebody - anybody - so they aren't in chaos. I'd also like the invisible work to become visible so we both feel seen for the things we do that aren't often recognized or appreciated. And I'd like for us to have good discussions about what matters and why, so we can reinvent the wheel less and reduce unnecessary conflict. The book left me hopeful for the potential in all these areas, so thus far I'd absolutely recommend it.