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.