Men Vacation. Women Collapse.

Men vacation.

Women collapse.

It’s all about the job description.

In my case my husband has one title in life: comptroller. And so he prepares for his some time off by getting ahead on his paperwork, delegating to his underlings, and creating an out-of-office autoreply on his email or voicemail. His only remaining chore is to gather up some clothing that is already pre-organized by me to put in the suitcase. His only worry—like most men—is about himself.

And technically women do the same thing—but for a few caveats. The key difference is, women have multiple job titles. In my case I am household manager, laundress, head of preventative disease control, animal care specialist, elder care advisor, housekeeper, shopper, chef, secretary and child psychologist. I am everyone’s personal assistant. And so with all those titles, getting ahead of my work is not just time consuming it is also completely exhausting. I am also without any underlings to delegate to not to mention that I am forbidden to have an out-of-office auto-reply  on my iphone. So I may not worry solely about myself like my husband or any other man, I must worry about everyone else along with me.

So when the other day a best friend questioned if she was a crazy person for paying all the bills, getting every stitch of laundry done, cleaning the house, food shopping for her 20-something year old and setting up her dog and Mom for the week—not to mention packing and organizing the boarding passes, car service and hotel confirmation---prior to her vacation—my response was simple: No--you are not a crazy person at all. And if not you—who?