Episode 384: Righteous Anger and Weaponized Incompetence with Laura Danger

Summary

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Forever35, Episode 384: "Righteous Anger and Weaponized Incompetence with Laura Danger"

Hosts: Doree Shafrir & Elise Hu
Guest: Laura Danger (Domestic Equity Advocate & Author)
Air Date: January 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this insightful and candid episode, Doree and Elise welcome domestic equity advocate, educator, and author Laura Danger to discuss the dynamics of equitable partnerships, the pitfalls of weaponized incompetence, and how we can collectively support healthier relationships and communities. The conversation ranges from the deeply personal—habits, sleep, hydration, family life—to the societal, examining how cultural narratives and social media reinforce inequities in domestic labor and partnership roles.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Self-Care Practices, Habits & The Year Ahead

(Timestamps: 02:01–11:31)

• Personal Habits Check-In:

  • Doree and Elise reflect on habits that, if changed, could have a positive impact on their lives.

  • Doree wishes to reduce “iPad in bed” time, realizing late-night screen exposure may harm sleep and mental health.

  • Elise wants to focus on proper hydration, noting she tends to drink tea—but not enough water.

    "When I do wake up in the middle of the night, instead of just trying to go back to sleep, I will usually read or scroll for an hour or two. I think it would be a lot better for my sleep and my mental health if I did not do that." – Doree (05:39)

• Relational Reflection:

  • The hosts swap New Year's reflection questions, such as “What gave you energy? What drained it?”
  • The importance of routines and approaching self-care with mindfulness underscores the episode's tone.

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2. Introducing Laura Danger: Journey & Passion for Domestic Equity

(13:10–15:43)

• Laura’s Self-Care:

  • Laura shares her morning walking practice, emphasizing how living in a walkable community boosts family well-being.

    "My husband and I go on, if it's nice out, like a mile and a half walk every morning. And if it’s rainy, we’ll just do some blocks." – Laura (13:32)

• Background:

  • Laura describes her path from classroom teacher to advocate. Burnout from both motherhood and teaching during the pandemic catalyzed her pivot to focusing on domestic equity.

  • Observing persistent undervaluing of care work (both at home and in the classroom)—especially during the COVID closures—spurred her advocacy and eventual book writing.

    “It was such, like, a terrible revelation of how undervalued all of that work was. I was really rock bottom. I was like, something's gotta give, and if I'm gonna survive this, I've gotta take a huge risk here and I've gotta, like, burn it all down.” – Laura (17:27)

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3. Weaponized Incompetence: Definition & Manifestations

(18:12–23:06)

• Defining the Term:

  • Laura identifies weaponized incompetence as “doing a bad job on purpose to shield yourself against accountability”—a tactic to get out of responsibilities and force someone else to overcompensate.

    “Doing a bad job on purpose to get out of something, to force other people to do something for you... It puts the other party, puts someone else, in a position of having to over-function.” – Laura (19:56)

  • She notes it's a dynamic of power and accountability, often gendered and sometimes racialized.

  • Common at home (the “helpless dad” trope) and in workplaces (the dreaded group project scenario).

    “We're socially conditioned to... not see men as capable or competent at home. We think it’s funny when they’re not. That’s what all of these viral videos and these hashtag couples comedy tropes really reinforce.” – Laura (21:02)

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4. Tackling Weaponized Incompetence at Home & Work

(23:14–29:05)

• Changing Ourselves vs. Changing Others:

  • Laura emphasizes self-responsibility: if you spot weaponized incompetence in yourself, acknowledge and work on it.

  • If a partner is engaging in it, Laura is clear: you can't force them to change; they have to want to. Consider your own boundaries and safety.

    “If you have named it and you have told the person who is doing it that it is causing harm and it continues to happen— it is costing you something— that is an abusive, corrosive, harmful behavior.” – Laura (26:30)

• Leaving or Accepting the Relationship:

  • Many women have left partnerships after realizing the persistent nature of this inequity; others remain for practical reasons but shift toward acceptance and personal safety planning.

    "I have had people approach me... be like, 'Oh my gosh, I really appreciate you talking about this. I thought I was crazy.'" – Laura (28:04)

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5. Setting Up Healthy Dynamics in New Relationships

(29:05–30:30)

• Preventative Measures:

  • Early explicit communication about invisible labor and clear division of labor is critical.

  • Laura encourages new partners to proactively discuss and detail out what “equitable partnership” means, including financial and parenting specifics.

    “There has to be more imagining, visualizing, really being explicit about what you mean by an equal partnership.” – Laura (30:18)

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6. The Need for Cultural and Systemic Change

(30:30–34:38)

• Overfunctioning & Systemic Issues:

  • Elise and Laura discuss how society conditions women (especially mothers) to overfunction and hold everything together, often to their own detriment.

    “As mothers, we’re expected to hold up the entire world, hold things together and be the stopgap when there is no child care... It’s like systemic weaponized incompetence.” – Laura (31:41)

• Community as Solution:

  • Laura advocates for “no more mediocre” not just in our partnerships, but in our communities. She draws inspiration from indigenous and communal care models—embracing interdependence, not just nuclear family self-sufficiency.

    “Every little thing that we do to really show up for our neighbors is... intimately interwoven with the division of labor in our marriages or in our partnerships or who we're cohabitating with... Valuing quality connections and showing up for each other.” – Laura (34:16)

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7. Role of Social Media in Changing Narratives

(34:39–37:50)

• Pros & Cons of Social Platforms:

  • Laura discusses how TikTok’s algorithms both validated and amplified these conversations, allowing for real-time camaraderie and connection.

    “It felt like everyone is going, yes. Oh my God, yes. Oh, thank you for saying that. I needed that to be validated for me…” – Laura (35:07)

  • Warns of potential pitfalls: rage-bait, black-and-white thinking, and the danger of conflating social media takes with real-life nuances.

    “Sometimes when you are too online and too scrolling and too activated, it can kind of cloud the actionable things that you do outside of your online life.” – Laura (36:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Weaponized Incompetence:

  • “Doing a bad job on purpose to shield yourself against accountability.” – Laura (19:56)
  • “It puts someone else in a position of having to over function or else they face a consequence…” – Laura (19:56)

• On Power Dynamics in Care Work:

  • “It was such, like, a terrible revelation of how undervalued all of that work was. I was really rock bottom.” – Laura (17:27)

• On Leaving Relationships:

  • “If you have named it and you have told the person who is doing it that it is causing harm and it continues to happen... that is an abusive, corrosive, harmful behavior.” – Laura (26:30)

• On Community Networks:

  • “It's that, like, showing up, shoveling for your neighbor, going to the local stores, and not giving all your money away to these big corporations where possible…” – Laura (34:16)

• On Social Media Validation:

  • “It can create this really empowering space of validation... but it can also sort of hammer down this black and white thinking sometimes.” – Laura (36:55)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:01 – Show themes and personal habits
• 13:10 – Laura Danger introduces herself & self-care
• 14:34 – Laura’s journey from teacher to advocate
• 18:12 – Defining weaponized incompetence
• 21:02 – How pop culture/media reinforces these dynamics
• 23:14 – Handling weaponized incompetence if you’re the perpetrator or the recipient
• 29:05 – Building equity from the start in new relationships
• 31:41 – Women’s over-functioning and systemic issues
• 34:16 – Community and collective care as resistance
• 35:07 – Social media, validation, and the double-edged sword of algorithms
• 38:00+ – Closing reflections, intentions, and gratitude for listeners

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Tone & Style

The conversation remains candid, relatable, and a mix of humorous and thought-provoking—staying true to the Forever35 brand. Both hosts and Laura blend lived experience, vulnerability, and practical advice with friendly banter.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the subtle (and not so subtle) ways inequity creeps into daily life at home and work—and practical strategies for shifting those dynamics. Laura Danger brings an expert yet approachable perspective, reminding us that care is a collective responsibility and that raising the bar for our domestic lives raises the bar for society as a whole.

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Follow Laura:

• Book: No More Mediocre: A Call to Reimagine Our Relationships and Demand More
• TikTok & Instagram: @thatdarnchat

Hosts:

• Doree Shafrir
• Elise Hu

Forever35:
forever35podcast.com // @forever35podcast

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

I get it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

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[A]

Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Dory Shafrier.

[B]

And I'm Elise Hu and we are two friends who like to talk a.

[A]

Lot about serums and today we are talking to the author and domestic equity advocate Laura Danger. You may have seen her tiktoks. She she kind of like got TikTok famous talking about domestic equity and we had a really interesting conversation with her about this stuff and it actually made me think about the conversation we were having at the end of our last mini up. Elise about co parenting. Yeah, you know where you were saying you still, you're still the one who, like, makes the plans.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You know, so Laura, in this interview, talks a lot about how women, because of the way we're socialized, we end up having to be the kin keepers. Like, we maintain the relationships or make the friends with the other parents who could carpool school or do play dates or help take your kids. And, like, that is an inequity. That's an area of inequity. And how can we equalize that? And so, anyway, I think y' all are going to enjoy this conversation. We got. We certainly got a lot out of it. And hopefully you got something from last week's episode, too, with Anne Helen Peterson. So this time of year, you know, as a lot of people are reflecting, looking back, but also looking forward, she put out some questions. Stuff like, you know, what gave you energy? What drained it? When did you feel most joyful and carefree? And one that I wanted to pose to you, Dory, because. And we can ask each other these, too, throughout the year. But, like, because this is a show in which we really focus on how to nurture our relationships, take better care of ourselves, the question for you is, what habit, if you did it more consistently, would have a positive effect on your life?

[A]

Probably less. IPad in bed.

[B]

Hmm. How much time do you spend on your iPad in bed?

[A]

Well, if I wake up in the middle of the night, I reach for my iPad.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

I never mention this on the show, by the way, but this just, like, made me laugh. I recently saw my obgyn MM for, like, my annual. And I really like her. She's younger. She had a. She. She had a baby, like, a few months ago. She's like, when I asked her for hrt, she, like, didn't even blink. Like, she. She's very, like, up on all the research and all the things. So I was saying to her, I don't know if I need. If we need to, like, change my hrt because I'm waking up in the middle of the night, like, all the time. And she was like, are you having trouble falling asleep? I was like, no, I go right to sleep. She was like, well, that's probably just stress because she said that it's more. It's like the. The indicator for perimenopause is having trouble falling asleep more so than waking up in the middle of the night. Oh. And that waking up in the middle of the night is more due to, like, stress and anxiety. And I was like, cool.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

So that isn't a thing that HRT solves, per se. It has its own solution. Right? Yeah.

[A]

I was like, damn it. I thought if I just, like, maybe took some more estrogen, I could, like, sleep through the night more.

[B]

Not that.

[C]

Not that.

[B]

Maybe some other drugs, but not that.

[A]

Right, Exactly. Exactly. But you know what? I. What, Why I bring this up is because when I do wake up in the middle of the night, instead of just like, trying to go back to sleep, I will usually just, like, read or scroll for an hour or two. And I think it would be a lot better for my sleep and my mental health if I did not do that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that is a habit that I would like to break. I also, I. I guess most of my. The habits that I'm. That I think about doing or not doing do relate to. Like screens.

[B]

Screen time.

[A]

Yeah. Like, now that I'm thinking about it, because I'm like, I should walk my dog without my phone.

[B]

Oh, I didn't know you walked your dog with your phone. Okay.

[A]

Almost everyone I see also walking their dog in my. In my neighborhood is also on their phone.

[B]

That is so funny. I don't. I wonder if it's like a West side midtown, you know, like, you know, central LA difference. That's so funny. Yeah. Or it could just be, like, a person to person different. I don't have that many thoughts in my head, and so I like, totally zone out during when I walk the dog. I just like. I kind of. I don't. I don't. I don't even have a memory of it.

[A]

Just like, oh, my God, that's amazing.

[B]

The dog. Lately, lately with dog walking, it's. It's just mud maintenance, like, looking out for puddles. I do think you can pay a lot of attention to the actual sidewalk and grass and, like, nature. If you don't have your phone, there's that.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

You would get that benefit out of it.

[A]

Totally. But, you know, I do think that, like, in situations where I'm not looking at my phone, whether it's in the shower or washing the dishes or whatever, it's like, I do come up with ideas and have thoughts that I don't have when I'm just, like, staring at my phone.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that is something that I would like to work on.

[B]

This. You are like an echo of Rob, because Rob is just like you in that when he gets up in the night, he reaches for his phone and, like, there's. And I am awakened by, like, a little orb of light in the bed, and I'm like, are you sleeping through the Night. What is going on? And because now suddenly I'm not sleeping through the night because there's an orb. There's like a light coming, coming, emerging. And he'll sometimes make like a pillow fort so that his home light doesn't block. Like, doesn't affect me. But I'm sort of like, dude, or you could just not pick up your phone could do that.

[A]

So my phone, My phone sleeps in the kitchen. So I'm not on my phone. But I am on my. I had. Which, like, I don't think is that much better. It's on dark mode. It's not great.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What about you?

[B]

I. I realized towards the end of 2025, this is like such an obvious one, but I basically, like, drink no water especially. Oh, especially like first thing in the morning because I'm off and I'm out the door and I'm often just stopping at Starbucks or stopping at some coffee place from iced tea. So I drink a lot of tea and it gets me through the morning. But I'm not drinking just water. And I'm probably super dehydrated. I'm not like, I remember a doctor, not my ob gyn, but N O B G Y n friend of mine, she was like, I'm so bad at drinking water that my pee is the color of Guinness.

[C]

Oh, dear.

[B]

So I'm not at that level, right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

But I really. I think it could be really good for everything to just hydrate better. So I do want to change that habit for sure. But we were talking in the mini about an animating question of the year, like a New Year's question. And my New Year's question has to do with, like, doing things with more depth. And so I think. I don't know which habits that will apply to more. Like, I don't know exactly which habits that's going to apply to, but I just think even thinking about it is going to probably change some things.

[A]

We will link to the original New York Times article that these questions were in because the rest of them are also just sort of interesting to contemplate. I also like this one. Is there anyone you need to forgive in 2026? But we can all think about those on our own time. And we are going to get to our chat with Laura Danger. But before we do that, just a reminder that you can Visit our website, forever35podcast.com we have links there to everything we mentioned on the show. We are on Instagram @forever35 podcast. Our patreon is patreon.com Forever35 we do our weekly casual chats, our monthly pop culture recommendation episodes. We have ad free episodes. We have a Forever 35 questionnaire. We are also doing new for 2026 casual chats on video so you can watch us and listen to us. And we will also be doing quarterly live casual chats. We did one of these in the fall and it was super fun. I think everyone we had a couple technical issues but we got there and everyone had a really good time I think. So we'll be doing more of those. We're gonna we plan on doing those quarterly. So join us at patreon.com/forever35 and you can also join the Patreon as a free member and get our newsletter so you can do that as well. And please call or text us at 781-591-0390 and email us at forever35podcastmail.com after.

[B]

The break we are going to have our conversation with Laura Danger, who is a licensed educator, facilitator and domestic equity advocate. As Dori said at the top of the show, she's been working with the Fair Play Team Fair Play, which was the group started by Eve Rodsky and has been interviewed in all sorts of magazines, InStyle, Business Insider and others as an expert on weaponized incompetence and inequity within partnerships. She's also very online. You can find her online at that Darn chat. She is a mother of two, a gardener, an audiobook enthusiast and a neighbor who believes care is a collective responsibility and a powerful force for change.

[A]

All right, we are going to take a short break and we will be right back with Laura.

[B]

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[A]

Laura danger welcome to Forever35. We're so happy to have you.

[C]

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

[A]

Well, as you may or may not know, we start off all of our conversations with our guests by asking them about a self care practice that they have. So is there Something that you do right now that you would consider self care.

[C]

I want to say the good news is I do lots of things, but one of my favorite things to do is I have a routine of walking every morning. I live in Chicago, and I thankfully can walk my kids to school, and I can walk to the grocery store, and I can walk to get coffee. And so my husband and I go on, if it's nice out, like a mile and a half walk every morning. And if it's rainy, we'll just do some blocks.

[B]

Oh, that's great. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it was transformative for our lives when we finally moved into a house where the kids could walk to school. I mean, it's such a luxury.

[A]

Good.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm going to miss it when more of them go to middle school, and that's not going to be the case.

[C]

It really is a luxury.

[B]

Yeah. Well, why don't we just start from the beginning and have you talk a little bit about yourself, your family, and your own journey to what you kind of specialize in these days, which is fighting for more equitable partnerships and families.

[C]

I am lots of things. I'm a Chicagoan. I am a wife to my partner who I've been with since I was 20. I'm 37 now, and I have two children. So I'm a mom. My kids are in fourth grade and first grade. And I am a former classroom educator. I did the thing that so many people do, which is fall into making motherhood and partnership a lot of my identity. And around 20, 20, 20, 19, 2020, freshly a parent of two, I hit an absolute wall of, like, burnout and moral injury. And I really got serious about changing how I showed up in my partnership at work, professionally as a parent. And I've spent the last several years sharing about that, advocating for that, and writing a book about that.

[B]

And if I recall correctly, you left your job as a classroom teacher around the same time that you kind of hit your emotional bottom. Is that right?

[C]

I did, yes.

[B]

What motivated that decision to leave the classroom, and what do you miss about it? Because I'm sure there was something really special about being in a classroom with kids that aren't your own, too.

[C]

I do miss it. I miss a lot of elements of it. And as I'm looking to the future, I'm actually, like, really trying to figure out how I can bridge some of these gaps. So teaching, especially as an elementary educator, is. There is a lot of overlap with the care work that we do at home and Anyone who's ever around other people's children will know that they say your name 8 million times a day. And then to come home and hear my kids say my name a million times a day, it was really overwhelming. And the demands. I mean, teaching is always demanding. Motherhood is always demanding. But through the excessive demands of the first year or two of the pandemic, the closures, the loss of childcare, we were really all being asked to put our basic needs aside to keep the world running, to keep the economy running. And, you know, the students weren't getting their needs met in the classroom. The adults weren't. Everyone was just so struggling so much. And honestly, the being a remote teacher really put me in the. The households. You know, I was. I was in the household with my students.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And I saw these families in a new way while, you know, I had a. A baby and a toddler. Like, I was just trying to keep them quiet while I did classes behind me. And it was such, like, a terrible revelation of how undervalued all of that work was. I was really rock bottom. I was like, something's gotta give, and if I'm gonna survive this, I've gotta take a huge risk here and I've gotta, like, burn it all down. That's what I did.

[A]

Can you talk a little bit about how all of this led to your book? No More Mediocre A Call to Reim Our Relationships and demand more.

[C]

Yeah. So I say, like, if anyone is going to know who I am, they probably know me from talking about weaponized incompetence. And it's all sort of the same climax of a moment where, you know, we're all in our homes and we're all finding the only connection we can find through our phones. Scrolling TikTok and I kept seeing the same thing over and over again. These, like, couples comedy jokes, these har har, har. Isn't it so funny that dads do nothing and wives do everything? And even though she has Covid, she's keeping the household together, and he's in the bathroom for 45 minutes. I feel the crunch. I'm watching women in my life leave their careers because it's just too much. I'm in the homes of my students every day, watching them struggle. Um, and then I see these jokes making light of inequity, which is making all of this worse. And I started taking these. These viral videos and talking about them and really taking them at face value and pointing out like, no, this is faking it, and getting out of something. And this is shielding yourself against accountability. This isn't funny. And I was really pissed off. And that's where my platform on TikTok first and then Instagram really grew and really shifted my education work into this more adult focused and more diverse role. And that's when I started to write this book. And yeah, so it's out in, you know, 2026 is the year of no more mediocre.

[B]

Tell us how you define weaponized incompetence. You kind of painted a picture for us.

[C]

Doing a bad job on purpose to shield yourself against accountability. Doing a bad job on purpose to get out of something, to force other people to do something for you. It could be being willfully ignorant, willfully careless. And what it really does is it puts the other party, puts someone else in a position of having to over function or overcompensate or else they face a consequence. And oftentimes that is emotional backlash that's gonna happen. Or it could be really, you know, the kids are neglected. That's how I define it.

[B]

How did you notice this showing up in your own life and then how have you resolved it? If. If you have.

[C]

Yes. Okay. So it has mostly shown up in my life professionally, like at the group project problem. Yes. Yes. And I feel like, you know, we've all been in that situation before where you're in a really tough spot because if someone else isn't pulling their weight, it's going to look bad on you and you're going to face the consequence. You're going to get punished at work, passed over. And this is often a gendered dynamic at home, but it's very much a gendered dynamic at work too, where expectations are not the same for different parties. It's also a racialized dynamic. It's really a dynamic of power and accountability and whose comfort we are supposed to or encouraged to protect. We're socially conditioned to. To again, like protect the feelings of or not see men as capable or competent at home. We think it's funny when they're not. That's what all of these viral videos and these hashtag couples comedy tropes really reinforce is that men are dumb dumbs and we really shouldn't expect them to know what to do at home. And so if you do expect them to do something or you get upset when they fail, it puts all. You're. You're the nag, you're the miserable shrew. You're totally. All your righteous anger gets downplayed.

[B]

So what do we do about it?

[C]

If I feel ashamed that I am really dropping the ball pretty regularly. I have to deal with that and communicate about that. I would be using weaponized incompetence if I if I lashed out at my husband for mentioning it or if I expected him to overcompensate from me without asking for help or giving it a good try or being creative. So it really is I I think the way out of weaponized incompetence or the alternative that lets that thrive is creating a culture of creativity accommodating for yourself, not taking the default cultural standard and instead meeting your needs. But if someone is using weaponized incompetence on you, you can't you are not going to be able to convince them to stop. They have to do that.

[A]

So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.

[B]

Hey y', all, it's Elise and this new year I really want to cook at home more. I need to save money and I want to cook more interesting foods at home. HelloFresh brings back the joy of the kitchen with recipes that feel good and taste good. Night after night you get to choose from 35 plus high protein weekly recipes including new Mediterranean and some GLP1 friendly options. Everything is made with wholesome ingredients like sustainably sourced seafood and 100% antibiotic and hormone free chicken. I love that we can also get seasonal produce that's delicious like stone fruit or corn without having to worry about getting to the store. Because when dinner tastes this good, nothing hits like that. Home cooking. Go to hellofresh.com forever3510fm to get 10 free meals plus a free Zwilling knife which is a $144.99 value on your third box offer valid while supplies last free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. It sounds like you're answering this question of what we do about it if we are the ones that are using weaponized incompetence. But what if it's happening in our homes and it's our partners, often male partners and cishet families that are the ones who are using it, Essentially saying like I can't go shopping for shoes or something like this right Because I don't, I never do that. Or some, some, some task or. I think there. Your book talks a lot about like mental and cognitive load and the sort of kin keeping and maintaining of friendships and maintaining of social bonds and making sure that you see other couples or other families or friends regularly. That's often an area where heterosexual men aren't, you know, taking the lead in their own families. So if. So flip that question around. If it's somebody in your home, someone else in your home, either your partner or say your teenaged or grown child who is using weaponized incompetence against you, how do you make a shift or begin to make a shift in your own family unit?

[A]

And just to piggyback on that, if, if you're saying that the person who's using weaponized incompetence, it has to come from them, I mean, why would they, what's, what's the incentive for them to change?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

What's in it for them?

[A]

Yeah, like it's been working for them.

[C]

I've worked with a lot of women whose partners will be doing this. They will be like really competent and thriving at work, able to, to coordinate meetings, able to wine and dine a client in order to show up for them, remember the kid, their kids names, but somehow can't do that at home, can't put the effort in at home. I've seen that if you're being put in that position, then the only thing that you can do is focus on yourself. And that would be figuring out what are my needs and are they getting met, keeping yourself and your family safe. And a lot of times what it has looked like is trying out something like fair play, giving it the good college try and introducing systems like that. Let's meet once a week, let's get the invisible out here. And a lot of times people are thinking, if I sit my partner down like that, it's going to become a huge fight, an emotional explosion. That might be a good time to open up your own bank account and think about plans of how you can survive and thrive. Maybe not in that relationship, if it's possible. Like thinking about a safety plan. Because every, every expert that I have talked to has agreed that this is a behavior that causes harm. If you have named it and you have told the person who is doing it that it is causing harm and it continues to happen, it is costing you something that is an abusive, corrosive, harmful behavior.

[B]

I'm listening to what you're saying and I think some people might be a little bit Shocked to hear it. If they're very comfortable in their relationships and comfortable in their relational dynamics. Do you feel like some of your work has actually led women to leave their partnerships?

[C]

A hundred percent, yes. And I. They haven't left good ones. Nobody is coming to me and saying, oh, I really regret it.

[A]

You.

[C]

Oh, you, you blew up my life. Never. I, I have had people approach me in my life. You know, I'm out at a store. I've had someone approach me and be like, oh my gosh, I really appreciate you talking about this. I thought I was crazy. Or you know, my, my mother in law was telling me that like all I needed to do was like give him a chance to learn and kind of like be softer about my approach and there.

[B]

So yeah, kind of kill the messenger tribe instead of like addressing the actual root problem.

[C]

Yes. And I know people who have stayed and done it because of financial reasons, because there is a companionship element or there are reasons that they do stay. However they have shifted to acceptance of the situation and then keeping themselves safe or again starting the bank account, getting the degree, figuring out what this is going to look like safety wise down the road.

[A]

For people who might be in newer relationships where like the dynamic hasn't quite settled yet, but they want to kind of head this off at the pass.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

As it were. How do you suggest navigating that with a partner?

[C]

What I wish I would have known is that there is room for balance at the beginning and talking about what the invisible labor is, acknowledging it. Both of you getting involved from the jump and establishing your opinions and your norms and your expectations as you build. And I think like a great example of this is so many people I know get into a partnership and they say like, I want a family and I want both of us to work. Or and I want, I'll stay home and you work and then we'll trade. That's really great to say that out loud, but there isn't. You need to know the details. Like what do you mean we're going to have a family? Where is the money going to come from if we lose housing? What's going to happen? The cost of child care is massive. When are we going to change places? There has to be more imagining, visualizing, really being explicit about what you mean by an equal partnership.

[B]

Yeah, I like the clear communication. I do follow the thinking of St. Brene Brown in that clarity is kindness. I also think though, and just to turn the lens on women and moms is that I think there's a Lot of women, because of the way we're socialized that sort of tend to over function. I know, I know a lot of friends who when their kids were very small were like, oh, I would never leave my kid, I would never go out of town and leave my kid with my husband for the whole weekend. You know, because there's this some like we almost have a socialized assumption that they might not be capable. So I also think it's really important for women in these partnerships to trust, right. And let things, let their partners sort of learn and be willing to go away and be willing to have other people do things differently than, than we might. And so that's another part of it. I, I don't know if you addressed it in your book, but the, the, the part of it in which we can, we can be feminists in our own home by doing less is another way to approach it.

[C]

Absolutely. And I let, I love that you talked about this over functioning because it's like system wide. You know, we as, as mothers are expected to hold up the entire world, hold things together and be the stopgap when there is no child care, when it's really hard to get the social our needs met. Mothers end up stepping in or are forced to step in. It's like systemic weaponized incompetence. And the other part of it is our partners, regardless of gender, should be welcomed into these practices and these spaces in this labor. And even our little nuclear units are not enough to meet all of our needs. And so I love that reframing of even our friendships really matter. The chosen family or the family of origin can really matter. And creating those networks of care that expand just beyond you.

[B]

This kind of gets to the third part of no more Mediocre, which is your more affirmative vision that gets to a place that's better for all of us. And it really harkens back to a lot of indigenous cultures and the ways that we used to live all around the world, just community centered and having a village. And so I'd love for you to talk about what your recommendations are there in community building for more systemic ripple effects.

[C]

I think it's really cool. Some of the people that I interviewed for the book have more expansive looks at what it means to love and be in relationships. And that's really the thesis of the book is no more mediocre doesn't just mean like raise the bar for your partner. It means that we've been oversold on some, some happily ever after or if you follow a certain path, you will get your needs met. You will feel fulfilled. And it's not rooted in truth. There's. It doesn't leave any room for quality, for a consideration of how we are all unique and how, you know, there is no one right way to do things. I live in a neighborhood where I can walk my kids to school in the morning. I. And that means that I know the people on my block. I know the kids on my block. When a parent has to go to a doctor's appointment early in the morning, they can drop their kid off on my porch. They come in and eat cereal, and I will walk them. They will get there safely, and we don't even have to be best friends. It's that like, showing up, shoveling for your neighbor, going to the local stores, and not giving all your money away to these big corporations where possible. Like, every little thing that we do to really show up for our neighbors is. Is intimately interwoven with the division of labor in our. Like in our marriages or in our partnerships or who we're cohabitating with. It really comes down to valuing quality connections and showing up for each other.

[B]

Love that.

[A]

Before we wrap, Laura, we just want to talk a little bit about how you really broke out on TikTok. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you feel like social media does or doesn't do to help in this effort to, like, change the status quo of women over functioning or, you know, as you talk about, I think in one of your most viral TikToks, like, not being the super mom.

[C]

Yes, the super mom algorithms are wild. They are so wild. When I first got on TikTok in 2020, I think a lot of people who got on TikTok in 2020 really loved the algorithm there because it put you in contact with other people who were like you and you were able to respond back to them. You needed, like, someone make a comment, and you could create a video and respond right to them. And it felt like having a conversation about topics and being able to bounce around. And it was really a beautiful social place to be. And that had a lot of power because it felt like everyone is going, yes. Oh, my God, yes. Oh, thank you for saying that. I needed that to be validated for me. Oh, wow. I've thought that. And I. I just didn't know if I was alone. And it can create this really empowering space of validation of other people from different perspectives, get to share their voice about it. Different looks at a similar topic, and that is still Something that can be really wonderful about social media. And also it can. When the algorithm is not so connective, what it can end up doing is taking rage bait and hot takes and riling people up without encouraging them to do something different. And sometimes when you are too online and too scrolling and too activated, it can kind of cloud the actionable things that you do outside of your online life. You end up ignoring the blurry lines. Like the. My partner might be avoiding this at home. Like maybe he's avoiding this thing not because he wants to punish me, even though everyone online is saying that he hates me, my husband hates me because he won't do this. It's. Maybe that is clouding my judgment and making it hard for me to see how we actually have like an attachment wound and we haven't repaired something and I can't see what's right in front of me. So it sort of like hammers down this black and white thinking sometimes. But I love it in general and I think it is so powerful in like, especially in the space of taking what is super popular and breaking it down and giving like additional context of here's what's really going on. It's like analyzing art and that's, you know, that's really just powerful, culture changing work.

[B]

Fantastic. All right, Laura Danger, thank you so much for joining us. The book is called no More Mediocre and it should be out now.

[C]

Yeah. Get it wherever.

[A]

Well, that was definitely a thought provoking conversation.

[B]

Yes. Thank you, Laura, for coming on. Yeah. And these are. I'm so glad that she has this ongoing tick tock too where she's bringing these things up too. So you guys can follow her at that darn chat if you aren't already.

[A]

Yeah. All right, Elise, we had some intentions from before the break, so these are like three weeks old, but I think we can definitely talk about how they went for us. We both had the same intention, which was family time. I can say definitively that I got a lot of good family time with my. Good with my immediate nuclear family and my extended family. And this week we talked about how, you know, I don't think either of us really set like New Year's resolutions per se, but I do feel like I need some sort of like plan for 2026, because 2025 was like such a shit show that I feel like I need something going into 2026 where I'm just like, this is where I would like to be at the end of the year. Because I never really think like that. And I. And I think I need to now, so I. I hope to do that this year, this week. Okay, that's great.

[B]

That's a really actionable intention. Awesome.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

My intention going into break was also family time. Boy, did I get family time. In fact, Rob was making fun of me because Rob was like, you were becoming that mandated fun mom where you're like, we need to watch a movie. Everybody needs to get in the living room and watch a movie now. We are going to have fun. And he was like, you don't need to do that. Like, the kids are like, not in your way. They're just chilling. Like, why are you trying to make, you know, fun happen? Just. Just be.

[A]

That's so funny.

[B]

But it's because, like, I have such a limited amount of time where I can give them. I. I don't have anything else going on, and I can, like, give them a bunch of attention. And it turns out every day of the year, and whatever continent you're on, your family is the same family, and they have the same personalities. And so this I always have to think about and remind myself when we travel, because it's like, hey, why aren't you guys. Why aren't you guys more warm and loving towards each other? And it's like, no, these are the same three siblings. They are in LA as they are. You know, these are the same three siblings in China as they are in LA or in South America as they are in la. And so I kind of had that misunderstanding, or, like, my brain played a trick on me and thought, oh, well, we have this time off from school and from work. Like, now we're gonna spend all this time together and have a great time. And Rob was like, they're still the same people. Like, why? So anyway, we did spend a lot more time together than usual. Like, more meals and no less driving around. But it wasn't like, you know, we were a Hallmark movie or something. In fact, it was a lot of. Just making fun of me. And then, yeah, like, everybody. I'm real. A real unifying force. Everybody making fun of mom and my millennial cringe. And then they're all like, I'm an elder millennial. They're, like, all constantly mocking me.

[A]

Oh, my God, that's really funny.

[B]

Then my intention. I'm also going to do a very actionable, like, practical intention, which is I need to kind of take a clear look at my finances, because at the end of the year is when everything kind of piles up, because I'm not a W2 worker. I'm like a free independent. I'm an independent journalist and so and then I have to. And then I feel like I'm catching up at the end of the year instead of having a clear idea of what I'm going to make and what I usually spend. And so I'm gonna try and like map that out. I know there's lots of tools and things for this, but even just jotting it down generally, so I kind of know. And if we need to cut expenses, I need to cut those, like cancel subscriptions and all that. So I'm going to try and do that.

[A]

I love that. All right. This is also the episode where we thank our Patreon supporters at the five and ten dollar levels. Thank you so much for your support. The show literally could not exist without you. So we are so grateful to each and every person who supports us on Patreon. We hope you enjoy the content there and we would love to have your [e-mail] Forever35. You also get your name read on the podcast each month as a thank you. So thank you to the following Jess, Sarah Liska, Fiona Castro, labrune, Felicia Justice Biro, Jasmine De Jesus, Christy, Caitlin H. Katie, Ashley Taylor, Teresa Anderson, Nicole Gass, Maya Barbara C. Amy, Amy Schnitzer, Megan Shelley Lee, Sarah Boozy, Allison Cohen, Susan Burseth, Melissa McLean, Fran Kelsey Wolf Donne, Laura Eddy, Jettel Aptee, Valerie Bruno, Julie Daniel E. Jackson, Katherine Burke, Amy Maseko, Liz Rain, jdk, Hannah M, Julia P, Maddie o', Day, Marissa, Sarah Bella, Maria, Diana Saint, Cocoa Bean, Laura Hadden, Josie H, Nikki Bossert, Juliana Duff, Chelsea Torres, Tiffany G, Emily McIntyre, Stephanie Germana, Olivia Fahey, Elizabeth A, Christine Bassis, Jessica Gale, Zulima Lundy, Carolyn Rodriguez, Carrie Gold and T. Katherine Ellingson, Kara Brugman, Sarah H, Sarah Egan, Jess Combin, Jennifer Olson, Jennifer hs, Eliza Gibson, Jillian Bowman, Brianne Macy, Elizabeth Holland, Karen Perelman, Katie Jordan, Sarah M. Kate M. Josie Alquist, Tara Todd, Elizabeth Cleary and Monica. Thank you so much again. We're so grateful for you. And Forever 35 is hosted and produced by me, Doria Shafrier and Elise Hu and produced and edited by Sam Hunio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our network partner is Acast. Thanks again everybody.

[B]

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