Mom Catches Dad *Drying* The Grass Before A Party, & The Internet Can’t Deal

A few weeks ago, I saw an Instagram reel, as did 5.5 million other folks, where a mom catches a dad *drying* the grass with a leaf blower before their six-year-old’s birthday party. Drying.the.grass.

“I’m trying to get the wetness off,” poor Jarrett says. “I’m gonna do a couple of rounds of this.”

You could practically see the steam coming out of content creator Shelby Scott’s ears as she tells him that drying the grass is surprisingly not a good use of his time.

And yet, scrolling through the comments on the post, it turns out that there are a lot of moms who have had a similar experience. Comments talk about husbands deciding to fix a propane tank in a grill even though the party is catered, or suddenly deciding to fix a nightstand in a bedroom before a birthday party (where there is exactly a 0% chance that someone will go in said bedroom).

Now, there were a few people who pointed out that his intentions were good, which is true. Kids could slip in wet grass and hurt themselves. The party wasn’t until 1 p.m., though, which means there would have been plenty of time for the sun to naturally dry everything up.

He was trying to be helpful, which I don’t want to discount. Help is awesome. But I’m just confused what goes through these guys’ heads when they see their wife running around trying to get things ready and think, Yeah, def need to change this propane tank that we won’t use. *That* will be the most helpful thing I can do in this moment.

Here’s the thing I can’t figure out. I’m going to guess that all the husbands mentioned in the comments have, at some point in their lives, hosted some sort of party without their partner. Where presumably there may have been a need to stuff some crap in a closet or put food out or ice down drinks. I won’t go so far as to surmise that everyone has had to put up decorations or organize goody bags, but I will assume that the lion's share of folks have had to execute on basic party requirements at least once.

So, why is it that seemingly all knowledge of said party basics goes out the window once there’s a partner involved?

Why is it that husbands have to ask what needs to be done before a party instead of mentally running through the pre-party checklist they know they’ve had to use before to proactively start a task that needs to get done? Or worse, starting some random task like trimming the hedges or powerwashing the driveway that in no way is actually helpful at that moment?

And yes, I know I’m making a sweeping generalization that all husbands exhibit this behavior. But I’m basing the generalization on the overwhelming number of comments on the post commiserating with Scott.

It comes back to the mental load, and the fact that women disproportionately handle cognitive labor around the house. Party planning is no exception.

As content creator Paige Connell illustrated in a TikTok video about the mental load of birthday parties earlier this year, it was probably the mom who figured out who to invite, what food to order, what activities to play, and what cake to get. It was also the mom who probably had to take time to give her partner a task to do, instead of them picking up on what might be useful.

Depressing. Are we destined to have husbands who are drying the grass off before a party forever?

The only solution I see is an annoying one, where the person taking the lead (and mental load) of planning the party writes out an exhaustive list of what needs to be done and tacks it to the fridge for everyone to see. That takes time and energy that could be funneled into going ahead and doing some of the tasks, but the trade-off is having clear expectations for what to tackle and a less likely chance of the grass getting dried off.

Is it fair? No, not really. There shouldn’t be one person in the relationship responsible for delegating tasks. But will it make party prep smoother and you potentially less stressed? Probably, as it hopefully means the important tasks will actually get done.

Partners aren’t mind readers, so while in an ideal world they’d be able to recognize what tasks had and hadn’t been done, getting some help versus none is always a win in my book. And maybe getting your partner to jump in and automatically start tackling party prep tasks is like teaching kids how to ride a bike: Once you practice over and over and over again, perhaps it becomes muscle memory, and writing out a list won’t be necessary. A girl can dream.

But hey, if you don’t write out a list, maybe you’ll at least have a funny story to share (after the party is over and your anger has subsided) about how your husband decided to clean the gutters instead of unloading the dishwasher.