Who Put Me in Charge of the Damn Calendar?

Why women are still running the social circus - and what happens when we let go!

If you’re reading this in the final stretch of December, your calendar probably looks like a crime scene. Dinners. Drinks. School stuff. Family stuff. Travel logistics. End-of-year everything. The holidays have a special way of shining a spotlight on who’s actually running the show — and for most midlife women, it’s not exactly a mystery.

Which brings me to a question I find myself asking every December, usually while staring at my phone and muttering under my breath: Who put me in charge of the damn calendar?

When I first got married, I naturally took the lead on the social calendar. At first it was simple things like dinners with friends or weekend outings. Then came kids, and suddenly the list exploded: playdates, school activities, projects, homework, doctors’ appointments, sports schedules. Layer all of that on top of my actual career, and I became the default coordinator of, well, everything.

After the divorce, nothing really changed. With co-parenting, I was still viewed as the ringmaster of the circus - part cruise director, part traffic cop, part emergency backup plan. Cute, right? Except not really.

When “Being Good at It” Becomes the Trap

Looking back, I can see how that role bled into how I approached my own work. At home I was the one who kept the wheels turning, and at the office I was the one who made things happen. That hyper-responsibility earned me a reputation for being “too execution focused,” but really it came from years of practicing control in one of the only ways I could: the schedule. Organized chaos became my safety net.

I assumed once the kids were grown, I would finally retire from my unpaid job as the human Google Calendar.

But here I am, still tracking their milestones and to-dos, and also managing the shared schedule with my partner, across time zones no less. Retraining myself to let go of that default role is harder than I expected.

Parenting adults adds another twist.

Turns out, they do not always want or appreciate the “help,” even when it comes with love.

And in partnerships, it is a balancing act of who holds what, how to share the load, and how to make sure connection does not start to feel like another item on the to-do list.

The Invisible Work We’re Still Doing

Here is the bigger truth: women tend to be socialized to keep the wheels turning. We are usually the ones who notice who has not been called, who organizes the dinners, who makes sure everyone feels seen. Men, on the other hand, tend to distance.

My therapy expert and Real Girls Guide friend Charlie Bauman has pointed this out many times. At midlife gatherings, women usually mingle, connect, and carry the conversation, while men often stay tethered to their partner, talk only to the person right next to them, or retreat into their phones. They show up, but they do not always connect. And too often, women step in to smooth things over and keep the social vibe alive.

But what if we finally put down the clipboard?

What if midlife is the moment to quit running everyone else’s circus and start curating our own?

Maybe it looks like fewer obligations, deeper connections, and the sweet spot between solitude and togetherness.

So tell me, are you still the calendar keeper in your world, or have you managed to hand off the role?

This is the kind of conversation we’re having here at the Real Girls Guide and in our book the Real Girls Guide to Midlife - raw, funny, no-BS truths about midlife… especially the ones that never make it onto the calendar. If this hit home, you’re in the right place!

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#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #CalendarCop #MidlifeExpectations #MidlifePlans

We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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