Well, maybe it’s just incompetence, and not the weaponized variety.
On Wednesday, Jason Kelce admitted on his podcast “New Heights,” which he co-hosts with his brother, Travis Kelce, that he loves it when his wife Kylie Kelce bugs him to do things around the house.
“What I respond to, really well, is nagging,” the former Philadelphia Eagles center admitted 27 minutes into the episode. “Please nag the fuck out of me!”
He continued, “Tell me to get my lazy ass up, and take the goddamn trash out. If you tell me to take the trash out, I’m not going to be like, ‘Oh, I can’t believe she’s telling me to take the trash out.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’re right. I should be doing that. OK, I’m sorry.’”
Kelce went on to explain that he needs his wife to nag him because otherwise, he’ll get “caught in my own thoughts and forget to do things,” causing him to procrastinate.
The former NFL player said that his penchant for pestering likely stems from his sports background.
“I like coaching. I’ve been coached my whole life. I want people to tell me. I need that,” he said.
Kelce emphasized, however, that he would never dream of nagging his wife to do anything.
“I have never ever, and I will never ever, tell Kylie to do something around the house, because, I don’t know, she does enough,” he said of his spouse, with whom he shares four young children.
“If something doesn’t get done, it’s like, yeah, well, I should be helping out on this. Tell me what I can do because I am worthless unless you tell me that.”
Jason and Kylie Kelce attend the premiere of “Kelce” on Sept. 8, 2023, in Philadelphia.
Lisa Lake via Getty Images
Kylie Kelce, however, isn’t as enthusiastic about her husband’s “pro-nagging” stance, the former professional athlete said.
“She’s like, ‘Jason, I don’t want to tell you to do these things.’ And I’m like, ‘I get that. I’m just like, you know, it’s not going to get done unless you tell me to do it,’” he said.
Constantly reminding a spouse to do household chores is part of the mental load or invisible labor women often disproportionately carry in heterosexual relationships. It may also include organizing playdates, making doctor’s appointments, tackling the grocery list and maintaining the family’s emotions.
“Mental load, also commonly called, ‘invisible work,’ has evolved to mean the behind-the-scenes stuff that keeps a home and family running smoothly, although it’s hardly noticed and is rarely valued,” Eve Rodsky, author of “Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much To Do (and More Life To Live)” explained to CNN in 2023.
“The problem is that, while important and often meaningful, these acts take significant amounts of time, and women are doing most of them,” Rodsky added.
Rodsky said that the best way to even out the mental load in a heterosexual relationship is for men to take “ownership of a task from start to finish” without expecting their wives to be sentient calendar notifications.
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“Owning includes not just responding to ‘how can I help?’ but also the cognitive and emotional labor that each task requires — the forethought, the planning, the remembering when, where, and how to get the job done — and without excessive oversight or input from the other partner,” Rodsky said.
Although Jason Kelce may need some nudging to do his chores, he also said that he has little respect for men who complain about nagging from a partner and who fail to do chores at all.
“If you have a spouse that’s against nagging of things that he should be doing, you got a shitty husband,” he said. “Like, if he’s already had things that he’s supposed to be doing, and he’s not doing them, he’s the issue here, not you telling him to do his fucking job.”