Maggie Crowley
Just Carry the Damn Water
Inspired by Maggie Crowley episode
Maggie's 'carry the water' principle—do the unglamorous work that needs doing—is basically 80% of parenting, isn't it?
Maggie Crowley says sometimes product management is just unglamorous work nobody wants to do. No strategic insight. Just carry the water.
Parenting is the same job, but the water is everywhere and it's not even water.
You're not discovering insights about developmental milestones. You're wiping milk off a light switch. You're doing the fourth load of laundry because someone discovered that pouring juice on their own pants is hilarious. You're packing snacks into little containers like you're running a tiny, ungrateful catering business.
There's no promotion for this. No one's sending you a Slack message like "Great work on that mysterious sticky spot."
The strategic part of parenting? That's maybe 3% of the actual job. The other 97% is just carrying the water. Except it's juice. And it's on the floor. And somehow also on the ceiling.
