The day-to-day of keeping a group running is absolutely essential but isn't usually very flashy or exciting. It's so normal and utilitarian that it often goes overlooked and unacknowledged. Such Boring, but Practical work is termed "unpaid labor" in the context of a family. Under capitalism, it has increasingly been converted into paid labor. Paid or unpaid, this category of low status work is overwhelmingly done by women.
Part of the low status is that such work typically doesn't involve a ton of technical training or specialized skills. If Alice was out for a day, Bob probably could fill in and complete at least some of her work. He'd do it less well and less efficiently than Alice, for sure, but — unless there's a trope like Men Can't Keep House or Bumbling Dad at play — he probably wouldn't be completely at a loss, the way he would be if he tried to fill in for, say, an accountant. A competent person generally has done some of these tasks themselves at some point in their life. The value of Alice's work isn't that other people can't do these things, but rather that Alice doing them frees up the people around her to spend their time on other — usually more glamorous — tasks.
Such work is usually performed by characters like Apron Matron, Team Mom, The Reliable One, and Girl Friday. These women are prone to feeling put-upon and taken for granted. It's not that she fundamentally dislikes her role or wants a different one — she'd be happy to do this if only the beneficiaries of her labor would acknowledge all the work she puts in and properly thank her. If she's especially pissed off about it she may decide A Day in Her Apron is in order.
Beleaguered Assistant is its professional, androgynous Sister Trope.
Examples
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Films — Live-Action
- A Christmas Story: Downplayed. In one scene, Ralphie's adult narration points out that his mom never got a hot meal to herself because she always had to stop and give everyone else their food first, including second helpings before she could take her own bite. This whole scene serves to highlight how she's generally overworked and ignored by her husband and sons. However, Ralphie's opinion of her changes after she downplays the fight he had with the local bully and then changes the subject, preventing his dad from getting angry about it — something both he and his brother were afraid of.
- Malcolm & Marie is one long fight between the eponymous couple. Their grievances are focused mostly on their creative careers, but at the end, Marie gives a long monologue of the things that her boyfriend Malcolm ought to thank her for—but hasn't—and many of them are household, caretaking things.
Marie: Thank you for dumb shit, like buying toilet paper and milk and organizing the shit with the movers. Thank you. Thank you for doing the shit I don't wanna think about. Thank you for making me coffee in the morning. [...] Thank you for doing the laundry, and picking out my suit tonight, and making my ungrateful ass some mac and cheese after I forgot to fuckin' thank you.
Jokes
- A father of three comes home from work to find his wife's car in the driveway with one of the back doors open, the house front door ajar, dishes and food all over the kitchen, the den a complete mess, and the tv blaring while all the kids are in the backyard loudly playing in the mud. Since his wife is nowhere to be found, he panics and runs upstairs to see if she's alright. He finds her calmly resting in bed, still in her pajamas and reading a book. Dumbfounded he asks, "What's going on?" She replies, “You know how every day you come home and ask me what in the world I did? Well, today I didn’t do it!"
Live-Action TV
- All in the Family: Edith Bunker was the glue of the family. She cooked. She cleaned. She kept everyone on task and in one piece. Her husband, Archie, often took her for granted and tended to refer to her as "Dingbat". Not that Edith couldn't be a force to be reckoned with when truly riled. That said, Archie would be the first to come to Edith's defense if someone else belittled her, and no other woman could tempt him, as he was committed to Edith.
- Crashing (UK): To a group of wacky friends crashing in an abandoned hospital, strict and responsible Control Freak Kate is the Team Mom. Her role as the one who takes care of things is largely self-assigned, but she also feels rather put upon by how everyone turns to her to fix everything.
Kate: Oh okay, fuck you all! Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, I'll fix the danger bath, put up another shelf, set up dates for my fragile work colleagues, before running to work—where I don't even have a receptionist—and yes, I am supposed to be sorting that out as well!
- Derry Girls: Mary is an Apron Matron who runs the Quinn-McCool household, consisting of her husband, two daughters, Cloudcuckoolander little sister, and niece. In episode 3.02, swamped by simultaneous requests from everyone, Mary reaches a boiling point. She takes a step back from the housework and lets them all manage without her for a day.
Mary: Oh shut up, shut up, shut up! Will you all just please shut up? I am sick of it! I am sick of the boiler [gestures to her husband] and the vouchers [her sister] and the fountain pens [her daughter] and the bastardin' Pop Tarts [her niece]! I am sick of the fact that I am responsible for everything in this house, you useless, useless shites! Enough is enough. You can all sort yourselves out for once!
- Everybody Loves Raymond: This is a continual grinding frustration for Debra Barone. She doesn't especially resent being a homemaker for Ray and three kids, but a large part of her increasing crankiness as the series progresses is that Ray takes her for granted in this role, and twice deliberately sabotages her attempts to get a modest role for herself outside the home. note His motivation is to avoid taking on a greater share of domestic chores, which he is perfectly happy for Debra to perform.
- Family Matters: In "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad House," a stressed-out Harriet gets fed up with all the work she does around the house being taken for granted by her family and declares herself on strike, refusing to do any cooking, cleaning, or laundry, and she sticks firmly to it until everyone's learned their lesson, no matter how filthy the house gets or what kind of clothes the kids have to wear to school.
- House: In "5 to 9", the show follows Cuddy in her job as the hospital's administrator. It turns out dealing with House's antics is barely a fraction of her workload, yet another stressful distraction from keeping the hospital running. Some dubs rename the episode "Wonder Cuddy".
- The Upshaws: Regina has an angry explosion at her Bumbling Dad husband and kids on this topic in episode 1.05.
Regina: All I've been saying is that I wanted to go back to school, is that I wanna get a better job with more money. I'm trying to better myself, to make life better for all of us. But you ungrateful, selfish asses, y'all don't care. Y'all... Y'all just want what you want, when you want it. 'Cause "Regina got this, Regina will fix it, Regina will hook it up." Well, you know what? Regina's ass is out. She's done! Y'all are on your own! You hungry? There go the bread! Thirsty? There go the faucet! You don't want the faucet? Get the hose outside!
Web Original
- SMPLive: Poor Angel does not get the thanks she deserves for dealing with the shenanigans of the boys on the server. Best showcased when she serves as Poke's lawyer for a Frivolous Lawsuit, and he calls her a "terrible lawyer" despite giving her basically no case to work with, and her trying her best to at least give him some defense, only for him to self-incriminate.
Western Animation
- Arthur: In "Thanks a Lot, Binky", Binky is angry at not getting thanked and decides to give up doing anything good for others. He then has an Opinion-Changing Dream in which his mother (whom he'd previously never thanked for doing the chores) decides to give up being nice and becomes a neglectful parent. The next morning, he writes his mother a card to thank her for her hard work.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Early on, Sokka takes his sister Katara — a consummate Team Mom who's been holding their family together since they lost their parents — for granted. This creates much frustration on her part, and her responses varied from "refusing to mend his pants" up to "accidentally shattering an iceberg".
- Black Dynamite: In the episode "Honky Kong," Honey Bee is growing visibly annoyed at how little the guys appreciate all the work she does to take care of the whores and orphans at the Whorephanage. So, Black Dynamite suggests that they spend the day appreciating her... mainly by doing activities that Black Dynamite and the guys want to do.
- Family Guy: In the episode 1.04 "Mind Over Murder" sees Lois expressing her frustrations over not being able to do anything to relax for herself after spending most of the day cooking and cleaning and not getting any thanks from the family for her efforts.
