As Christmas approaches, it’s inevitable that you recall what the season meant for you as a child and what it’s like for you now as an adult. If you’ve grown up with cherished memories of holiday get togethers and fun family traditions, then you probably had a reliable kinkeeper in the family who regularly organized and worked behind the scenes to put them all together.
Kinkeeping refers to the physical and mental labor required to maintain family connections and preserve traditions while also ensuring the well-being of relatives and close friends. While anyone can be the kinkeeper, social and cultural norms often assign these tasks to the women in the family. The role is often met with resistance and stress resulting in burnout, often because the role is expected than assigned.
Is it finally time you embrace your role? But first, here’s how you know for sure if you’re the family kinkeeper:
You prepare Christmas shopping lists, buy presents, and wrap them for everyone else. You are aware of everyone’s food preferences or allergies before cooking or ordering food.
Similarly, everyone in the family knows that if there’s something they need to know or to buy, they can always run to you for help. If there are unexpected guests that will lead to shortage in food, the family knows that you will step in to fix the situation.
You take note of everyone’s moods and well-being and checks in on them. You notice if someone is upset or stressed out and you reach out to make sure they have support.
Family members know that they can count on you to listen and give advice whenever they need it, holiday or not.
You automatically organize family events and your mobile number and social media accounts are the default RSVP for everyone attending. You remember everyone’s birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and other milestone dates. You’re often the one who tries to smooth over any tensions and initiate conversations to resolve arguments.
Kinkeeping can be a meaningful and fulfilling role to play. Unfortunately, it requires sacrificing time and energy for other things. You see this in mothers who complain about their “mom brain” and how they are so forgetful when, in fact, they are just mentally overloaded. You see your aunts or older sisters anxious and exhausted when they are overwhelmed by the family expectations placed on them to make sure that all events are running smoothly and that everyone is happy and well-fed.
The stress of all the duties and unspoken expectations placed on the shoulders of family kinkeepers take a toll on their mental health and it’s time that other members of the family recognize and support them.
After organizing an event, inviting and making sure everyone shows up, preparing food and presents, you may even see your family’s kinkeeper washing dishes and cleaning up after everyone while also accommodating everyone’s requests for dessert or entertainment. Their tireless efforts may look like a superpower, but it may actually stem from feeling guilty about refusing requests for their input even if they are already overwhelmed.
To help, you can be the one to say “no” to giving them additional tasks or to help redirect the work load to someone else. You can support the kinkeeper in figuring out and communicating their own comfort level with the role while helping them delegate the tasks among the other family members.
Kinkeeping doesn’t have to be the role of one person. You can make new traditions by dividing up the work. You can do this by offering to cook while other family members tackles gift wrapping, childcare, cleaning, and decorating. You can propose taking turns organizing and hosting events. You can teach kids to take responsibility, and to reach out to each other for support.
Sharing kinkeeping duties can actually become new bonding experiences for the whole family.
Your grandmother might set aside portions of everyone’s favorite foods to make sure that they all have something to bring home, but when was the last time someone did something similar for her? Have you ever thanked your aunties for calling, reminding, and following up with everyone to make sure we all attend the Noche Buena dinner?
When you are all unwrapping presents and sharing funny stories, make sure that kinkeepers are also relaxed and happy. After all the work that they’ve put into making good memories for the whole family, they deserve to sit down and enjoy all the fruits of their labor so they can finally embrace their very special role in the family.