One of my preferred strategies for unlearning is to ask a new question. For example, review the two questions listed below:
Question #1: What prompts women to swap good jobs for days spent watching "Dora the Explorer," stirring mac 'n' cheese and mediating play-date squabbles?
Question #2: What prompts women to have children and then hire someone else to spend more time raising them than they do?
The two questions are addressing the issue of balancing professional/mothering responsibilities but how one asks the question can cause people to see the issue in a far different light and may help some people unlearn their underlying assumptions about the nature of balancing work and parenting.
(Note: Obviously, the unlearning angle can and should be taken a step further by challenging the assumption that women are — or should be — the only partner to experience this issue. In many relationships, men do assume equal parenting responsibility and, in those cases where they don't, perhaps they should.)
