The Silence Tax
The Silence Tax documents what you pay to stay quiet.
The cost of watching incompetence get promoted while you do the work.
The price of pretending your partner is an equal when he can't find the ketchup.
The exhaustion of being the only one who sees the disaster coming and the only one who prevents it.
Time. Energy. Sanity. Collected in currencies you never recover.
No advice. No repair. No community. Just recognition of what this costs.
New episodes publish every Tuesday and Friday.
Contact & Legal
For business inquiries only: editor@thesilencetax
All content © 2024-Present Brown & Associates Ledger LLC. All rights reserved.
This podcast is not affiliated with any employer, organization, or individual mentioned in episodes.
Episodes
25 episodes
After the Feast, the Bill
Black Friday morning. The house is quiet. The holiday ran smoothly. And the bill arrives anyway. November didn't end for you. It just paused long enough for everyone else to have pie.
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Episode 24
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6:55
You Serve. They Give Thanks.
The Thanksgiving that collapsed under ten pounds of potatoes and one bad decision. You serve. They give thanks. The ledger shows the difference.
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Episode 23
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7:48
The Pre-Approved List of Thanks
The gratitude you organize for everyone else. Three weeks into National Gratitude Month, you're coordinating thankfulness for people who are grateful they don't have to plan it.
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Episode 22
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5:34
The Measurement Addiction
We've become addicted to measurement. But the measurement never ends. Every solved problem reveals three new problems. That's the silence tax: doing unpaid labor for your own surveillance and calling it self-awareness.
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Episode 21
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8:53
Poor Life Choices
Forty people in their sixties share regrets. A man reframes their survival requirements as poor decisions you should learn from. That's the silence tax: being blamed for surviving.
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Episode 20
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13:59
Joan Called About Your Past Due Body
Yur body maintenance expires while you manage everyone else's healthcare; the system renames your triage as past due obligations you're failing to coordinate.
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Episode 19
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14:35
The Specific Loneliness of Being Right All the Time
You just see what's actually there instead of what people wish were there. The gap between what you see and what everyone else wants to see? That's where the loneliness lives. Right again. Alone again.
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Episode 18
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6:45
You Know How She Is
His clear yes on every decision. Then the office door cracks open and you hear it: "My therapist says I don't feel safe disagreeing with her."
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Episode 17
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6:42
Halloween Doesn't Just Happen
Halloween doesn’t just happen. It’s planned, bought, sewn, managed, and cleaned by the same person every year, the one who never gets credit for the magic she made.
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Episode 16
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5:41
Hens in a Henhouse
The meeting where he forgot you were in the room, or remembered and didn’t care. “You know how it is with a bunch of hens in a henhouse.” The comment, the chuckles, the cost of staying seated.
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Episode 15
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4:39
The Invisible Architecture
The work stays invisible even to the children who watched it happen. They remember the outcome. Never the labor.
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Episode 14
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10:29
The Motherhood Clause
They told you motherhood would complete you. It did. It completed the silence. You love them completely and you're drowning in their needs. Both are true. But culture only accepts one truth at a time. The motherhood clause doesn't expire when t...
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Episode 13
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7:17
Hope It Sticks
She didn't want children. Then she did. The shift wasn't vindication or awakening. It was ordinary change. But every stranger, relative, and medical professional treated her timeline like evidence in a case she never agreed to defend.
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Episode 12
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7:04
Three Weeks
Someone stole The Silence Tax three weeks after launch. Gutted it for parts. Sold it back as workshops and psychological safety frameworks. They didn't discover The Silence Tax. They became it.
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Episode 11
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4:50
The Death That Made You Calculate
Some names don't require math. This one does. A month of calculating whether one word is safe. The prohibition isn't on grief. It's on expressing it. This episode documents the isolation between human response and required silence.
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Episode 10
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4:44
This Isn't Help. That's the Point
Someone asks: "When are you going to tell us what to DO about it?" The answer reveals why The Silence Tax exists.
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Episode 9
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10:00
Why Boundaries Are Just More Work
Everyone says you need better boundaries. What they don't mention is who has to build, maintain, and defend them. Forever.
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Episode 8
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4:42
The Violence of Advice
"Have you tried..." The three words that make exhausted women homicidal. Why every piece of advice you receive is actually violence disguised as wisdom.
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Episode 7
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6:42
When I Started Keeping Score
Friday’s meeting slipped through your fingers until you opened Excel at midnight. Row by row, you rebuilt who said what, when. The shortfall you flagged. The nod he gave. The action items he walked out with that had started in your head....
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Episode 6
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7:53
When I Realized No One Was Coming
You know this call. The school, the daycare, the babysitter. Someone sick, someone hurt, someone who needs you now. You were booked solid until 6, but twenty-three minutes of calls to find backup yielded nothing but excuses.This episode ...
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Episode 7
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4:57
The Night I Stopped Auditioning
He helped. Technically. But somehow you're still fixing everything while he gets credit for trying. This episode documents the moment you realize you're not being treated like an equal partner who belongs...you're being evaluated like a candida...
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Episode 4
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7:40
How the Silence Tax Works
The ledger has rules: Document specific moments, measure real costs, record what silence bought. No solutions, no hope, just receipts. Because what gets written down can't be gaslit away.
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Episode 3
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8:47
Why The Silence Tax Exists
You can't name certain realities without consequences. You can't speak specific truths without becoming the problem. So we track the calculations here instead.
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Episode 2
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5:20