Whenever a new study comes out about the time men and women spend on childcare or household duties, we rarely hear anything that we don’t already know. Both men and women want to spend more time with their kids, everyone spends too much time at the office and women do demonstrably more of domestic work than men despite our social and political gains.

But here’s something new and interesting. Men, it seems – despite doing less work than their female partners – feel quite confident that they’re in equal relationships. (Perhaps we need a new word a la “mansplaining” for this phenomenon: man-blindness? Chore goggles?)

According to new research by the Pew Research Center, “There’s a significant gender gap in how mothers and fathers describe their household’s distribution of labor.” Essentially, Pew found that whether or not a woman works outside of the home, and no matter how many hours she works, mothers report doing more household labor than their husbands. Fathers, however, are about 10% more likely to say that their domestic chores are shared equally in the relationship.

Why is there such a disconnect among men about how much they’re doing around the house? Perhaps a better question: how can we get men to understand that they’re not doing nearly as much work as they think they are?

The answer may lay in the fact that women are much more likely to do mental labor. More than half of the families that responded to Pew noted that it was the mother who was in charge of children’s schedules and activities. It’s easy to keep track of who does the vacuuming or washes the dishes; the same isn’t really true for who is keeping a running tally of when the toilet paper will run out or when to schedule the kids’ next dental cleaning.

Given the disparity, it’s not so shocking that while only 20% of fathers said family chores make it difficult for them to advance their careers, more than double the percentage of women said the same thing. It’s more difficult to strategize about a promotion or a work project when you have a million other things – who is picking up the kids today, who needs new socks – on your mind.

I’m glad to see we’re making such strides on closing the gap of tangible chores that parents can share – that’s a great thing. It’s equally as promising that every year, more and more men say they want to spend more time with their children and are interested in a better work-life balance, just as women are. It points to an important, and necessary, cultural shift.

But if we can make progress at splitting the chores, we can certainly do better at making sure women are not the default parent who is “managing” the family. And while it’s wonderful that men want to take more of a role in the domestic sphere, they need to understand that participating in the workload doesn’t mean they’re offering equal time. (And please spare me the argument that women ‘prefer’ to do housework or ‘care more’ about how certain things are done.)

So men, the next time you do the dishes, remember to make note of whether you finished the detergent. Because grocery lists don’t write themselves.