Kirsten, of The Norwindians, really knows how to lay down a well-balanced rant. That’s one of the reasons I love reading her blog – she always seems to play fair, and what’s not to love about that?
You know what doesn’t play fair? The stomach flu, which decided to pay a visit while I have jury duty and my kids are on spring break. Fortunately, I haven’t crapped my pants in court. Yet.
Co-Parenting
Let’s talk about co-parenting. I’m not talking about a divorced couple who must figure out how to split time with their children and parent them through two different households. I’m talking about happily married couples who decide to have a baby or three. Then in theory they share the responsibility of taking care of those children. Are there any couples out there that truly share the nitty gritty work of taking care of the kids?
One of the many reasons I fell in love with my husband was his easy way with children. I knew he would make a great father one day. And I was right… he is a great father. When he’s home. He leaves for work before me or the any of our three kids are up for the day, and usually gets home right as the kids are finishing up dinner. He spends about an hour or so with them and most of that time is spent on our bedtime routine. While his travel has slowed down quite a bit lately, he does have an impressive amount of frequent flier miles racked up.
So here’s the thing. We do not co-parent. We do not share the daily parenting tasks 50/50. I stay at home with our twin girls and little boy. I don’t long to go back to work (yet), house wifery suits me just fine. But it does sometimes irk me that 99% of the kids’ needs are met by me.
Even on the weekends when we’re all at home, if the kids need something, they come to me. I often find myself saying, “you know you can ask your dad to get you a snack.” It would be really nice if one Saturday afternoon my husband said, “hey, it’s about lunch time, how about I fix some grilled cheese for the kids?” Or perhaps, “I’ll put the laundry away and get the kids dressed, why don’t you sit down and catch up on some reading.”
Not to say that my husband doesn’t pitch in. If I have my book club or something else to attend in the evening, it’s never a problem. Assuming he’s in town. I do make it pretty easy for him by already preparing dinner for the kids and putting them in their pj’s. If I didn’t do those things, he’d manage just fine. So it’s partly my fault. Sometimes I silently fume when we’re heading out the door with the family and he has the car running while I’m running around making sure everyone has a jacket, water, the right shoes, snacks if we need them and everything else we might possibly need. He just puts his shoes on and starts the car.
We were at my niece’s birthday party the other day and the difference between the moms and the dads really struck me. There was a basketball game on TV and most of the dads were inside watching while the moms were outside doling out snacks and watching the kids. It was the moms who supervised cupcake eating, face painting and gathered the kids and their belongings when it was time to leave. My sister told me after everyone left, her husband complimented her on throwing a great party. He had no idea what went into planning an executing the shindig. He asked her that morning what time the party started. Sound familiar to anyone but me?
I’m sure there are lots of exceptions, but as I look around and observe our friends I rarely see couple who truly shares parenting responsibilities 50/50. For the most part, I’m fine with the division of labor in our house. I really don’t have any desire to tackle home improvement projects, balance the checkbook or do our taxes… things my husband excels at doing. If I speak up and ask for help, he is more than willing to jump in. What bothers me is the assumption that I’ll do it all no matter what.
A few weeks ago my husband met a friend for lunch on a weekday and said he would be home in time to pick up our twins from school. I knew the girls would love it since he rarely drops them off or picks them up at school. Turns out he got engrossed in conversation with his friend and didn’t come home until over an hour after school was out. He missed pick up. Of course, I picked them up, but I was angry. I was angry because when I have lunch with my friends I can’t just get caught up in conversation and assume my spouse will pick up the kids. If he wants to stop at the gym on the way home from work or get his haircut, he just does it. If I want to go for a run in the evening or to a meeting, I have to make sure he’ll be home.
I’ve come to accept the fact that this is just the way things are. I don’t resent my husband or the fact that I stay home with our children. I wouldn’t trade places with him. I really wouldn’t. It all just makes me wonder if we are the exception. Do other families out there truly share parenting 50/50? And if so, how do you do it??
13 replies on “Co-Parenting”
I love love love this post! I certainly want to read her blog more often!
I’m out the house at half six, and home at 7, so I only see the bubba at bed time. We “share” by me taking over Saturday mornings – to give the missus a lie-in. To be honest, I’d love to find a job that allows me to do more.
You are so right…there is no such thing as 50/50 even when I worked I still did all the household stuff and anything for our daughter.
Well said (as usual)! I don’t know if 50/50 is even possible or realistic. I know that no matter how much hubby helps out, I always take it upon myself to take on more parenting responsibilities. And this is on top of working full-time. I have no complaints, but it would be nice if he could read my mind and anticipate my needs (like I do with the kids) instead of me asking. Does that sound crazy?
When I complain, my husband always says “but I though you liked doing it”. Yah, but just because I like it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t appreciate a little help with it!
Andrea, I’m so glad you didn’t crap your pants. 🙂
I did learn that I needed to let my husband co-parent more b/c sometimes I could be a little, itty bitty controlling b/c I was more comfortable meeting our kids’ needs. But yes, co-parenting takes work, for sure.
Amen, and AMEN! This totally happens around my house every.darn.day! Gah! I’m glad I’m not the only one. I don’t think my husband has ever taken bed/bath time without me not being home. Yes, we’ve been parents together for 9 1/2 years. Not once.
Yeah, we are so not 50/50 and I get it and I’m okay with it most days (I’m also just a teensy tiny bit controlling and make my own bed sometimes, in terms of doing it myself so it’s done ‘right’). I get irritated by exactly what you describe – i’m running around like a crazy person trying to get ready for an outing and he’s checking email.
Oh, are you ready? Grrrrrrr.
Whenever we get into a discussion about this, I always point out that I’m the default setting. He’s like a fancy macro, it takes a lot of effort and clicking on my part to get the machine operating in Daddy function.
This is just how it is at our house, only I do checkbook and taxes too. Unfortunately (for me) my inner feminist is mostly really irritated by it–I wish she could be more accepting of her fate. Sometimes I hate that he gets to be the fun one, while I enforce bath time and bed time. What really gets me, is when I ask him to do something, while he is playing with the kids and he’ll look at me like “What? I am with the kids” –like that exempts him from all other duties. As if when I am home alone with the kids I am not doing laundry, dinner, tidying up etc and keeping the kids busy. I could go on forever…
50/50? It doesn’t look like it is in the cards. And the truth is that I have it better than a lot of women I know!
I hear you sister! You have detailed my life exactly. Except, my kids are older and now I”m dealing with homework and making sure they don’t fail out of school!
I’m certainly not saying it’s 50/50 over here because I homeschool and have three children, but since we have started homeschooling my husband has picked up his fair share of child-related duties. He noticed how easy the boys’ laundry was, and how similar it was to his own, so he started doing almost all of their (and his) laundry. He does this about once every week-and-a-half, and then I do the “tough” things that are stained or special.
He also enjoys cooking, so he probably cooks 2 night per week which is huge for me because I honestly don’t like to cook, and I’m making every breakfast, lunch and snack every day anyway.
This year, he decided to coach one of my sons’ teams which has saved me from the crazed sports carpooling I had suffered through in previous years.
For us it is an ongoing dialogue about my needs vs his. It’s taken 15 years to get to this point but I’m finally starting to not feel guilty by asking for breaks and help.
It’s a tough thing to balance!
Amen, sistah. And here’s the kicker – I thought when my husband quit his day job to be a SAHD (while keeping his evening/weekend teaching gig, I work FT) that this would somehow balance the equation. And yet, even though he’s home with the girls 8 hours a day, I’m STILL the “default setting” (excellent term, anymommy!) and I end up doing most of the housework, bills, etc. on top of meals, play, reading, coloring, etc. and an occasional five minutes of something for myself.
I was so worried when he became a SAHD that the girls would bond with him more, that he’d take over the house so much that I would miss contributing to our “home” as I always had. HA. Maybe men just aren’t genetically wired to have a perception of that kind of balance. Or maybe we aren’t – we are all maternal-instinct-y after all.
If anybody figures out how to adjust this, let me know!