The cover story for the New York Times Magazine this past weekend was, When Mom and Dad Share It All, a story about parents that share all parenting and home-related duties from laundry and meal preparation to thank-you notes and paying the bills. This is not the story of the stay-at-home dad and the high-powered career mom or the stay-at-home mom and the really involved and helpful dad; this story is about couples that are trying to shatter parenting gender stereotypes of all kinds. Both parents pull back on work hours; discussions are about who will be home with the children when, who will wash the darks and who will wash the lights, and who will plan the children’s birthday parties this year.
At its core, the story reinforces the importance of ongoing communication with your partner and working to figure out what will work best for both of you and your children. As the article shows with its example families, equally shared parenting doesn’t work for everyone, and what is most important is to figure out what works for your family, regardless of what society says it should look like, which is perhaps the hardest part of all.
What does the division of labor look like in your home? Are you happy with that balance or would you change it if you could? Is there a way to be equal partners in the home without sacrificing career advancement and monetary gain? Will equally shared parenting ever be the norm?
This entry is cross-posted at www.mommiesclique.com
My favorite part of the article was when they mentioned that if your partner's job was a part of them that you found attractive, maybe this 50-50 split thing isn't for you. So what does that mean for people who can't imagine a husband separate from his work? Of course his career is attractive to me. We couldn't be married if it wasn't.
Posted by: Mrs. G | August 16, 2008 at 06:31 PM