This is part of a series of posts about how working couples share the under-the-radar chores that, taken together, represent the “psychic burden” of raising a family. Part. I is here.
Working moms are bearing more (sometimes much more) of the “psychic burden” of parenting than working dads. Yet, when asked in my recent survey, “How do you feel about how you and your partner divide household and parenting responsibilities?”
Among working moms with working husbands (who made up the bulk of the survey):
- 51% marked “I think it’s pretty fair”
- 38% marked “I don’t think it’s fair, but I’m willing to live with it.”
- 11% marked “Totally unfair. It drives me crazy!”
Of the 15 working dads, 12 said, it was fair.
Of the 16 moms in 2-working mom families, 13 said it was fair although they also divided the chores more evenly than heterosexual couples did.
Here’s what some of the moms had to say about their egalitarian husbands:
“I feel very fortunate to have a husband who is full partner in parenting. He also cooks dinner every night and is in charge of the laundry. I don’t know what I’d do without him. “
“My husband describes himself as a feminist. He bends over backwards to make sure he is very involved with our daughter. I would consider our situation very unusual.”
“I think a lot of it has to do with the person you are with…if you get someone who is “macho” and feels it’s the woman’s duty [to be in charge of the] household…then you will have inequality in the chores. I grew up with that and made the decision to marry someone who would share in the duties!”
“[We divide things up] based on who is available, who is realistically better at it, and who knows the situation better. In major schedule decisions/planning we always touch base and make those decisions/plans together. Normally, I do the preliminary work on it but we come together to make things final.”
And here’s what one dad said about his hard-working wife:
“My wife’s job is more demanding, so I’ve become the one to stay home when our daughter is sick, to volunteer in her art class, etc. I’d like to think that if her job were less intense, she would enjoy these activities. But it’s simply not possible right now.”
Fairness is a funny concept. It doesn’t mean diving all tasks evenly, and in fact, for many of us this probably isn’t realistic. Fairness just means we feel good about how things are divided up.
Some of you said that even if your husbands didn’t do the chores in the survey, they did other things.
“I do this grooming stuff, but dad does 100% of the children’s cooking, bathing, and bedtime routine. I feel like I checked off a lot of “I do this” when really in other more thorough checklists we’ve done, neither of us comes off as the primary parent.
“Based on your survey questions it looks like I do a lot of the work–but my husband stays home one day a week with our daughter. And while I may have scheduled all of the appointments, he has been at every one (and I haven’t due to work scheduling). In addition, the rest of the household chores (such as making dinner, which used to be soley my responsibility but now is more of a collaborative activity) are now more evenly split. So while I seem to have picked up a lot of child care duties, he has compensated by picking up more household duties. The questions and answer choices really don’t describe our household!”
Some people said they split their responsibilities in fairly traditional ways, but the arrangement worked fine for them.
“I feel like I am much more in tune with my kids them my husband. Which is not ideal, but works for us.”
“I enjoy organizing the kids birthday parties and do NOT consider that a “responsibility,” but a joy!”
“He takes care of stuff I have no interest in—financial things, house maintenance things. It’s pretty gender stereotyped but it great for us!”
“We’ve divided jobs up to align with natural aptitudes and abilities. My husband is a shy person who needs considerable “me time”. Always has been—so I went into motherhood with eyes wide open in that respect. Anything that requires organizational and people skills—coordinating play dates, birthday parties, pick up and drop off at two different schools, getting kids to after school activities is my purview. My husband would probably do most of these things himself (and be miserable) if he had no other choice. On the other hand, he is perfectly happy to be the designated fingernail clipper and he is pickier about messy hair than I am. So that kind of thing he is happy to pitch in on.”
A lot of women said they thought felt the division of responsibilities was “fair” even though they did more of the parenting, because their husbands either had less flexibility in their schedules, traveled more for work, or worked longer hours.
And whether or not it’s fair, when two parents are doing the work of three, it’s still a struggle.
“Sometimes I do get pissed off about the state of the house and feel burdened by my responsibilities caring for the baby/house. But then I realize that there just isn’t enough time in the day for me to get everything done that I want to get done and that my husband feels the same way. We’re doing the best we can.”
That’s exactly how Brian and I used to feel when we were both working full time. Once in awhile we would argue about who should do what, but we always ended in the same place. We were both running as fast as we could. If one of us wasn’t “doing enough” it usually meant there was just too much to do.
In my next post, I’ll share what moms and dads had to say about unfairness.
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