People talk about the newborn phase as the hardest one to share, as parents. Best intentions come up against biological realities. This is how we approached it. Weeks 1-4: survival modeWe were both on leave, allowing us both to go all-in. We gave ourselves clear roles, as we did during pregnancy. I was the Head […]
The Problem in someone else’s words
Here’s why 50/50 parenting probably isn’t going to happen – article by Hadiya Roderique This article is a fantastic summary of The Problem. Send it to your friends. “The truth is: I’m afraid of ending up bearing the brunt of child care responsibilities. Because after a few relationships of my own, and seeing some of […]
Doing less child care
I spend a lot of time thinking about how to shrink the pie – how to reduce the overall burden of household labour. In some ways, spending fewer hours on housework and paid work are easy. Those blog posts will write themselves. But child care/ parenting? That’s fraught. In late 2018 NYT published an article […]
An equal partnership means doing half the work
An equal partnership means making an equal contribution to The Grand Project – in our case, reproducing. There are three types of household labour: Breadwinning – whatever you do to pay the bills Childcare – keeping the kids alive and functioning Household work – cooking, cleaning and all the admin it takes to keep things […]
A 50:50 pregnancy – I think we got this right
The burden of pregnancy seems to fall heavily on the womb-holder – managing physical changes, attending a plethora of medical appointments, setting up the house and administrivia. This seems unfair, and I suspect it creates bad habits, establishing one person as baby expert. Yeah nah. So when got pregnant with Bud, we gave ourselves distinct […]
The starting point: 5 months of baby
Five months ago Tee and I had a baby. So you could say we’re experts at this parenting thing. Over the past five months I’ve had a lot of time (many two minute slots) to think (vainly grasp at concepts) about things and discuss (addled 2am WhatsApps) with friends (anyone who’ll listen). I’ve read the […]
Equal parenting has to be a conscious choice
I’ve been going back and forth about this project – whether to put words to page. Why not leave it be, marinating in my brain, served up half baked over dinner with Tee and in WhatsApps with likeminded friends. Surely this is just my obsession of the moment, grappling with a new reality, life in […]
Why we’re here
Women with children do more work – paid and at home – than their male partners. There’s research to back this up, but for now I’m going to call this The Problem. That’s a very unattractive proposition. I could, however, be coaxed into something that resembled a 50:50 split. A genuine equal partnership. Co-parenting, equal […]