Next year when Cormac is one we are seriously contemplating a switch in roles where I will go back to work full-time and become the family’s bread-winner for a time while my partner takes a year’s paternity leave to be with our children. I won’t lie, I have very mixed feelings about it.
The problem with equal parenting, I realise, is that it involves sharing, and not just the ugly parts of parenting, but the beautiful too. A while back (not sure where in my posts) I declared that I had found the secret to long-term happiness and I wasn’t kidding, it is the life-balance of part-time paid work. You can’t very well discover this secret and then not share it with your partner, and upon hearing about this secret he is likely to want to experience a bit of life-balance for himself.
The advantages of this arrangement will include the following. Cormac won’t have to go into daycare, and while I am not opposed to daycare, it wasn’t at all successful for Lauca and that whole debacle has left a permanent scar on my heart. The children will have a year with their father as a primary carer which will be very lovely for their relationship with him. My partner will have the opportunity to find and enjoy the zen of parenthood, something I have at times experienced as pure bliss. And while he will be continuing further studies at university, when else will he get a year away from work? He will become a fully present parent, maybe forever, and will never again require instruction on how to get the children ready to go out – no small bonus. Plus, the schadenfreud in me is looking forward to the realignment of our domestic relationship, the enhanced equality that will occur when the parenting roles are (almost) reversed. And then there is the chance to break up my four years and counting career slow-down with a full-time shot in the arm. My writing could do with some extra focus too.
The disadvantages are that I am losing the balance in my life, the perfect happiness that I have found. Both children are still young, for Lauca it will be her last year before school, while Cormac will still be a baby and I will be missing a lot of that experience. Having done stints of stay-at-home parenthood I know all the special little things that happen through the days with children, and I know that the other parent misses out on most of that. And then there are my mother friendships. A lot of my friendships are now based around ‘the lost time’ of the working week; we socialise as part-time working or stay-at-home mothers, with and around our children and those kinds of occasions just don’t exist as readily on the weekends. I don’t think I will lose these friendships all together but they will suffer and so will I without them. If I am going to be truly honest then I will also admit to another disadvantage of this new arrangement – the children will be parented differently. I am the one who reads the parenting books, who bounces off parenting philosophies with other parents, who researches the problems we encounter and I am the one who inevitably dominates our parenting approach. Don’t get me wrong, he is a motivated and enthusiastic parent and he brings lots of things to the equation that I don’t, for instance with his science background he constructs science experiments for Lauca, he is teaching her maths, and he is the one who takes her exploring water-life in creeks. But he is not driven to disect and reflect upon his parenting, that work for both of us is done by me. Also, letting him take the lead will involve a lot of letting go that I will struggle with – badly dressed children, skipped breakfasts, and forgotten birthday invitations will be just a part of his way. The social embarrassment will be no small thing for me to overcome.
… of course all this angst will make for good blog fodder.
blue milk 
My partner was the full-time at-home parent for six months, with our elder daughter, from when she was nine months old. For a while I would cycle home from university at lunch time to feed her, or he would bring her down and we would have a picnic lunch while I fed her. I missed her, but the experience was excellent for both of us. I learned to let go a little, which really was good for me, and he learned a lot about the delights and horrors of being at home, including how much it really is not time off work.
(*headdesk* moment – woman at my previous place of employment in NZ saying that she had worked all her life, and had never taken time off like all those lazy mothers going on maternity leave. I very tartly pointed out that she could have six months or a year off too, anytime she cared to negotiate that unpaid leave with our employer, who was happy to be flexible about such things, for parents and non-parents alike.)
Right – back on topic. My daughters are all very close to their dad, and I think that’s in part due to the pattern that he and our eldest established in those months. Yes, there was a great deal I missed, but I think that on balance my partner being a SAHD for six months was very, very good for all of us.
I completely understand where you are coming from regarding your reservations as well as the benefits (which as the poster above said, are likely lifelong) and applaud you both for parenting with such deliberation and equality. Yay, you two!
You may be surprised with your partner and parenting. I think the experience of being the fulltime parent (or house manager) makes people focus on what needs to be done. I don’t have a comparison point for my partner as parent, but when we both worked, he never remembered anything about the house or our social lives (what we should buy for dinner, people’s birthdays etc etc), but now that he is the full time stay at home dad he is definitely in charge, and organises things far more effectively than I ever would.
And he has certainly been the main mover in thinking about what we should do about the boys’ education.
But he doesn’t care as much about what the boys are wearing as most mothers do. Fortunately, nobody judges them for what they are wearing because they are being looked after by their father, so we all win.
You just articulated all the angsty, jumbled thoughts going round in my head – more clearly than I have been able to thus far.
My partner and I are also considering a ‘swap’ next year. For me, it is a chance to focus on other interests, before having another baby the following year (maybe). For him, it is a chance to bond more with our son, to become a more tuned-in parent.
But the closer we get to actually doing it, the more I am afraid of losing all those things which you mentioned – the intimacy with my son, the socialising with other mothers. And also worrying that my partner puts much less thought into parenting than I do.
I think the ideal may be for us to both work part time, though that also has setbacks, as you already know.
i work and my partner is a stay home full time dad. we have just been through a major crisis for him after 8 mth of this; all the traditional female stay home issues of monotony, boredom, thanklessness etc that stayhome parents face,as well as the joys, but as an older father he found /finds these issues tricky to manage, especially as mothers groups arent really his thing. for me as a part time academic i still get the joys of motherhood but the hardest thing for me to deal with are the differences in housework standards and the ‘dinner on the table when i get home’ moments.lol i often make dinner when i get home. its a learning for us both. lucky for me he is an artist and is very fussy about colour clashing so often the boy looks way more stylish than i can ever manage!
You articulate so clearly just what my fears would be if I handed over the kids in exchange for going back to work full-time. It’s always been part of our game-plan but keeps getting pushed out for various reasons.
Luckily my kids are old enough that they dress themselves and look adorable, but I do remember squirming when I went to the hairdresser for the first time after my oldest was born and her father turned up with her in a very strange get-up. She didn’t care how she looked and neither did he, but I couldn’t wait to change her.
Martin studies, I write from home, neither of us has worked full time since the kids were born. We don’t have much money, but I don’t care much either. It’s been amazing, both of us having so much time for the first years of our kids’ lives. We don’t have much extra money, and there are things we miss out on compared to other people, but it’s amazing what a richness in time compensates for.
I must say though I don’t relate to the last part of the post. I guess those things we’ve always shared, they’ve never been my sole domain and I don’t really mind. Una’s never been ‘socialised’ the way Fred has, for some reason there didn’t feel to be the same need (since she always had Fred and when she didn’t she seemed to quite enjoy being on her own), so my ‘mum’ friends dropped away as they all started working or as their kids started school and kinder.
We tried really hard to have our lives like Penni’s but never quite managed it. The husband didn’t get a chance to be the at-home parent until after the kid started school, which was a real shame. We’d intended to share it more earlier, but events got in the way. I think you are right to try it now, bluemilk, while your partner will have a strong appreciation of what it takes to look after little kids – all the immense pleasures and all the mind numbing, repetitive hard work that still requires attention and care.
You will let go a bit, I reckon. Also, I have been pleasantly surprised at how the lads have worked things out between the two of them. Things are surely different, but often better and never worse than when I was in charge.
I came home this evening to a child who’d been fed, was in his jim jams, and was in the process of brushing his teeth. I read to him and talked to him about his day for a bit and now I’m going to wash up and go to bed. Then tomorrow I’ll get up stupidly early, catch the train into town and work, and catch the train home just in time for the kid’s bedtime again. It’s not exactly my idea of a good time, I’d rather take the kid to playgroup tomorrow, but I’ll still be out of the house for fewer hours than my Dad was when I was little. He was at work all the time, and we missed him. Now my brother does the same thing, and his kids miss him too. I don’t want my kid to grow up feeling his father was only around for a week’s holiday in January. My partner’s father was around more often in his kids lives, but fell/was pushed into the roll of a sort of comedic mothers helper. My partner and I didn’t want that either, not least because it would force me to be responsible for everything around the house and family, and I’m not keen on that at all.
Anyway, that’s all a long way of saying “it’s worth it”. Your partner may forget to pack nappies for an outing one day, but the sky will not fall in, and he’ll learn. If he forgets to feed them breakfast it will be him who has to deal with the hungry and cranky toddler, and that has a way of sharpening ones memory and attentiveness to routine. Even for slackarse parents like me.
We’ve been sharing too, I work two days and my husband works three days a week, we don’t need daycare and we can both enjoy being with our kids. My husband hardly saw his father at all when he was a kid and they still have a poor relationship as a result. He always said that he wanted to be actively involved in our kids upbringing, and he’s doing great.
Until recently I’ve been the only one leaving to go to work for a while and it’s amazing. G and Grace have a very deep relationship and he’s been very hands on right from the start. I always felt kind of suprised and shocked when other mothers from my old mothers group (in the posher suburb where all dads seemed to work full time) felt unconfident of leaving toddlers with their partner for the day. The hardest thing for G was that there was no parent/kid social life for him there and he was an oddity. Where we live now there are quite a few stay at home or working part time dads and socialising during the week tends to involve women and men. It’s very refreshing. That said, sometimes I wish I could just stay home all the time and not miss out on those moments.
We switched primary parenting roles in January when my partner got laid off and I started hustling on my dissertation so I could be done by this fall. I felt happy but mixed about it; I love what I write about, but I love being with our 2-year-old as well. Yesterday finally came the moment that I had dreaded most of all: we were all out playing around and D bumped his head a little bit. I was closest and rubbed the bump, but then D ran over to his dad, who said “Oh, do you need a kiss?” and kissed his head. Not only was dad’s the sought for kiss, but I forgot to even offer it in the first place…
Lots of tears over that last night, on my part. However, what I like most about our situation is that it allows for a dynamic set of relationships. I hope that this means that we’ll all be more flexible to each others’ needs as they shift over time, and not get caught so much in routines because our roles come to define who we are.
Great post, and wonderful comments! I sure hope you’ll all keep these values if you split with the fathers of your children. Thank you so much for the beautiful and heartfelt honesty. If anyone wants to be interviewed for an article, just write to me. teri@sharedparentingworks.org
teri
http://examiner.com/x-6741-SF-Family-Examiner
http://examiner.com/x-15873-Family-Rights-Examiner
One more thing… using the words feminist or feminism and equal parenting on the same blog is confusing. They don’t publicize it much, but feminists have been fighting equal parenting laws for over 30 years.
I watched them with my own eyes as they lied to my legislators in 2005 (in the States.) They even had a national campaign to block our California bill. I can state with absolutely no hesitation that feminism is no longer about equality. It’s all about money and power now, and maybe always was.
It’s the same with domestic violence. Fathers in California had to take feminist-run domestic violence shelters all the way to the Supreme Court to win equal protection for themselves and their children. And as soon as they won, feminist legislators starting writing a new law to undo the fathers’ win!
Teri you need to be very specific here with this claim because it reads as complete crap!
Bear in mind that you are commenting on a site for feminist motherhood written by a feminist mother and read by other feminist and feminist-leaning parents and so far none of us have ever mentioned our heart-felt fight against equal parenting.
Um… I’m just going to move on from Teri rather than rise to the bait.
Actually I’ll say that in a separate comment in case you want to delete both of them.
Oh, I can so relate to you on this one, even though we are not in a position to make such a switch (it would be a challenge for us all to live on the 10,000 a year that I make!).
However, I have found that the more responsibility that Paul takes for Lily, the more he picks up on the importance of the little things (packing food, dressing appropriately for the weather, etc) and the more receptive and interested he becomes in parenting philosophies etc.
That said, I would also find it hard to hand things over full time – mostly because of everything that I would miss out on. Already I find that I am missing out on all the activities and socialising opportunities (because I don’t have Lily in the mornings and it is generally too hard to do anything much after her afternoon nap).
I’m going to chip in as the of a child whose dad spent large portions of my childhood as a SAHD.
One of the most enduring memories of school was that my Dad was the only Dad who went on school trips. My school was really appreciative of that I remember one of my teachers saying how wonderful it was for the boys not only to have someone to rough house with but to see that boys can do anything as well.
Perhaps it’s not just your children that are going to benefit from this change, particularly if he gets involved in stuff like school trips.
Well I had one day a week for 14 months with Bear, went back to 5 for the time being with Mitts to keep the income flowing in, but am considering options for some more SAHD time.
I do think the optimum would be both part time, so that you end up with a balance in your life. But I can certainly say that what I got from even 1 day a week on my own was some excellent bonding, a chance to play with Bear like boys play (we do stuff like rolling down hills, Beloved just shakes her head in disbelief), and also, yes, a clearer sense of just how unrelenting it all is.
I had reading for work and study lying around and I can say I got very little done during the days, sometimes none at all, I trust he’ll factor this in RE:
“And while he will be continuing further studies at university, when else will he get a year away from work? ”
I actually think now I’d find full time very hard, and so would Beloved. We have joint 4 day weeks (with the leftovers in child care) in our sights as the optimum…
I completely agree that the perfect world would be both of us working outside the home part-time. At the moment his work is probably more flexible about replacing him for a year than for finding a job-share partner, sadly. Also, for the moment we probably can’t afford housing costs in the long-run on part-time incomes. But it is my future goal.
Cristy, I did not write anything here as “bait.” I’m an egalitarian family rights advocate. I support all parents. I was simply sharing my experiences. I argued with fathers advocates for two years over feminism. I defended it. That all stopped the day I saw in person that they have no interest in truth or equality when it comes to child custody. And my experience is not unique. They fought every single equal parenting bill introduced during the last several years in different states. And they fought with lies. I wish women who still call themselves feminists would see what the leaders are doing to their son’s futures.
hmmm… maybe comments can’t have any links…
here I go again…third try….
Great post, and wonderful comments! I sure hope you’ll all keep these values if you split with the fathers of your children. Thank you so much for the beautiful and heartfelt honesty. If anyone wants to be interviewed for an article, just write to me. teri (at) sharedparentingworks (dot) org
Teri – retrieved your earlier comment from the spam bucket, sorry.
Fair enough Teri if you didn’t intend it as bait. However, I take strong objections to your attempt to sum ip the position of all feminists on the issue of equal parenting. It is not a monolithic movement and there are no ‘leaders’ who authoratively represent ‘feminists’. In fact, although there is a shared philosphy of gender equality, there are many, often conflicting philosophies on the issue of what this means and how best to achieve it.
In my experience this means that most people who talk about ‘the feminists’ tends to be using a ‘straw person’ for their own easy debating purposes.
Stupid ipod keyboard.
cristy, actually there are leaders, and they are very powerful. I would applaud their power if they used it for equality. they use it to squelch equality instead. for them, it only matters if it benefits women. they don’t care that their campaigns hurt children. Believe me, I didn’t accept any of this easily. Like I said, I argued about this for two years. Since then I’ve watched it happen over and over. I think most women would be shocked to know the truth.
Teri, this isn’t the post for a discussion of family law – you are derailing the comments so lets close that aspect of discussion.
There is a meaty discussion to be had on equal parenting in terms of family law and sometime I might get to posting on that. But I find your current arguments very much of the ‘straw feminist’ persuasion and you will need to put much more into your arguments if you want to tell us feminists how we’re ruining the family.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this Teri. I’m really not interested in rehashing that particular debate. It is however very dangerous to generalise your local experiences to the global level. ‘Evidence’ of what takes place in California isn’t massively relevant to us here in Australia.
“Stupid ipod keyboard.”
iNAMEDROP.
Smile a little people- can I suggest equal parenting, as a divorce issue, is slightly different to the actual subject matter of the post (balance of parenting in still-together couples) and that a line be drawn under this matter on the basis that further comments for or against are, with respect, slightly off topic…
Thanks.
bluemilk, I work four days a week and my husband studies fulltime for a PhD, and we share the childcare for the drop (8 months). It looks like this for us:
I have her Sunday and Monday and work Tues – Fri.
My mother has her Tuesdays
My husband works (studies, at university, a 9 hour day) Sunday – Tuesday and has her Wed – Friday. He does the brainwork on his days without her, and the grunt work (he’s a scientist, so the stuff that’s time consuming or mundane, like sample sorting, filtering, waiting for…sciency things to happen to other sciency things…) around her schedule.
Saturdays are our ‘weekend’ and we do the errands, housework and catch up with each other.
I won’t deny that’s hard. Ideally I’d work three days not four, and they wouldn’t be 11 hour days. Ideally he’d be less hard on himself with his punishing schedule, take on less extraneous tasks, and slow down and enjoy the moments. Ideally I’d learn to let go and hire a cleaner.
But what is wonderful about it is the shared aspect. When we get ready to go out, one of us automatically changes the baby while the other one checks that the nappy bag is fully charged, and we do that without having to ask what’s needed. We have different, but equally effective, tricks for settling her. We both know the difference between a boredom grizzle and a hungry grizzle.
My joy in the little moments of parenthood are absolutely deepened by knowing that he shares them and is equally fascinated by them. Because he understands the minutaie as well as I do, he is just as enthralled by the little things. It’s wonderful.
So I’m obviously a proponent of the swap, if you can’t swing parttime. It’s a whole lifetime of memories you’re building by doing it.
It’s tough to switch. I was laid off twice and it took our family time to adjust as we traded roles. You’ll see I blog about it off and on.
I give my husband time to himself after he cares for our children all day. For some reason he either needs it more than I did or he’s better at stating his needs.
What a journey this decision will be for you.
Until they start paying everyone to be parents (like those dreamy european nations I’ve heard tell of) there is going to be pros and cons with any working arrangement.
Both my husband and I work, our children are not in daycare and have never been (because we just can’t justify the expense mostly). We work opposite schedules – him day, me night. We also go to school on opposite schedules (he is earning his phd and I my ba) MWF vs. TTh
The pros for us, we both get to be fully involved and present parents (while I have more waking time with them, he deals with the drama of the dinner-bath-bedtime hours so I call it even) while earning the income we need to live comfortably.
There is only one major con: we are only together on the weekends.
It’s not the usual, but it works for us.
I will be very interested to read about your experiences with this. This is a touchy subject but I am interested in how you will feel about earning more money than your partner, or, if that particular aspect of the arrangment provokes any feelings to you at all. I earn more than my husband (complex foster care is demanding but I get paid very well..) and this situation has been really very good for the dynamics of “equality” of the relationship in a lot of ways, for me. But on the surface it appears that I live the traditional mother role, and I am careful not to tell people in our world that I earn more money than him!! (This is also because we move in churchy circles that are their own reality sometimes…. Which is all a bit ridiculous and funny.
Anyway, I think that the dad being the full time carer is a wonderful thing and your kids are really lucky because they can develop that day-to-day bond that kids often don’t get with their fathers.
We swapped over when the boy was 13 months; my partner went on 6 months long service leave and I studied full-time. I loved it: I was not really enjoying being at home full-time for a number of reasons; I was tired!; I needed to get out and really enjoyed the mental stimulation from study. My partner E loved it: she was suddenly ‘main mum’; she joined her own mother’s group; she loved spending so much time with our son that I think she felt she had been denied by being the breadwinner for the first year. And we have both gained an appreciation for each other’s positions: I realise now how difficult it is when you come home late from work or are struggling to get out of the house and your partner is asking for help, how guilty you feel to be leaving the house or arriving late; she has really realised the energy required to keep up with the boy and the need to be organised. Let’s just say that before the swap, she was the ‘fun mum’ who forgot to pack things (you know, like food or nappies), there may have been skipped meals and a cranky baby and allegations of ‘overstimulation’ and missed naps. That changed when she became full-time mum, she has been wonderful. I did feel somewhat cheated however when we got a daycare place for two days a week when the boy was 14 months – she only got a month of five days a week full-time mothering! Now she has gone back to work at 3 days a week, I am studying part-time and tutoring part-time, boy is in daycare 2 days and we are getting further in debt – though hopefully only until I can get work after the semester. Sharing=good.
Mind you, call me lazy (and plenty have, don’t you worry!), but I have always encouraged (demanded?? invited??) my partner’s involvement in the nitty-gritty childrearing* and routines: this brings to mind a friend in E’s mother’ group. She couldn’t come out in the early evening because she wouldn’t have had time to pick her 2 year-old child up from daycare and do the dinner-bed-bath routine before going out- something I was doing in our house so that E could go out with her. E suggested that her husband could manage that for a night, couldn’t he? Apparently not, he’s not real good with all that stuff. We wondered, how bad could he be? And we realised that she obviously DOES EVERYTHING all. the. time. There could be control issues going on there, and maybe hopelessness issues on his part (or learned helplessness?) or maybe issues of what a woman’s role should be as a mother in a heterosexual relationship… I really don’t know. Anyway, I was a. gobsmacked (still can’t get my head around it, it was quite unexpected from this particular person). b. wondering for how many women this would be the same around the world and c. thankful, thankful, thankful that my relationship is very different. (Sorry, this was slightly off-topic but I have been thinking about this for some time in the context of feminist mothering…)
*although during the first year I must admit I protected her from the nightparenting as I figured she needed more sleep to be able to function in her job; she couldn’t nap as I could in the afternoon and the whole family needed her to be on top of things at work!
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Do it! We more or less split the first year of time home with our now 3 y.o. daughter, switching who was primarily home (and also working part-time) at mid-year. I cannot emphasize enough how much that trading of roles informed our later decisions for the better. When I was home more, I remember being aggravated with my wife for bumbling in after work and sort of spacing out, staring around the house, not really making her useful. I was thinking “Step up! There’s a baby to feed! Veggies to chop! Laundry!” Then a few months later, I was the one stumbling in the door, overwhelmed by the transition from the office and outside world into a home that had been trucking along all day without me. We both developed a lot of empathy, and ultimately decided that we wanted a more equal division of labor all of the time (as opposed to sequentially), and have worked to make a more balanced life for all of us all the time (e.g. we both then arranged to each work a 4 day week so our daughter was only in 3 days of outside care). So with this shift, you may actually get some real balance back, even though it feels like you are losing it now, by gaining a partner truly willing and able to share the load of both breadwinning and parenting. Good luck!
I’ve loved this post and conversation – and I’ve been a quiet follower of your wonderful blog for a long time. My husband and I are fortunate (although we’ve worked/planned hard to get it too) to both work part-time and share equally in raising our two children. It has been a wonderful mix of equality and balance for both of us. So I’d highly recommend your switch-up, and even more highly endorse your long-term plans to find approx. equivalent reduced work hours for both of you. Hooray!
Our own website is devoted to equally shared parenting in intact families (with our book coming out in the US in January), and we warmly invite anyone interested in exploring this more to check us out!
http://www.equallysharedparenting.com
The problem with equal parenting, I realise, is that it involves sharing, and not just the ugly parts of parenting, but the beautiful too.
I’m certainly not “equal parenting” with my ex, but this does sound a lot like our situation i.e. co-parenting (well I try to co-parent, he tries to tell me I’m shite at it, but never mind!).
I missed Orion’s first steps because he was visiting his dad for the weekend. I’ve missed out on a lot of stuff simply because Orion doesn’t spend all of his time here. 😦
Bless you Anji for telling the truth!
[…] October 4, 2009 by blue milk Just today my friend and I were talking about fathers and we wonder if there might be a rapidly growing, but generally unacknowledged, desire by men to work part-time. (Part-time work is, after all, my secret to ongoing happiness). […]
[…] The problem with equal parenting « blue milk. Blue Milk contemplates going back to work while her partner stays at home. It would represent a role-reversal for them, and she discusses the good and the bad behind this reversal. […]
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