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 parenting. Be sure to read these parts first:
My last post explored how parents (mostly moms) feel about the unfair division of labor in your households. In this post, I want to share some of the reasons you gave for how things got the way they did.
Several moms talked about their own guilt to be everything to everyone. Are we taking on more to make up for the fact that we have jobs?
“We both work full time and commute…It’s exhausting. Even though we split responsibilities pretty evenly, I still feel a sense of ‘mother guilt’ in that I feel I should be doing more. It’s like I want my son to have the benefits of both worlds: the stay at home mom who does enriching activities with him, who makes dinner, keeps a neat house, is never frustrated or tired or exhausted—while I’m working full time. Last night I was up until 10:30 making organic baby food. My husband doesn’t seem to feel the same pressure that I do in this regard. He doesn’t worry if after work playtime is in front of the TV instead of upstairs with lots of infant development toys and books like I do. Maybe these high expectations are unique to mothers. For my family, the unfair split between household and parenting responsibilities seems to extend past the physical day to day and reflect more of a psychological and emotional division of labor.”
Many women felt their husbands weren’t as good at household tasks as they were, but several moms blamed themselves, saying they were “control freaks” who had a hard time letting their husbands do things their way.
“On the one hand I think mothers do totally get stuck doing all the annoying background/logistics/planning of parenting which can be maddening and totally unappreciated. However, I’ve also noticed and been disturbed by how many of my women friends also seem unwilling to give up some of the control that goes into that role. E.g., Dads never seem to pack the diaper bag, but then when I ask friends why they don’t make him do it now and again, I always seem to get the “Oh, he’d never do it right” response.”
A few moms talked about how they felt stuck in traditional roles because that’s what they grew up with. Several said it just didn’t occur to their husbands to take on these responsibilities. And at least one of the dads who responded to the survey agreed that there are things he just doesn’t notice.
“I try not to be lazy, but it’s this strange situation where (from my perspective) a lot of things “just get done” so I don’t worry about them. It’s partly an issue of visibility: if I saw bills piling up or was thinking about the shots my kid needed to attend school, I’d probably deal with them, but I don’t. (I do recognize a certain amount of this blindness is learned, but I think there’s more to it than that).”
Some things are unique to being a mother. Breastfeeding and maternity leave often launch us into traditional roles, whether we want them or not.
“I think my husband does far more than many dads out there and I have been a bit surprised about his willingness. On the other hand, I am the only one to get up in the night when my son needs one of us and for the most part I am the one to get my son up in the morning and put him to bed. My husband feels this is fair because I am still nursing my son. It will be interesting to see how this might change when my son is no longer nursing!”
When both parents have demanding careers, someone has to cut back to take on the family responsibilities.
“He works 20 more hours a week and gets paid a lot more than I do. I would rather work full time, but can’t imagine how the child and household tasks would get done if I did.”
“I work full time and so does my husband however his work day is longer than mine and he is always on call.”
“I think the fact that many professional jobs require (de facto) significantly more than 40 hours a week is the biggest part of the reason that women are much less likely to be CEO’s, professors, etc. Somebody has to have the extra time to do the stuff in your survey–and I think the mom is more likely to recognize and choose to do this.”
There is a silver lining. A few of you said you were tired of feeling resentful and were working very hard with your partners to make things more fair.
“A more accurate response to the last question would be, “I don’t think it’s fair, but we’re working on it.” I didn’t want to pick the given “I don’t think it’s fair” option because I’m not willing to live with it.”
“If you had asked me one year ago, I would have thought our division of labor was totally unfair. We have consciously made huge changes in the way we divide parenting activities and it has made my life so much better. My husband however, seems more unhappy!”
“The current split of responsibilities works well for our work schedules and is in line with our individual strengths. It took a LOT of trial and error and extensive negotiation. We are constantly re-evaluating what is working for the family. We are flexible about readjusting when the need arises.”
The current “mancession” is forcing some of this change:
“It’s been fascinating this year when my husband lost his demanding job. He has been loving and appreciating being more involved in the family. (He’s even shopping and cooking after twenty years of marriage!!) He is reassessing his career goals after this experience.”
In conclusion…
If my little survey is any indication, then
- Whether we want to or not, moms carry more of the psychic burden of parenting.
- Moms are working more outside the home, and for many of us, it’s too much. (See my nervous breakdown story.)
- We need more help from the dads.
But here’s the problem. Dads often can’t help as much as they’d like when they have to work long hours. (Studies show fathers now report more work-family conflict than mothers do.) And in their defense, the dads who do cut back their career or stay at home with kids often feel stigmatized for not being good “providers.”
As long as we have this uneven division of responsibilities at home, we are going to have bigger societal problems such as the pay gap between men and women, or the fact that motherhood is the biggest predictor that a woman will end up in financial collapse, or high divorce rates.
This is a really gnarly problem. Has anyone figured this out yet?
Actually, yes, someone has. That will be the topic of my next blog post.
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