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where we keep you updated on news about parenting as it relates
to division of responsibilities, career versus home decisions,
work/life balance, and legislative and grass-roots movements toward
equality or better choices for families. We’ll also throw in our
opinions of life as equal parents in a nonequal world, regardless of
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Our Government to the Rescue
We'll admit that it isn't always easy to find two flexible-enough jobs that fit together to allow for ESP - equal breadwinning, childraising, housework and recreation time. And once you've actually snared these prize positions, an economy like we have today will make you wonder just how long it will take before one of you is out of work - like I was until last May - and now in search of the ever elusive flexible job once more. And we want these jobs to be rewarding and fun too, right?Yet ESP couples do it. They manage to find/create/negotiate these jobs and excel at them. Sometimes they work tremendously hard to earn them, and sometimes they are in the right place at the right time. It is their drive toward equal partnership that makes most of them weather the sacrifices; many ESP couples can't imagine living any other way. They, we, are the pioneers.But help is on the way for less driven couples who still want to reach for ESP - maybe. President-elect Obama has announced the formation of a White House Task Force on Working Families, headed by VP-elect Biden. Among its 5 goals is "improving work and family balance." Now, this goal could take many forms - some of which (like expanding childcare options or maternity leave but not paternity leave) don't help ESP-interested couples at all. But other actions, such as anything that gives workers of either gender more negotiating power to create their own family-friendly work schedules, or that allots parental leave to the father in a use-it-or-lose-it policy, just might be the push these couples need to give ESP a try.And once couples taste the benefits of ESP (beyond the mundane splitting of tasks)....
In With the New
Happy New Year to all! Wow - 2009 already. There is something persuasive about a fresh new digit to write or type - something that causes us all to pause, look up, and think about the next 12 months that lie stretched ahead of us. All the things we'll do, think, say, wrestle with, figure out, ponder!Today seems like a good opportunity to pause this blog to think ahead too. And there are some fun things in store! Here's a sampling of what we're planning for 2009:- Guest blogging: We will be turning over the Equality Blog to a few other spokespeople on a regular basis. If you would like to be a guest blogger, please let us know of your interest by writing to info@equallysharedparenting.com.
- Conference appearances: Marc and I will be panelists at two upcoming conferences. If you're in the area, we'd love to see you there! First, we will be at Yale Law School for a conference entitled "Opt Out" or Pushed Out: Are Women Choosing to Leave the Legal Profession?, March 27-28 in New Haven, CT. Then, we're in Chicago for the Council on Contemporary Families' 12th Annual Conference, April 17-18 at the University of Illinois.
- Book chapter: We're in an anthology! Rebecca Walker, author of Black, White and Jewish, Baby Love, What Makes a Man, To Be Real, and other powerful books, has compiled 18 essays on different types of families in her latest book, One Big Happy Family. This book will be released on February 19th. We're the authors of chapter 15!
- Our own book: We've been hard at work drafting chapters for our own book, to be published by Perigee in 2010. This next year will be a flurry of writing and rewriting as we polish chapters into their final form and finish interviewing ESP couples across the globe. We have met many inspiring, unforgettable couples in the past 6 months! By the way, if you identify with equally shared parenting but have not yet contacted us, please drop us a line now at info@equallysharedparenting.com so that we can connect with you. We want to fill the book's pages with as many practical tips and ideas as possible.
We'll be writing more about each of these topics throughout the year. But we'd also love to hear from you.... What would you like to see on ESP.com? How can we make this site better meet your needs? All ideas most welcome! All our best wishes for a fantastic year ahead.
The Power of Asking
We're catching up this week on news that has piqued our interest over the past week or so, now that the Christmas festivities are over and our house is once again inhabited only by our immediate family. One of these interesting tidbits is an entry by Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal's The Juggle blog from 12/17, entitled "Be a Negotiator, Not a Victim: How to Get Parental Leave."
In this piece, Ms. Shellenbarger queries Harvard Law professor Robert Mnookin to find out if he thinks someone who works as an independent contractor could ever negotiate a few weeks of paid adoption leave from her employer. Dr. Mnookin suggests that this new mom-to-be approach her employer with ideas that represent the company's interests - not just her own wishes - and be flexible in her conversations with her boss. He then suggests some unconventional solutions, such as asking for advance pay as an interest-free loan to be repaid the following year from her fees, or in exchange for an explicit promise that for some period of time, she won’t raise her fees.
These strategies may not work, since it is pretty hard to expect paid leave when you're a contract employee. But one way to guarantee they won't work is to avoid asking.
There is amazing power in asking - especially with a spirit of cooperation, flexibility and no hint of trying to get something for nothing. Asking for what you want, and negotiating a fair solution that keeps your employer and you happy, is a good thing for all parties. It bodes well for your future too, if handled well, since you'll be seen as a straight-shooter who follows through.
So ask for what you need at work. Don't expect free handouts, but don't expect anyone to read your mind either.
Full Ownership
Thanks to reader Jeanne, for pointing out this interesting essay in the Boston Globe from last week. In this piece, an ESP dad describes his reaction after finding out he has to bring his kids for their annual holiday portrait sitting. Despite his wishes to share equally in childraising and breadwinning with his wife (they both work 4 days per week in order to share most easily), he dreads taking on this responsibility alone because he's sure the photos won't turn out to his wife's standards. He's torn; he fully accepts that he needs to buck up and conquer such tasks if he wants to reap the rewards of equal sharing, but he also feels he's doomed to 'failure.'His wife is not much help, since she has no intention of letting him handle the task alone. She informs him that she'll be picking out the outfits, and she tells him directly that she's afraid he'll put the baby's clothes on backward. She probably made the appointment too, and quite possibly made the decision by herself to have the portraits taken in the first place.In the end, this dad concludes: "So maybe I'm not a true jack-of-all-trades. But then again, neither is my wife. The next time she fixes a hole in our ceiling will be the first, though I bet she'd be willing to try if I were laid up. The good news in all of this is that we pretty much see eye-to-eye on questions of who should handle which tasks. And if something were to happen to one of us, the other would be ready to step in with a wrench or an extra baby outfit."It's a cute story. I give this father kudos for his understanding that ESP entails learning new things and taking on whatever tasks come his way. I applaud this couple for realizing that it makes no sense to divide each task 50/50 - that most tasks have natural divisions that point to one or the other parent most of the time (e.g., by who cares the most about a task being done a certain way). And I give them extra points for trusting in their ability to pinch-hit for each other on any task if the partner who usually does it is not available - hooray!But did you notice that this dad got an assignment that was still controlled by mom? If an ESP father is elected the responsibility of the holiday picture sitting, he should be given the authority to handle the task. That includes picking out the clothes, at least in partnership with his wife - not being handed the clothes his own children will wear. Here's a guy who is willing to rise to the occasion. But he will only truly take ownership if he is given that ownership. And fully allowed to fail. In this case, he had good reason to expect he'd fail, since his wife is the client - the one with the opinions and the one he has to please. He needs to be his own client, and she needs to back down to at least co-client status.True equality in examples like this is extremely hard to accomplish! If this were Marc and me, I'd likely want to make sure the outfits were to my liking and I'd worry that Marc wouldn't care about these aesthetics. I wouldn't be concerned he'd put the clothes on backward or forget the time or bungle any procedural part of the task. But I'd still have some trouble letting go. I'd like to think we'd choose the outfits as a team and then he'd take over from there. And that we'd have agreed up-front together that the photos were a good idea.The details of how this couple, or Marc and I, or any individual couple might solve these types of issues can be fascinating; there are countless ideas and possible answers for each dilemma. But what's far more important is equal partnership. The who/what/when/where/how of each individual task is unimportant compared to going through life as a team. That's the prize we're reaching for.
Add Dinosaurs to That List
A few days, ago, I posted a list of some animals that routinely delegate childcare to the male of the species. And now, it looks like we can add dinosaurs to this 'involved dad' list. NPR's Morning Edition reported yesterday that scientists suspect several types of dinosaurs to have given egg-warming duties primarily to dads.
The dinosaur mothers used up a lot of energy laying their eggs, it seems. And then they needed to replenish that energy through feeding, leaving dad to tend the babies-to-be. This type of male nesting behavior, the report states, is similar to many other birds - such as ostriches, emus and kiwi birds.
So, way back in prehistoric times, with some of the most ferocious animals ever to walk the Earth, it wasn't unmasculine to take care of the children and tend the home. Even then, mom and dad split the workload into egg-creating vs egg-tending. Something went wrong along the way when our culture sold us the story that this work isn't manly or that both of these tasks belong to women.
The big question is whether or not these dino-daddies shared the feeding and nurturing of their babies once they hatched. For now, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's hear it for the dinosaurs (and ostriches, emus and kiwis)!
(Not) Equally Sharing the Holiday Cards
Sometimes, it's good to share with you when we don't do so well with ESP, right? Our Christmas cards fit this category. We always start out in good spirits, with a discussion about whether we want to send any this year. Yes, we did. Then, we move on to picking them out - usually photocards of the kids. Picture selected, cards ordered (we even did this step together this year, sitting side-by-side at the computer). Then, the little box arrives and the hard part begins.I buy stamps because, well, I happen to find myself at the post office. I make a list of names because I'm a list person. Then, at least this year, we assign Marc to take it from there while I handle other holiday prep tasks. Then, I wait. Nothing happens - no labels, no writing, no licking and sticking. Nothing except T finding the box and spewing the cards all over the kitchen floor.I grow restless. I do something I tell all of you not to do - I complain that he isn't doing the cards. He looks innocently at me and says, "But I thought we had enough to do this year, so we had decided to skip doing them." Hmmm.... This doesn't compute in my brain. I clarify, he mutters something I'm not sure means he'll do anything, and I wait a bit more. Then, in a flurry, I print the labels, paste everything on, stuff the cards and write little notes on the ones I feel need little notes, and mail them. Well, I mail most of them, and then Marc volunteers to drop the rest in the mailbox on his way to work the next day - and he forgets - so I mail the rest the following day after glaring at him.There. Don't I feel good. No, not really. Even though the task can now be neatly checked off, I did it all - which would be fine except our plan was for Marc to do this chore himself. Why did I take over? Why did Marc stall, forget, abandon the project? He's no slacker; he's been working hard at all sorts of other things. But somehow, this project still reeked of my control. And somehow, Marc didn't own this task - even to the point of remembering to put a batch of completed cards in the mail. I know what Marc would say; he would point out that I sapped the fun out of the whole thing, and made it clear that I was supervising him - two reasons he couldn't get all that excited about doing his part. He would be right.Unlike most of my stories, I don't have a punch line. ESP isn't perfectly executed everyday. Tomorrow is another day, and next year is another year we'll face the Christmas card dilemma. Perhaps I will do so with more grace.And if you happen to get a card from us this year...please know that we picked them out together with the best of intentions and love. Really.
The Two-Income Emancipation
Here is a repost from June 2007 that might be worth revisiting in this season of materialism and uncertain economic times. Many of the couples we have been interviewing for our upcoming book have expressed gratitude for the paradoxical connection between ESP and financial stability.A wildly popular and provocative book called The Two-Income Trap was published in 2003, and became that year's frightening call to arms for parents. The book outlined how easy it is for middle class families to go broke as they find themselves up to their eyeballs in mortgage debt in order to live in cities with safe neighborhoods and good school districts. The authors, Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, argue that one negative effect of women entering the workplace over the past 5 decades is the upramping of housing costs as more and more families compete to buy the best homes. A woman's salary hasn't really gone to bettering her own family's savings; it simply caused her family to spend more. The real problem comes when her family suffers a significant setback - a layoff, a serious illness - and debt quickly mounts.
Warren and Tyagi warn against living the typical two-income lifestyle. While not specifically advocating stay-at-home motherhood for social reasons, they say this lifestyle affords the family a safety net because the non-working mother could go out and get a job if disaster strikes. Until then, having one parent at home forces the family to live on one salary.
I agree with all of the authors' warnings about living without a financial safety net. But I'm puzzled that they do not consider an option besides having one parent completely drop out of the workforce. I think they focus on the one-income solution because it is not the American Way to live below our means. If we earn it, we tend to spend it. We think in terms of 'stuff' and the so-called status and security it brings. So it is unlikely that most two-income couples can devote one salary to savings. Who chooses to live in an apartment their whole lives when they could 'afford' a house? Who chooses to buy a tiny shack when they can afford a 4-bedroom Colonial in an upper-middle-class town with a top-10 school system?
But one very important alternative is equally shared parenting! Here, you have two parents who get to keep their careers but downsize them (such as by reducing their work hours) in order to have time for their children, themselves and each other. They make less money than two full-time, full-bore earners, and so are 'forced' to simplify and budget their money carefully. They may forfeit that 4-bedroom Colonial but won't exactly have to live in abject poverty either. They will probably net more money than a one-income family and their childcare costs will be lower than a typical two-income family's. I'm betting that all their family togetherness is good for their children in ways that the top-10 school system can't touch. I'm also betting that they are happier than their stressed out and bankrupt two-income friends. And if disaster strikes the equally sharing family, either parent can be the safety net by ramping up his/her career (probably more easily than a stay-at-home parent can suddenly go back to work).
Instant ESP
Take an 'involved dad' and a willing mom, give them all the worksheets in our Toolbox, and ask them to transform their lives into full-out ESP for one week. What do you think the result might be? Care to guess?Marc and I are about busting our guts laughing at this article in The Independent (UK paper) about a journalist, Russ Litten, who was assigned to follow this website to a T and write about his experiences. A first, the poor guy is a bit horrified that the worksheets show he's not pulling his weight at home and with the kids. The recreation domain is a bit more equal, and the breadwinning domain comes out with less hours for his wife than for him (but approximately equal money earned, incidently).Armed with this information, they flip roles - each taking on all the tasks on the worksheets that didn't have their own initials next to them. He attempts all of his domestic duties at once, appropriately not accepting advice or direction from his wife. And mostly, what results is a comical disaster in which no one dies but everyone is a bit frazzled and wants to return to life in their previous comfort zones.But not quite. In the end, Russ' wife resolves to spend a bit more time on herself - in the recreation domain - and Russ himself decides to spend more time on family activities.All in all, we love the article. Russ Litten has a gift for comedy, surely, and he has clearly read a great deal of our thoughts and ideas, and good-naturedly attempted to follow our philosophies. We suspect that the whole point of assigning him this writing topic was to find flaws in the idea of ESP and to poke fun at them. We're willing to roll with the usual punches Russ includes in his article about how we appear to be so polished and blissful (of course, we're not; of course we're going to appear decent when a newspaper photographer shows up at our house to take our picture). But all in all, we're honored that he took on the assignment and gave all our worksheets a whirl in public.At the end of the article, Russ promises to write us a thank you note (a reference to the fact that the housework domain worksheet reveals he never writes them). We'll be waiting for that, Russ, but in the meantime, we've written you a short note ourselves:Dear Russ,Loved your experiment - really, we did. But we suspect you've realized that turning your life upside down for a few days is a general recipe for disaster. Throw anyone into a job he or she is not trained to do, and you'll get poor results - and unhappiness. ESP is not an instant fix. It is also so much less about equal task division than it is about equal involvement and connection in all four domains and a balanced life for both parents.As you so aptly point out, ESP takes guts. It isn't easy. Our cultures are set up to honor the traditional division of labor at home, and gender roles are extremely difficult to bend. It also takes time to set up your life to accomodate ESP even in the best of circumstances. So, we know that you knew you were going to fail. Not because you couldn't accomplish it and love your balanced life, but because you can't just turn on a switch like that.The thing, Russ, is that ESP does work. It works "brilliantly," in fact, for many couples. Some have made considerable sacrifices to create it, all work hard to maintain it, and none would give it up once they've tasted the balance and connectedness it allows. Yet, it is clearly not for everyone, and we would never pretend to lift it above other parenting lifestyles. We make no claims that ESP turns out brighter, more well-behaved, better looking children. It is simply a real option, alongside other choices, and we've appointed ourselves to speak up about it because very few others have yet done so.We must comment on the byline of your article, that refers to the "strict new equally shared parenting scheme." Perhaps you didn't write that line, but you can guess we don't consider ESP to be either 'strict' or a 'scheme.' Our website if full of specifics because it meant to be practical - a smorgasbord of ideas from which to pick and choose what fits your family. But ESP couples come in all sorts - all focusing on specific bits of the philosophy and aiming for the same very general goals.
Say "hello" from us to your lovely wife, Ruth, and your two kids, Sonny and Josie (who are the same ages as our M and T). We'd love to hear more from you, so please stay in touch. And, really, you made our day!Hugs and kisses,Amy and Marc
Naturally Involved Dads
Who says fathers who share (or dominate) the nurturing of their babies aren't doing what nature intended? Equally sharing parents have a lot in common with these animal dads:
- Emperor penguins - if you've seen March of the Penguins, you know what I mean.
- Marsupial frogs - dad watches the eggs hatch and then helps the tadpoles wriggle along his back until they enter pouches on his hips where they live for a few weeks and grow into frogs.
- Seahorses - mom deposits eggs into a pouch on dad's abdomen, where they are fertilized. Dad then carries the embryos to term, nourishing and then birthing them from the pouch.
- Hardhead catfish - dad carries the eggs in his mouth for 60 days until they hatch.
- Marmosets - dad is the primary parent who carries, feeds and grooms the infants after their first few weeks of life, and may assist mom during birth by grooming and licking the newborns.
Just some fun food for thought.
BabyZone Coverage
Just a quick post to say we're featured in a new article on BabyZone.com today. It's a fairly general article about how couples can more equitably share housework and childraising activities. I like how the author describes the relative ease of sharing the household cleaning and typical chores, but that 'extracurriculars' like party planning and shopping for gifts are harder to share. Tips are provided, partly from us and also from Jessica DeGroot of the ThirdPath Institute. I agree with all of them except this one: "Many women think that being CEO of the home gives them the right to micromanage their husbands. Instead, think about the good bosses you've had - usually the best ones are those who tell you what needs to be done, but let you figure out how to do it." I'd go much further than this if you want ESP - all the way to asking women to give up being the CEO of the home altogether. No managing at all - just teaming up with him to get the job done and enjoying it along the way.Thanks, Jeannie Brown of BabyZone, for a nice primer on getting to equality!
Calling for Crazy Ideas
I stumbled today upon a left-wing UK thinktank organization that is holding a contest to come up with ways to achieve "a more equal, democratic and sustainable world." The thinktank, called Compass, was created in 2003 to debate and develop ideas for change, and then campaign to move them forward. Their contest was inspired by the upcoming US presidential change and is called 'How to Live in the 21st Century.'
Why am I telling you all of this? Because I was struck by one of the proposals that has been submitted. It calls for changing the definition of full-time work to 20 hours per week. Here's the proposal's brief description:
[A 20-hour work week] leads to equality between the sexes and means that parenting can be equally shared. It frees people up to contribute properly to their communities at the same time as making work accessible to all, even young mothers, and allows all to participate more fully in democracy. It would halve traffic and employer overheads allowing them to pay the same wages as for today's 40-hour week.
It goes on to, again very briefly, describe how this change could be cost-neutral to companies, allow for full employment, and possibly even reduce capital costs and IT expenses for workplaces (if half of a building's employees worked different days than the other half).
Now, even I know this is pie-in-the-sky thinking. Among many other stumbling blocks (like the fact that I'm not sure many - including I - want to reduce their career to only 20 hours per week), most people would probably rush to say they couldn't possibly live on half their salary, even if it meant everyone around them would then be doing the same thing. But long ago, most people worked far more than 40 hours per week too - and labor laws changed that. And we adjusted and survived as a species.
Imagine all the people. Living for today. I'm getting carried away now...thinking about a world where all people work enough (whatever exact number of hours 'enough' means), have enough time with their families and to care for their homes, contribute meaningfully to their communities, and enjoy plenty of time for personal fun. Where ESP is so common that we no longer have to fight against anything to achieve it.
You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one.
What Makes Parents Equally Share?
It is a joy to swap stories with another parenting couple who equally share their household, childraising and breadwinning. One of the things I like best about this exchange is that I get to find out why they are equally sharing. Every couple has a slightly different take on how they ended up where they are now.There are those couples who vow not to become traditionalists. They enjoy bucking the status quo, and usually establish a unique way of life for themselves before they have children. When their first child comes along, they fashion a new unique life with their baby. In talking with this type of equally sharing couple, I get the sense that they want to see how far they can ride out their current lifestyle before they have to mix things up again. And that they will keep choosing something out of the ordinary.Then there are those who say they just 'fell into it'. Often, a subconscious shift from the traditional happens for these couples when they make a specific decision about one of their jobs. For example, the father might have been laid off early in their baby's life; this crisis may have led to a prolonged paternity 'leave' in which Dad bonds so closely with his baby that he then seeks a position that allows him to stay home one day a week. These couples may have fallen into equal sharing, but most of them say they don't think they would ever want to return to their old ways. What started as a subtle unconscious shift becomes a purposeful and carefully guarded lifestyle.And then we have the 'simple living' group. It is not uncommon for at least one of the parents in these couples to have dabbled in part-time work before having children or even before meeting. Living a balanced and serene life is highly important to these individuals, and they prioritize simplicity over the stressed-out juggling act that so many traditional couples do once they have children. It is not a big sacrifice for these couples to work less than full time, because money definitely doesn't buy their happiness.I could go on and on. I haven't even mentioned the die-hard feminists who would be deeply unhappy in an unequal marriage. Or the made-to-be-a-father men who don't want to miss out on their children's upbringing. Or even the practical couple who realizes that it simply makes the most sense for them to equally share their family - financially as well as from a balance standpoint.As for me and for Marc, we fit a few of the descriptions above. Marc definitely values simplicity and balance. He did not fall into equal sharing; he sought it out quite deliberately. My reasons include a bit of feminist 'fairness' mixed with a deep desire to literally share my family with my partner with everyday intimacy.Lots of different couples practice equally shared parenting. What makes you equally share? Or if you don't do so today, what would make you want to move in this direction?
Keeping Up the Conversation
We're back in the NY Times today, as guest bloggers for Lisa Belkin's Motherlode blog. It feels great to be continuing the conversation about gender equal parenting, and reminding the world that ESP is a valid (and terrific) family option. Our topic is taking a second look at those horrible 'martyred mommy' chain emails that laud moms as invincible and cut down dads. If you get a chance, stop by and leave a comment on Motherlode!And thanks, Lisa, for letting us speak up again!
Equally Frugal
For much of my adult life I have prided myself on being frugal. Shopping at Goodwill was a treat for my ego, and a pot of soup could feed my body and my soul for a whole week. So it comes as a bit of a shock for me to admit that I've changed...for the better.
I'm not exactly a spendthrift now, but Amy's aesthetic sense has rubbed off on me. Amy claims she's frugal too - but in a much different way. Her buying decisions almost always cost more than my equivalent purchases, but she invests a lot more energy in picking just the "right one." She, and more recently I, can enjoy her purchase for a much longer period of time whereas, in the past, I would view my stuff as disposable.
What I hope I haven't lost in the process is my belief that the more money I need to be happy, the less likely that is going to happen. I never quite got to the extreme position of monasticism but felt there was a lot of joy to be had by checking out of the material expectations of our society.
What got me thinking about this today was an article about The New Frugality on Boston.com. It describes how people are buying less expensive items these days, which sounds reasonable but doesn't quite match my new philosophy. But I like how the article describes that people are just plain buying less. This sounds like my new frugality. I'm now much more likely to put off a purchase until I can afford the "right" product than I am to continue my purchasing patterns at stores I don't normally visit.
I believe ESP has helped me make this switch. If I relied on Amy to make all the household purchasing decisions it would have been easy to just complain about her spendthrift ways. But since I have to use the vacuum just as often, my desire for a smooth functioning tool to get the job done well and swiftly allows me to evaluate this purchase to a different scale. I have come to believe that trust in Amy does not hinge on her changing but rather on me changing my perspective.
Equality and Overparenting
WSJ's 'The Juggle' covered a recent article in The New Yorker on overparenting this week. I clicked over to read the actual article because it sounded intriguing, and because I generally believe that there is pressure to become too involved in running our children's lives out of fear. It was an interesting and eye-opening review of several experts' opinions on the topic - all extremely anti-"death-grip parenting" as you might guess.The expert theories on why parents are so much more involved, and in such a detrimental way, with their kids include the fact that former power career moms who now stay at home apply their managerial skills to parenting with a vengence. Hmmm...perhaps. I've seen some evidence of the latter, at least, in the occasional acquaintance.But then I got to a little paragraph on page 4 of this long article. Here, the experts tackle the influence of feminism, and gender equality, on helicopter parenting trends. I'll quote here:"Another discomforting matter in these books is the role of feminism in today's child-rearing follies. According to Gary Cross [author of Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity], one reason that young men are refusing to grow up is that the women's movement has eliminated the rewards for doing so. In return for putting on a suit every morning and going to work, men used to be the boss both in the office and at home. No more. So why grow up? Cross acknowledges that patriarchy and slackerhood are not the only available choices. As he notes, some people are saying that our society, by discarding sexism, can produce a new kind of man, one who is "nurturing and emotionally expressive," and who "abandons his old patriarchal privileges and embraces equality in private and public roles." Cross is not looking forward to such a development, however: "How many men (or women) can distinguish this approach from the stereotypical wimp?""Huh? Please help me understand...so, overparenting is in part caused by men who refuse to grow up because they can't be macho men any longer, and therefore they settle for being wimps? Maybe global warming is caused by eating bananas because people like watching movies too. Yikes.Here's my theory, in case you're wondering: Overparenting is probably a bad thing in general, and is caused by a host of cultural factors that have led parents, primarily women, to forget that they can't control everything and that they shouldn't anyway. And gender equal parenting, when both parents are equally, intimately involved in raising their kids, can act as a check against such overparenting by either parent. I know this is true in my own home. If left to my own devices, I'd probably fall into trap after trap of cultural overparenting. I'd overprotect and smother and even push 'for their own good.' Marc is much more immune to the outside pressures to enroll M or T in kiddy classes or keep them away from any moving car ever. He prefers to teach them to have fun at home too, and to know the difference between a car 3 blocks away and one 3 feet away. Because of ESP, he's got equal say in how we raise them, and I have benefited from his wisdom more than once. How do you think ESP might influence overparenting?
Dads Trump Moms on Balance Worries
A new poll by the Rockefeller Family Fund asks parents how much they worry about work/life balance - it's being discussed here and here. Turns out this ranks up there with the economic crisis as a topic keeping us up at night. And the most surprising news is that more fathers worry about balancing work and family than mothers do. That's right! The poll press release says, "Daily worries about work and family responsibilities proved to be frequent for 72 percent of working fathers and 67 percent of working mothers with children under 18." Lisa Guide, Associate Director of the Fund, analyzes this result by saying, "This poll clearly shows that work and family balance is not just a concern for American working women, but one of the biggest daily problems for America's working families in general."Not that I want my gender to win the war on worrying or anything. But I like that this is a piece of evidence that women don't own this department either. Think about it.... We're used to thinking that working women live their days torn between work and home, while men blithely come and go without regrets. Women get to sob about their plight, and they get to belittle or nag their husbands about not doing enough at home. These data kind of turn that whole cultural argument on its tail.I realize that women's rate of work/life worry is probably lower in this survey because many more women than men work part-time. This would lower women's scores. But the important thing is that men's worry is so high. Now...hmmm...what to do about it? ESP.
It Ain't Perfect
We created this website for a couple of distinct purposes. First, we wanted to bring the idea of ESP to all parents - to make equal sharing a fully doable option amid other, more common parenting lifestyles. Second, we wanted to create a community of like-minded parents. And third, we wanted to outline, in practical and philosophical terms, exactly what it takes to create and sustain ESP amid a culture that doesn't often make it easy.In our attempts to fulfill these purposes, we've focused our writing on the positive - the 'how to' rather than the complaints about how something isn't possible. This approach contrasts with a lot of what is written in blogs and articles about parenting or household labor division. It is cool to be edgy. To write in an f-you style about how hard it is to be a parent and how keeping the house clean and keeping your sanity are overrated. To offer 'life sucks' mentality rather than solutions.We've been accused from time to time of excessive perkiness. Occasional readers may wonder, "Who are these people? It can't be all that perfect." Blogger Penelope Trunk even labeled the NY Times article on ESP as 'mommy/daddy porn' - her phrase for writing about picture-perfect parenthood when we all know that raising children is crazy-hard.So, here's the newsflash. We're regular people - we fight, we pout (well, I do), we tune each other out (that'd be Marc), we act in ways that don't make either of us very proud. We struggle with ESP all the time. Why just this week, I got mad at Marc for leaving T's clean laundry in piles on the floor of his room rather than putting it away as we'd agreed...how petty of me. And we get unbalanced despite our quest for balanced lives. Again, earlier this week, I got so overwhelmed with my to-do list that I literally cried when a rude car-wash manager wouldn't do what he'd promised (give me a donation to T's preschool fundraiser) after I'd driven all the way across town.We could fill the blog entries on this website with the trials and pain of the Vachon household. We could spend hours writing about how we fail to live up to perfection. Occasionally we do think it is useful to share with you how we've seen the light on some new aspect of equal sharing, or gotten through a tough spot in our own equality. But rather than turn ESP.com into a hip-mama/funky-dad ode to the trenches of bad parental living, we're more interested in offering up a real alternative to a daily life in those trenches. A model that can be dissected and analyzed. For us, and for many other families, equally shared parenting is transformative. It is a real, practical, sustainable way of life, and we focus on writing about it rather than about our own daily lives. Complaining isn't really our thing. It is actually not very common among other ESP parents either - a group we find to be rather principled and grateful. We're far from perfect, but we're pretty happy most days. So if you've come looking to be entertained by sarcastic, edgy, sighing prose, you've definitely clicked over to the wrong place. If, on the other hand, you want to build a hard-won but fantastic life as a parent (complete with imperfection), we hope you'll hang with us.
Tom Can Cook
We recently enjoyed a dinner out with friends at a nearby restaurant called Tom Can Cook. Of course many top chefs are men, but the restaurant's name is a nice ESP reminder that men are perfectly capable of domestic duties - cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping or buying gifts.This article in a San Antonio newspaper this week entitled 'Yes, Men Can Cook and Clean' speaks to the issue nicely. Several experts weigh in, including our mentor Francine Deutsch, to describe how stereotypical gender roles in the home are breaking down at a considerable rate. It also touches upon the question of whether ESP marriages make for happier partners than traditional marriages. Marital happiness data are hard to collect, say researchers, but anger levels tend to be higher in traditional marriages and especially high in marriages where women work but also do the majority of the housework.The article ends by describing the ideal of equally shared housework: "[Evergreen State College marriage/family expert Stephanie] Coontz says young people raised in families where the labor is divided equally increasingly identify that arrangement as the ideal family format. Deutsch says couples come to such a balance in many different ways - there's not just one path to equality."How nice to think that our kids will idealize an ESP household when they grow up. And yes - ESP happens in many, many different ways; for proof, just meet some of the couples in our Real Life Stories.
Jumping Monkeys
Marc and I were the featured guests on the Internet TV show Jumping Monkeys last week, with Megan Morrone and Leo Laporte of TWiT.TV. Jumping Monkeys is an online parenting talk show with the tag line of "parenting in the digital age, featuring lots of helpful links and advice, plus interviews with other geek parents, web site designers, and bloggers."It was fun to talk with Megan and Leo about ESP, and we learned later that Megan and her husband equally share parenting of their three toddlers. Hooray!If you'd like to listen to the podcast of the episode, click here.Enjoy!
Heaven Forbid, They Want It All
There's a rather negative article in the Wall Street Journal from last week that describes the entitlement of the Millennial Generation (Generation Y) at work. Raised by Boomer parents who coddled them and fed their egos, these young people are a menace in the workplace - or so it seems. They want:- great jobs now, without paying their dues- access to upper management so that they can share their ideas and directly participate in improving the company- frequent (but gentle) feedback on their performance- precise descriptions of their job responsibilities- high pay (because they deserve it)- flexible work and lots of time with their family (even in high level positions)- lots of vacation timeAs one young blogger is quoted, "[Managers] are finding that they have to adjust work around our lives instead of us adjusting our lives around work." Now, it may be true that wanting it all without first proving your worth (especially if you then don't live up to your stated worth) may be an annoying trait in any employee. But the rest of this stuff is pretty darn fantastic. It sets the stage for equally shared parenting - challenging jobs at good pay with flexible hours that allow time for family. And fits with the mindset of ESP breadwinning - rewarding work that truly makes a difference. Who says we all don't deserve that? Millennials may shock the culture by assuming they'll get all they want, but they may also prove that what they want is indeed possible in situations we thought could never provide such niceties. This generation has power - they're bright, hard-working and in demand as Boomers retire. If employers listen to them with open minds, we might all benefit. Regardless of what generation any of us is assigned, it is always a good idea to work hard and contribute at a high level. This new generation may be teaching us that you don't have to sacrifice your life to be good at what you do. Fitting your job to your life sounds like a recipe for happiness to me. Happiness for the employee - and for the employer who is lucky enough to hire the cream of the crop.
Time for Fun
Today The Juggle tackles the tricky topic of finding time for rejuvenation, downtime or non-material goals. It was interesting to read some of the comments ranging from, "I don't think there is time or energy for charity or hobbies" to "just writing this makes me realize how much more complete I am now that I am not all about my career. I simply have a job (and a life!) now." Lots of people commented on wanting to exercise more as well.The Juggle discussion does a decent job at highlighting some interesting ideas worthy of recreation time. However, it doesn't touch on the role of your partner in this endeavor. If time for self is going to be equally shared between a couple a few ground rules are encouraged.- What's the value? - Decide together what you will both be willing to work for.
- What do you want to do? - Create a short list of the activities you would most like to pursue.
- How can I help? - Instead of demanding more time for fun, suggest ways you could free up time for your partner to enjoy his/her life.
- Lose the guilt! - Your kids will love to see you happy and rejuvenated.
I'm confident that two willing partners are more likely to have success creating a balanced life together than either one is capable of creating alone.
Equally Shared Parenting - The Book!
Our aim with ESP.com has always been to bring the possibility of balanced lives and gender equality to all parents. Especially those who might be interested in creating it for themselves. To this end, we've been working to outline the benefits, challenges and practical decisions of this family model throughout this website.Now we have a second way to work toward this goal. We are proud to announce that we will be writing a book on equally shared parenting over the next year, to be published by Perigee/Penguin Books in 2010. Our plan is share all that we've learned - from the many couples we've met who inspire us (that's you), from our own successes and mistakes, and from experts in gender-equality - so that we end up with something truly useful to a would-be ESP parent. We are excited at the possibility of expanding the message of ESP through a book. But we can't do it without you. Now is the time to write to either of us if you'd be interested in helping us make this book the best possible - through your ESP stories and thoughts. If you're an ESP parent, or someone who has given equal sharing a lot of thought even if you aren't currently doing it, we would love to hear from you! Drop us a line in the comments or, better yet, by writing to either of us at info@equallysharedparenting.com.To start, if you had one thing you'd like to tell the world about ESP, what would it be?
Throwing Balance Out With the Recession
Sue Shellenbarger's column today in the Wall Street Journal discusses a disturbing but understandable trend. She describes the nation's financial crisis as a reason why many couples are abandoning their hopes for balanced lives. Scaled back work hours and adequate family time are becoming more difficult to justify or hack. Does the recession mean an end to ESP?Hardly. While some families are undoubtedly struggling with money (who isn't, these days?), there are other options to survive besides working yourself out of a happy life. Logically, there's the notion that two full-time, full-bore jobs usually require full-time+ outside childcare - at a hefty price (emotionally and financially). Especially if you've got pre-school aged children, two slightly scaled back jobs can net a huge reduction in childcare costs and give both parents lives with breathing room to boot. Spiritually, there's the idea that money isn't the goal anyway. We need enough - that's all. But unless you are truly, truly impoverished, it is hard to really decide what is enough.This financial mess is going to affect all of us. Some of our worries are currently on paper only. Others, like lost paychecks due to layoffs or lost benefits due to employer belt tightening, are front and center. But I have a secret hope. It may be horribly naive, but I'm hoping that a bit of genuine good comes of this period in history.I'd love to see a reawakening of priorities. A return to the simple life, where families no longer need all the things that marketers say make up the American Dream. I'd love to see us proudly put our money where it can do the most good - to buy us time to be together.What's that saying about the baby and the bathwater? We need ESP more than ever.
The Honey-Do-List
When I find myself talking about ESP in a social gathering, I often hear women share their strategies for getting the men in their lives to do a decent amount of housework. Simply stated, they say "I just tell him what needs to be done because he would never notice on his own."
Are there really any human beings who volunteer to do chores that they know someone else will either do or ask them to do later anyway? Tradition says that women own the running of the house and men take direction from them. I would suggest that men will only take charge of tasks when women stop doing the managing.
Everyone needs reminding sometimes, of course, but men are as capable as women when it comes to running a household on their own. Think about single men without partners - do all of them rely on someone else (their parents, their friends) to remind them things need to be done? Doesn't a man remember to do his own laundry, pick up dry-cleaning, get his hair cut or call his mother on her birthday before he decides to marry? I won't deny that the vast majority of the remembering and assigning is done by women, but I think this is a cultural thing rather than an in inborn male deficiency. Understanding and addressing this subtle inequality is really at the essence of equally shared parenting.
Men may have their own style of remembering that is counterintuitive to a woman's way. Not to generalize, but maybe men handle responsibilities more on the fly than with extensive planning and checklists. Or maybe they prioritize things differently, often foregoing some duties that actually don't even need doing at all (but women would deem crucial).
People need to be given the space and freedom to do things their own way. After a couple decides together that a specific task needs to be done, and then together assigns that task to the man, it is best for the woman to get out of the way - no reminding, no nagging, no checking up, no wringing of hands. If the man senses that the woman is still subconsciously holding onto the task, he doesn't need to fully accept ownership. If he senses that his partner has moved on to other things and trusts him to do what he agreed was his to do, he can truly own the task.
The 'honey-do' list is an example of quasi-equality that really leaves the woman in charge. If both partners gave each other 'honey do' lists, I suppose this would be a different story, but how often do you hear of a man presenting his wife with a list of things to accomplish? With the classic 'honey-do' list, the woman is directing the man; this is not a true partnership. I agree that the list helps to outline the tasks that lie ahead, and that it can be useful if a man requests such a list, and that it can even be the beginning of equalizing household tasks in a home where the man really isn't pulling his weight at all. But for couples who want to move beyond surface equalizing to true equality, the 'honey-do' list has got to go.
Early Retirement
I was once talking to a colleague at work about my lifestyle - working reduced hours and having plenty of time for kids, home projects and bicycling or tennis - and he responded with something very interesting. "Sounds like you're already retired," he said, wistfully. I mulled this over for awhile after he said it, and the more I thought about it, the better it fit me. Yes, I'm not saving my retirement years for someday - I'm enjoying them now!Granted, working 27-32 hours a week over these past 6 years isn't quite retirement as we all think of it. But the sentiment is genuine. I enjoy working just like I fantasize that many retired professionals enjoy staying in the game. Like Amy's mother's 87-year-old companion who still goes into his biochemistry laboratory every day.But I've got nothing on the couple showcased in our latest Real Life Story. Pete and Simi, both 34 years old, have masterminded their ideal life together as an ESP couple - a life that is centered around time with their 2 1/2 year old son and with each other. You'll be amazed by their story because it is such a crystal-clear example of how to prioritize what you want from life.Please join me in welcoming Pete and Simi to our Real Life Stories page, and I hope their story will inspire you to reach for your dreams as well.
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