Mommy Monday: Dadblast Author Isn’t Total Schmuck!

This installment of Mommy Monday makes my chest puff out with parental pride. See, Bixie discusses the division of labor (irony and pun intended) associated with raising a baby when both parents work. Turns out I’m not a total slacker! But don’t take my word for it, read on:

I remember my mom telling me a story about when she and my dad were first married. It was before kids and she came home to my dad vacuuming the living room floor. She was pleasantly surprised – given the day and age – and it ended up being just the beginning of my dad’s household contributions. I’ve always looked fondly upon my parents division of labor and, in fact, remember thinking about how “lucky” my mom was to have someone who helped out so much. I also remember doing a lot of great things with BOTH of my parents. My mom stayed home when we were young – so she was constantly doing fun things with us like taking us to puppet shows, doing crafts & baking with us. I also remember my dad doing a ton on what I can only assume were nights and weekends – taking us sledding, playing wiffle ball with the neighborhood kids, etc. Since my mom stayed home, she was obviously spending far more time with us, but looking back – I feel really lucky to have spent quality time with both of them as much as possible. And I feel like they were able to achieve if not the reality, then certainly the illusion, of things being 50/50.

So, when I got pregnant – I became obsessed with the idea of things being 50/50. After all, I didn’t want to be one of those women who ended up resenting her husband because I did all the work while he just sat around bouncing the baby on his knee when it was convenient. I was nervous that I’d be the exhausted, frazzled mom while he’d be the funny, well-rested dad. And the Gus came along.

I’m not going to say that we didn’t have a few bumps along the way. But the truth is that we had a plan from the start that Parry would wake up for the first feeding each night – and then I would handle the rest while I was on maternity leave. Some nights, one of us would let the other sleep through the night and just take all the feedings – cause one of us was particularly tired. By the time Parry got home from work, he wanted to spend as much time with Gus as possible. He’d change him, feed him (I was expressing milk for that very purpose), read to him or play with him. And, at first, I’d watch every move and make “suggestions” on how to do things a little bit better. Then I read an article in Parenting Magazine that made a lot of sense. By making suggestions, I was insinuating Parry was doing it wrong – which, as you can imagine, wasn’t very motivating. I stopped doing that as much as possible and watched as he and Gus formed their own way together.

When I started back to work – everything changed – I didn’t have all day long to play with Gus, make dinner or get errands done. So I started to stress about the 50/50 again. Until I realized that things would never be completely 50/50 – but they would be balanced – because we were both invested in making it that way. In fact, there are many days when Parry does much more than me. The point isn’t that things need to be exactly equal. The point is that we both feel supported. That we both can see when the other needs a break. And that we both want to create the illusion (if not the reality) that things were 50/50 so Gus can look back and be happy that he spent quality time with both of us as much as possible.

How have you achieved balance while raising a family? I’d love to hear about it!