Equity After the Kids

Before I got derailed talking about webcams in the classroom, we were talking about equity in marriage after children. How do you make sure that you don't stuck with the lion share of thankless drudgery after the kids come around?

Some say the solution is to work full time, that way the guy is forced to pick up his dry cleaning himself, and other tasks are outsourced to nannies and maids. You have to making serious cash to afford all that help. Most women have their kids in daycare and still have to do the cleaning themselves. Even with nannies or daycare, there is still much shuffling that has to be done. Many of the full time paid labor moms still do a majority of the work at home. They race around all weekend taking the kids to soccer, arranging the parties, buying the clothes. Remember Arlie Hochschild's book, The Second Shift, was about women who worked full time who came home to the second job doing the childcare and housework? And the ones who make less money then their husband might as well not even have a job, since their job is considered expendable. A full time job is no guarantee to equity.

Many women stay home with the kids full or part time for a variety of reasons -- the expense of childcare combined with a low paying profession, a strong vocation to be with children, boring paid work, the lack of job flexibility, whatever. How do you prevent becoming the doormat if you stay home with the kids?

I guess there's no one right path. These are just some suggestions that I've accumulated.

UPDATE: Thanks to Pajamas Media and to Blogher for the links (Thanks Allison and Mary!). Nice commentary at Blogher.

1. The decision for one person to stay home has to be a joint decision. It should never be framed as "it was your choice." It should be understood as "this is something that we both think is best for this or that reason."

2. It is not "his career," it's "the family career". If you stay at home, you are investing in his job. Make sure you understand what goes on there. He is not free to accept whatever promotion or job change without mutual agreement. His job has an impact on the whole family. You made career changes to suit the family, and so must he. It's amazing how many strong women don't think that they can tell their husband, "no".

3. You must call him four times a day and tell him in detail every mundane event. Junior refused to eat potatoes. Junior used the potty three times today. Junior refused to nap. There's no way that childrearing will more appreciated, if you don't tell your spouse about it. Besides, it's fun stuff and your husband should get to be involved.

4. Send your spouse to all the evening events at the school. They need to see the classroom and meet the teachers, too, in order to have a better understanding of their kids' lives.

5. A majority of weekend events must be your husband's responsibility. Religion classes, sports, dance, birthday parties. He must do the shuffling and be responsible for remembering that he's supposed to bring the snacks to soccer on the third week of October. With boys, it may be easier to delegate some of this stuff, but he's got to take the girls to ballet, also.

6. Actually, the most important thing is to marry a good guy. Should have made that number one.

7. There must be parity of leisure time. If he goes to a Bruce concert on Friday night and is too tired to deal with the kids Saturday morning, then you get the same amount of time to yourself the next weekend. But if you spend most of the week playing tennis and eating lunch while you've got a babysitter, then you've got no hand.

8. Try to figure out how to carve out some time to do some career maintenance. Get a babysitter or work during evenings. Don't ever throw those options away. You may be able to get things ramped up again in the future. Besides, you have protect yourself, too.

I guess the bottom line isn't that you need to force your husband to be a good guy. He probably is one already and just needs some guidance. A good life involves a balance between home life and paid work life, and both partners benefit from having this balance. In a perfect world, the business world would be better suited to accommodating a family. It's not. So, we have come up with our system of negotiations and compromise.

Comments

[Connie]

Corollary to #7: Don't hand the baby to him when he walks in the door at 6:00 and say, "Your turn!" while you go read, exercise, relax in the tub, whatever. You both worked all day, now figure out how to split up the evening hours.

[scantee]

Also, maintain your own checking and investment accounts. If you make an agreement where one person stays home and one works then each of you has equal say about how to spend the paycheck. Part of each paycheck should go directly into the at home spouse's personal checking account. I've known a lot of at home women who feel guilty spending the money their husband earned because it is not "their money" and a personal checking account seems to ammeliorate some of this worry. Also, if the breadwinner receives a pension or 401k the childrearing spouse should invest similar amounts into an IRA or other retirement account.

[jen]

Have you read Mahony's Kidding Ourselves? In my mind it's the definitive discussion of work equity at home. References I've made in other threads to "best alternative to a negotiated agreement" are directly from Mahony.

Elizabeth at Half-Changed World wrote a nice piece about it a while back:

http://www.halfchangedworld.com/2004/09/kidding_ourselv.html

[bj]

Have nagging arguments with your husband about who keeps track of all of the details of your life? (oh yeah, that doesn't work all that well, since it's likely the path to divorce).

I don't see how there can be any real parental equity unless both partners have non-parental commitments (it doesn't have to be paid work); in the absence of commitments, it seems to easy for the person who has responsibilities imposed by the non-family unit to have the default right to opt out of family responsibilities.

I'm also a fan of Mahoney's book -- it doesn't get nearly as much exposure as it should because I think it seems to economic to many.

bj

[Susan S.]

I guess I don't understand the assumption. Are these rules for SAHM or for moms who work outside the home during the day? Why should the father get all the evening events and a majority of weekend events when he has also worked a 50-60 hour week, fielding "Guess what Johnny did" phone calls four times a day?

I just don't see how equitable that is either.

I believe that moms need to give up power and get dads involved, which sometimes means assigning tasks. But I don't want to become the taskmaster of my husband's life just because I'm the taskmaster of my kids' life.

[Ailurophile]

Yes, "marry a good guy" ought to be number one with a bullet. The corollary to this is, "Marry someone who is invested in your relationship, who wants to make your marriage and family work, and who has goodwill towards you."

So many of the tales of woe I read and hear about - not common or garden husbandly cluelessness, but real selfish asshole behavior - seem to stem from the husband's not really giving a damn about the marriage or family. All the cajoling, nagging and strategizing in the world won't make this kind of guy pick up his share of the family work because, to borrow the lapidary phrase from the famous self-help book, "he just isn't that into you."

Marry a man who is a good person, who loves you at least as much as you love him, and who really wants to make things work. All else will flow from there.

[Laura]

If the father doesn't go to the evening and weekend events, then he has no exposure to his kid's life whatsoever. The SAHM has put in a full work week. I guess I wasn't assuming that she would be sitting on her ass on the weekend, but either using the time for her career or probably doing other stuff around the house. There's nothing that pisses women off more than putting in 12 hour days by themselves all week and then not get any help on the weekend, because the guy thinks he needs "me time" in front of the big screen TV watching football.

This issue about whether or not to nag/bitch has come up several times in the other feminist blogs. I don't know. I'm not a big proponent of the suck it up model. Of course, if you've married a good guy, then you just need some gentle steering rather than bitching.

Thanks for the Mahoney suggestion and the Elizabeth link. I'll have to check it out.

[Susan S.]

"If the father doesn't go to the evening and weekend events, then he has no exposure to his kid's life whatsoever."

Well, I think that's overstating it, but I see your point. I think there has to be compromises and mutual awareness.

I've been the sole breadwinner, so I know the stress that creates in a person's life. I try to keep that in mind when my husband resists picking up the kids from some night event after he's worked a 12 hour day. We're both tired, but I get the joy and satisfaction of seeing my kids and being a parent while he was sitting in meetings during those 12 hours.

I actually think the answer is fewer night and weekend obligations so husband and I aren't just playing chauffeur 24/7

[Sam]

Move to France. From Yesterday's WaPo:
The French system also fosters different attitudes about working mothers. French working moms say they feel far less guilt than friends in the United States or Europe because French society recognizes children are well cared-for while mothers are at work.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701652.html
I blog it here:
http://uselesstree.typepad.com/useless_tree/2006/10/vive_la_confuci.html

[Catie]

I hate #4. If someone was calling me 4 times a day for any reason, I'd start avoiding those calls because that's just annoying. Also, if it's really the "family career" doesn't that mean the stay at home person should be getting 4 phone calls a day about various e mail that need to be written and meetings that need to be scheduled and who stole what from the fridge?

I truly hate the idea that partners are somehow incapable of negotiating their lives together without resorting to treating each other with hostility. I'm thinking that if someone really needs that list, there might be a much larger problem in that family.

[jen]

I'd like to say I was super purposeful about making sure I didn't end up a doormat, but to be honest, I'm still bad at it. Like Catie I dislike the idea of treating my partner with hostility. (Although ironically I've been known to be a doormat long enough that I end up hostile, but somehow that seems OK ...)

What happens at our house is a little less purposeful but still effective. I have a tendency to try and try and work and work until I am totally exhausted. And then I'm so tired that I'm not interested in getting laid. Which means my husband does not get laid. And he notices that pretty quickly. Next thing you know I'm getting my Sunday nap and we're back to some balance.

[Amy P]

How about four e-mails a day instead of the four calls? Or just blogging the latest cuteness?

[Laura]

The trouble with these sorts of list is that they get a little school marmy.

I do talk with my husband around four times a day on the phone and I do tell him all about the kids and I ask him about his job. If two people are in such different worlds, I think you sort of have to have a lot of communication. If my world of poop and feedings are too dull for him, well it's often a little dull for me, too. As a parent, I think he needs to be a part of the dull and the good.

Laughing at your method, jen. I had a friend who said if her husband did the dishes that was foreplay.

And Susan S., yes. One way to manage everything is just to have less to manage.

I don't think that being purposeful has to mean hostility. I see it as good communication and negotiation.

OK, I have another example. Having a special needs kid ratchets up all these extra work thing a ton. It's hard to get someone to help you, and those kids needs much more attention and patience. It also involves lots of meetings and lots of research. Steve cannot do any of the meetings or the therapy appointments. But he can read some books on the bus ride home, and he can do some googling during his lunch hour. It helps that I'm not the sole fountain of information on speech therapy. It helps if he assumes some of mental responsibility for Ian's education and it's not all on my shoulders. But we had to negotiate that.

[Geeky Mom]

I think this is the number one issue in a lot of marriages. Although I think I married a good guy, we're both academics. Our work can swallow up 12 hours a day without even thinking about it. But who's the first to let those extra hours nurturing the career go? Me. Right now, Mr. Geeky is programming a robot at the dining room table. I'm hanging out in the blog world, but what am I thinking about? Laundry. He claims, there's a small bunch of neurons thinking about laundry, but I don't believe it.

We really do follow most of your list. The thing that gets me is the mental energy I spend thinking about the kid stuff. I feel like I spend way more energy thinking about the house and kids than he does. And I think that's something we've been taught.

[dave s]

She works huge hours and I work 40 hours a week. So I do the play dates and keep track of birthday parties and go to Target for the presents, and take time off from work for the checkups. It's not an issue for us, really - we are both doing what we can. There was a lot of theory before we got married and still until we got kids, and now we are just making sure all the jobs get done. And - she makes three times my salary, so when college time comes, or retirement, her contribution comes into play. It's a joint enterprise.

[Jeannette]

Heehee. I thought the calling four times a day was funny.

Sometimes with us, the kid-watching parent texts the non-kidwatching parent about the latest and greatest. (E.g. "You shoulda seen that poo. Da bomb!" or "He just signed 'cow'!")

I think having a kid exagerates everything in a relationship, so having good communication structures already makes a huge difference when it comes to the Great Divide-it-up. If there is already nit-picking about who is going to pick up the dry-cleaning, who is going to pick up the baby at 4 am for the hundredth month in a row is going to be a lot harder to negotiate.

I like what you said about the stay at home parent investing in the other parent's career. Because, hey, it's Our Life. The kid, the job, the house. It's US. Not me versus you.

I also like what you said a couple of comments ago about having a special needs kid. You're right, that takes up a lot of time, and I know we've both adjusted some of expectations, so that I could be at home more these early years with our deaf son. But my husband is also learning sign, reading books, etc. even if he can't be there for every therapist visit or trip to the hospital.

[Susan S.]

Laura, I'm curious about what your husband communicates to you when you talk four times a day. Does he talk about the pressures he's feeling, the concern about how he has to do his job perfectly and under a lot of pressure or he's get fired and evertyhing will fall apart? Does he talk about his concerns about paying the mortgatge?

I understand the difficulties of being the SAHM. I know the pressures of being the sole breadwinner with a kid and a husband in school I'm not sure which pressures and streeses were tougher, but I'd trade worrying about playdates and doctor's appointment than worrying about losing my job because my family needed my sole income.

[Laura]

Sigh. Of course, I talk with my husband about the pressures that he's under. I also tell him that I'm proud that he's doing so well, especially since this job just evolved from a temp job that he took when he couldn't find a job in academia. He never planned on being Big Business guy.

He also knows that he can quit any time. I don't care about the money. We can live in an apartment and survive on my academic salary. If his job isn't working out, we can figure out a way to make a change.

I wrote this post thinking about Linda Hirshman's rules for women: only have one kid, marry a liberal guy, only work full time jobs, yadda yadda. I think it's coming out in the comments that you can't have a checklist for equity. Employment itself is no guarentee. It's really a mental state that both partners need. If both people treat each other with respect and understand that both of their efforts are for some sort of common goal, then nobody is feeling abused.

[Amy P]

Reading this thread, I'm reminded of a segment from the Joy Luck Club. One of the Chinese-American daughters has married her boss who outearns her many times over, but in the interests of equality they split their expenses 50/50, with extremely inequitable results. It's a great scene, and I think it would be good as part of a talk on equity.

Personally, I'm a familial Marxist: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

[Sandy]

Something important that no one has mentioned is that you need to make sure the WOH father has some extended time (on a weekend, or vacation or sick days) where he does it *all*. Preferably with the SAH mom not there to supervise at all. It's good for both of them - it's a break for the mom, and it fosters competance in the dad. How can he be expected to figure out childcare and household stuff if the wife micromanages care and arranges all of the meals, clothes, baths, bedtime routines? I know too many mothers that refuse to give up control over these things. Maybe because they married jerks that they don't trust? Maybe because they're afraid to lose control or the house will get messy or their kids won't be dressed right? That was one of the things that most bugged me in Darla Shine's 'Happy Housewives' book - when she advises mothers to have their friends take care of their kids rather than have fathers 'babysit'.

I do quite a bit of traditional male 'outside' jobs, too - like gutter cleaning and lawn mowing, because physical stuff like that can be pretty satisfying. There are a lot of summer evenings where I would much prefer peacefully doing yardwork instead of playing 'Battleship', playing with 'My Littel Pony" and keeping the kids from fighting over who has a bath first.

[Sandy]

And even if the SAH mom ends up doing a fair amount of the traditionally female tasks, like grocery shopping, and laundry, because she *can* do it while at home, make sure these roles are flexible. Make sure your kids see their father doing housework when he has the time...i.e., men shouldn't sit on the couch watching football on Thanksgiving while all the women are doing dishes in the kitchen.

[bj]

I found Susan's comment interesting (i.e. how does the sole earner handle the stress), because I've often wondered how men cope with the familial equity balance, and how it changes with children. I've read a lot about (and have my own personal experience) with struggling to keep a marriage equal in terms of household commitment after kids. And lots of women have written about choosing, falling into, or being pushed into traditional gender roles when they had children, after having struggled against gender stereotyping all their lives. But, how do men, who were in equal relationships and marriages, and were, shall we say feminists, doing the same things as their partners, cope with choosing, falling into, or being pushed into the traditional gender role for a man (being the provider).

I feel like that's a book that needs to be written (maybe Steve will write it?).

I also tell my husband that we will find a way to live without his big salary, if he ever wants to stop what he does. (We both work full time, but he earns the lion share of our family income). But, he would have a hard time accepting that option, and worries about it. I tell him we can move towns, move to a smaller house, and revamp to live within our means, and that I'd never want him to stay in a soul sucking job to maintain our standard of living. And I know I will do it, in a moment. Now, though, explaining that to our children would be hard (who shall we say, have known nothing but luxury), and that adds pressure, as well.

bj

[Henry]

I think making the economic decision to do without the big (or biggest) salary is a pretty vital step 0. Among my acquaintances the big salary jobs inevitably involve a long commute (into Boston in this case), long work hours and often business travel. The big earner simply can't contribute anything other than money if he or she is not around.

[Susan S.]

It's easy to say, "I could live without and you should quit your job" but it's quite another to actually leave your family in a financial bind just because you aren't content. When I was working and my husband wasn't, almost every day I spent time in my office wondering what would happen if I couldn't pay the mortgage, the student loan bills, the electric bill. On mornings I didn't feel like going to work, I realized that I couldn't afford to lose this job because I'd made a deal with my husband that I would work while he was finishing law school and caring for our child.

Fortunately, I knew I had an out. I knew that at some point my husband would be make money again and I could quit working if I wanted to--which I have. I don't think men view that they have those options. Just as women are "programmed" to be the caregiver, men have similar programming that pressures them to be the provider, regardless of the costs.

[jen]

There's a brilliant sequence in Eugenides' Middlesex where he describes a young father's perspective of his wife's relationship with their baby. First the dad feels left out, then rejected. Finally he retreats to the living room (where the greek men in the book hang out, leaving the women in the kitchen).

I think the male retreat into traditional roles is somewhat driven by punishing work schedules but to a great extent seems determined by the woman's gatekeeping. It's a rare man who can stand up to serious gatekeeping.

As an aside, I'm a working mom with an at-home husband. And I struggle mightily against getting sucked into the "provider-only" model. It's all about managing work hours and learning to deal with the humiliation of being the non-expert parent.

[Laura]

The first year that Jonah was born, we were both home working on our dissertations and watching him. No one was in the role of sole caretaker. I let him change diapers and we both worked. Of course, we earned ZERO money and we were living on government assistance, but it was a good education for both of us. Steve learned how to mix up a bottle of formula with one hand and carted those kids everywhere in a backpack. And I completely relaxed when he had them. Even though we're now have a more traditional distribution of time, I think that year helped us do things a little differently.

re: the pressure of sole breadwinner. I'm not discounting that there is this pressure and maybe guys have been programmed to worry about this more than women. I think the pressure can be lessened by not getting too hooked on the money and by saving like little squirrels. I've got a big supportive family that could help out if needed. The fact that I do have an education and skills that could be put into play if needed, also helps.

Big salaries and no time definitely makes things more complicated. But there are still weekends and brain time. My husband sits next to a woman who's a single mom. She has daycare, but she still has to arrange all the doctor's appointment, weekend activities, school events by herself in the office. She may not get all the promotions that a guy with a SAHM gets, but she gets by. I think that a lot of guys could learn from her example.

[WendyW]

"Some say the solution is to work full time, that way the guy is forced to pick up his dry cleaning himself, and other tasks are outsourced to nannies and maids."

Huh? We've never had a nanny or a maid, and we've had a two-career family for the past year and a half. And when my daughter was 15 months and we both had full-time jobs, we didn't have a maid or nanny.

[Laura]

WendyW - I go on to say that this isn't what most 2 career families do; they just have daycare and do their own housecleaning.

[WendyW]

Wait, you mean I have to read the whole post?

IOW, sorry. :) I shouldn't post comments while watching tv.

[Alison]

For the record, before I start, I do consider myself a liberal feminist! I work very part-time, so the house and family is my main job. I married a good guy, and agree that’s #1 in importance on the list. I’d say number two is to have a division of labor, stick to it, and don’t nag the other about their work. I believe that routine and a general understanding of who does what job leads to less nagging and stress. It may be that the lawn hasn’t been mowed for three weeks, but he knows it, and it’s not my job, so I try to keep my mouth shut about it. I certainly don’t want him telling me how to clean the house. He’s good about helping out with the kids when he’s around. For better or worse tradition often exists because it worked. I do worry about what my sons will think, so we try to mix it up every now and then. He can cook a meal, and I can mow the lawn or use a power tool and we switch roles occasionally.

[Fausta]

3. You must call him four times a day and tell him in detail every mundane event.
No.
Absolutely not.

[Laura]

This thread is probably dead now, but I just wanted to add more point. Yes, we all chose our spouses well. We may not have big problems how things have worked out for us, but we all know of friend and neighbors who aren't in similarly secure arrangements. Those women may have thought they had chosen guys who were going to be family-type fellows, but didn't really end up being so interested in the kids. These guys don't really get how much work their wives do and don't appreciate their service. They are those guys who don't consult their wives about job choices, and they use their salaries as leverage in their marriage. And there are those guys take off with the younger secretary and leave their wives who no longer have job skills or connections to find decent work to support themselves and their kids.

Staying home with the kids or taking a lesser paying job does put one in a vulnerable situation. You do have to invest a lot of trust in your spouse to appreciate your work and to not take off after 10 years of marriage. You do have to constantly negotiate divisions of labor even with the best of guys, because they have no road maps. Their fathers were no role models. And I think that we also have to sometimes think of the worst possible scenarios and protect ourselves.

[Mary Tsao]

Great post. Of course there's no one checklist that can apply to everybody and every situation, but this is a good starting point.

I feel most strongly about #8. Keeping up with some semblance of a career, even if it is only part-time writing, makes me feel good. Knowing that I could parlay it into full-time *if I had to* is important to me.

BTW, I wrote about your post yesterday on BlogHer.

[Laura]

I know, Mary. I included a link to your post as an update on this post. Yeah, #8 is very important.