Sharing the Load

I had always believed that, once my kids were born, I was going to be an equal partner in raising them. Once my wife decided to stay home, here’s how I thought it would work: We would develop a set of rules and patterns and a methodology under which we would raise the children that would be consistently applied. Once I got home, we would be equal partners; sometimes I would feed, bathe, change diapers; sometimes she would. Each of us would have equal input at all times and each of us would undertake equal labor during the hours I was at home. So I expected to sacrifice a lot for my kids: money, time, energy, the ability to watch an entire sporting event uninterrupted. And in exchange I thought I would get the experience of crafting a young life or young lives.

Here’s how it really works: When the kids say that they want chips at 4 p.m. after school, and you aren’t there, and your wife is cleaning up the baby’s room, which has vomit all over it, she might just say “ok” to get them to stop fighting and shut up. And you won’t have any control over it. Your three year old will come into the living room one day, hungry, and seeing you will say “where’s mom?” instead of “I’m hungry,” as if you, the father, had no idea where the food was, because he's used to mom getting it for him. You’ll go somewhere as a family and your wife will get in the passenger’s seat and just expect you to drive. You’ll go to change a diaper but you’ll have no idea that your wife changed where the wipes are kept and so you won’t even be able to get through a diaper change without calling her in for an assist. You're not going to have equal roles within the home no matter how hard you try.

And it’s not like your notions of equality are eroded over time. They’re pretty much gone from the get-go, as within the first few hours of your child’s birth, your wife is breastfeeding the child or holding the child and you are fetching things for her; your wife is helping the baby; and you are helping your wife.

The fact of the matter is that if you work, and your wife doesn’t, then she is pretty much going to take charge of the kids. And so, at the end of the day, a lot of the decisions that govern the kids' everyday lives aren’t up to you. Maybe you'll look at what gets packed in their lunches and realize that it's not what you would pack if up to you (string cheese for an older kid just seems embarassing to me). Maybe you wished your kids would have to play outside for an hour after school each day (or if not a rule, at least you’d heavily encourage it) and your wife just doesn’t have the same priority and they get home and sit around and color instead. Maybe you have fond memories of nerf basketball in the family room with your brother, but your wife wants to keep the nicer china in there, and so the nerf gets put into the garage. And so you’re not sacrificing all the things you’re sacrificing so that you can mold and shape new lives. You’re doing all this so your wife can mold and shape new lives. And that’s something less than what you had probably hoped for. (It's at this point that you might realize that when choosing a wife, the qualities your mother suggested you focus on seem a bit more important)

Every father realizes that some day they have to start to sever the emotional bonds and let their kids go; every father realizes that some day the kids will leave home and go out in the world. Every father even realizes deep down that because his expectations and hopes for his kids are higher than are really possible, their kid will break their heart in some way. You expect this at 13 or 21 or 16. What you don’t realize is that your wife might have them in her hands and, through no volition of her own, never let them really wander on over into your grasp to begin with.

And while you won’t be sharing the good parts of the load, you also won’t be equally sharing the bad. Your wife will naturally just get the kids clothes on them on the weekends and you’ll stop even considering that it’s your job, because she just does it. She’ll start changing 80% of the diapers on the weekends because she’s used to changing 100% of the diapers during the day while you’re at work. You’ll start to notice that you’re a little harsher than your wife when disciplining the kids, and its really because she has to live with them all day, and disciplining relatively strictly just takes too damn much time.

And when you notice this, it will start to really bug you. It really bugged me. But the scary part is that even though it bugs you, and you do what you can to fight back against it, you eventually make your peace with it in some way. You find some middle ground between 2008’s we-are-equals couple philosophy and a 1950 Ozzie and Harriet-style family and you live with it.

I’m not saying it’s a good thing, I’m not saying it’s a right thing. I’m just saying that if you’re having a kid, it’s something you should probably be ready for.