No fair! How to balance roles at home
Anyone else struggling a tad bit more trying to balance roles with their other half during this craziness? Because I know I have been.
Being home together with my husband 24/7 has been a magnifier for how we play different roles at home. It doesn’t help that there’s just more to DO, and neither of us are feeling like we have enough time do it and still take care of ourselves. But whether inside or outside of the current pandemic: what do “balanced” roles even look like for a home with two parents? Does balanced really mean splitting everything between us 50/50? Is there such a thing as fair?
After Cimorene was born was the first time this really became a point of tension between us. After Moseah was born was probably the second time. And now, with coronavirus, we’re entering our 3rd season of needing to re-find our balance. With all that practice under my belt, here’s what worked for me to feel more like a partner and less like a do-it-all-mama.
1. Get clear with myself on what I really want. Do I actually want 50/50? Or am I okay doing a little extra, but just want acknowledgement? Because those are two very different scenarios. And if I want 50/50, what does that actually mean to me? Does it mean we take turns every day, with every task? Does it mean we divide up certain roles? Does it mean we spend the same number of minutes on home chores? Every family, and every couple, is different.
2. Speak up. Sometimes my husband really just isn’t clued into what’s going on, even though it feels obvious to me. Instead of bottling it up and letting the frustration explode, I’ve learned to get ahead of it. If I haven’t communicated how I’m feeling, it’s unreasonable for me to hold him accountable for not doing what I’d like him to do! So we’ll talk about it, and we make sure we’re doing it in a constructive way. And one of the first things we do when we talk is…
3. Write down what we each feel like we are contributing. The first time we did this, I was surprised at the things that were on my husband’s list that I had forgotten about, like always taking the car in for repair. And I think he was surprised at how much was on my list, like managing our nanny, researching child development, taking care of our bills, grocery shopping… I’m the kind of person that just picks up and does the things that need to be done, and in doing that he wasn’t aware that they even needed to be done. It was great for both of us to see everything on paper.
4. Figure out, together, what feels “balanced”. Since we both work full time, our issues are with the things that need to get done to keep the house running smoothly and the kids happy and healthy. My husband despises doing the laundry. But, he’s great at negotiating with mechanics and car salesmen. So instead of “you do the laundry this week, I’ll do it next week”, we tend to divide up the home stuff categorically. He takes care of all car stuff, and I head up laundry. He takes out the trash, I take care of bills. We do take turns getting the kids ready in the mornings, and we each take a kiddo at bedtime. There’s some stuff that we both just don’t like doing, so we…
5. Outsource (when we can). We pay little extra for Instacart so we don’t have to grocery shop (we were doing this even before the pandemic). We ask our nanny to do all the kids’ laundry. (And, while my daughter is only three, she can messily fold her laundry and put it in her drawers, and honestly I don’t care what her drawers look like.) In the good old days, we had someone come and clean all the bathrooms twice a month. This looks different during coronavirus: personally we won’t let a stranger into our homes right now, but we have friends who leave the house for a few hours while their cleaner comes. You’ll have to decide what’s right for you, and what you can shift in your budget to make room for this.
6. Replace your expectations for appreciation of what is. I’m borrowing this fabulous phrase from Tony Robbins, since it’s one that has had a huge impact on me. For example: If I’m home, my husband will always call for help to change a poopy diaper. It doesn’t matter that we’re on kid number 2. It doesn’t matter that he does it by himself when I’m not home. It doesn’t matter that I’m in the middle of three other things – when he opens that diaper, there’s a little bit of panic, and his instinct is to call for help. So, if I expect him to do it on his own, I will ALWAYS be disappointed. But: if I appreciate the humor in the situation, I can laugh and go help him. And laughter is better than disappointment any day!
An important note: don’t expect to figure this out once and then be golden forever. Times change, kids change, work changes, responsibilities change, and the world changes. My husband and I still have to check in on this every so often to make adjustments – sometimes big, sometimes little. That’s expected!
So: is there such a thing as balanced roles? I think there can be. But I think it’s important to add that what I had imagined as “50/50” in my head is not the same as the 50/50 that we arrived at. If I had only had one definition of “fair” it wouldn’t have been a conversation – it would have been an argument (I went down that road too, that’s how I know!). But what we have now does feel balanced - most of the time – and we’re certainly happier for having talked it through.