Division of Labor: Take 2

Posted by: Lauren Young on April 20

Fellow blogger Anne Tergesen’s last post on the division of labor between mommies and daddies really hit home. I just returned from a weekend trip (a combination of work and pleasure) to the Virgin Islands. My husband is a hands-on kind of guy, and I knew our toddler son would be well cared for in his steed. At one point during the trip, I called home, and my husband was even watching our neighbor’s newborn son for a few minutes because she needed to walk her dog in the Nor’Easter.

My man deserves brownie points. (I brought him home coconut patties.)

So it comes as no surprise that our house was in order upon my return. The refrigerator was stocked with food. There were no dishes in the sink, or piles of dirty laundry lurking in the corners.

Even so—you knew it was coming—when push comes to shove, I’m the person in charge of coordinating my son’s schedule, childcare, doctors’ appointments. (Lord, knows we’ve had our fair share of those). In addition, I’m typically the one who shops, handles the dry cleaning, makes social plans, etc. Now maybe I take ownership of these duties because my husband earns a lot more than I do. Somehow I’ve been socialized to think that the breadwinner deserves more slack at home. That said, anyone who knows me knows I missed my calling as a cruise ship director.

But let’s just say I wanted to shift some of those reponsiblities onto my husband? What’s the best way to do it? I found some great tips on Equallysharedparenting.com.

Household tips from Equallysharedparenting.com:

• Laundry: One parent does ‘whites’ and the other does ‘darks’. Have a basket for each color. If laundry of one color piles up due to a slacking parent, there should be enough of the clean stuff to prevent nakedness. ‘Doing the laundry’ refers to running it through the washer and dryer, folding it, and putting it away in everyone’s drawers correctly.

• Groceries: Keep a list of what is needed on the refrigerator so that the parent who goes to buy it can get everything at once. Or, call the other parent before you head out to the store. Share the grocery shopping 50:50. Men can pick out a ripe cantaloupe just as easily as women, and if they screw up and the cantaloupe is rock hard, it isn’t the end of the world.

• Cooking: Assign meal preparation to the parent who is home with the kids, and trade off preparation of the meals when both of you are around. As long as the food is reasonably nutritious, do not criticize each other’s cooking.

• Pet care: Alternate tasks each day and/or divide them right down the middle. In our house, we have two cats and two litterboxes. We each take responsibility for cleaning out one litterbox and feeding one cat.

• Taking out the trash: On trash night, assuming you have weekly curbside pickup, the parent who is not putting the last child to bed gathers and hauls the trash outside.

• Arranging health appointments for children: Make one parent the doctor coordinator and the other parent the dentist coordinator. Marc selected the kids’ dentist, and makes all of M’s (and someday, T’s) dentist appointments, choosing days that he is home to take her. Amy picked the pediatrician, and makes all of their doctor appointments and takes them whenever possible. Given the frequency of doctor visits for kids, Marc does have to take them sometimes instead of Amy. And of course on days when they are seeing the doctor because they are sick, the ‘on’ parent is in charge of the whole scene.

• Household projects: For more long term projects such as buying new furniture or building shelves in the closet, create a master list together and post it on your refrigerator. We call ours the Master Fun Project List to avoid any connotation that it is a ‘Honey-do’ list. Decide who is in charge of each of these projects. The other parent can be the ‘helper’. Decide on a rough deadline for any priority projects; then let go of what your spouse is up to, and go about accomplishing the tasks for which you are the project manager. In all cases, the helper spouse should be consulted as decisions are needed (e.g., blue loveseat or red sectional?) and should have veto power. When a batch of the priority projects is accomplished, sit down again and reprioritize the rest, add new ones, and assign as needed.

For more tips, check out equallysharedparenting

(Thanks to co-founder Amy for a comment on Anne's blog. Glad to have you on our radar screen.)

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